Comments
re
the
Tutorials

In 1993 I retired, after some thirty years of teaching math at the University of Waterloo. I was fifty-nine at the time and would have received a drastically reduced pension, so I transferred thirty years of pension contributions to a self-directed LIF. That meant I had to learn something about investing. I found most things fascinating ... but confusing. When I thought I finally understood the idea behind some financial concept I'd write a tutorial in the hope that others, equally confused, might find something of interest. The tutorials are not meant for professional investors or financial analysts or capital planners or ... whatever.

They're meant for the average do-it-yourself investor who finds much of the literature confusing (including the stuff that's on the Internet).

The tutorials are usually in the form of a teacher (that's me) and a student (who asks the darndest questions ^$%#@!).
>The student speaks like this line of text, and says the kind of things that my students might have said.

Many of the tutorials have a bunch of math bumpf (I was a math prof, after all) but there should be sufficiently many graphs and charts to illustrate the idea (I hope) - even if you hate math - tho' the math is rarely more than High School level (and, sometimes, introductory Calculus).

Although I hope there are no errors - at least no glaring errors - you'll have recognized that I'm not an investment guru.

That's about it. I hope you'll find something of interest. So long as I'm able I'll keep larnin' and writin' and ...
>Time to sign off.

Oh, another thing! There are a jillion .ZIP'd spreadsheets available, but downloading them requires a curious ritual.
For a PC and Explorer, you'd RIGHT-click and select Save Target As... from the pop up menu.
For a Mac/Explorer, you can Control-click, Copy link to clipboard then paste into the Address window.
It's a challenge!
You gotta get the link address
(example: http://www.financialwebring.org/gummy-stuff/Excel/zipped/distribution-stuff.zip)
into the address window
... and hit the Return key.
There are plenty of spreadsheets ... and you can try a SEARCH
Sometimes the number of requests is so large that geocities refuses to download
... and you have to wait a while
I've stuck all the spreadsheets here. (Just click on the name to download.)
You're free to modify, distribute to friends (without charge), trash etc.

site search by: FreeFind

Oh, another thing:
There are (on gummy-stuff.org) some online spreadsheets which, if you click, should fire up the spreadsheet without having to download anything. Alas, Netscape doesn't seem to handle this stuff ^$%#@!*? ... but Explorer does :^)

>Time to sign off!

If you're using a later version of Netscape (instead of, say, Explorer), the Greek stuff won't look right %#$%@!&
For example, this should be all Greek: abc GSQ
If it don't look Greek, some tutorials will look funny, like Σx_n will look like Sx_n
(See Browser Test.)

Also, much of the historical stock data comes from Yahoo or maybe Fama-French or maybe Shiller or maybe Richard's page.

Uh ... some tutorials are old and have data that ends a few years ago, but I'm too old and decrepit to spend much time updating the data ...

>Okay, you've said enuff.
Right, except that I should admit that I don't use any of this stuff in my own investment strategy^*.
I just find it fun.
^* My own strategy (the world's worst) can best be described as ... uh ...

I might also mention that many tutorials have this in progress icon 'cause they're hardly ever finished and I'm always learning something new and I keep going back to massage, edit, add ... and, sometimes, I just lose interest
Sometimes I even forget what I've written about. Once, on a discussion forum, some poster was asking about Gordon's Formula and I thought, "Never heard of it ... guess I should write a tutorial".
Before I had even started the tutorial, somebuddy responded to the poster, saying, "It's on gummy's site".
I had to search my own site to find it! (Creeping senility, ya know ...)

Once, somebuddy asked where I got some data ... and I had forgotten !!
But then, there's a money-back guarantee, eh?

>I really think ...

Yeah, I know, enough, but I should mention that at the tutorials are displayed
on colourful backgrounds. They're roughly in chronological order, bottom to top, (some are old)
as well as a drop down menu with related tutorials in "groups" ... sort of.

Uh ... one last thing. Remember:

There's a money-back guarantee of the accuracy of tutorial info and spreadsheets.

(Then, too, I do this as entertainment. Don't take anything too seriously!)

P.S. Most of gummy-stuff is about investing, but some ain't ...

Oh, one last thing (I promise): Many have suggested that I get some simpler URL like www.gummy.org, but I can't be bothered. Besides, if y'all do a google search on just the word gummy, you'll (probably) find me.
I notice that I've been moving up in this google world

P.S. !!

Since June, 2004 (or thereabouts) everything is at http://www.gummy-stuff.org.
All updates, corrections, etc. are at the www.gummy-stuff.org site.
Forget the stuff that I may have stuck elsewhere ... some time in the remote past