Who’s watching the store? -The rise of cheap digital video surveillance

You are lying in bed watching the ten o’clock news and the story about a local robbery cuts to a video showing two masked people robbing a convenience store. We have all seen it. It’s like a car alarm going off at 3am. You are aware of it but it’s nothing new. One jumps over the counter and assaults the counter person while the other make off with cash and lottery tickets. These people are caught. Not be the authorities. Not by the baseball bat swinging storeowner. They are all caught on camera.

That camera was installed to protect that business and winds up being used to help solve a missing persons case or catch a hooded criminal or show the court that the person suing you for falling on the icy sidewalk in front of your business actually fell across the street. It happens and it happens daily.

In a bad economy, it doesn’t take a CNN poll to know that crime goes on the rise. The world’s on high alert and the state of the nations security bounces between orange and yellow daily. And with cheap overseas made CCTV (Closed-Circuit Tele-Vision. A name carried over from the 60’s to describe a direct connection between a camera and a video monitor bypassing any public broadcasting.). These newly computerized security systems are selling faster than iPads. It’s getting hard to cross the street in any part of urban America and not be captured by one of them. We have given up a bit of our privacy in a gleeful exchange for the element of safety. And, unlike the world’s airports, nobody seems to mind here.

But how reliable are these cheap imported security systems that might be the last link in a life and death missing person’s case? How good could the video possibly be when the whole system costs less than a shiny new iPad? That is the one element almost 90% of the digital security system consumer market overlooks.

New York City, in particular, has seen an influx of low-end security systems. The bottom line is that the average security consumer is not even aware there is a quality element involved in making a purchasing decision. And a lot of the time, it’s only after they actually have to review something that it becomes apparent there is not enough resolution or video performance to actually be useful. And this might be why nobody was able to identify those two store robbers we all kind of saw on the 10 o’clock news. Like any technology and any car you buy, blender to make your summer icy drinks and large screen TV, price reflects quality and features. It simply costs more to get that clean smooth and sharp video. Those cameras cost more. The recorders cost more to manufacture. There is very little way around that.

There are some particularly great companies in New York that have shown an ability to capture high end CCTV footage. Artisan LVX has been recognized as a leader in New York CCTV camera installations. They install the newest type of CCTV systems know as IP Camera Systems and NVR recorders. Unlike the common analog systems, IP systems and IP Cameras use the standard computer Ethernet network and cost effective cat5e cable to transmit their video to network-ready recorders. Since you are no longer confined to the old video transmission systems using antenna cable, and RG59, you can pump up the quality and resolution to far-beyond high definition or “HD Video” Standards.. Some of these new IP cameras have resolutions surpassing even an impressive 6 megapixels. With that kind of quality, criminals and people of interest are easily identified at great distances. Coverage areas can now be widened with near fish-eye lenses and still have fantastic quality. This in some cases, do away with expensive zoom lenses , PTZ or “Pan Tilt Zoom cameras” and more importantly, nobody has to be watching to zoom or move the lens. Artisan LVX carries the finest names in IP security and IP cameras from companies like Exacq, Bosch, Everfocus , Speco and Panasonic. Plus, IP networks are not just point-to-point, You can record a single or an array of cameras from several recorders at once. This can create a solid layer of redundancy. In many cases, after a break in, the DVR recorders are the first things taken. When there’s a second off-site recorder backing up the local one, chances of a successful review are greatly increased.

New York City continues to be the perfect testing ground for the advancement of security and video surveillance systems of all types. If it can be proven here, it can secure you anywhere. Check out more info on New York City CCTV Camera Installer

Due Diligence and Investigatory Skills Reap Huge Profits for Short Sellers

A company is as valuable as its balance sheet says it is but what if that balance sheet is a work of pure fiction.  Increasingly this has been discovered to be the case in companies from emerging markets.   Muddy Waters Research and other companies understand this.  Some have profited by it by doing real research that goes beyond just examining the books presented.  

Shares of Sino Forest collapsed on Thursday 2 June 2011 after a negative research report by Muddy Waters Research.  The report alleged that Sino-Forest had been fraudulently inflating its assets and earnings, and that the company's shares were essentially worthless. The report claimed that Sino Forest was a “multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme”. Sino Forest denied the report and started an independent investigation by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The stock had been as high at $25 two months before the report was released.  The stock opened at $18.21 on June 2^nd and closed at $14.46, a 20.59% one day drop.   As of April 18, 2012 the stock is at $4.81.   Noted investor John Paulsonreportedly sold his entire stake at an estimated loss of $720 million.

On March 30, 2012 Sino-Forest filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and that the company would be sold or restructured.   Sino-Foreststated that they would Muddy Waters but it is questionable if they would be successful as their shares had been suspended by the Ontario Securities Commission which is reported to have cited that Sino-Forest had engaged in practices they “knew or should have known” perpetuated a fraud.

It is not just Chinese companies that are being accused of playing fast and loose with the books.   Many companies and individuals foresaw the collapse of the sub prime mortgage market and purchased Credit Default Swaps, CDS, on bundles of sub prime loans which were rated at investment grade by major rating agencies.   The idea behind these sub prime investment bundles was that any loan which was poorly under written would somehow be safe when pooled with a block of poorly underwritten loans as people always do what they have to pay their mortgages and real-estate never declines.   This relies on the greater fool theory of investment where there will always be a greater fool coming along who will purchase your asset for more than you paid. 

CDS’ can be purchased on assets that the purchasing party has no exposure to.  This is called a Naked CDS.  This is equivalent to purchasing life insurance on your neighbor who is a motorcycle riding, base cliff jumping, scuba diver, crystal meth addict.   It’s better than that, they don’t know you bought the life insurance so when you drop off a case of whisky and a handgun, they don’t know you have an incentive for them having an accident.

Now knowing that something is a Potential Over-risk Security, POS and being able to profit from it are two different things.  Buying Naked CDS’ or short selling won’t do you any good unless everyone else finds out that the stock or investment is a POS.  This is why after the position is taken it is in the best interest of the entity holding the counter position that the negative information comes out.   If it takes too long your short positions could expire and you could lose money or you could keep paying fees to maintain your CDS “Insurance” position.  I put insurance in quotation marks as although it is just like insurance, it is not legally called insurance because if it were, it would be regulated and who would ever allow you to buy insurance on your neighbor dying without their knowledge.  Well companies did, but that is for another day.    This article is about short selling and CDS’, well actually it is not.  It is about showing how a POS article written in around 15 minutes will be submitted to online article depositories and track how many instances show up over time.  This is all part of a security presentation demonstration to show how items proliferate and that a dedicated effort involving well financed parties attempting to manipulate working in conjunction with hackers could affect the financial industry.

The information provided on or within this website or in documents available herein is for assistance only and is not intended to be and must not be taken alone as the basis for an investment decision. Each recipient of this information should make such investigations as it deems necessary to arrive at an independent evaluation of an investment in the securities offered hereby, and should consult its own legal counsel and financial, accounting, regulatory and tax advisors to determine the consequences of such an investment. Well this is a standard legal disclaimer on investment but if you read this you will see that I did not actually write anything that could in any way be construed as investment advice.

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