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CNN recently reported that the data breach of the IRS, which occurred between this past February and May, originated from Russia. The crooks were able to steal tax returns from over 100,000 people. The thieves filed a total of $50 million in tax refunds, having obtained personal data to get ahold of the data.

In other words, this crime wasn’t a hacking job. The Russians didn’t hack into the IRS’s network through some “back door” or social engineering scheme. They actually entered through the fron

The Harvard Business Review’s article “How to Live with Risks” reveals a common misconception that risk managers have about the sources of their risks, and how they should be conducting risk assessments.

This study suggests that while risk managers spend nearly half their time on legal and compliance related risks, they face a much greater threat of loss events from strategic and operational concerns.

A common risk assessment mistake is the inability to relate high-level strategic concerns to the

The short straddle is dangerous because, well for one thing, both sides are short. Making things even riskier, one side or the other is always in the money.

Even so, the true risk of the short straddle might not be as severe as traders often assume. Consider how much risk is reduced in the following circumstances:

1. Premium is very rich. The best short straddles (a short straddle is selling a call and put on the same underlying, same strike and same expiration) are those that, given the at-the-mo

The entire question of how the options pricing model can be used has been underway since the early 1970s when the original model was developed. Below is a repeat of the previously published discussion on this, published here is the recent past.

The big question, of course, is: How can we rely on a formula with a series of variables that are provably inaccurate and based on a flawed assumptions, exponentially inaccurate variables, and outdated models about the nature of options?

The pricing model u

There is good news for the tech-unsavvy out there: Google has made their privacy settings easier to work with. This day has not come a moment too soon. “My Account” is Google’s new dashboard.

When you use any Google account, the giant company collects information on you. The new dashboard will reveal what information this is. My Account also has other privacy related features; check it out first chance that you get. It has the following three sections.

Security

• If you get locked out of your Google

Traders are wise to select stocks for trading based on a few powerful fundamental signals and trends. Fundamental analysts can find value in dozens of ratios and trend. However, three exceptionally valuable indicators, when used together, provide a reliable method for narrowing down the list of candidates. These are debt ratio, P/E ratio, and dividend yield.

1. Debt ratio.

The debt ratio is easily overlooked because in focused on long-term debt. For tests of working capital, it is easier and more

Many option strategies are designed to create profit potential and also reduce risk. If you are willing to accept a limited level of both profit and risk, many spreads will do the trick. But these strategies are complex, and might not be worthwhile, given transaction costs and the need to monitor positions constantly. One solution is found in the box spread.

Spreads can be broadly defined as bull or bear. Either may be constructed using calls or puts. In a box spread, you combine bull and bear sp

Gamma confuses some options traders because it's a "secondary" indicator. It measures the speed of change in another indicator, delta.

Delta measures the rate of premium change in the options related to changes in the underlying (and of course is affected by time and proximity). Gamma measures how quickly delta moves. It tracks delta and reflects changing volatility, so looking at delta and gamma together is a great way to compare volatility between two or more issues.

Delta is measured with a sin

The latest report says that Darron Dellon Dennis Wint did not act alone in the arson murder of a Washington, D.C., family and their housekeeper. You might wonder how a $4.5 million mansion—presumably with top-flight smoke alarms—could burn enough to kill the occupants.

A cnn.com report says they were held against their will since the day prior to the May 14 fire. Wint is being held without bond.

It’s too soon, however, to draw conclusions, as other people are being interviewed by police.

Wint was a

The short call is an intriguing position to open, if only because so many traders see it as way too risky to even consider. But some strategies are perfectly suited to take advantage of two great short call features: offset of risk, and premium income.

One variation is the short call butterfly, which employs three strikes. An expansion of this which adds even greater risk spreading is the short call condor. This expands the butterfly by adding another mid-range strike. Thus, there are four strike

Cyber threat intelligence is unquestionably a hot buzzword in the security industry these days. It is being used to seek venture capital and fund startups. It is being pitched to the enterprise market by providers and consultants. However, in this paper, we argue that the majority of what is being billed as “threat intelligence” isn’t. It’s data. From lists of bad IPs or application vulnerabilities to malware signatures, social media data or indicators of compromise (“IOCs”), none of these thing

The information explosion, the proliferation of endpoint devices, growing user volumes and new computing models like cloud, social business and big data have created new vulnerabilities. Data security is a moving target—as data grows, more sophisticated threats emerge; the number of regulations increase; and changing economic times make it difficult to secure and protect data.

Because data is a critical component of daily business operations, it is essential to ensure privacy and protect data no

Social media is a conduit for thieves to get personal data (they can use it, for instance, to open up a credit line in the victim’s name). Though many people are concerned their personal information will get in the wrong hands, the funny thing is that they continue posting personal information—way too personal.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center says that social media is a fertile area for criminals to scam people.

Phishing

You are lured to a phony website that masquerades as your bank or so

So someone comes up to you in a restaurant—a complete stranger—and asks to look at your driver’s license. What do you do? Show it to that person? You’d have to be one loony tune to do that.

However, this same blindness to security occurs all the time when a person is tricked by a “phishing” e-mail into typing in the password and username for their bank, or it may be the login credentials for their PayPal account or health plan carrier.

Phishing e-mails are a favorite scam of cyber criminals. THEY

When you write covered calls, you produce greater profits by writing six two-month covered calls per year, than you will realize writing one 12-month covered call per year. Time decay for further-out options is quite slow, so writing options more than few months away is equal to lost time. Based solely on option profits, focusing on short-term ATM or OTM contracts produces annualized double-digit returns.

An example of the covered call and how to identify profit, loss and breakeven points: You pu

Recently I got a puppy for my child. We decided to name the puppy 4wgu23x5#9. My wife,8yysH3m, thought we should name the dog 0x2%#b5. But I’m sure she’ll get over it. Meanwhile, I’m helping my older child with setting up a few social media accounts, and I suggested the two passwords: Rover and Spot.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Of course! But this picture replays itself millions of times over all the time, as people name their passwords after their pets, family members or favorite

At least one woman is happy that her driver drove like a drunk. That’s because his erratic driving caught the attention of troopers who pulled him over. They then heard a woman calling for help—from the backseat. She was bound and gagged with a bag over her head.

The 41-year-old man had posted an ad on Craigslist; he wanted a submissive partner. His phony profile attracted the 22-year-old woman (who I must wonder, why would she be interested in a man who wants a submissive partner? Doesn’t this s

The absolute must for air travel is aviation safety. Proof of the seriousness in addressing the issue of aviation safety is the fact that the US has been taking steps to bring standards to improve aviation safety from almost the very beginning of commercialization of air travel. Aviation being the kind of activity that it is; aviation safety has to be so comprehensive that it should take into consideration all the possible factors that could contribute to a lack of it. This makes aviation safety

A core aspect of hygiene in any healthcare setting is the aspect pertaining to environmental cleaning.  A proper environmental cleaning program should consist of a plan in which the healthcare unit ensures that the possibility of risk of infection is minimized. Prevention of infection is the main purpose of environmental cleaning. This is because hospitals are a very likely source of infections, given that people with almost all kinds of contagious diseases visit or stay in them. Since hospitals

I have completed a two-year study of a trading system, in which 578 trades were executed. 91.6% of these were profitable, resulting in an average annual return of 35%.

       The system I used is that of relative correlation, which refers to the attributes of price movement and signals. These attributes, when all found together, create a powerful system for signal and confirmation.

This is based on the use of candlestick signals and other technical signals (including gaps, triangles, and wedges, f