The Lawrence Chan Blog

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This is another way to look at year 2000, from the Nasdaq 100 index future perspective.

Following chart is Emini S&P and Emini Nasdaq 100 back in year 2000 from January to March.

People mistaken that I am a bear.

From the chart above that zoomed out quite a bit from the last one you can tell that I am really a hidden bull at least until sometime in March.

Now the more interesting thing is the dynamics between S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.

Why I was not surprised today when NQ was making new high?

Take a look at the 30-min zoom in you will find the answer.

If it is going to be like year 2000, this coming 4 weeks will be very difficult to trade when S&P and Nasdaq 100 decouple from each other.

Be warned.

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I am glad to report that my decision to switch to this real-time messaging service backend is one of the best moves I have made this year.

The stability and scalability is amazing. We’ve done stress test on real-time delivery by bursting many messages through and there was no delay whatsoever. This allows me much greater flexibility in terms what can be done with the real-time tools and how to get them implemented.

I am now making drastic changes to my original design of the real-time price level tools and also the upcoming real-time bias reporting tool. If all goes well, we will have a new alpha version of real-time price levels ready next week. The most obvious thing is that it will be able to host many more price levels per update.

We are also moving forward with my changed design on the real-time bias reporting tool. We’ve lost 2 weeks due to the backend issues but we’ve gained significant design flexibility in return. I cannot really complain about that.

If all goes well, real-time bias reporting will go alpha soon too.

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Many people experienced this before. You left-click once but Windows turns that into a double-click. Once you start experiencing the problem there is really no solution. For most people it is just frustrations and be careful with your clicks so that you do not do something irreversible. For traders, however, this problem easily leads to disastrous outcome.

The Symptoms

At times a single click would turn into a double click or triple click.

Sometimes, even if you have not clicked, the computer responses as if you have clicked something.

There is no consistency with the symptoms. These problems can happen once every 3 to 4 clicks. Then disappear for hours before they strike you again every other click.

The Cause

The most common cause is normal wear and tear of the mouse button. Many mouse buttons are standard micro switch boxes with limited life span. For the very cheap ones with just 1 million clicks life expectancy, they will fail quickly after a year or two normal computer usage. As you can expect, these cheaper components are used in the extremely cheap mouse.

If you are a heavy clicker, the mouse buttons will have reduced life time. If you play action games and shooting games, you should realize that you click a lot and that will shorten the life span of the mouse button. If you get angry at times and hammer your mouse as part of your stress relief routine, your mouse can also die suddenly.

More expensive computer mouses (I do not know if I should write “mice” here) do not necessary translate to longer life span. It all depends on the manufacturer and its decision on component qualities. For example, an expensive mouse can be costly because it sports a fancy shape with vibrant colors which has nothing to do with the quality of the mouse buttons.

Once a mouse button is no longer in its prime condition, your mouse clicks no longer send clean cut on or off signal to the computer. Instead, it works like the old light bulbs that flickers. Since the hardware cannot distinguish the difference, it will let the computer know that there are many clicks just happened even though you think you pressed the mouse button once.

What You Do Not Want To Happen

If you day trade heavily and you use various order entry software, you know about 1-click order entry, 2-click modification, etc. You use them heavily during the day to manage your orders. They are necessary.

Make no mistake, a broken mouse button is one of your biggest enemies.

The last thing you need from your computer, in this particular case your mouse, to place orders for you.

The moment a mouse stopped working properly, it will be very difficult to correct the wrongly placed orders. As you try to resolve the problem, the mouse can continue to mess with your effort to fix the problem.

It is not something we would ever want to experience.

Solution 1: Buy A New Mouse

To solve the problem you have to buy a new mouse. This is the best solution as you can rule out the hardware issue.

For traders I suggest that you keep an extra mouse around just in case the one you use acting up suddenly.

All you need to do is buy a mouse, test it to make sure it works and keep it in the go-to place you have designated for the unlucky computer days.

Solution 2: Use This Software Until You Buy A New Mouse

In case you do not have a spare mouse around, you can use this software I listed in the resource area below as a stop gap solution. It works to certain degree but it does not resolve the problem completely. If your mouse really acting up badly, you probably have no choice but to give this a try.

Warning: I tested the software myself and I always check for virus before I launch any applications. If you choose to install the software, remember to scan it for virus first.

Some Brands Are Better Than The Others

One interesting thing I learned is that some mouse like the straight forward wired ones coming from brand names (e.g. Logitech) do last longer than the cheap generic ones. The more important thing though, is that many people reported that these brand name mouse do not experience the wrong click issue at all even after using them for many years.

Maybe these brand name manufacturers have done a better job with the mouse driver they have created which account for the noisy signals.

Maybe it is just because of better components and designs.

Resources

Left Mouse Button Fix

Microsoft Troubleshoot Mouse Double-Clicking When You Single-Click

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I posted the Y2K analog back in January and the striking resemblance keeps giving.

Let’s take a look at an update of this comparison of year 2000 and what happened so far this year.

No comment necessary.

Year 2000:

Today Feb 11, 2014:

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