Monthly Archives: October 2006

Third quarter gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent according to advance estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This was a slowdown from 2.6 percent in the second quarter. “Real” estimates are in chained (2000) dollars. Inquiring minds might be wondering whether or not we are headed for a...
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Countering, the Alice in Wonderland view of “things”, were the comments by Autonation (the largest auto dealer in the US) in it’s conference call explaining why they were slashing orders to the Big Three by 30%. AN advised the auto makers to “move into the real world”, pointing out that Detroit estimates inventories on...
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Some interesting takeaway comments from this Bloomberg article: -Available money is encouraging “barely profitable and highly risky'’ investments, French Finance Thierryr Thierry Breton said last month. -Interest rates in the main economies have still not been raised enough,'’ Congdonm Congdon, visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and one of the “wise men'’ who advised...
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Financial entities now seem hard at work inflating earnings via some largely undisclosed version of (problem?) securities sales, and ratcheting up “fees” to customers. Of course my suspicion is that these transactions are conducted with Enron style off-balance sheet entities, or quasi-related hedge fund operators. But, we aren’t going to get even close...
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“Carl Jung, remarked that “people cannot stand too much reality.” . How true, but we’ve now reached a new threshold in America, people can’t stand ANY reality. -Wal Mart today said sales at established U.S. stores rose an estimated 0.5%, far off the 2-to-4% gain the company originally forecast for ...
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Stay calm, all is well. - Kevin Bacon, Animal House The market acts not just calm/well, but absolutely comatose. To measure just how much so, I’m running two charts courtesy of Contrary Investor. If you are a CI sub, make sure you read their Thursday commentary. The charts speak for themselves. VIX,...
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Have been scanning the conference call archives, and Monster comments on US job market. Clearly the sickness industry perp is a key driver, as is financial paper shuffling. Takes intelligent personnel to doctor diabetics and financial Ponzi scams. Mark Stoever: The unemployment rate in North America is clearly at relative lows to historical patterns and...
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Michael McDonald, writing for Bloomberg is talking about What Fidelity Knows About Bernanke That Gross Doesn’t. Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., says Treasuries maturing in less than two years will lead a market rally next year as the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates. George Fischer,...
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Is the urban commercial sprawl game on it’s last legs? Are the purveyors of this strategy waking up to the future realities. Opponents of urban and town edge commercial megastore development put their arguments succinctly as: The 10 sins of retail sprawl * It destroys the economic and environmental value of land * It encourages an inefficient...
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The market took a breather on Tuesday, as it waited for the Fed announcement. The stock screen data showed a small uptick. Click here to download complete report in pdf format (Professional Edition Subscribers). Try the Professional Edition ri...
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The Fed needs to supply a lot more grease by Thursday or there will be trouble as the new issues settle. Interest rates continued to move higher today. The stock market finally wobbled a bit under the building liquidity pressure. Click here to dow...
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Countrywide reported third-quarter profit rose 2 percent, less than analysts expected, as demand for home loans slumped. The company’s shares surged higher on plans to lay off more than 2,500 employees and buy back up to $2.5 billion of stock, and as higher profits in other units, including Countrywide Bank, cushioned the mortgage decline....
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With the Sow Jones now over 12,000--2% higher than it was 6 years ago--the financial media is back interviewing all the guys who wrote those "Dow 36,000" and "Dow 100,000" books back during the bubble years. Not surprisingly, they're still wild...
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There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them. -Charles Caleb Colton (Lacon, 1825) Near the top of the Pig Men perps in this cycle are stock buybacks. There will be an estimated $500 billion in corporate cash spent on share purchases in 2006. Intellectually,...
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Most broad market indicators continue to whipsaw around high levels. The SPX is almost at the top of the intermediate trend channels again, and it has pierced a major long term trendline. The more separation the market creates from that trendline ...
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Now that the Treasury is back to beggaring the markets, rates are moving higher, ratcheting upward again at today's auctions. The stock market was able to ignore the building liquidity pressure, as call writers bought back the long side of their h...
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It what I believe will be a broken record, some firms are digging through their derivatives minefields and coming clean on “accounting issues.. As long as the cognoscenti can play Alice in Wonderland make believe, it apparently doesn’t really matter. Ford is already a weakened, bleeding company, with massive credit swaps written against it,...
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On October 13th & 14th I attended the Chicago Natural Resources Conference. If you have not been to a mining/minerals or natural resources conference you owe it to yourself to do so. I had the pleasure of sitting on two Q&A panels along with Bob Moriarty of 321gold.com, Clyde Harrison of Brookshire Raw Materials...
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With the Dow now trading above long term cycle moving averages, all of which are still in gear to the upside, the bulls continue to have momentum in their favor. Compared with recent long term cycles, this one lacks power, but it is not unlike the...
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Reommended interview with David Levy nails the points.

Pre-election non-partisan book reads:

Take this Job and Shove It

Donkey ConsRead More »

Barrons is out with their version of "Dewey Defeats Truman" this weekend: "Survivor: The GOP Victory" "The GOP Will Hang On" "Jubilant Democrats should reconsider their order for confetti and noisemakers. Even some Republicans privately...
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With the market continuing to churn on Friday, cycle based screen data weakened for the fourth day in a row. But we have seen this before. Click here to download complete report in pdf format (Professional Edition Subscribers). Try the Profess...
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I don't normally make market calls, but I believe the market was set up to tank Friday, based on the liquidity factors I described in that day's blog. Then, almost on cue, the Fed showed with a very large coupon pass, and the markets stabilized and turned on dime.  Just like using a charcoal...
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