Bill,

Those new screenshots look very interesting. What program or site are those from?

To all,

Wow... -7% in two trading sessions is a very scary sight for India...

For anyone interested in the GS earnings report, I was told by GS that it would be released around or just after 8 a.m. EST and would be on the page:

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our_firm/media_center/current_press_releases.html

SNDK, creeping back down. RSI low 30s. Almost time?
EJ

From MarketWatch:
{
(MarketWatch) - Goldman Sachs Tuesday said its fourth quarter net income rose 93% to $3.15 billion, or $6.59 a share on $9.4 billion of revenue. Earnings per share and revenue both surpassed analyst estimates as capital market advances, strong advisory fees and big gains on proprietary investments lifted the Wall Street giant's earnings. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had, on average, expected the firm to earn $6.04 cents a share on revenue of $8.96 billion. A year ago, the company earned 1.63 billion, or $3.35 a share.

&&&&&&&

8:34am 12/12/06 Goldman Sachs net income jumps 93% from year ago - Greg Morcroft
8:32am 12/12/06 Goldman Sachs Q4 trading investment revenue rose 57% - MarketWatch
8:31am 12/12/06 Goldman Sachs Q4 fincl advisory revenue rose 15% - MarketWatch
8:32am 12/12/06 Goldman Sachs Q4 underwriting revenue rose 78% - MarketWatch
8:31am 12/12/06 Goldman Sachs Q4 investment banking revs rose 42% - MarketWatch

}

EJ:

Those hi 40's & low 50 in the monthly & weekly makes me think we could wait a tad longer, what do you think???

It appears they can't keep the biggest yellow cake producer guy down long, here is an upgrade to TOP PICK!!!

UPGRADE: Cameco (CCJ) upgraded by RBC Capital Mkts from Outperform to Top Pick.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Briefing.com
07:29 a.m. 12/12/2006

Before the market opens, does anyone have an idea where the earnings released today will take the stock?

Using quarterly EPS and a PE ratio of 10:
$6.59*4*10=$263.6

But with actual 06 yearly EPS and a PE ratio of 10:
19.69*10=196.9

Any thoughts?

The Kirk Report has logo T-shirts. Where are the B. Cara's. I'd buy one. X-large long sleeve please.

Exchange-Traded Credit Derivatives Poised to Curb Bank Monopoly

By John Glover and Hamish Risk

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. risk losing their hammerlock on the most lucrative financial market when exchanges begin offering credit derivatives next year.

Paris-based Euronext NV, which is being bought by NYSE Group Inc., plans to create contracts based on credit-default swaps, making them cheaper to trade and easier to understand than the derivatives sold by banks. Credit-default swaps, used to speculate on credit quality, also top the product list for Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc., the largest U.S. futures market, the Chicago Board Options Exchange and Frankfurt- based Eurex AG.

At stake are profits from the fastest growing financial market as exchanges list credit-default swaps alongside stocks, currencies and gold. Deutsche Bank says it earned at least $3 billion from credit derivatives in the first half of this year, about a third of total revenue from financial markets.

``The industry has tried to keep trading among the licensed dealers to limit the erosion of profitability,'' said Satyajit Das, a consultant to banks in Europe and Asia who traded derivatives for Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citibank in the 1980s, and wrote 11 books on the market including ``Traders Guns and Money.'' ``They now see a move to the exchanges as inevitable. The sources of profits will change.''

Divided Market

Ten banks led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, account for 86 percent of trading in credit-default swaps, the fastest growing derivatives, according to Fitch Ratings. Derivatives are financial instruments derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events like changes in the weather or interest rates.

Exchange-traded credit-default swaps will mean banks having to share fees. The firms will keep to themselves the most lucrative part of the business, building credit derivatives to meet the needs of individual clients, known as structured credit, said Robert Reoch, who made one of the first-ever credit-default swap trades in 1994 while at JPMorgan in London.

Bonuses for bankers who arrange structured credit rose 15 to 20 percent on average this year, beating increases of 10 to 15 percent for credit-default swap traders, according to Michael Karp, head of New York-based executive search and consulting firm Options Group.

Pension Funds

Bankers developed credit-default swaps little more than a decade ago to reduce the risk of defaults by the firms they trade with. Nowadays they're used as an alternative to investing in bonds and about $40 billion of the contracts trade daily, according to Deutsche Bank. The value of outstanding credit- default swaps doubled to $294 billion from $133 billion at the end of 2004, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel.

Buyers of credit-default swaps receive the face value of defaulted debt in exchange for the underlying bonds or loans. The cost of the derivatives increases as the perception of credit quality deteriorates and falls as creditworthiness improves.

Listing credit derivatives on exchanges will allow pension and mutual fund managers to buy them. The lack of official prices makes it difficult for fund managers to value the contracts at the end of each day. Pensions, insurers and mutual funds account for less than 15 percent of credit-default swap purchases, according to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. data.

``It would be an advantage to use credit-default swaps,'' said Nigel Sillis, who helps manage $17 billion as head of credit research at Baring Asset Management in London. Baring doesn't use the contracts in funds because of restrictions set by investors. ``If they're traded on an exchange it will be easier to convince clients to allow us to use credit-default swaps.''

`Unconscionable' Behavior

Unlike equity or futures markets, credit derivatives have no regulator responsible for monitoring trades. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in May said he was ``appalled'' that people were relying on ``scraps of paper'' to record transactions, an ``unconscionable'' practice that had caused a backlog of unconfirmed contracts.

``The market has suffered from reputational risk due to its opaqueness,'' said Reoch, who now advises banks. ``An exchange- traded product will provide the best point for price discovery. It also has the potential to increase the number of participants dramatically.''

Euronext is working with banks and investors to design contracts that will imitate credit-default swaps based on individual companies and indexes, according to Amanda Sudworth, head of interest-rate products at Euronext.Liffe , the London- based futures trading system operated by Euronext.

``Exchange-traded products will remove counterparty credit risk,'' Sudworth said. ``It will open credit trading as an asset class to everyone.''

Exchange Plans

Frankfurt-based Eurex plans to introduce a futures contract based on an index that tracks 125 companies with investment-grade ratings, known as the iTraxx Europe Index. Eurex, the only exchange to get a license from the 10 banks that own iTraxx, has been working on the plan for more than two years and expects to start offering the products by the end of March, said Candice Adam, a spokeswoman in Frankfurt.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange, the biggest U.S. market for equity and stock-index options, applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission in October to offer contracts on credit- default swaps. The securities will be based on the bonds of five to 10 companies, Joe Levin, the exchange's vice president, said in an interview last month, declining to provide further details.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange applied to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in October to provide contracts based on three companies. The market will open in the first quarter, said exchange spokeswoman Pamela Plehn.

Cutting Costs

Exchanges will cut the cost to buy and sell credit-default swaps by eliminating the need for trading agreements with banks and accounting systems that value investments and assess risk, said Mark Watts, global head of fixed income at London-based Morley Fund Management, a unit of Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer.

It costs about 73 cents to trade a futures or options contract on an exchange, and $240 to buy or sell a credit-default swap through a bank, according to data compiled by London-based investment adviser Z/Yen Ltd.

``It's a lengthy process'' to get started in trading credit derivatives, said Watts. ``Exchanges have clearing houses, they have a margins system and investors' back offices are usually linked into them. You've taken a manual process and you've automated it.''

Tried and Failed

Exchanges have failed to lure customers to more complex products, from trading the risk of hurricanes to interest-rate swaps, the biggest derivatives market.

The Chicago Board of Trade has been offering futures on interest-rate swaps for the past five years. Its $8.2 billion of outstanding contracts is dwarfed by $88 trillion of interest-rate swaps traded between banks in the first six months of this year, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.

Eurex planned to begin offering contracts on credit-default swaps by the end of 2005.

``It's open to debate whether an exchange-traded contract would provide any cost savings,'' said Marcus Scheuler, head of integrated credit marketing at Deutsche Bank in London. ``Huge liquidity'' in the market means banks are only making 1 cent on average between prices to buy and sell most credit-default swaps, he said.

Officials for Morgan Stanley, Goldman and JPMorgan declined to comment.

Exchange Hurdles

Banks helped the exchanges overcome one of the biggest obstacles by agreeing in September to allow credit-default swaps to be settled in cash rather than the underlying bonds.

``If an exchange comes up with the mechanics, it at least eliminates counterparty risk,'' said Moorad Choudhry, a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University, who proposed trading credit derivatives on exchanges in a 2002 paper published in the Journal of Derivatives Use, Trading and Regulation. ``It's the neatest way of doing it.''

Investors now have to analyze every contract to make sure they're covered for a default. Eternity Global Master Fund Ltd., a Dallas-based hedge fund, has been seeking payment from JPMorgan since 2002 on a contract based on Argentina's bonds because of a dispute about whether a debt swap constituted a default, according to Jim Renard, a partner at the fund's Dallas-based lawyers Bickle & Brewer.

``We'd like to use credit derivatives more but they're legal contracts and they have to be looked into by legal experts,'' says Mario Hooghiemstra, who helps manage the equivalent of about $9.6 billion at F&C Netherlands in Amsterdam. Most of the funds he manages don't hold credit-default swaps. ``It would definitely help if there were exchange-traded credit-derivative contracts.''

-- With reporting by Shannon D. Harrington. Editor: Serkin (jmp)

To contact the reporters on this story: John Glover in London at johnglover@bloomberg.net and Hamish Risk in London at hrisk@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 11, 2006 19:18 EST

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Trademarks

Not that I don't enjoy reading the comments of others here, but I note Tradesman's conspicuous absence. I hope that he is well.

ALOHA !!

As to Goldie's earnings and profit ... inside trading is much more profitable when you have a seat at the Federal Reserve and the White House as well! What's next China's treasury? At Goldie's serving more than one master is not only routine but an art!

Credit swaps for the public ... of course who covers these derivatives is the ultimate "Counterparty Risk Management Group" knowm in laymans terms as the US taxpayer! I never voted for that!

Gold is looking safer than ever!

Yes, But
Bet The House
James Grant 12.25.06, 12:00 AM ET

By a margin of almost 2-to-1, economists surveyed by WSJ.com last month judged that the worst of the residential real estate slump was history. House prices will soften in 2007, the sages predicted, but by only a little bit. In fact, 20 of the 49 respondents forecast a rise.

Ebenezer Scrooge was a mortgage banker, and the arguments I am about to marshal for a hard landing in housing might sound un-Christmaslike. But during the just-pricked bubble, it wasn't the Scrooges and the Marleys who lent more than 100% of the purchase price of a house without bothering to verify the income or employment of the applicant, or even to insist that he or she pay down a little bit of the principal now and then. House prices soared on the wings of the modern, optimistic, growth-obsessed mortgage industry.

All can agree that the housing data are grim enough today. From their recent respective peaks, single-family home sales are down by 15%, single-family housing starts by 35% and single-family home prices by 3.5%. The question is whether the stock market and the famously resilient U.S. economy will continue to shrug off the bad news.

Gary Gordon, a member of the investment committee of Annaly Mortgage Management, has built a coherent and persuasive case that they won't. The housing downturn will proceed in three phases, Gordon postulates. In Phase I, now under way, home sales will drop to cure what are politely known as "affordability issues." In Phase II, starting soon, job growth will falter as the pace of lending and borrowing downshifts. In Phase III, lingering into 2008, mortgage lenders will relearn the fine art of saying no. The resulting withdrawal of easy credit will add new downward pressure on house prices and consumer spending.

The fundamental problem, Gordon observes, is that the typical American home buyer can't afford a home at today's prices. "We Americans have tested the limits of affordability over the past five years," he says. "Since the end of 2001, disposable personal income is up about 25% and mortgage rates are little changed. That argues for 25% higher home prices. Instead, home prices rose by an average of 50% and in many markets by 100% or more." In fact, according to data compiled by Yale economist Robert Shiller, inflation-adjusted house prices in the past five years logged the second-fastest cumulative growth since the administration of William McKinley 110 years ago (the late 1940s hold the record for the fastest rise in real house prices over a half-decade).

Falling house prices in isolation would constitute no grave peril. A housing-induced downturn in job growth is what would cause a bear's pulse to race. Gordon insists it's coming, because the formerly potent stimulus of above-trend borrowing growth is about to be removed. Consider, he notes: "Americans pulled out nearly $500 billion of equity in their homes last year in order to buy other stuff. That number shot up from about $100 billion in 2001." The source of this borrowing? Why, the 12%--or $2 trillion--bump-up in the appraised value of the 2005 U.S. housing stock, double the 2002 increase. Reduce or reverse this appreciation and you stymie the borrowing boom.

The bulls will counter that, at the first sign of serious weakness, the Federal Reserve would engineer a collapse in mortgage-borrowing costs. Gordon points out that the Fed can do only so much. By trimming the funds rate, it can invite lenders and borrowers to do business together. But it can hardly hold a gun to their heads.

And a large-caliber weapon would be needed if losses on the recent crop of exotic, nonconforming mortgages (i.e., loans not guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac) continue to work higher. And why wouldn't they? In 1998 "liars' loans" (those with little or no documentation required) amounted to 24% of mortgage originations. To date this year they account for 62%. Interest-only mortgages have vaulted in the same period from virtually no market share in the mainstream lending business to a 50% share.

Already, despite a still low jobless rate, delinquencies, foreclosures and other signs of distress are surfacing in the subprime segment of the nonagency market. Even a mild business downturn could cause a revulsion against the kind of easy credit that put so many houses within financial reach (or seemed to).

Investment strategies to deal with this predicament could involve two exchange-traded funds. Bears on residential real estate could sell (if they own it) or short (if they don't) the StreetTracks SPDR Homebuilders (35,XHB) or buy the puts thereon.

To profit from a housing-induced drop in short-term rates, buy the iShares Lehman 1-3 Year Treasury Bond Fund (80, SHY) or its call option.

James Grant is the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Visit his homepage at www.forbes.com/gra

«The current unnatural state of the equity markets«

http://www.raymondjames.com/inv_strat.htm

My take on SNDK-close to a buy but not quite into the buy zone. Apart from the daily, monthly, and weekly RSI readings being a bit on the high side, the chip sector certainly underperforming the broad market averages and therefore good candidates for continued tax selling, there are some interesting Fibanocci relationships pointing to lower prices. SNDK topped in March 2000 at 84.81 and subsequently plunged to a low of 4.3 during the 9/11 panic sell-off for a drop of 80.51 points. A nearly 50% retracement (38.85 vs. ideal 40.25)resulted in a rise to 43.15 in November 2003. A pullback to the July 2004 low of 19.19 (23.87 points) produced a beautiful .618 relationship to the preceding 38.85 point rally. SNDK then soared 60.52 points to the January 2006 high of 79.8. This was a bit shy of a cluster of Fib targets-1.618 times the preceding 38.85 rally gives a 82.13 target(62.85 points);2.618 times the 23.87 preceding sell-off yields a target of 81.77(62.49 points);a .786 retracement of the entire March 2000 to September 2001 sell-off would have procduced a target of 82.55 (63.27 points). After the Jan 2006 print high of 79.8 SNDK dropped to a low of 37.34(42.46 points) in July 2006, close to 1.382 multiple of the 60.52 preceding rally and right on a 1.786 multiple of the 2003 23.87 point sell-off. SNDK rose from the July 2006 0f 37.34 to it's most recent high of 62.24(24.9 points) hit in October 2006, again very close to a .618 multiple of the preceding sell-off(ideal 26.3 vs. actual 24.9 points)and .618 related to the first rally off the 2001 lows(2001 rally of 38.85 points targets 24 vs. actual 24.9 rally). So what next? The entire bullmarket rally was 75.5 points. A .618 retracement of the move projects a move down to the 33 area and a .618 relationship to the first bear move off the Jan 2006 highs projects a move down to the 36 area(42.46 points x.618=26.24 points. Oct high of 62.24-36.24=36). If the yearly low of 37.34 is broken, a quick shake out could produce a sell-off to the aforementioned targets as the daily, weekly, and monthly RSI's retreat below the 30 level. Lots of time waiting for the Fed announcement. Good trading to all.

Dow down 70 in a flash. Did Beeks steal the orange crop report (FOMC) again?

optionoracle:

Hats off to you. You are the TRADER!

Thanks

Sell FCOJ

Jim Rogers speaking at a mining conference in London.

See Bloomberg News Video

http://www.bloomberg.com/index.html?Intro=intro3

UPDATE 2-Lots more upside to gold price, Barrick CFO says
Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:50 PM ET

(Adds further details, stock price. In U.S. dollars unless noted)

TORONTO, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp.'s chief financial officer said on Tuesday that the fundamentals for the price of gold remain strong.

"I think we've got a lot more upside on the gold price. I certainly can see the highs that we had earlier this year being taken out," said Jamie Sokalsky in an interview.

"I think the supply-demand fundamentals that are there are very supportive to gold. There is certainly no shortage of geopolitical tensions around the world and the U.S. dollar has gotten weaker and the outlook for it is for continued weakness."

In May this year, the price of gold reached a high of $730 an ounce. The price has since dropped and was around $628 an ounce on Tuesday afternoon.

Gold is often seen as a safe haven by investors and the price usually rises as the U.S. dollar weakens, making dollar-priced gold less expensive in other currencies.

Barrick, the world's biggest gold producer, is also open to more copper assets. The company inherited copper operations through its acquisition of Placer Dome earlier this year and is on track to produce about 370 million pounds of copper.

"We would be amenable to additional copper, as part of additional gold assets," said Sokalsky.

"We are really focused on gold, and a number of deposits that exist in the world are copper-gold porphyries. We would really like to have gold, and if copper came along with that, that would be fine with us."

Barrick is already taking advantage of the potential cash flow generated from its copper production by introducing copper-linked notes. Barrick sold $1 billion in notes that will be paid back over three years by selling about 324 million pounds of copper at about $3.08 a pound.

On COMEX, copper was trading at $3.09 a pound on Tuesday,

"We felt that it was prudent for us to lock in prices that are three times the long-term average and it was a key component of a long-term financing strategy," said Sokalsky.

Even though the outlook for copper remains strong, Sokalsky points out that the bulk of Barrick's revenue comes from gold and that only a third of its copper is being hedged over three years.

Companies typically hedge more when they think prices for their commodities are in long-term decline, but like full exposure to a rising market.

Proceeds from the debt offering will be used to prefinance some existing debt and fund development projects like Pascua Lama, Pueblo Viejo and Cortez Hills.

When asked if Barrick will continue to hedge some of its copper to fund development projects, Sokalsky said "it's a possibility."

"We don't have any current plans. We will reassess it based on our levels of liquidity, where the commodity prices are. It is another arrow in our quiver in terms of how we are going to finance the projects."

Shares of Barrick eased 23 Canadian cents to C$34.68 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

($1=$1.15 Canadian)

BBY - do you buy on weakness here or is this just the start of the "red flag" slowdown?

GS - how can you loose when the fix is in and your on both sides of the trade, talk about a license to print fiat currency thats worth less every year (however the Ferrari dealer in Manhattan still accepts it).

With Democrats in charge, Mining laws in U.S. bound to change. Will this hurt juniors the same as majors?

Among the changes being advocated by Rahall and Zoia are making the moratorium on mine patenting permanent, imposing an 8% net smelter royalty, and a provision declaring designated areas as unsuitable for hardrock mining.

http://tinyurl.com/ycvwue