Friday, July 30, 2010

Consumer Metrics take on GDP

Their latest graphs. According to their data we are contracting -3.4% annual rate. So if on this news, this is all the selling we can get--what happens then, when things get better?

Of course, the bears will say things will get worse, blah blah blah...But that won't make you any money. The dip this morning, is what you were supposed to buy.

Despite what all the graphs and charts from the bears "say!"

Chicago PMI comes in at 62.3

Oh My!!

And now you'll have all those bearish leaning blogs complaining how that information was leaked because the S&P rallied 1 minute before that news came out.

Oh wait--That news is already out at Zero Hedge where no whine is never kept quiet!!

Tyler Durden's picture

Chicago PMI At 62.3 Versus Expectations Of 56 Print

It appears the earlier market rumor about a Chicago PMI of 53.6 that sent the SPOOs another leg lower were incorrect. Now if only the administration can please reconcile the drop in the economy with the PMI surge all will be forgiven. In the meantime stocks keep trading from headline to headline. Categories posting improvement include Employment, New Orders, Order Backlogs, Inventories and Production, while Prices Paid decline again.

Well--so what.  Why weren't they buying this morning at 9:00 before the market opened, when the futures were at the low?

Oh--Whooops... I forgot...That trade was just for me!!!

As Advertised!!

Take stock on this morning's dip

We're now under 10,300 on the Dow, and 1083 on the S&P.

I think we have a worthwhile entry point this morning, right here in the futures, taking the opposite side of the traders selling in the pits!

Snooki Vs. Bo Pt II

First, Snooki took on Obama over Twitter. Then, Obama said he didn't even know who she was. And on Thursday night's second season premiere of MTV's "Jersey Shore," Snooki took the ball back, and went after Obama again.


In one scene, Snooki -- with her impressively orange tan -- broke the shocking news that she's been staying away from her home away from home: Tanning salons.


"I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning. McCain would never put a 10% tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan," she said.


Snooki was referring to a provision in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act that mandates tanning salons impose a 10 percent tax on UV-ray sessions.


Clearly, Obama can't relate to Snooki's problems, she added, commenting on Obama's skin color.

"Obama doesn’t have that problem. Obviously," she said.

The Roubini Calendar

Today, July 30
Saturday, July 31
Sunday, August 1
Monday, August 2
Tuesday, August 3
Wednesday, August 4
Thursday, August 5
Friday, August 6

Li Lu---One of Buffett's successors?

He's on the far right above as a Tiananmen Square protester, and with Buffett below.


WSJ


Twenty-one years ago, Li Lu was a student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests. Now a hedge-fund manager, he is in line to become a successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Mr. Li, 44 years old, has emerged as a leading candidate to run a chunk of Berkshire's $100 billion portfolio, stemming from a close friendship with Charlie Munger, Berkshire's 86-year-old vice chairman. In an interview, Mr. Munger revealed that Mr. Li was likely to become one of the top Berkshire investment officials. "In my mind, it's a foregone conclusion," Mr. Munger said...

The Chinese-American investor already has made money for Berkshire: He introduced Mr. Munger to BYD Co., a Chinese battery and auto maker, and Berkshire invested. Since 2008, Berkshire's BYD stake has surged more than six-fold, generating profit of about $1.2 billion, Mr. Buffett says. Mr. Li's hedge funds have garnered an annualized compound return of 26.4% since 1998, compared to 2.25% for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index during the same period.

But hiring Mr. Li could be risky. His big bet on BYD is his only large-scale investing home run. Without the BYD profits, his performance as a hedge-fund manager is unremarkable.

It's unclear whether he could rack up such profits if managing a large portfolio of Berkshire's.

What's more, his strategy of "backing up the truck," to make large investments and not wavering when the markets turn down could backfire in a prolonged bear market. Despite a 200% return in 2009, he was down 13% at the end of June this year, nearly double the 6.6% drop in the S&P-500 during the period.

ESPN's redacted Lebron James story

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The BP Oil spill hype

Time magazine:
President Obama has called the BP oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," and so has just about everyone else. Green groups are sounding alarms about the "Catastrophe Along the Gulf Coast," while CBS, Fox and MSNBC slap "Disaster in the Gulf" chryons on all their spill-related news. Even BP fall guy Tony Hayward, after some early happy talk, admitted the spill was an "environmental catastrophe." The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill — he calls it "the leak" — is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype.

Well, Rush has a point. The Deepwater explosion was an awful tragedy for the 11 workers who died on the rig, and it's no leak; it's the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. It's also inflicting serious economic and psychological damage on coastal communities that depend on tourism, fishing and drilling. But so far — while it's important to acknowledge that the long-term potential danger is simply unknowable for an underwater event that took place just three months ago — it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. "The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared," says geochemist Jacqueline Michel, a federal contractor who is coordinating shoreline assessments in Louisiana.

Yes, the spill killed birds — but so far, less than 1% of the birds killed by the Exxon Valdez. Yes, we've heard horror stories about oiled dolphins — but, so far, wildlife response teams have collected only three visibly oiled carcasses of any mammals. Yes, the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region's fish and shrimp have tested clean, and the restrictions are gradually being lifted. And, yes, scientists have warned that the oil could accelerate the destruction of Louisiana's disintegrating coastal marshes — a real slow-motion ecological calamity — but, so far, shorelines assessment teams have only found about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year.

Where's the oil? Blame oil eating microbes that are sucking up the oil in a freeding fenzy!

Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

Perhaps the most important cause of the oil’s disappearance, some researchers suspect, is that the oil has been devoured by microbes. The lesson from past spills is that the lion’s share of the cleanup work is done by nature in the form of oil-eating bacteria and fungi. The microbes break down the hydrocarbons in oil to use as fuel to grow and reproduce. A bit of oil in the water is like a feeding frenzy, causing microbial populations to grow exponentially.

Typically, there are enough microbes in the ocean to consume half of any oil spilled in a month or two, says Howarth. Such microbes have been found in every ocean of the world sampled, from the Arctic to Antarctica. But there are reasons to think that the process may occur more quickly in the Gulf than in other oceans.

Microbes grow faster in the warmer water of the Gulf than they do in, say, the cool waters off Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez spill occurred. Moreover, the Gulf is hardly pristine. Even before humans started drilling for oil in the Gulf — and spilling lots of it — oil naturally seeped into the water. As a result, the Gulf evolved a rich collection of petroleum-loving microbes, ready to pounce on any new spill. The microbes are clever and tough, observes Samantha Joye, microbial geochemist at the University of Georgia. Joye has shown that oxygen levels in parts of the Gulf contaminated with oil have dropped. Since microbes need oxygen to eat the petroleum, that’s evidence that the microbes are hard at work.

The controversial dispersant used to break up the oil as it gushed from the deep-sea well may have helped the microbes do their work. Microbes can more easily consume small drops of oil than big ones. And there is evidence the microbes like to munch on the dispersant as well.


Remember's China's big oil spill? They just unleashed bacterial to clean it up:

Beijing, July 20 – Over 23 tonnes of oil-eating bacteria are being used to clean up an oil spill off the coast of northeast China’s Dalian City, four days after pipelines exploded near one of China’s largest oil reserve bases.

‘We received orders Saturday morning from the Maritime Safety Administration for bio-oil-absorbing products,’ said Yang Jiesen, manager of the research and development centre at Beijing Weiyeyuan Bio-Technology Company.

Murdoch increases the WSJ subscription price for the White House

WSJ
It looks like Rupert Murdoch has finally figured out a way to make the White House pay — literally.

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has jacked up the rate it charges the administration’s news clipping service by a jaw-dropping $600,000 per year — and is steering the White House towards a direct deal with News Corp., according to an administration official.

“Obviously, we’re not paying $500,000. This is taxpayer money,” the official said. “We have no idea how we’re going to handle this. We may have to drop [The Journal].”

It's unclear how News Corp. arrived at the $600,000 figure. But copyright laws would prevent the news-clipping service from widely disseminating Wall Street Journal articles without the parent company''s permission.

For the past decade, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have paid a small Virginia-based media company $100,000 or more each year to prepare customized packages of excerpts from print, TV, radio and blog outlets. Bulletin News of Reston performs the labor-intensive searches, which would otherwise require the hiring of government staff, every night starting at 9 p.m., delivering a package of article extracts and Web links to the West Wing by 5 a.m. each morning.

The Journal, which sits behind a licensed pay wall, has always been part of the package — until now.

Arizona immigration law busted

Banks solicting customers to pay overdraft charges

WSJ
Bad spending habits like overdrawing a checking account are good for banks, and for technology and marketing companies trying to help them preserve billions of dollars in overdraft fees...

At stake are the more than $37 billion of fees related to overdraft payments last year, according to Moebs $ervices Inc., a Lake Bluff., Ill.-based company that tracks such data. About half that came from ATMs and debit-card charges. Banks charge an average of $27 for an overdraft fee, according to Moebs.

In recent weeks, banks have been barraging customers with emails, letters and telephone calls to encourage them to sign up for overdraft protection. About a quarter of bank customers recently surveyed by Nielsen Co. expressed interest in participating in bank overdraft programs.

Banks are most interested in getting frequent overdraft users to sign up for their programs. That is because roughly 75% of overdraft fees are generated by less than 20% of bank customers, according to industry statistics.

In March, more than 200 banks paid $199 each to participate in an Internet seminar hosted by David Peterson, a banking-industry consultant who advises banks to consider bundling overdraft protection with other services for a monthly fee. A 40-page presentation that accompanied his lecture includes a profile of a typical overdraft user, described as a person who doesn't pay attention to account balances, lives paycheck to paycheck, and will engage in a transaction despite knowing it will generate a fee.

The seminar also includes several pages detailing the "five stages of overdraft grief," which includes "shock and denial," "pain and guilt," "anger and bargaining," "depression" and "acceptance."

"I am helping banks to understand how the different types of customers are going to receive this message and how they should comply with the law," said Mr. Peterson.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Deutsche Bank outlines big bank bullishness


Trading Focus 1007_28 SA -

Ted Turner owns three "Rhode Islands"

Billionaire Ted Turner owns just shy of three Rhode Islands, including the spectacular Vermejo Park Ranch straddling the border of New Mexico and Colorado, which at 590,823 acres, or 920 square miles, would cover a substantial portion of the 668,753-acre Ocean State. Turner's other U.S. holdings include ranchland in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, as well as a 30,000-acre hunting preserve in Florida that he calls home, totaling 2 million acres.

Turner tops the list of the nation's largest private landowners, compiled by Forbes with the help of The Land Report, a publication that tracks large landowners and land sales.

The "internet kill switch" keys

You may have heard the rumor that swirled briefly last month about an Internet “kill switch” that could power down the Web in the case of a critical cyber attack. Those rumors turned out to be largely overblown, but it turns out there are now seven individuals out there holding keys to the Internet. In the aftermath of a cataclysmic cyber attack, these members of a “chain of trust” will be responsible for rebooting the Web.

The seven members of this holy order of cyber security hail from around the world and recently received their keys while locked deep in a U.S. bunker. But the team isn’t military in nature. The Internet safety program is overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit watchdog group that has access to a security system designed to protect users from cyber fraud and cyber attacks.

Part of ICANN’s security scheme is the Domain Name System Security, a security protocol that ensures Web sites are registered and “signed” (this is the security measure built into the Web that ensures when you go to a URL you arrive at a real site and not an identical pirate site). Most major servers are a part of DNSSEC, as it's known, and during a major international attack, the system might sever connections between important servers to contain the damage.

A minimum of five of the seven keyholders – one each from Britain, the U.S., Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, China, and the Czech Republic – would have to converge at a U.S. base with their keys to restart the system and connect eveything once again. We’re imagining a large medieval chamber filled with techno-religious imagery where these knights cyber must simultaneously turn hybrid thumb drive/skeleton keys in a massive router, filling the room with the blinking light of connectivity.

In reality, it’s not so dramatic. The keys are actually smartcards that each contain parts of the DNSSEC root key, which could be thought of as the master key to the whole scheme. But it is interesting to know that there is a group of individuals out there that hold actual, physical keys that would reboot the Internet as we know it.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Tebow now hawking Jockey




But check out these gators. How many of you baby bears would hang out in that swamp??? Another link here.

Jersey Shore rings the bell

BP to get a $9.9 billion tax break

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Oil giant BP PLC will reduce its contribution to U.S. coffers by roughly $10 billion due to a tax credit the company is claiming it incurred from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP said Tuesday that it is incurring a charge of $32.2 billion from the Gulf response, and as such, it is claiming a $9.9 billion taxation credit.

Asked in a conference call Tuesday about whether it has discussed the tax credit with President Barack Obama's administration, outgoing BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said, "We have followed the IRS regulations as they're currently written."

Some color on FDX


FDX_2_ -

Goldman's latest


GS Americas Morning 0727 -

Man loses wife of 62 years, then bank cancels his mortgage refinacing

The day after he lost his wife of 62 years, George Baumann was hit with still more awful news.

A hard-hearted bank abruptly reneged on a loan the ex-city worker needed to pay off heavy debts that leave him with almost nothing at the end of the month.

Hanover Community Bank decided not to give Baumann the $271,000 mortgage he and his wife had closed on six days earlier.

Without the much-needed refinancing, he's left to grapple with money woes even as he mourns.

"It's a little bit lonesome since she died," Baumann, 84, said yesterday at the Baldwin, L.I., ranch house where the couple lived for almost 50 years. "Florence had a lot of charisma. Everybody loved her.

"She was my only girl."

The grandfather of three, who grew up in Ridgewood, Queens, and spent World War II in an Army tank-transport unit in France, decided to refinance the house where he and Florence, a former secretary, raised their two kids.

He wanted to clear up debt he'd incurred to help out his family.

The couple closed on the loan on May 7 and went out for dinner that night for a double celebration - it was also their wedding anniversary.

Florence, 82, died of a heart attack on May 12. On May 13, Hanover said it wouldn't fund the mortgage. Baumann doesn't understand why.

Five-sixths of the couple's joint income comes from his Social Security and pension payments. He worked at the city Department of Environmental Protection for nearly 30 years and was in charge of the Jamaica, Queens, water pollution control plant before he retired.

"The bank wouldn't be taking any risk by lending to me," said Baumann, who has an excellent credit score of 794. "It's not like I'm going to lose my job."

The $1,475 monthly mortgage payment on the 30-year fixed-rate loan would have been $1,800 less than what he'd been shelling out before the refinancing.

Wait--what happened to the dreaded "Death Cross?"

Remember how Goldman was afraid of it? And they pimped things down, just when you should have been buying?

The picture above was the place of the skull, golgotha.

Still the only cross that matters!

These Wall Street fear mongers are just that!

Fear mongers!

Afraid of the cross!

"What say ye bears????"

Remember this post? It was a wonderful story in the WSJ how corporations were ready to spend some cash.

Oh my!! That was just last week!  CREE closed that day at 68, after hitting a low of 64. It's now 76.

 OMX a week ago was 12. It's now 15.

And now today, they'll take up ODP which is following OMX's footsteps!

Oh My!!

I ask again--"What say ye bears?"

As advertised!!!

Dupont beats and raises

And Jefferies pimps it:

DuPont shares up 4.8% premarket at $40.85 after solid second-quarter earnings and company’s increased EPS outlook. “Each cycle, DuPont presents two opportunities to investors,” Jefferies says. “As an early cyclical bellwether, it should rally before the economy turns. As a diversified conglomerate, it has the perennial promise of transformation and revival. Neither is fully priced in, in our view.” Jefferies listening on conference call for updates on productivity; outlook for raw materials vs pricing; forex impact; end market trends; and potential M&A, among other things.

Sorry bears---stocks are cheap--so look forward to PE expansions, as earnings going forward will be bid up more by investors.

Wait---what was the bearish case again?

Oh My!!!

Turn $45 into $200 million with a garage sale find of Ansel Adams photos!

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Rick Norsigian's hobby of picking through piles of unwanted items at garage sales in search of antiques has paid off for the Fresno, California, painter.

Two small boxes he bought 10 years ago for $45 -- negotiated down from $70 -- are now estimated to be worth at least $200 million, according to a Beverly Hills art appraiser.

Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career. Experts believed the negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that destroyed 5,000 plates.

"It truly is a missing link of Ansel Adams and history and his career," said David W. Streets, the appraiser and art dealer who is hosting an unveiling of the photographs at his Beverly Hills, California, gallery Tuesday.

The photographs apparently were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, well before Adams -- who is known as the father of American photography -- became nationally recognized in the 1940s, Streets said.

"This is going to show the world the evolution of his eye, of his talent, of his skill, his gift, but also his legacy," Streets said. "And it's a portion that we thought had been destroyed in the studio fire."

How these 6.5 x 8.5 inch glass plate negatives of famous Yosemite landscapes and San Francisco landmarks -- some of them with fire damage -- made their way from Adams collection 70 years ago to a Southern California garage sale in 2000 can only be guessed.

The person who sold them to Norsigian at the garage sale told him he bought them in the 1940s at a warehouse salvage in Los Angeles.

Photography expert Patrick Alt, who helped confirm the authenticity of the negatives, suspects Adams carried them to use in a photography class he was teaching in Pasadena, California, in the early 1940s.

"It is my belief that he brought these negatives with him for teaching purposes and to show students how to not let their negatives be engulfed in a fire," Alt said. "I think this clearly explains the range of work in these negatives, from very early pictorialist boat pictures, to images not as successful, to images of the highest level of his work during this time period."

Alt said it is impossible to know why Adams would store them in Pasadena and never reclaim them.

The plates were individually wrapped in newspaper inside deteriorating manila envelopes. Notations on each envelope appeared to have been made by Virginia Adams, the photographer's wife, according to handwriting experts Michael Nattenberg and Marcel Matley. They compared them to samples provided by the Adams' grandson.

While most of the negatives appear never to have been printed, several are nearly identical to well-known Adams prints, the experts said.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Hays: This may finally be the bottom

It's the double implant booty bottom!!


Double implant booty bottom -

For the nitpicker bears

Yeh I flipped some high beta NAZ names and my calls on the S&P as I think they'll come in a bit even though I am a long term bull, I'm more of a short term trader!!

Deal with it!

Time to scalp AMZN for a short

The stock traded down to 105 after earnings and then traded up to 118.  I think this number can come in here.

The chart sucks!!

Oh My!!! Bill Gross now is talking up stocks????

Oh My!! What will the bears say now? First it was Rosie, and now it's PIMCO's Bill Gross!!

Bill Gross, who runs the world's biggest mutual fund, takes a seat in a conference room and makes a confession. Overlooking the ocean at the headquarters of Pacific Investment Management Co., Gross describes missteps that doomed his bond firm's earlier experiment with equities.

At meetings where Pimco set its strategies, Gross's bond traders overwhelmed the firm's handful of equity managers, shooting down their bullish arguments promoting stocks. With limited freedom to pursue their investing ideas, the equity managers quit after about two years.

"Those sessions basically said, 'Hey, we're a bond shop. This is what we're going to do. It's the party line,' " said Gross, 66, "If I've been a problem, then I can be the solution in terms of allowing equity investments to grow and prosper."

Pimco, which has been synonymous with bonds for almost four decades, is taking another run at equities. It might not be the most propitious time to plunge into stocks. Volatility, as measured by the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, was at a 14-month high in late May, as the sovereign debt crisis swept through Europe.

Driving Pimco's move into equities is its chief executive, Mohamed El-Erian, who says the global economy is entering a period of fundamental transformation he calls the "new normal."

El-Erian says mounting deficits and tighter financial regulation will dampen growth in the United States and the euro zone for the next three to five years. Emerging-market nations such as Brazil and China, with stable levels of government debt and expanding middle classes, should continue to thrive, he said.

In the new normal, investors will be faced with anemic returns and they'll seek alternatives, said El-Erian, who's embracing several new asset classes. In the past year, he's presided over the creation of an equity mutual fund and a unit to invest in hedge, real estate and buyout funds. Pimco has also started 10 exchange-traded funds, or ETFs.

"We are living through a remarkable time of change," said El-Erian, 51, who shares the title of chief investment officer with Gross. "We want to make sure we navigate the changes for our clients."

Not everyone agrees with this analysis from Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pimco. Some U.S. Cabinet officials and securities analysts said El-Erian's new normal is off the mark.

End to bond rally

More than 2,000 forecasters set price estimates showing the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index will jump 26 percent in the 12 months through May 2011 as corporate profits rise, according to data compiled by Bloomberg....

(the rest of the 5 page article at WaPo)

Weekly Corporate Calendar

Corporate Events Calendar

·         Mon Jul 26: earnings before the open (Luxottica, Reckitt Benckiser, Pearson, SOHU, SVVS, LO, ACV); earnings after the close (SANM, PLT, ACL, PCL, VECO, VLTR, SLG, BEC, ZRAN, CR, RRC, UHS, MAS, RKT, ACGL, LM, RGA)

·         Tues Jul 27: earnings before the open (BP, DB, UBS, SAP, Danone, Xstrata, Misys, Arm Holdings, Daimler, Deutsche Borse, TMO, LXK, ODP, X, AKS, DD, LII, RCI, PCAR, UIS, CPO, OXY, TIN, TEVA, LLL, LMT, JEC, PVTB, ABC, CIT, WXS, KSU, VLO, CMI, TLAB, NDAQ); earnings after the close (NATI, ACE, TCK, NSC, KIM, ENH, DWA, BRCM, IGT, NBR, WBSN, CENX, NLC, CBG, CHH, AJG, PMTC, DST, MEE, AFL, BLKB, BXP, RFMD, CEPH, CHRW, AET)

·         Wed Jul 28: earnings before the open (AUO, MT, Wincor Nixdorf, CSR, VMED, Infineon, Carphone Warehouse, British American Tobacco, Sage Group, IP, TBL, LAZ, AVX, GLW, HES, CMCSA, PX, ROK, CCE, HSP, ID, NEM, IACI, GD, ARW, D, ATI, SLAB, WLP, S, PFCB, CP, BA, SO, NYB, COP, AVY); earnings after the close (AKAM, BMC, CDNS, EQIX, WSH, CTXS, AMP, CERN, CINF, RE, V, SYMC, CYH, LSI, RNOW, DRIV, NEWP, GSIC, ESRX, CTV, LNC, CLF, AIZ, EFX, VRTX, TER, LOGI) 

·         Thurs Jul 29: earnings before the open (Telefonica, Merck KGaA, Publicis, France Telecom, Santander, Dassault, Volkswagen, BAE Systems, Bayer, Sanofi, RDS, Siemens, AZN, TSM, MCO, MYL, DBD, IPG, MJN, IRM, TEN, TYC, STRA, CAB, DPS, DIN, LIFE, ADP, IMAX, SCOR, CME, COV, GR, RTN, MDP, Sony, CL, KBR, NIHD, CELG, DRE, NOC, G, BHE, LZ, POT, CRS, GT, BEN, PMI, MOT, K, XOM, RSH); earnings after the close (KLAC, MFE, WFR, QSFT, VALE, IM, AMCC, SYNA, ARBA, HLIT, TSRA, FSLR, PTV, GNW, ROVI, MET, APKT, VSEA, MXIM, Samsung, EXPE, TUNE, CAVM)

·         Fri Jul 30: earnings before the open (Total, Anglo American, ACI, NWL, CSE, AON, SPG, MCK, WY, UFS, CVX, MDC, FO, BWA, LPX, MRK, ALU, EADS, JCDecaux, British Airways, Nomura, ITT, ASX, Tokyo Electron, AXL)

Goldman's latest


Taleb: Deficts are the next black swan

What are are potential sources of fragility or danger that you're keeping an eye on?
 The massive one is government deficits....blah blah blah

You're saying that what is supposed to be the safest place to invest, government debt, is in some ways the most dangerous?
 Unless you invest in your own home currency in very short-term Treasury bills....blah blah blah

You want a black swan that you will really see? Natalie Portman dressed up as one, because Taleb's swan is as alive as the one in Larry David!



Taleb needs to curb his enthusiasm!!

FedEx increases earnings outlook

MEMPHIS, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX - News) today announced that it expects earnings to be in the range of $1.05 to $1.25 per diluted share for the first quarter ending August 31, up 81% to 116% from $0.58 per diluted share a year ago. The company’s previous guidance for the quarter was $0.85 to $1.05 per diluted share.

Of particular benefit to our earnings is the continued strong demand for our higher-margin FedEx International Priority® (IP) package and freight services, with IP package volumes expected to grow more than 20% again this quarter. Customers are favorably responding to our superior service offerings, the capabilities of our unparalleled global network and the best-in-market cut-off times we now offer from numerous points in Asia.”

FedEx is also restoring the 401K match, and Kinko's is the go between place for those unemployed who don't yet have an office.

UPS upgrades outlook last week, and now this week it's FedEx.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Woman robs McDonalds with a spanx girdle for a mask

An unemployed woman who said she was desperate for money has been arrested on charges she robbed an Oklahoma McDonald's with a white stretch girdle wrapped around her face as a makeshift mask.

Authorities said 51-year-old Sharon Lain of Midwest City admitted to being the underwear-masked bandit who made off with the contents of a cash drawer from the fast-food restaurant around 3 a.m. Tuesday.

A surveillance video captured the woman on tape and was broadcast on local television, prompting several tips that led police to a condemned home on Wednesday night where Lain was found living, said Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes.

Police found the underwear - a white stretch girdle known as 'spanx' - along with illegal drugs, including methamphetamine.

Strippers at Shotgun Willie's are trained by Disney


BAR: SHOTGUN WILLIE'S
Shotgun Willie's, 490 S. Colorado Blvd., is Denver's iconic topless bar. It's been taking it off since 1982, and it takes its name from Willie Nelson's album "Shotgun Willie." Walking into the peeler palladium is like driving into a mountain tunnel on a sunny day. It's so dark, at first you're blind, even wary. As your vision adjusts, you start to see — and you see a lot at "The Gun," as regulars call it. Women dance on seven stages; a few give "table dances" to gents on the sidelines; signage clearly says "$20 PER SONG." Solo men, and groups of them, gawk, smoke cigars, eat, drink and tip. It's a house of mirrors and black lights. The waitresses are in fishnet stockings, never to take a shift at Denny's.

BH: How do you teach them?

Matthews: We have seminars for the new girls and rotate girls who have been here awhile. They learn how to speak to somebody, how to focus on somebody. We send our managers to the Disney Institute for customer service. Think about it: They've been trained by Mickey Mouse.


Matthews: I love to read. I have a Kindle, and I love it. We have a book club for the staff called Strip It Down. We meet once a week. It's a conservative reading group.

BH: Well. What do you read?

Matthews: Friedrich Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit," "Super Freakonomics," the Federalist Papers. We talk about the prisoner's dilemma (a philosophical question about human behavior).

Another double implant booty bottom shaping up

And it's in BAC, a number that I have some cheap calls on, and so I guess it's time to pump it!

Oh My!!

I got a text the other day, from a hedge fund in CA who assured me that BAC was now "dead money."

Oh My!! Come on, it was just the HFT boys ganging up on Paulson's position, coupled with the negative spin on earnings.

But if you ever wanted to buy BAC, you need to do it now!!


Because this is another number that is going on the double implant booty bottom list!

And those short?

They'll be spanxed and left holding that bag!

Oh My! J Crew bounces off the double implant booty bottom!!!

Wait--What happened? Didn't Obama sign the extension for unemployment benefits? And isn't the Obama stock JCG? Well at least it was on this blog, but first let's check out it's chart.

How does that graph look now? Anyone get behind the double implant booty bottom besides myself??

It was Free Money!!!


And how did that chart look on Monday? Take a look at it below!

That my friends, is what a double implant booty  bottom looks like!!!

As Advertised!!!

Monday, July 19, 2010


The Obama indicator

The "Obama" stock has been J. Crew Group, which now sports a double bottom.

Which means no matter how much stimulus that needs to be pumped into this economy to get the Democrats off their back---will be done--starting with the passage of extended unemployment benefits.

Even if you need booty implants to get the job done!

Oh My!! David Rosenberg outlines the bullish scenario


Oh My!!!! Looks like the bull isn't meat for you bears!! And the sausage from the meat grinder is now pork!! You bears got too piggish!!!

Wait??? Wasn't that advertised here?? Oh My!!!!

David Rosenberg's bullish scenario
– Congress extending jobless benefits (yet again).
– Polls showing the GOP can take the House and the Senate in November.
– Some Democrats now want the tax hikes for 2011 to be delayed.
– Cap and trade is dead.
– Cameron’s popularity in the U.K. and market reaction there is setting an example for others regarding budgetary reform.
– China’s success in curbing its property bubble without bursting it.
– Growing confidence that the emerging markets, especially in Asia and Latin America, will be able to ‘decouple’ this time around. We heard this from more than just one CEO on our recent trip to NYC and Asian thumbprints were all over the positive news these past few weeks out of the likes of FedEx and UPS.
– Renewed stability in Eurozone debt and money markets – including successful bond auctions amongst the Club Med members.
– Clarity with respect to European bank vulnerability.
– Signs that consumer credit delinquency rates in the U.S. are rolling over.
– Mortgage delinquencies down five quarters in a row in California to a three-year low.
– The BP oil spill moving off the front pages.
– The financial regulation bill behind us and Goldman deciding to settle –more uncertainty out of the way.
– Widespread refutation of the ECRI as a leading indicator … even among the architects of the index! There is tremendous conviction now that a double-dip will be averted, even though 85% of the data releases in the past month have come in below expectations.
– Earnings season living up to expectations, especially among some key large-caps in the tech/industrial space – Microsoft, AT&T, CAT, and 3M are being viewed as game changers (especially 3M’s upped guidance). Even the airlines are reporting ripping results.
– Bernanke indicating that he can and will become more aggressive at stimulating monetary policy if he feels the need and yesterday urging the government to refrain from tightening fiscal policy (including tax hikes).
– Practically every street economist took a knife to Q2 and Q3 GDP growth, which has left PM’s believing we are into some sort of capitulation period where all the bad news is now “out there”.
(He then still talks a bearish because it's a rally in a bear market blah blah blah...but really--now that we are back over 1100, he sees something? Last I checked, when we were at 1023, he was looking for 880 on the S&P.

What say ye bears??? Hah hah!!! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!!! Did you eat the sausage that your stroking geniuses were serving? Maybe some indigestion now with that????)

From our lens, this is still a meat-grinder of a market. The bulls have the upper hand, but only until the next shoe drops in this modern-day depression and post-bubble credit collapse. The S&P 500 is still down 2% for the year, the Dow by 1%, the FT-SE and Nikkei by 11%, the Hang Seng by 5% and China by over 20%.

Friday, July 23, 2010

S&P at 1100?? Whoa--What happened bears?????

At you probably don't want to hear me blasting bullishness so I'll let someone do it for me in charts and pictures!!

Because Lord knows the bears have such a thin skin under that furry coat!!!


hayes market focus_2_ -
Get long or be wrong!!!!

Booking BUCY again!!

As Advertised!!! The easiest stock to trade on the big board!! Always giving me Free Money!!!

Bought it at 50.39 as advertised here and panned by the blow hard bears when it dipped a few days later.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Buy BUCY!!!!!

The stock pulled in to 50.39.

Take it now!!!!!

"They" are just trying to make a sell candle on the stock!

Oh My!!!

Blow it back at them and buy the stock!!
 ---------------------
Well blowhards--blow it out your *ss!!

23% in a month!  \

As Advertised!!

How real estate "securitization" works in China

Last week Fitch said that "informal securitization" is distorting credit Data.

Today Bloomberg says that maybe only 23% of the $1.1 trillion that Chinese banks lent out may be recouped:

Chinese banks may struggle to recoup about 23 percent of the 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) they’ve lent to finance local government infrastructure projects, according to a person with knowledge of data collected by the nation’s regulator.

About half of all loans need to be serviced by secondary sources including guarantors because the ventures can’t generate sufficient revenue, the person said, declining to be identified because the information is confidential. The China Banking Regulatory Commission has told banks to write off non-performing project loans by the end of this year, the person said.

Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang said this week borrowing by the so-called local government financing vehicles may threaten the banking industry. The nation’s five-largest banks, including Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., plan to raise as much as $53.5 billion to replenish capital after the sector extended a record $1.4 trillion in credit last year.

Local governments set up the financing vehicles to fund projects such as highways and airports due to limits on their ability to directly borrow money. The central government this year restricted borrowing on concern money isn’t being used for viable projects.

Only 27 percent of the loans to the financing vehicles can be repaid in full by cash generated by the projects they funded, the person said.

Here's a different take on the loan shark business in China. Now who would think the Chinese would engage in a real estate scam using a different take on an old racket??


The shark loan industry is mostly underground, and it’s sources can be low interest loan from banks, cash from state owned enterprises, and private savings. The shark loan operator then lends the money out to real estate developers or other domestic private firms.

There are two major pourposes for shark loans. One is to flip flop the real estate, and another is to lend to private firms with maturing bank loans. As mentioned in previous posts, the common lending practice of Chinese banks has a maturity of one year, and so the borrowers need to renew the loans every year if the old loan are to be paid. So many private firms that can’t pay back their loans since the cash flow from their regular business will not be enough to pay back the principal, are borrowing from shark loan operators at extreme high interest rates with very short durations. They then turn to the bank, repay the old loan and get a new loan for the next year.

Every day there are more and more real estate developers and other businesses that are resorting to loan sharks to manage through the hard times .But this is a short term solution for a long term problem. And like every drug addict, one day comes rehab or death.

If the real estate market remains stagnated for long enough, or if the banks stopped to issue new loans at an ever accelerating pace, many businesses will collapse. Even today, some relatively tight lending standards are causing some ponzi schemes to collapse, like the one of Tang long.

A larger percentage of China’s real estate sales are in reality fake since they are made with the purpose of obtaining the flow of bank loans before real sales happen. Through this arrangement, the developer and the shark lender make sure that the bank will bear the ultimate risk.

Western investors doubt this criminal activity since they do not understand the true nature of China’s society, or any totalitarian regime for that matter. But China is not a democracy; it is semi communist, semi fascist regime that is running a planned economy. All the banks are state owned, and as I mentioned in The Harsh Reality behind China’s Growth Story:

The root of the problem is the same: more loan growth can benefit the borrower, the banking executive, and the local government officials. The return of capital and the potential loss of the principal is always a secondary consideration, especially when the loan are issued to the state owned enterprises or well connected “too big to fail” private businesses. Who cares? The banks are state owned banks, and the capital is state capital.