Archive for October, 2009

  • Deep Market Thoughts…Goldman Sachs Upgrades Banks and I Downgrade SEC, Obama, Geithner, Barney Frank…

    Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

    While the Goldman Sachs hate continues we should be ashamed of our leaders for not making the most basic of fixes to our financial system. Goldman and it’s greedy, smart, connected leaders are not the problem. The system in place is broken.

    To make financial capitalism and democracy work again, we first need TRUST. It’s hard to stomach/believe believe that the most basic steps are being neglected in the rebuilding of that trust.

    The fact that ANY bank/investment bank is allowed to offer public research anymore is a crime. Having a sales desk mixed with research did not work. The ‘Chinese’ wall was always a laughable idea and the fact that it was named ‘Chinese’…well… I want TRUST to come back to the markets as people will take more risk and we all win.

    While you could easily argue that George Soros has a vested interest in saying our banks are broke and the consumer is also bankrupt, it is easier to believe that George Soros has an obvious interest in saying it. He is either short, or in cash and just worried about the health of the financial system.

    If Goldman is saying banks are an upgrade, I sure as hell don’t trust their motives. The fact they can truly move markets and be on both sides of the trade is after what we have seen…ridiculous. It’s negligent and until it stops, we get the financial system we deserve. The few banks left will get bigger and the weak will continue to default on their ‘TARP’ payments.

    People look at the daytraders coming back to the market and the growth of poker as a bad thing. To me it just seems inevitable as people lose their jobs, gambling and trading become American’s most honest, least rigged way to make a buck.

    Technology is changing the way certain industry shenaningans worked for sure. If a movie really sucks balls, do you think Hollywood would tell you? You think the newspapers/media websites won’t pull a ‘Scintillating’ or ‘Riveted’ quote from Peter Travers of Rolling Stones to nudge you to the theatres.

    Now Twitter, blogging is changing the way all that bullshit worked. With those changes comes new problems of course. NONE of which the FTC/SEC is up to date with.

    After 9/11 every cop and FBI agent was pulled off their duties to chase terrorists.

    We just had a financial terrorist attack on America and the terrorists lived. They are still making the rules. The FTC is chasing bloggers . The SEC will likely chase bloggers too. Much easier than fighting the real criminals right in front of them.

    While the public may be broke at the moment, we need them saving and investing, and they need to trust their cash will be there for them. If they want to trade and gamble, we should teach them how to, not run them over before they can get started.

    I know the system can be fixed, but in the meantime you have to respect the gaming of the system and invest accordingly.

    For me thats underinvested in equities and overinvested in MYSELF, Gold, Commodities and web start-ups.

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  • StockTwits Bull Bear Survey

    Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

    Predict what the $SPX will do over the course of the next week! Please respond to this survey before mightnight on Sunday, October 11th:

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  • Evil is the Buzzword in Corporate America…BUT…Maybe we are Just DUMB!

    Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

    Does it pay to be evil?

    Are we paying the price for just being dumb?

    Plato said that there are relatively few ways to do good, but there are countless ways to do evil. Plato rocks.

    Wikipedia has some really good discussion topics on evil , but they are evil according to Britannica, so must be conflicted.

    Evil peaked – according to Google Trends – in March 2009 as the stock market bottomed.

    Dumb has no bottom and nobody talks about it searches for it . Hmmmm…

    Google $goog says they are not evil….so you know they are pure evil.

    I heard some Twitter ( $twit ) people joking around that they are only 4 percent evil. The fact that they must now grow into a $1 billion market cap, means that 4 percent evil is going to be impossible. They will need to beef up their evil game faces.

    If you are a tech guy or engineer, Steve Jobs is 100 percent EVIL. I love Steve Jobs for that but only because I don’t have to work for him.

    If you are Microsoft/Bill Gates you were once 100 percent pure evil, now…just a laughingstock (hat tip Steve Ballmer).

    My partner Soren thinks Goldman Sachs is 140 percent evil as they have actually used leverage to increase their evil. Soren is a poet and an artist as that’s just funny.

    All the evil talk is a misdirection. Jesus H. Christ, pretty boy Dylan Ratigan is talking about Corporate Communism in the United States . The fact that he has a stage for the nonsense is the only evil thing going on in his world.

    Seems like we are dumb for not just owning evil.

    Plato was right.

    I would just add that it only takes one dumb guy with power to trump all the evil in the world.

    We have two economic problems right now and they are beautifully covered in a great post from Gregor Macdonald ( a must blog read all the time on macroeconomics without the hype) and I quickly summarize:

    1. Americans are trapped by their debt

    2. We have failed thinkers promoting failed playbooks.

    We are in trouble because we are dumb, not because of any of the evil above.

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  • Deep Market Thoughts…The ‘FOUR TELLS’…Interest Rates, US Dollar, Goldman Sachs and Apple

    Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

    The market is just trending. When it’s trending you can’t think.

    When it’s trending you just want to own the strongest stocks. Right now most are from China and while you can’t make sense of it as you can’t touch and feel their products everyday, it’s just the way it is. I own a few $ntes and $pwrd and I will never visit their HQ or likely use their products.

    Mobile is strong ( I own $infa and $swks) as is healthcare, biotech, pets (long $neog, $pets) and some commodities.

    It is never easy owning stocks that you can’t explain the growth. For me that’s oil, gold and other commodities. The stock price increases though are textbook based on the monetary policy and interest rate environment. The FED is printing money, interest rates are declining and the US dollar continues to hit lows. Since I am not a macroeconmic lover and don’t trust the government to do ANYTHING sane, I participate but just in a light way. It’s why I have ridden Gold, Silver and the Canadian Dollar for so long…even through the huge declines along the way the last few years. When you own policy driven stocks and industries, you stick with them as along as the policies remain in place.

    When I buy growth stocks, and it’s obvious you need to own some based on the price action, you listen to nothing except the price action. Money management absolutley rules.

    I am looking to own my big positions in the growth stocks that I can truly see and feel the ‘catalysts’.

    Apple is one such stock I am revisiting for the umpteenth time. They continue to have multiple catalysts. It is for the moment unstoppable. Baidu, Google, Amazon and Goldman Sachs are the other big names with multiple catalysts. I don’t own Goldman, but I bought back Google and Baidu today. Goldman is not for me.

    Try and keep it simple right now. Unfortunately, this is as easy as the market gets.

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  • Facebook Has a Happy Index so Stocktwits Launches A How F*#@ked We Are Index

    Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

    Facebook has created a Happiness Index and I am giddy. Now I know without a doubt the two saddest days of the last year on Facebook were the days Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson died.

    Over on Stocktwits, the most rewteeted post of the day was from The Daily Reckoning:

    ‘Welcome to Zombieland – If this recovery continues much longer we will all be unemployed’.

    Whether you except Facebook data or Stocktwits data, both point to us being goners as a civilization.

    I like the way we got to the conclusion over Facebook’s…

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