[6:25am ET] US taxpayers can read this and weep. Bloomberg just put the cherry on the layer cake I have been baking for the past two years.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAvhtiFdLyaQ
With the Treasury Secretary, it started with Paulson Folly, which used excessive dividends and share buy-backs to purposefully delay the start of a normal Bear cycle while the Financials were being pumped full of hot air. Then, as the Financial and Consumer Discretionary Spending sectors crashed, Mr. Moral Hazard denied there was a credit market collapse underway, and, rather than try to save a collapsing US financial system, he pointed his critics in the direction of China. Finally, the Bankers
you are all posting on the Thursday chat 🙂
just an fyi
I see that now, sorry I started it. I’ve never posted on any site ever until now. Please bear with me. Don’t worry though. I will be a very infrequent contributor.
Best,
Mark
Edit…”I see that now, sorry I started it.” Should have read “I see that now, sorry, I started it.” One comma can make all the differnce.
Early today, the Yen is down, and capital is being moved into equities. A rally is unfolding as I expected. Americans — with the MLK holiday on Monday — can follow their dual-listed stocks on the Toronto Exchange. As the Yen drops, the Japanese exporters — like Toyota (TM) for instance — are enjoying upward pressure on their stocks today. These are the relationships all of us have to automatically process in our minds. As newcomers to trading, some of you have come to understand the importance of drivers (like forex, interest rates, commodity prices, etc) and markers (like GICS)… Read more »
HI, I am new to the blog and wanted to introduce myself on a slow day. Quickly, I am a general contractor in the Bay Area. Most of the homes I build are in the $3-4M dollar range. As a new self directed investor I appreciate the quality and thoughtful comments made. Bill….I hate thank yous directed at what I do, but at least want to express how impressed I am at the level of commitment you bring to work every day. My only input that might be of help here are impressions, comments, and conversations I have with owners… Read more »
Mark, thank you for participating, and thank you for this question. If your intent is to short Treasuries with a long-term outlook, particularly in a long-only account, then the TBT (ie, double inverse the TLT) is ok. But, if you don’t plan to trade the position actively, and you don’t have the time for minute-to-minute monitoring positions, maybe just shorting the TLT is preferred. In our accounts, we have used the TBT, but we are also just getting used to its “feel” with small dollars involved before we get deeper into it with big dollars. So, I don’t profess to… Read more »
Bill, you are correct on my intent and time available for trading. I am severely limited during the day to trade…work and all. Someone I trust said the better long term trade is shorting TLT. But for trades made in 3-4 days max, TBT is better.
Mark, TBT is relatively new. Liquidity is an issue for large players. We are all feeling our way with this, so your question and comment is a good one. A point I’d like to make is that very often this community can figure out this stuff in fact better than some of the so-called experts or talking heads on TV. In this regard, I’m not knocking the TV guests; I’m just saying that too often with regard to trading fairly new instruments, a comment here and there can be misleading, and many of us — all putting our heads together… Read more »
Bill, thanks for the time…It’s getting late back there. I couldn’t agree with your comments more. Just to be clear, friends I mention are people who are or were in the business end of things. If fact, I would be quite surprised if you didn’t know each other. My friend was the one who pointed me in your direction when he knew I was looking for help. He likes the short play on Bonds and is doing it in a way I can’t. I asked him to take a look at TBT and am repeating his research.
Best,
Mark
http://tinyurl.com/7stcvt
Napoleon Dynamite said it best, “Idiot.” Why I don’t watch Tout TV anymore.
Rally today and at least through Tuesday, I believe. Bank of America and Treasury deal eases concerns.
“Rally today and at least through Tuesday, I believe. Bank of America and Treasury deal eases concerns.
Thanks Bill, this greatly assists my decision on when to take gains.
CP,
Short-term oriented traders sell into strength. They also have to determine how long the market is likely to flow their way.
especially now, you’d better not get complacent. Panics don’t work logically down a list of visible fear factors … The logic is constructed after the fact.
It’s like motorcycle owners losing their fear of riding. That’s when they’d damn well better sell that bike.
http://tinyurl.com/8rukg3
About the pilot
http://tinyurl.com/9q96bb
Great 1st hand accounts from NYC, of the miracle on the Hudson today. Good news across the board. I am so happy no one was seriously hurt. the pilot and the crew deserve all the merits of heroism there are. to see passengers and commercial ferry boats 1st on the scene is inspiring.
I hope this type of resolve, courage and willingness to help, outshines the tarnish that wall st excess has left on new york city.
Congress OKs release of final $350B of bailout.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Congress-OKs-release…
dshort.com has been keeping track of our current bear market relative to ’29, ’73 and 2000. The chart can be both uplifting and frightening depending on which prior recession you choose to compare to.
ALOHA !!
Citibank share price is getting down to “nationalizing” level!
As I posted last week, $852bil worth of crap derivatives and losses! Its a prime candidate to go onto the US TAXPAYER Balance Sheet under the “100 year long term liability” line item!
Unless something changes soon, by Friday, I would not want to hold “C” until next Monday! Then again, lets consult MAD MONEY first to confirm that!
ALOHA !! I just left LAS VEGAS … I was there for a few days and am in Arizona now. Man, Las Vegas looks bleak! Flying in I saw subdivisions with patches of houses built and lots of barren empty spaces. I also saw strip centers with half empty stores. I saw large multi-storey buildings frozen in time with no work. Two long term friends are leaving Las Vegas after over 30 years there running small businesses in the restaurant and construction biz. Neither believe it will turn around. All my friends there say they have lost about half their… Read more »
Chart looks great, up 9% today, maybe a liitle wash over from Apples drop?
of the falling market now is because I don’t see any major new negative developments that could take the market significantly below the November 20 lows. Not enough time has passed since November 20 in order for something principally new to appear. Therefore, the current fall in the market is a buying opportunity, IMO. If we test November 20 lows — all the better, I’ll be able to buy stuff at great low prices.
ALOHA !!
RESETS …
Dr. Doolittle economics.
David – I agree to a certain extent, however, we’re not that far off the bottom. The following things I find very disturbing that could bring the market down further: *GE – if they lose AAA, the company will need to be bailed out. If this happens, its a devastating blow to the U.S. in general. *Default of major foreign country – with the terrible credit crisis and tumbling oil prices, countries like Russia, Ireland, and several other countries could default *China moving away from the U.S. Dollar – any shock like this will cause our LT bond yields to… Read more »
teamonfuego, I agree that the events you listed may happen in 2009 (with some small probability). But I don’t think the current drop in the market is due to someone finding out that one of these events (or any other “major” event) is becoming highly probable. I may be wrong, of course, as I am usually the last one to find out the reasons for a drop. This is just my intuition speaking, which tells me that it is safe to buy this drop.
I’m just beginning to think about the longer term downside of the foreclosure/BK crowd not having the ability to buy anything on reasonable credit for the next 7 years. 1 in 10 to 1 in 6 homeowners is the spread of estimates I have heard. I think the longer term impact of this issue and where the economy will trend has yet to be fully “seen” by the short focus of the market. I’m very worried for my children!
Has anyone else been oogling the educations stocks? – they led morningstar’s 239 industry groups today, up 9%. There’s more: 4 outdid the group average – COCO up 17.6% LRN up 17% ESI up 15% CECO up 9.6% The day before a certain screaming TV clown recommended APEI, I sold puts on it, and the stock is way up top. APEI operates the American Military University, and American Public Service University. The former sends its tuition bills the Pentagon (a fast and reliable payer)and the latter bills states for first responders’ education. Is anyone else following this startup, which seems… Read more »
Casey- excellent words. Look forward to more when you be back again.
Been a while since I meandered here. Been looking at the news: A total of 2.3 million homes had at least one legal notice of foreclosure filed during 2008, one of out every 54 homes in America and so much more like this, It reminds me when I once walked along an old road just reading the litter as I walked by: Walking a summer road, following humanities trail. Revealing light of constellations amid scattered stars of broken glass. Glinting remains of pepsi, 7-up and beer bottles. Wondering if a lesson is to be found… Nothing else comes As man… Read more »
Early today, I made these trades: Longer-term trade: GE for additional shares @ $13.46 which is 5% above GE’s 52-week low; medium-term trade: EXM (Excel Maritime Carriers)@ $6.76; Short-Term trade=BAC @ $8.20. Hoping for, at least, a short-term bounce for the EXM and BAC trades.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677…
truth is better than fiction — especially when fiction become truth.
One of my all time favorite books, thanks for the link and it is scarily prescient.
The bears could not hold a 200 point drop (to below 8,000) and the bulls could not hold a 380+ point rise from the low, although they did bring the market back to plus territory. Bulls take an important round.
“SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – Intel Corp. (INTC:
Intel Corporation
4:00pm 01/15/2009
INTC 13.29, +0.21, +1.6%) on Thursday reported a fourth-quarter net income of $234 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with a net profit of $2.27 billion, or 38 cents a share for the year-earlier period. Revenue was $8.2 billion, down 23% from $10.7 billion last year. Analysts had expected the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker to report earnings of 4 cents a share on revenue of $8.2 billion, according to a consensus survey by Thomson Reuters.”
Semiconductor manufacturing for fun and no profit.
Hope everyone makes it out ok from the plane crash/landing into the hudson river. radio reports mentioned no casualties so that would be great!
Also noticed a nice reversal at the close on a lot of the popular stocks from the discourse 🙂
SLW is up 5.3% from my $5.26 buy yest. This almost feels like luck, cuz i rarely get 2 trades in a row right. Me = not that good.
It’s great to see how this has turned out. Heroic piloting, people all around responding to the call and doing a great job. We get so much bad news every day that it becomes hard to not feel bad about our own little species sometimes. Events like this are refreshing. Makes you want to high-five someone – anyone. I think Obama’s speech next week will inspire more of this. To anyone: There was talk here about the PPT. I’ve read opinions on both sides of this; some think it’s bunk, others are certain that it’s not. In today’s environment, it’s… Read more »
Bill.
I find your RSI system very interesting and have been using it for the past year to make some trades. How is it affected by high volitiliy such as we are having now? It seems that a high VIX would cause a higher proportion of false signals. Do you have any data on its effectveness in a high VIX environment?
Thanks.
looks like the big boys didn’t buy this AM’s happy rap.
No position.