What does Wall Street have to do with “The Wire“? Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Tom Ferguson took to the streets of Baltimore with the Real News Network to explain. There, boarded-up buildings and screaming police sirens demonstrate what happens when communities are left on the hook for bankers’ bets turned sour. Ferguson explains how “collateral damage” accumulated when unaffordable loans that were pushed on the people of Baltimore collapsed and brought down the price of houses around them. He points out that without a steady tax base, no one will make loans to the city, which, like many others, is desperate for funds. “It’s really a Catch-22,” says Ferguson.
What the people of “The Wire” really need are New Deal programs, he proposes. The administration should “move vigorously to put people back to work. You should have seen cranes and construction stuff everywhere,” he says. Obama should have revived the CCC and other programs to get us back to full employment — because as he points out, that’s the only real panacea to get us out of crisis.
And where is Wall Street now? “The invisible hand is just waving goodbye,” quips Ferguson. Watch the full interview:
I am glad I am not the only one who notices these things…. I am only speaking as someone who has watched the market since mid 90s and have never seen the behavior I see now. Whenever a key technical average is threatened a magical flood of futures buying comes in. Almost every morning the past 10 weeks pre market futures are green (apparently there is not enough time to buy stocks between 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM). The last 30 minutes has magical reversals – we saw it just last Thursday at a key moving average. [May 21: Bookkeeping - Covering Index Shorts Around 3:30 - 3:45 PM]
There can only be one entity who has the buying power to do this… and with Goldman Sachs as the 4th arm of government you can use them behind closed doors. But I am sure we’ll never know the truth… and I hate to sound like a grassy knoll type but the market just does not act like it used to if you really watch closely. The S&P now regularly jumps in 4-5 point increments in a matter of 60-120 seconds late in the day. In my humble opinion the government knows so many quant and program trades now are tied to the indexes that it is easy to manipulate this market… you lead, they will follow automatically (by their programming). So for a relatively low cost you can move things where they "should be", and the momentum performance chasing computers will support your case. And Goldman Sachs can pile up trading wins since somewhere in their bowels, in the cigar smoke… cheers of victory cry out. From late April via ZeroHedge
This is getting surreal. Goldman principal program trading is now well over 5x compared to its customer and agency trades and a 150 million share pick up compared to last week. For yet another week, Goldman’s principal trading represents more than half of all NYSE member firm principal transactions.
Clearly in a ‘free market’ system it would look embarrassing for this type of behavior to be out in the open. But heck Japan was tossing around
Few stocks have attracted more news over the last six months than nutritional supplement maker Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).
Even casual market observers are aware of the circumstances surrounding the the initial bout of extreme volatility in the name back in December 2012. The shares went into free-fall at the end of the year after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed in typical sanctimonious fashion that his firm Pershing Square Capital Management was short around $1 billion worth of the stock.
Amid much pomp and circumstance, Ackman laid out his short thesis at a New York investment conference and...
Is the coming financial collapse going to be inflationary or deflationary? Are we headed for rampant inflation or crippling deflation? This is a subject that is hotly debated by economists all over the country. Some insist that the wild money printing that the Federal Reserve is doing combined with out of control government spending will eventually result in hyperinflation. Others point to all of the deflationary factors in our economy and argue that we will experience tremend...
HD - Home Depot – Shares in the home improvement retailer are trading lower on Thursday, off the lowest levels of the session but still down 1.25% at $78.69 as of 11:50 a.m. ET, amid a down day for U.S. stocks. Trading traffic in newly issued weekly options on Home Depot suggests some traders are taking advantage of the dip today and positioning for shares in the name to resume hitting record highs next week. The stock yesterday rallied as much as 3.6% to touch an all-time high of $81.56 after the company reported better-than-expected first...
The pre-market anxieties were little changed by this morning's slightly better-than-expected unemployment claims. The eurozone indexes were all down 2% to 3% when the US markets opened. The S&P 500 promptly plunged to its -1.20 intraday low in the first nine minutes of trading. But the index trimmed its losses in an irregular trend to its afternoon intraday high at 2:50 PM, when the market was just a hundredth of a point from break even. This was in contrast to eurozone, where the STOXX 50 closed its session down 2.05%. The S&P 500 saw some selling in the final hour and finished the day at -0.29%, well off its morning low. Presumably the abated selling suggests generally reduced fears about the Fed tapering QE in the near term.
The price is high due to NYC's limited supply of Medallions.
The taxicabs of New York City, with their distinctive yellow paint, are a widely recognized icon of the city. Taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). It also oversees over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, including "black cars", commuter vans and ambulettes. "Medallion taxis," the familiar yellow cabs, are the only vehicles in the city permitted to pick up passengers in response to a street hail. Wikipedia....
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Futures down moderately after yesterday's outside day. The extreme overbought conditions on the weekly and monthly index charts are finally relenting some. Even uber bulls would prefer solid entry points on stocks rather than chasing constantly. The S&P 500 had not touched the 10 day moving average since May 2nd, until yesterday – a not common situation. In theory the S&P 500 could go all the way down to 1597 – which was its primary breakout level – and still be in decent condition, but surely dip buyers trai...
The market went through some gyrations on Wednesday in reaction to Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. He first defended continued quant easing by warning, “A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but also would carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery.” Stocks dutifully rallied and all major indexes hit new intraday highs.
But alas, consensus is apparently not a given over the longer term. The minutes hinted that a tapering off could start sooner, “A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting if the economic information received by that time showed evidence of sufficiently strong and sustained growth.” So …...
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By Craigzooka
I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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I am glad I am not the only one who notices these things…. I am only speaking as someone who has watched the market since mid 90s and have never seen the behavior I see now. Whenever a key technical average is threatened a magical flood of futures buying comes in. Almost every morning the past 10 weeks pre market futures are green (apparently there is not enough time to buy stocks between 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM). The last 30 minutes has magical reversals – we saw it just last Thursday at a key moving average. [May 21: Bookkeeping - Covering Index Shorts Around 3:30 - 3:45 PM]
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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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(
