Dressing for (moderate) Success +80

Today I went to my internship for a busy day. I have recently decided to start dressing a bit better, in the hopes that I might look like someone they might want to hire. Today’s outfit started with a air of white steve madden shoes, with grey suede stripes, a pair of blue jeans socks, a green pair of Christmas in South Park boxers, a pair of light gray express jeans, a navy blue knit polo shirt from jinx, featuring an argyle pattern running down the front.

Trends emerging here include a positive response to argyle, to Christmas boxers, and to my light grey express jeans.

A Catastrophsoc Misstep -250

After Friday's embarrassingly apathetic fashion offering, I was perhaps a little too enthusiastic in my attempt to right my wrongs. I slept in this morning, and originally paired a paired some blue jeans with a yellow t-shirt reading 'Sex Makes Me Come and Go,' the latter being a gift from my girlfriend that I have not yet had the courage to wear. I chickened out at the last moment, replacing the shirt with a lime green one, adorned with a repeating pattern of fleur de lis, with blue hanes boxers, blue jeans socks, and the black Reeboks with purple laces I mentioned in last evening's weekly forecast.

Needless to say, this caused General Motors Stock's to lose 25% of their values. I'm not sure which aspect of my outfit the NYSE found so objectionable. Perhaps it was the fact that the seldom worn black Reeboks reminded commodity traders that oil is still overpriced, which led crude prices to drop to nearly $48 a barrel. I think it may have something to do with the fact that my continued inability to find my laundy card has led to my black russel sweatshirt being a bit dirty. There was also a dirt stain on the left knee of the Levis I wore today. I'd buy a new laundry card but they run about $25 dollars and that's more than I can afford right now. I'm afraid I've falled into a trap of my own making. Having decimated the economy through the past six months of poor style choices, I have now doomed myself to a life of wearing dirty clothes. Still, I only have myself to blame.

It is worth noting that Amazon.com's stock went up about 1 point, which I can't quite explain, but it isn't good enough. I'm sorry America. I will try and do better tomorrow. I will not rest until I have figured out what the heart of this issue is, and discovered what I need to do to protect the future of our country's most important living national monuments-- our American coroprations.

Weekly Forecast March 30th- April 4th

I am pleased to say that I am expecting a positive week for the stock market.

The Wall Street Journal, a massive pile of shit, has reported that Fifth Third Bancorp will sell a 51% stake in it's payment unit.

Further, having resolved outstanding issues with my girlfriend, I do not anticipate a resurgence of last week's drunken mid-day moping.

Most importantly, however, I will be going to work three times this week, meaning that I am more likely to dress fancy, which has proved a powerful incentive for traders.

All in all I think that we can expect growth in most sectors.

Wildcards that may affect this include my potential decision to wear some black reeboks with purple laces, laced using the bar lacing technique recently discussed on our sister site.

Future trouble on the horizon comes on the sock front. When I returned home for spring break, my mom washed all of my socks. I have not yet had time to unload these socks from my car, and as local sock supplies dwindle, I may be forced to re-wear socks. This could lead to dangerous consequences to commodity values.

I'll continue to follow this story as it develops.

An embarassing Loss, -150

American financial spectators, I have to apologize to you. I have made it my state goal to provide not only accurate insights into the inner workings of the American Financial system, but also to do everything in my power to help our economy rebound from the devastating losses of recent months. Unfortunately, external factors can have significant impact upon the markets.

In this case, I got into an unfortunate disagreement with my girlfriend last evening at 10 PM. At the time of this writing, there has been no reconciliation. As a result of this, I moped around my apartment all morning. As of 10AM, the time I generally present my fashion offering to the NYSE, I was drinking beers on my balcony, wearing a blue pair of hanes boxer briefs, a stained white undershirt.

The result of this was a 148.38 drop in the Dow Jones.

While I apologize that my personal problems have had a negative impact upon our nation’s economy, I am only human. As of press time, the fight remains unresolved. Insiders remain divided on the issue. Some analysts feel that matters will be resolved by the end of the weekend, while others think the problem may continue until I can grow the fuck up already.

I will keep you posted on this story as it develops, and I hope I can continue helping our country on the path to success.

The Recipe for Success +200?

Having worked out some of the kinks in my previous outfits, I constructed a bold new offering to help stimulate our economy. I went to work at my internship today, so I decided to dress nicely. Noting that green clothing items have tended to lead to bullish games, I went all out—On my feet, a pair of moss green argyle socks, above that, some Vans slip-ons featuring the cover art of Iron Maiden’s ‘Piece of Mind’ album. I topped this off with a pair of faded, light blue express jeans, and some black polyester boxers. The trick? The boxers were my Christmas undies, featuring sparkly green Christmas trees. A diesel belt finished off the bottom half of the ensemble.

The top half of the outfit was simpler: a white v-neck hanes undershirt covered by a cashmere argyle sweater featuring green and yellow triangles.

The result, nearly 200 points of growth.

Note: I accidentally spilled some banana cinnamon ice cream on the cashmere sweater, which will need to be dry-cleaned. As we are nearing the end of the month, I am short on cash, and will not be able to afford dry-cleaning until I have an influx of liquidity from my parents, in the form of my rent money and grocery budget.

Mission Statement

Hello America.
As indicated in previous posts, I have recently become aware that, despite what economists may claim, the most important factors affecting the United States economy is primarily based upon the clothes I wear. This is an awesome responsibility, and one that I don't take lightly. At the time of this writing, my deliberate efforts have increased the Dow Jones by 460 points. It's good news for our country that I have finally figured out what makes the stock market tick, as I will now hopefully be able to control it-- to some extent. This should eventually reverse the recent losses, and other ones we have seen in the past. Looking back, my mother’s sudden decision to switch diaper brands in October of 1987 (when I was a tender babe of four months) led to the country’s most significant single day drop in both stocks and bonds, and since then, untold billions have been lost and won upon the caprices of fashion.I don’t want to dwell on the impact I had, unconsciously throughout the years. I turn, instead, to the future.

I am creating this blog in the name of transparency, so that the American people can have some visibility to the forces that shape their economy.

I am not an economist. I am a student, about to graduate from university with degrees in English Literature, Marketing, and Advertising. I work as an unpaid intern, and as such do not have much in the way of spare money to invest in stocks. I have no more stake in the rise and fall of stocks, than does the average American, nor do I have sufficient free time to asses the world markets for the broader implications of my sartorial selections. It may well be that my decision to wear a pair of aviator sunglasses causes Asian soybean futures to skyrocket. I do not have the time or expertise to follow all this. Instead, I will cross reference my outfits with the Dow Jones—at least at first—so that I can find the correct attire to help our country’s economy move forward.

Thank you, and God Bless.

More Progress: +90

As we all know it is dangerous to allow loss to pile upon loss—I decided to craft a more stimulating offering today. After yesterday’s drop, I realized that the relationship between my apparel and the nation’s economy might be more complex than I thought, I decided to pay more attention to the full outfit today.

I had a presentation, and so I would be dressing more formally. I gave the matter a great deal of thought. I took my beloved Clae shoes—Costeau, in berry—out of their box, and put them over a pair of white socks. The bottom layer was completed by a pair of green hanes boxer-briefs (green, I thought, might help to stimulate the economy) I continued with a pair of dark gray slacks, a black leather belt from fossil, a white cotton undershirt, and the previous day’s Red Express shirt. I know, it seems like a risky play, and this as not lost on me at the time, but I truly felt a color coordinated offering was what our nation was crying out for. I finished the look with my stainless steel Michael Cors watch, and headed off to class.

The result? A turbulent day, in which the DJI came out 90 points to the good. An improvement over the day before, but not as good as Monday.

A Mild Setback -130

If you follow the economy, you are likely aware that things did not go according to plan today. Today I wore a pair of white Converse All-Stars, with a red lace in the right shoe and a blue lace on the left. The rest of the outfit consisted of a pair of ankle socks, some faded Express Jeans, a red Express buttondown shirt, and a pale blue t-shirt underneath. The t-shirt was given to me for free for my participation in a charity event called ‘pass the can’ last fall. I see now that this was a mistake.

The Dow responded with a 130 point drop. I, of course, am mortified.

Without going into tedious detail, I think I can see where the problem was, and hope to have it fixed by tomorrow.

A Bold Step Forward +400

Today was a big day for the American Stock Market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 500 points, which many hope may be an early step towards a recovery, or at least a slowing of the recent decline. Analysts were quick to ascribe this boom to the Obama Administration’s announcement that it would be buying up bad bank assets, but I knew otherwise.

I have long been aware that, on a personal level, I have a profound effect on the global economy. I have, over the course of the past few months, cross-referenced various factors in my personal life with the performance of the stocks. I was able to informally eliminate false causes such as my mood, what I ate for breakfast, and whether or not I got any action recently. While many of these indicators seemed to have at least some relationship at first, I dismissed them, and others, through a complex system of regression analysis.

I am pleased to announce that on Monday, March 23rd, 2009, I was at last able to determine that the aspect of my day-to –day life that has the most impact on the stock market, is my attire. After weeks of excited speculation, I was thrilled to note that my decision to pair a lime green polo express polo shirt (size medium) with a brown pair of Buck Lassiick Vans with neon green laces resulted in the aforementioned 500 point surge in the Dow Jones.

Needless to say, I was extremely excited , as I have watched (along with the rest of the United States—and the world, I’m sure) with increasing worry and frustration, the dramatically falling stocks, and the corresponding effect upon the economy. I decided to follow up my previous ensemble with what I thought would be another strong outfit for the economy.