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by ilene - July 4th, 2009 1:09 pm
Deceit, otherwise known as burying unrelated provisions in bills at the last moment, hoping no one will see them, like the Lilly Protection Act in the Homeland Security Bill, reflects very poorly on Congress but appears to be the way things are done. - Ilene
The well-placed and well-connected are set to make trillions off new climate bill; economic collapse about to accelerate
Courtesy of James Corbett
The Corbett Report
The sweeping new bill which just passed the House last Friday, the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is ostensibly about climate change, but it is in fact a bill of staggering economic ramifications that is going to accelerate the takeover of the economy by the well-placed financiers who have already plundered the Treasury and the Fed of $12+ trillion and counting. It was rushed through the House in the tradition of such nightmarish legislation as the Patriot Act and the banker bailout of last October: hundreds of pages were added to it at the last minute and it was humanly impossible for anyone to have read it before they voted on it. This, of course, is exactly what Obama promised his administration would never allow to happen, and for good reason; bills passed in this manner are always the result of fear and panic and inevitably results in legislation that would never be passed upon sober second thought.
In this case, the rush to pass this new bill was an attempt to stop any scrutiny of a plan that is going to utterly transform the American economy, further centralize control of citizens’ lives in the hands of unaccountable federal bureaucrats and complete the transfer of the American economy from Main Street to Wall Street. And all of this in the name of fighting a threat which itself is a demonstrable fraud. In short, the banksters and bureaucrats are sharpening their knives, preparing to butcher what’s left of the carcass of the United States, and a good portion of the public are not only willing to allow it but are actually clamoring for it.
The first thing that needs to be understood about the brand new trillion dollar carbon-trading commodities market that will be brought into existence if this bill passes the Senate is that it is a ripoff designed by and for the very corporate interests the environmentalists claim to be fighting. For an historical precedent of what is being proposed under this cap-and-trade scam one…
Tags: Al Gore, Cap and Trade, Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, Global warming, The Corbett Report
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by ilene - July 4th, 2009 1:01 am
Courtesy of Mish
Inquiring minds are reading S.E.C. May Reinstate Rules for Short-Selling Stocks.
They have been reviled as the bad hats of Wall Street, nefarious traders who cashed in on the market collapse and, some insist, helped precipitate it.
Now short-sellers, the market skeptics who correctly called last year’s downturn, are coming under even more unwanted scrutiny, this time from federal regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission appears poised to reverse itself and reinstate rules that would make shorting stocks — that is, betting their prices will decline — somewhat more difficult.
Many banks, whose stocks came under attack last autumn, maintain that unfettered short-selling is dangerous. The shorts, their argument goes, helped bring down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers last year.
Mary L. Schapiro, chairwoman of the S.E.C., has said that considering new rules restricting short-selling is a priority.
For the moment, the most likely outcome may be for the S.E.C. to reinstate a rule that the commission itself abolished with a unanimous vote in 2007, under its previous chairman, Christopher S. Cox. Known as the uptick rule, it would bar investors from shorting a stock until its price ticks at least a penny above its previous trading price.
To some, the issue is clear-cut. The American Bankers Association, a trade group representing the vast majority of American banks — whose equity values have been especially battered in the last 18 months — recently submitted an opinion in favor of reinstating the short-sale restrictions.
Sally Miller, a spokesman for the A.B.A., said the member banks thought there was a clear link between the market turmoil and the rule change.
The American Bankers Association Group of Idiots
What brought down the banks was excessive leverage (40-1 or greater at Bear Stearns and Lehman), excessive dependence on real estate investments (both residential mortgages and commercial real estate), lax lending standards, off balance sheet investments ($1 Trillion at Citigroup alone), and a host of other piss poor discretions.
If the American Bankers Association wants to place the blame on who is responsible for this mess they ought to look straight in the mirror and blame themselves.
Moreover, Sally Miller is obviously a complete dunce as to how stock markets work. sally says there is a "clear link between the market turmoil and the rule change". Hello Sally, correlation does not imply causation.
The rooster crows at the crack of dawn every day and the sun comes…
Tags: reinstatement of short-selling restrictions, SEC, short-selling
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by David Fry - July 3rd, 2009 11:50 pm
Dave Fry’s ETF Digest, July 2, 2009
Maybe, maybe not—this is all I can say since bulls have repeatedly demonstrated their “energizer bunny” quality. Maybe over the weekend investors will forget about the sting of today’s drop as no doubt the powers that be will roll-out their spokesmen to cheer everyone up.
This action is why over roughly the past two months our cash balances have been high. Once we got the weekly DeMark sequential 9 counts we were expecting a reaction. Sometimes we just move in a herky-jerky manner sideways while in other circumstances we get an immediate impact. If the trends are very strong then the DeMark 9 can be blown away and that’s the tricky part—how to get back in. But, never mind that for now, let’s look again.
Volume has been higher on down days and you can assuredly know that breadth both sucked and blowed today.
The longer-term Summation Index (not updated with today’s data) no doubt restarted its recently paused rollover.
Our podcast/video interview with the EMM (Emerging Markets Monitor) should be posted sometime this evening or early tomorrow morning for you listening pleasure. These are smart folks and have done a good job in providing thoughtful analysis regarding global markets. You should listen despite some inferior sound quality.
Two articles caught my attention these past few days. The first describes how FNM and FRE are starting to provide 125% mortgage loans. Isn’t this type of activity what got us in trouble in the first place? The next is an amusing expose from the WSJ (subscription required) outlining the inner workings of our friends at the Federal Reserve. You can see clearly from it who’s running the show there and on Wall Street.
We’ve kept a large cash reserve (70% more or less) for some time now. It’s a defensive posture clearly and reflects our lack of confidence in the mixed signals markets are presenting technically. When this is the situation sometimes it’s best to stand aside until things become clear.
For those of you long the markets in general, Mr. Market didn’t give us a happy send off to our country’s birthday. But, let’s see what happens next.
Disclaimer: Among other issues the ETF Digest maintains positions in: MDY, IWM, QQQQ, DBC, USL, XLE, DBB, EWZ and FXI.
The charts and comments are only the author’s view of market activity and aren’t recommendations to buy or sell…
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by ilene - July 3rd, 2009 7:23 pm
Here’s Karl Denninger’s mid-year review of his new year predictions, and thoughts on 2009 part 2.
Mid-Year 2009 Checkup
Courtesy of Karl at The Market Ticker
It doesn’t seem possible that six months have passed under the bridge of time in 2009 yet, does it? Yet they have.
Let’s take a look at the scorecard first from my 2009 Prediction Ticker, remembering of course that I have six months left!
- The economy will not recover in 2009. No sign of it yet, "green shooters" be damned. I predicted that U3 would reach 8% by the end of the year, it has exceeded that wildly, and is now 9.5%. U-6 also has exceeded my predicted value already.
- Deflation, not inflation, will become evident well beyond housing. Already has. CPI and PPI have come in with negative prints as has capital goods pricing.
- Housing prices will continue to decline. Yep.
- The Fed’s attempt to "pump liquidity" will be shown to be an abject failure. I’ll leave this one on the table for now; I believe the evidence is in, but I’m in the minority. Score this one as a "no result" as of yet.
- GDP will post a 12-month negative number. 12 months aren’t up yet, but we’re working on it!
- The Stock Market has not bottomed. Remember, this was made with the market around the 900 level. Major check; we declined to 666. My secondary prediction was a 50% trading range and a 5xx low; we missed that by 67 points, but I still have six months left. I’m sticking with this one.
- Precious metals will not be a safe haven. Oh Jim Sinclair! Where’s my $1,600+ gold price? (Or for some, their $5,000+ gold price?) Missing, that’s where. I know, I know, its all manipulation (instead of debt deflation.) Check.
- The Dollar will not collapse. Hasn’t yet.
- The pound or euro will be where the FX dislocation originates if it occurs. I predicted Par for both being a possibility, not happening yet. We’ll see what the next six months bring.
- The US Consumer will go from a negative savings rate to a seriously-positive one. I’m predicting 4% but it could go as high as 10%. Major double-check! We’re up close to 7% now. That’s a home run in any book.
- Commercial Real Estate will effectively collapse. The REITs have not yet imploded but the pricing and occupancy look like something that came out of the back end of a horse. Anyone got a finger to lend to push…
Tags: Commercial Real Estate, Economy, green shoots, Job losses, predictions, unemployment rates
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by ilene - July 3rd, 2009 4:36 pm
Courtesy of Henry Blodget at ClusterStock
Calculated Risk illustrates what we already knew: the bank stress tests weren’t nearly stressful enough.
The chart below looks at unemployment by quarter. The green bars are the "base case" in the stress tests (the most likely scenario, in the government’s opinion). The blue bars are the "adverse case" scenario–unlikely but possible. And the red bars are what’s actually happening (Q2 is a forecast).
The larger story here, unfortunately, is that the Obama administration continues to blow its credibility on the economy. By being too optimistic from the get-go, the administration is opening the door for critics and opponents who are already arguing that the Obama plan has failed.
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Calculated Risk has a bigger version of the chart and more thoughts here >
Tags: calculated risks, stress tests, unemployment
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by Phil - July 3rd, 2009 3:17 pm
By Travis W of PursuingWealth.com
Finding investing education advice for stock options trading can be a frustrating endeavor at times. New traders often share with me that it feels like the options trading community is a very tight-lipped community with a high price of admission. I’ve been through that process so I’d like to offer you some advice.
Learning to invest your own money is a journey, not a destination. It takes time, patience, and education. It’s a proactive journey for those who no longer desire to be a victim of the so called experts.
Over the years I’ve made enough mistakes and have had enough successes to know that the ability to master your money is not something that just happens. It takes a bit of work on your part.
Increasing your investment IQ is a key part, especially when you’re dealing with stock options. You have to find a qualified and trustworthy source for investing education. There’s quite a bit of hype out there so you have to filter out all the "noise".
You may have already searched online for information on stock options, or read a few books. Most people are drawn to options trading by the potential to create large sums of money in a short period of time. Here is my forewarning; having a great deal of head knowledge about stock options doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be a great trader. It’s going to take some real world practice.
Most of what I’ve learned about investing did not come from a classroom or a book; it came from real world experiences. I found people who were willing to give me unbiased investing education and I applied the knowledge through practice and a bit of trial and error.
Investing Education is your Financial Road Map
Investing education has a purpose in our lives like a map has a purpose to a traveler. A map can take you from point "A" to point "B" when you’re traveling. Investing education can take you from school loans, credit card debt, and no budget to debt-free with money to burn. It’s your financial map so to speak.
You could try to figure out options trading on your own, but if you’re smart and value your time you’ll find a map that can get you to your destination quicker. It’s extremely rare for me to meet someone who doesn’t want to provide additional income for their family, position themselves to retire early,…
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Tags: Education, Hedging, Options, stock
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by ilene - July 3rd, 2009 2:53 pm
Courtesy of Corey Rosenbloom at Afraid to Trade
It’s being broadly circulated around the analysis circles, but there appears to be a distinct Head and Shoulders forming on the daily chart of the S&P 500. I’m picking up volume and momentum divergences as well, hinting that lower prices are yet to come but let’s take a look at these structures and what they might mean for traders.
With today’s 3% free-fall (Trend Day Down) in the broader stock market, it appears now that the dominant technical pattern is the developing Head and Shoulders on the S&P 500.
It’s not guaranteed, of course, but according to classical technical analysis patterns, we would expect the next move in price to be a ‘magnet trade’ down to test key support about the 885 level in the index.
This support is strongly established as the February highs along with the May lows. This level also forms the “Neckline” of the expected reversal pattern.
A break (and clean close) below 880 could trigger a flood of short-sell orders (and stop-losses from buyers) which could create a ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ as traders and investors push price lower.
The classic measuring move is the distance from the Head to the Neckline (about 75 points) which is subtracted from the neckline at 885 to give us a target from 800 to 810 for the next level of possible pattern support.
Take a look at Volume, which has been steadily trailing lower as price has creeped its way higher. That serves as a non-confirmation of higher prices and hints at an impending reversal.
Finally, look at the 3/10 Momentum Oscillator - as price has been inching higher, the 3/10 Oscillator has been making lower highs along with price, and has even set-up the dreaded “Three Push” reversal pattern (a triple negative momentum divergence, which you see if you look closely).
As a caveat, there’s no guarantee price has to break these levels, and one astute reader (Michael) even noted in the comments of the prior post, because the Head and Shoulders pattern is so obvious, it might be ‘faded’ or fail to materialize because so many people are watching it. No one said trading had to be easy!
Until we see something different, this is the current price structure of the S&P 500 as we head into the holiday weekend.
Corey Rosenbloom, CMT
…
Tags: Divergences, Head and Shoulders, S&P 500, SPX
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by ilene - July 3rd, 2009 2:44 pm
Courtesy of Corey at Afraid to Trade
June’s monthly candle closed with a ‘doji’ at Fibonacci resistance - that’s a bearish development as we start the new month of July. Let’s take a look at the S&P 500 monthly chart to see its current structure.
We see the S&P 500 is still below levels from 1998 - in fact, price recently came into the 950 level which was prior support in late 1998 (and for the September spike-down in 2001).
Most importantly, we have come into the 38.2% Fibonacci resistance level of the May 2008 highs to the March 2009 lows - virtually to the point.
In combination with that, we have a bearish doji candle formation at overhead resistance - and as of June 2nd, we have a down-candle.
Don’t put so much emphasis on the two trading days in July as equal to the full months the other candles represent - but it’s telling.
If price continues in the direction it appears to be traveling (down), then we will have a confirmed reversal/retracement down off the 950 highs in mid-June.
Corey Rosenbloom, CMT
Afraid to Trade.com
Tags: Afraid to Trade, Corey, Monthly SP500 Chart
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by Phil - July 3rd, 2009 8:14 am
Wheee, what a great way to end the week!
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had gone into the day flipping our short firepower to BG $60 puts at $1.30 and TOT $55 puts at $1.20 as well as our remaining DIA $84 puts at .84. We went back to cash for the weekend but consider that the DIA $84 puts finished at $2.04 (up 142%), BG $60 puts finished at $2.10 (up 61%) and TOT $55 puts finished at $2.83 (135%) and you can see how even small allocations out of cash yield very nice one-day returns on put options. You do not have to take big risks to make big rewards, playing put options allows us to stay flexible and mainly in cash without "missing" too many market market moves.
We blew right through the upper targets I set in the morning and the Dow flew right down near enough our 8,250 (June lows) target that it looked bounceable, as the other indexes were holding up better than the Dow we felt we could play it for a small recovery over the weekend. We picked up some DIA $85 calls for .76 but elected not to DD at our scale-in target of .64 into the close as we already had bullish plays on ZION as well as Dow components AA, BA, GE and PFE, all longer-term plays that we are looking forward to adding to cheaper if they keep heading down. VLO and SNY were added in the afternoon as well as a UNG spread since they decided to just give it away at $13 again.
While we are just dipping our toes into some long posItions, it is the first time in a month we’ve been happy enough with the pricing to even take a chance. Of course we maintain our long put covers (just in case) but what’s the point of having protection if you have nothing to protect? On the whole, the volume simply wasn’t that impressive and we attribute much of this drop to people who were "shocked" that the economy isn’t as good as they thought it was (cough, Cramer fans, cough, cough) but it’s EXACTLY as weak as we thought it was and that means there are certain price points we are willing to hit long-term. Kudos to all who patiently waited with us for pretty much the whole month of June - now comes…
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Tags: AA, BA, BG, DIA, GE, GS, LCC, OIH, Oil, PFE, SNY, TNK, TOT, UNG, USO, VLO, ZION
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by ilene - July 2nd, 2009 4:32 pm
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
David Rosenberg had some great thoughts on today’s deflationary empoyment report:
Today’s employment report had deflation thumbprints all over it. And you don’t have to take my word for it – have a read of San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen’s speech on June 30th when she dared to utter the “D” word. And that was before today’s payroll release which contained disturbing signs of weakness on many fronts.
For those that missed it: Yellen said the predominant risk was that inflation would remain low for an extended period of time and will be “be too low, not too high, over the next several years.”
The headline came in at -467k compared with -350k consensus and the back revisions were negligible (+8k). At no time in the 1990 or 2001 recessions did we ever come close to seeing such a detonating jobs figure, not even at the depths of those downturns, and yet we have a whole industry of ‘green shoot’ advocates today telling us that the recovery has already arrived. As always, the devil was in the details. In almost every industry, job losses were deeper in June than they were in May. The diffusion index fell to 28.6 from 31, which means that nearly three-quarters of the corporate sector is still in the process of shedding jobs. The Household Survey showed a 374k job decline, and all centered in full-time jobs. In fact, we have lost a record 9 million full-time jobs this cycle, more than triple what is normal in the context of a post-WWII recession, with over 2 million pushed onto part-time work (and the number of people now working part-time because they have no other choice due to the weak economy has more than doubled).
This in turn has taken the total hours worked in the private sector down to a new record low of 33 hours from 33.1 hours in May – in fact, what this means is that if companies had kept hours worked at May’s levels, then to achieve the same labour input that they achieved would have required a 800,000 job slice! Just to put the entire labour market picture into a certain perspective.
When we say that deflation has gripped the labour market, we are not exaggerating. Average weekly earnings – the proxy for wage-based income – fell 0.3% in June and have been flat or…
Tags: David Rosenberg, unemployment
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July 4th, 2009 1:09 pm
Deceit, otherwise known as burying unrelated provisions in bills at the last moment, hoping no one will see them, like the Lilly Protection Act in the Homeland Security Bill, reflects very poorly on Congress but appears to be the way things are done. - Ilene
Banksters Love Cap-and-Trade
The well-placed and well-connected are set to make trillions off new climate bill; economic collapse about to accelerate
Courtesy of James Corbett
The Corbett Report
The sweeping new bill which just passed the House last Friday, the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2...
more from Ilene
July 3rd, 2009 11:50 pm
MARKET COMMENT
Dave Fry's ETF Digest, July 2, 2009
Maybe, maybe not—this is all I can say since bulls have repeatedly demonstrated their “energizer bunny” quality. Maybe over the weekend investors will forget about the sting of today’s drop as no doubt the powers that be will roll-out their spokesmen to cheer everyone up.
This action is why over roughly the past two months our cash balances have been high. Once we got the weekly DeMark sequential 9 counts we were expecting a reaction. Sometimes we just move in a herky-jerky manner sideways while in other circumstances we get an immediate impact. If the trends are very strong then the DeMark 9 can be blown away and that’s the tricky part—how to get back in. But, never mind...
http://www.etfdigest.com/
more from David
July 4th, 2009 3:47 am
Weekeend Readings Courtesy of Tyler Durden at
3:11 AM - More on StevePerkinsGate: PVM taking a page from the oldest playbook in the world (FT)
- India joins China, Russia in questioning USD dominance (Bloomberg)
- Palin to resign as Alaska governor, will not seek reelection (WSJ) [not even worth discussing the Republican due diligence process]
- Ignoring prophetic predictors (more from Tyler
July 4th, 2009 12:09pm
Independence Day is more than a chance for family and friends throughout the country to gather for barbecues and fireworks displays, it is an annual celebration to commemorate the courage and faith of our founding fathers in their pursuit of liberty.
Here is the History of 4th of July!
Here is President Obama on Patriotism:
Here is a 4th of July video gallery!
Bottom Line:
T.G., Jr. and I are going to the Berkeley Marina today with a very good friend of mine and his 2 daughters! woohoo! Doesn't this sound li...
more from Goddess
June 22nd, 2009 7:19 pm
Insiders Dump Shares at Fastest Pace in 2 Years
Courtesy of Mish
Bloomberg is reporting Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years
Executives at U.S. companies are taking advantage of the biggest stock-market rally in 71 years to sell their shares at the fastest pace since credit markets started to seize up two years ago.
Insiders of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies were net sellers for 14 straight weeks as the gauge rose 36 percent, data compiled by InsiderScore.com show. Amgen Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sharer and five other officials sold $8.2 million of stock. Christopher Donahue, the CEO...
http://www.insidercow.com /
more from Insider
June 28th, 2009 8:14 pm
This post is for live trades and daily comments.
To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, membership etc.), please click here
- Optrader
...
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July 2nd, 2009 1:49 am
What to Buy: ERX/ERY
Courtesy of David at The Oxen Group
On Thursday, The Oxen Group wants to approach the Oxen Buy Pick a little differently. A pattern we are noticing is that economic data is moving this market no matter what other fundamentals and technicals may be out there. Tomorrow, the day will be ruled by unemployment figures coming out from the Labor Department. The estimated number is 9.6%. If we hit that or are below, then the market is going green. If not, we are going red the whole day. It all depends on that 9:30 AM announcement.
The oil market, as well, will move with this announcement. It is hard to predict which way it will swing. If we were betting, we would say a miss higher and into the red. But its impossible to know for sure. Therefore, if it misses and it is higher you w...
more from Oxen Group
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About Phil:
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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