This is an intriguing webcast, recorded on Tuesday during Warren Buffett's European sojourn, in which he shares his investment philosophy with MBA students of IMD Business School in Lausanne.

Buffett describes his approach to selecting investments, interspersed with frequent one-liners that underline his down-to-earth humor.

Here is the URL: http://tinyurl.com/66y3eq

This webcast is long, but great viewing material.

Cara 100 Update:

RIMM - New Coverage initiated with an Equal Weight rating @ First Analysis Securities

ESLR- bidding at 11.91...congrats to believers, and thank you to vinod...

ESLR- make that 12.08...

ESLR
wow! up 30% already.
I sold some at 11.35 thinking that was too much upside for a day
Also enjoying the ride on STP today. STP came out with good earnings this morning.

2nd
i will sell all my ESLR (2000) today
we may get chance to buy at lower price later on
I been burn a lot before for holding
also
I been buying High DUG and selling at Low in my last three trade

vinod- good decision...
DUG- you and todd harrison ;)

ESLR shorts will be busy covering today.

Short Interest (Shares Short) 20,622,400
Short Percent of Float 20.04 %
http://shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=eslr

any thoughts on the following scenario: interest rates up (to contain inflation and boost the USD)-> commodities down-> market rallies (anyway) on lower energy/food prices?

MY thought
interest rate will stay low untill jan 2009
comodities and oil will go down so inflation will be contain
and market will move higher untill election ? /

2nd

If energy reverses, think market will rise in response. Airlines could be the big movers, especially if oil pullback is big.

Reference interest rates rising, saw an interesting chart a few days ago in which the Nikkei followed the 10 year bond price. Weren't you holding a Japanese closed or mutual fund recently?

Cara 100 Update:

CCL - Target Lowered from $56 to $53 @ UBS

2nd
yesterday I brought uaua/dal/nwa 200 each

A fifty minute interview of Jim Dines
http://tinyurl.com/5dqm5h

In re ESLR ... great news about the $1B sales contract. This is particularly intriguing as it should lead to a favorable resolution of the Devens II capital financing. ESLR reported they need approx. $300M to complete this portion of the facility. I expect they will need that capacity to fulfill the sales contract.

long bond dropping fast...TBT now up 2.5%...

path of maximum frustration today-> oil down/market rallies? no one knows, of course, but thinking the oil shorts have been squeezed enough...

Obviously the play with eslr would have been to sell the open and flip to the short side.

Hindsight being 20/20

ESLR: Suspect stops are being taken out through the gap - perhaps it will rise again after that. Long: ELSR

Opened new positions in some small companies on TSX today and yesterday:

TRY.TO @ 2.04 - Troy Resources - small Western Australian gold producer with a new gold producing operation in Brazil

OPL.V @ 1.13 - Opel Tech - small start-up solar company - very speculative - financings by IBK capital - Bill has mentioned this one briefly in the past.

Cara 100 Update:

UBS - Upgraded to Market Perform @ Keefe Bruyette

GE - Target Price Lowered from $34 to $33 @ Sterne Agee

Latest From Colin Twiggs

-The Dow reversed sharply below support at 12750, completing a small double top and warning of a bull trap — and a test of 11750.

-The S&P 500 index falling below 1385 would confirm the signal

http://tinyurl.com/54qccl

out eslr 11.60 bought abr

Viso, first time I have ever listen to Dines, very interesting. There is an old timer that comes to Hwawii every year from Canada that swears by Dines.

Thabks for posting.

correction: Hawaii and thanks

I feel like some strong insurance is in order for the looming holiday weekend.

Had my pocket picked by buying QID at the open. It seems that AMEX does not operate the same as an electronic market nor the same as the Big Board when
it comes to opening prices.

Scaled out of UXG, buying back the calls I sold a few days ago. Stock went up 55 cents, calls 25 cents. Sweet.

Put profits into VALGF.

Holding onto that buckaroo FXP!

As Bill says UBS is raising $15B by offering stock at $20/share. The stock is up 2% to $30 now. I guess current shareholders are rejoicing that the company is not going bankrupt and forgetting the dilution and that they can buy these shares back at $20.

Chinese coal company I follow, YZC, up another 4+ today. Little too rich for me with D-W-M RSI all over 70.

Noticed CAF had a few other coal companies listed. China continues to import coal from U.S., among others. Rails and shippers come into this play also. No position at this time.

Bulls make money pigs get slaughtered. we're all day traders now. Even warren buffet, peter lynch and jesse livermore.

shark, you have that right.

Rough market to trade if you have any travel. Have to go to San Francisco next Thursday with a return on Friday. Plan on having limited exposure with most in cash related instruments. May even park some in one or two of the currency ETFs, but even that can change quickly.

Regarding banks' rights issues :

I was trading in Bangkok on a daily basis from September 1997 onwards and watched first hand the Thai banks repeatedly re-capitalizing and certain ones folding overnight.

Another gimmick used was giving away warrants
with a rights issue, effectively creating a (LEAP) options market in their stock.

I met an Israeli in Pattaya who increased his wealth immensely by investing Bt 1,000,000 in ten million warrants priced at the minimum 10 satang each at the nadir of the Thai market.

When banks start raising new capital in times like these, it's time to bail not time to pick up a "bargain".

It is definitely time to bail on the financials. Both Lehman and Merril's CEO have been saying they do not need more capital and then days later both companies came out with debt offerings. They are just flat out lying and praying.

There was a very interesting conference held in Phoeniz earlier this month. The conference was held by SIFMA and in that conference was a panel dealing with short selling and regulation SHO. The link below brings you to the transcripts of this workshop. Before you follow the link, here is a tidbit of what is inside;

Anand K. Ramtahal, VP, FINRA

"I don’t know how to fight off an aiding and abetting charge when a customer misrepresents to you and you really do nothing to track the underlying fails that result from that misrepresentation. You have to seriously think about the aiding and abetting violation that is in the regulation right now so it’s, you know, really the Commission is moving in a different direction when it comes to regulation—Regulation SHO and growth of the other issues around Regulation SHO. And quite frankly I can tell you from where I sit, I mean, there is a lot going on, I was talking to my fellow panelists this morning, on the Hill, in Washington, around Regulation SHO. So we can expect to see a lot more in the way of rule making and amendments to this regulation as we move forward. So, the regulation was adopted in January 2005, but there is a lot of discussion around misrepresentation and peripheral issues wherein short and long sales have failed to deliver."

http://investigatethesec.com/drupal-5.5/node/301

robbie fields

Toured Thailand [mostly the central & northern parts] for a month. LOVED IT! Very nice people.

just posted today's TA on GDX,
enjoy.

http://jglobal.blogspot.com

Aurelian - politics? no problem! get positioned ...

Gringos focus too much on the written documents, but Pres. Correa has given signals that "responsible miners" (like Aurelian) will be authorized.

This is the view of a US banker who lives in S. America and focuses on junior miners active there. He seems to have a good feel for the politics, and for mining fundmentals:

http://tinyurl.com/5hnp8a

(Also, scroll down to see his favorable view of Minera Andes, a McEwan investment.)

Does the market close early tomorrow?

I love the Google deal with Yahoo.

It shows how Google is expertly playing against MS and then slips around them to arrange a data swapping deal with Yahoo. Which increase its hold and usage of Data, while MS wasted lots of time trying to buy Yahoo, which wouldn't have help it anyway since its internal structure doesn't get it yet.

Just adding to the comment I made a week ago. Google is the company that understands data better than any other tech company. for the next two years this won't shift. However, the next shift will be a company that makes meta-data its main focus. But that's a another tech story. Its ready to happen now, just no one is doing it quite well enough yet.

Oh here is a link to the Yahoo / Google story

http://tinyurl.com/65ztq4

craig- taking advice from shark and seamus and exiting TBT in hopes of re-entering lower...who knows, really-> now that i'm out, maybe bonds really sell off?

large-cap tech catching bids...

Good move 2nd...we don't want to give back 3% gains....:>)

And the beat goes on:
Food Stamp users growing – Tennessee
Food Stamp users growing – Illinois
Food Stamp users growing – Florida
Food Stamp users growing – Ohio
Food Stamp users growing – Michigan
And so forth ....

I just ran a Google on “Food Stamp” in the news and found the above listed news articles and more. All with the same message but with local statistics for the areas. Hard to say what the spin offs will be from all this, but very likely it won’t be pretty.

Fascinating that the WSJ's front-page story is about the International Energy Agency's (IEA) sharp downward revision of it's oil-supply forecast" The article points out almost immediately that the IEA has been pretty sanguine about the building energy problem. Now all of the sudden, it's a "dangerous situation," says the IEA's chief economist. I don't know where people get their credibility sometimes. It would be like Bill announcing breaking news today that we are in a credit crunch and the banks are in trouble. Where's the foresight? Moody's? I could go on....

ALOHA !!

Patchie ... Thanks for the interview regarding SHO and I see Goldman Sachs was virtually the only broker in attendance. I guess they speak for the entire industry!

Why is it we have SHO?

Which is a pretty redundant question but one I ask because it brings me to the next question which is ... Why after some 3 years is its integrity and its function still in question? It seems obvious to me that the documentation and regulation spoken of in the meeting seems "helter skelter" and verging on "good ole boy" style enforcement! As if every broker sets his own criteria of "hit and miss"! The Goldman Sachs rep talks of reminding his reps to "document stuff"! What sort of teeth does SHO have? Seems as if these guys now operate as if there is ZERO ... NADA teeth! No consequences ... am I right?

Trading on the ASX I have seen numerous big pension plans announce they no longer will participate in "share lending" schemes. Wouldn't that solve a majority of SHO issues?

Then you have to ask as a shareholder how do I benefit when my GG shares are lent out to some unknown entity to use against me and bring make my share price go lower? The obvious answer is "I don't benefit"! Who does? Those who hold my shares in custody profit and the shorts have the potential to profit, but the actual shareholder who is working his 40-50 hour work week is totally oblivious to what happens to his shares in his pension plan or ETF ... The assumption is your shares are being managed in a way that will allow you to retire in 20 years. In reality your shares are being managed in a way that will allow the managers of your shares to retire quite nicely in 20 years.

I have to side with the Australian pension plans. Its time to stop share lending! Maybe it is a coincidence but I have noticed since share lending has stopped and the OPES PRIME type stuff the junior explorer metal sector on the ASX has done quite well. The short interest on some of these companies trading in the USA is just astronomical. I believe someone here yesterday mentioned a stock with a 20% short interest!

Naturally the US brokers, like Goldman Sachs, would advise against any elimination of share lending. Naturally ...

10% of Ohioans are on food stamps. 10%! And in San Diego a homeless shelter is opening overnight parking lots for people who sleep in their cars.

These are some of the data points that lead me to believe the economic situation is much worse than advertised.

Denny

RE: IEA

Why would anyone who is good at forecasting work for any international agency such as IEA? If you are really a good forecaster you are probably working for a for-profit company in some capacity.

I had a meeting last year with an analyst from an unnamed HBB firm who told me had to contact one of these international informational agencies (I will leave both unnamed) to inform them that the methodology in their supply/demand forecast was seriously flawed. He told me he proved the errors to them and they were very embarrased and apologetic.

I just looked at the IEA website and am utterly confused at what this organization actually does. There are a lot of wordy explanations about comparing international energy policies but not much to chew on.................

I'll give their opinions about as much credence as any taxi driver

Article with implications for TOG, bonds and stocks.

http://tinyurl.com/52vfy2

kaimu....

It is not borrowing that bothers me....

It is "failure to deliver".

i'm turning negative-> selling CAF at a loss...only remaining position is SMN...

trying a little FXP @ 67+...

Short oil / short gold trade from yest working well, so I'll hold on for tomorrow. Effectively this is my "leveraged" bet on a short-term rise in the US$.

Dave

FXP/QID/+SMN/DUG-> repositioning for a drop...no logic here, pure instinct...and prepared to be wrong...

I don't think we will get much of a move either way tomorrow. I will wait until next week to buy anything.

Holding calls on DIA 130 JUN, flat around $0.70
Holding FXP @ $78 underwater...

The rest is cash.

Re: Eurobonds

There would have to be a fairly serious collapse in the 1 - 2 year Eurobonds for the yield curve to look like this:

http://www.ecb.int/stats/money/yc/html/index.en.html

2nd

If you buy FXP then this will automatically make you President of the FXP club, since the rest of us are all underwater. So lead us to higher ground ok?

No comment as I pass this along... just a sordid chuckle.
http://tinyurl.com/3ktbcd

Telestar3d, so as Gross says, "With global headline inflation now at 7% there is a need for new global investment solutions, a role that PIMCO is more than willing (and able) to provide." Yeh. I'll bet. Dovetails kind of nicely with the whole bit of hire Greenspan the guy who helped give us this beautiful inflation that we can now provide solutions for. Treasury bonds are so 20th century, now. I wonder what Mom and Pop are going to do about their bond funds imploding while the "with-it" PIMCO investors go riding off into this brave new world.

Gloom about Juniors in Vancouver -

A Casey Research guy is back from a visit to Vancouver, writing there's a feeling of doom and gloom about juniors. This spells "opportunity" he continues, IF you buy smart, and buy low !

http://tinyurl.com/6rpga4

First we had Societe Generale's rogue trader, then we had Moodys' rogue computer, so when the FED finally admits they have no gold left, they can always blame the rogue security guard...

"In response to our request for access to documents involving gold swaps and the U.S. gold reserve, the Federal Reserve Board has provided GATA about 900 pages that are nearly all just copies of correspondence from the public to the Fed. As might be expected, the only documents that seem as if they might have useful information have been withheld from us or redacted into meaninglessness.

But as you may see from the most recent letter from GATA's Washington law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of McLean, Virginia, GATA is pursuing the Fed's appeal procedure in regard to the withholding and redacting, and our freedom-of-information initiative already has proven worthwhile. For it has established that the Federal Reserve does have secrets about the U.S. gold reserve -- that things have been done with their gold that the American people might object to if they were allowed to know, or that things have been done with the gold reserve that can be accomplished only by deceiving the financial markets.

The Fed's acknowledgement that it is withholding information about the U.S. gold reserve may be taken as more evidence that the U.S. government is surreptitiously manipulating the gold market."

http://tinyurl.com/4ajfcs

Hey, fireworks, US govt manipulation of the gold market is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY.

Can you imagine what might happen if the terrorists learned about this ? -

Denny, agree with what you say and it is somewhat self serving of Gross. However, they are huge buyer of bonds and their demand should be softening.

Still it is good to see someone with status to say it like it is. This country (USA) lacks leadership and has for a long time. We need fresh leadership on oil policy, war policy and fiscal policy.

Everything we are addressing today with respect to oil should have begun done right after the first oil embargo. Think about how different our situation would be today if we did. Instead we have our “Kahuna’s” being squeezed in a vise by people who despise us.

The only solution I see for the regular guy is to buy the commodity stocks and perhaps Swiss Franc’s and Canadian Dollar’s.

"One in 11 Americans receive food stamps, according to federal statistics."

Ohio is not that far out of line.

QT- LOL..thanks, but i have no interest in presiding over anything...besides, my opinions can change on a dime...the only explanation i can give you for deciding to exit CAF today was an incipient awareness of 'hope' associated with the position-> whenever i find myself 'hoping' a position recovers, i try to sell (and whenever i find myself 'concerned' about a position, i try to hold)-> probably no more than the 'slope of hope/wall of worry' scenario on a personal level...in any case, we'll find out soon enough...

More on the reasons behind high oil prices - good article by William Engdahl.

http://tinyurl.com/3zdngf

Peak Oil = No Big Oil Congolomerates

We'll still have oil, though.

ALOHA !!

ON FOOD STAMPS
I find it ironic that rural farming areas in the USA typical have suffered from low income levels and less infrastructure due to a smaller tax base. I have noticed a large amount of people here in rural Pahoa, Hawaii who show up at the local health food store "Island Naturals" with their EBT cards in hand. When it is the first week of the month you can hardly find parking at the banks and the food stores because thats when SSI and welfare and social security checks get cashed!

GROUND REPORT
I filled up in Hilo, Hawaii today for $3.95USD for regular grade gasoline. This was just at noon and it this gas station is on the busiest street in Hilo and the place was empty exept for me and one other guy from BIG ISLAND TOYOTA. On my drive into Hilo I have noticed more SUVs and bigger trucks on the side of the road with "for sale" signs! I never see any commuter four cylinders for sale ... Then I hear on the radio FORD is cutting production of its SUVs and big trucks 40% and trying to import into the USA small cars from its subsidiaries in Europe. Sounds like FORD has seen the light! Why does management always wait until looming bankruptcy to change direction?

Cheap gas is gone because cheap money is here to stay!

ALOHA !!

I have a friend in Las Vegas who knows a guy who started a business that places security guards at foreclosed house locations and is paid by the bank to watch the property to keep squatters and vandals away. He says this business is thriving in Las Vegas!

Las Vegas is full of entrepeneur types. I recall once back in 1999 waiting in a long line at the local Las Vegas DMV to get a drivers license and there were guys there that would wait in line for you so you didn't have to. Then they would call you on a cell phone when they were getting close to the front. I did not take advantage of that service because I thought it would not take that long, but I spent six hours there waiting!

so tomorrow's the friday before memorial day...plenty of workers already on vacation (including traders and investors), and no one expects much in the way of market movement-> naturally a good set-up for a major move...

Silver Price Manipulation through
"Naked Shorting"

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

A late entry for today, but hopefully better late than never:

The S&P 500 rose 14.6% from its mid-March lows to its recent peak just above 1440. So the bulls had their way for two months in response to the Fed's rescue of Bear Stearns. However, the move to the upside may now be over.

Today's collapse in the number of very strong stocks along with a higher than normal number of very weak stocks has put the market back into a technically weak position. That means any upside should be limited.

Two short-term positives though are the upcoming U.S. holiday and then month-end right after the holiday. If the market cannot rally and repair its current technically weak position over the next two weeks then the writing will be on the wall: the downside will be back in play.

With Meg Whitney of Oppenheimer saying that financial services firms have another $170 billion in reserve builds to go by the end of 2009 (compared to the $95 billion in write-downs and reserve builds already taken), we believe the odds of meaningful price declines in the U.S. stock market are high.

JW
http://www.2globalmarkets.com

2nd,
I like that strategy Sell Hope and hold concern. I'll bet that will work plenty. I always get screwed when I let either of those emotions make decisions for me.

Rob.

QT, I'm working in Cairo this week, and thought I caught a glimps of a black swan floating on the Nile. I think she was headed to buy some Gulf oil, but she stopped here to buy provisions for the trip...

2nd, glad to have you join the FXP Club. We are still looking for a President, but as QT noted, you have to be above water to qualify, and most members here don't qualify....

Still expecting the correction, and if oil stays at these levels for long, it will come....

allen- exciting time to be in that part of the world...todd harrison's thoughts on playing the short side in crude (and he's mentioned elsewhere [along with many others] the possibility that oil has been spiking in advance of something about to happen there):

http://tinyurl.com/572od5

any verbal/visual snippets you can provide while there appreciated...

2nd, I'm in the energy business, but not the oil side. My GUESS is that at this price level, we'll see a demand response leading to a price drop, causing speculators to bail, resulting in a sharp drop. However, suppliers now see that their production restraint gets them better prices, so I'd bet on slower production growth keeping prices above $90 through the year. I'd be willing to bet (a small amount!) that a correction happens within three weeks, as global demand data comes in.

LOL! Search your feelings young 2ndwalker.....
The oil force feels like $1000 gold did a few weeks ago....

Has anyone seen a rather rotund storm trooper lady near the stage preparing to sing? She must be here somewhere.....

EVERYONE seems on the long side, we know where that goes.

allen- thanks

Good morning.

One Cara 100 Ratings Change to report:

LLTC - Downgraded to Hold @ Deutsche Securities

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

Have a great holiday weekend. Thank you to all our vets.