"Woke up this morning, what did i see
A big black cloud hanging over me
I switched on the radio and nearly dropped dead
The news was so bad that i fell out of bed
There was a gas strike, oil strike, lorry strike, bread strike
Got to be a superman to survive
Gas bills, rent bills, tax bills, phone bills
I’m such a wreck but i’m staying alive" – Kinks
I thought some uplifting music might help today as the markets have not been turning in a super performance this week despite a $1Tn tax cut/stimulus package pumped into it just 3 days ago. That morning, I posted Chris Kimble’s charts from our Chart School and we were looking at key resistance at S&P 1,224, Nasdaq 2,600 (NDX 2,191), NYSE 7,751 and Russell 756. We’re above all those this morning but what we’re not above is my 11,500 level on the Dow. In fact, if you look at the Dow over the past 6 sessions, you’ll notice we hit quite a wall at about 11,375.
What’s it going to take to punch through that wall and get us up over our 11,500 breakout target? We had this same problem in early November, when the Dow just couldn’t close the deal over 11,450 and fell sharply after 3 days of trying despite the fact that the Dow Transports are up significantly(but also flatlining) since then (how now Dow theory?).
I had said we would wait PATIENTLY for confirmation at 11,500 but it’s already getting tedious. Our picks from Tuesday’s post were C at $4.56 and BAC at $11.79, with BAC outpacing C but both positions much more exciting with option plays than straight stock picks, of course. By Wednesday morning I had done the math on the Obama Tax Cut and concluded that, for 95% of America, all we could say was "Thanks for the Gas Money, Mr. President" and I’m not even sure we’ll get that as oil once again tests $89 this morning, which is fine for us as that’s our shorting spot on the Futures and has paid us for many, many tanks of gas this week.
It is, of course, all about the Dollar and our poor currency has been brutalized in the past 24-hours, with…
The dollar dropped to 76.5 this morning and that gave us a nice pop in the futures which is fading now (8am) as we move towards our 8:30 Trade Report along with the PPI and, of course, the usual 450,000 weekly pink slips handed out to the few remaining US workers (135M and dropping almost as fast as the value of the dollar).
As you can see from Pharmboy’s excellent chart, our market "rally" is ALL about the declining dollar. We are not used to inflation in this country – it hasn’t been much of an issue for the past generation but that’s what we’re seeing here as we are experiencing lower wages, lower demand and flat prices – THAT IS INFLATION or, as we used to say in the 70s – STAGFLATION. A stagnant (or declining) economy plus inflation is a disaster for the people, even while it may be a boon for Big Business as they squeeze whatever dollars are left from the pockets of the consumers while paying their workforce less and, through the benefit of worthless currency, cleaning up on foreign sales as it’s much easier to sell an IPhone at $199 when $199 was 167 Euros in May and is 142 Euros in October – a nice 15% discount (for foreign buyers) heading into the holidays!
In fact, I had been getting bearish because I thought corporate profits weren’t going to be so good this quarter, what with the lack of sales and all, but I was wrong. I was wrong because corporate profits are priced in dollars and dollars are worth 10% less than they were the last time corporations reported.
So silly me – all profits are inflated by 10% and that 10% is the E that gets divided from the P and gives us a much better price/multiple to hang our hats on and that gets investors to BUYBUYBUY…
Government debt in Greece is just the first in a series of European debt bombs that are set to explode. The mortgage debts in post-Soviet economies and Iceland are more explosive. Although these countries are not in the Eurozone, most of their debts are denominated in euros. Some 87 per cent of Latvia’s debts are in euros or other foreign currencies, and are owed mainly to Swedish banks, while Hungary and Romania owe euro-debts mainly to Austrian banks. So their government borrowing by non-euro members has been to support exchange rates to pay these private-sector debts to foreign banks, not to finance a domestic budget deficit as in Greece.
All these debts are unpayably high because most of these countries are running deepening trade deficits and are sinking into depression. Now that real estate prices are plunging, trade deficits are no longer financed by an inflow of foreign-currency mortgage lending and property buyouts. There is no visible means of support to stabilize currencies (e.g., healthy economies).
For the past year these countries have supported their exchange rates by borrowing from the EU and IMF. The terms of this borrowing are politically unsustainable: sharp public sector budget cuts, higher tax rates on already over-taxed labor, and austerity plans that shrink economies and drive more labor to emigrate.
Bankers in Sweden and Austria, Germany and Britain are about to discover that extending credit to nations that can’t (or won’t) pay may be their problem, not that of their debtors. No one wants to accept the fact that debts that can’t be paid, won’t be. Someone must bear the cost as debts go into default or are written down, to be paid in sharply depreciated currencies, but many legal experts find debt agreements calling for repayment in euros unenforceable. Every sovereign nation has the right to legislate its own debt terms, and the coming currency re-alignments and debt write-downs will be much more than mere “haircuts.”
There is no point in devaluing, unless “to excess” – that is, by enough to actually change trade and…
Beijing has fervently denounced U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to sell more arms to Taiwan, and loudly demanded that he break his coming date with the Dalai Lama. Is this proof that China-U.S. relations have entered a radically new and deeply worrisome phase?
It’s tempting to see it that way. There has been much talk of China ruling the world and the clash of civilizations this would prompt. Much has been made of the notion that Chinese leaders have been showing an unexpected cockiness vis-à-vis the U.S. of late, tightly controlling what Obama did when in China, refusing to follow American leads in Copenhagen and then lambasting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for criticizing Beijing in a Jan. 21 speech on Internet freedom. But it’s a temptation worth resisting.
China’s long, slow return to great-power status is of historic importance and something that will lead to recalibrations of many diplomatic relationships, including that between Washington and Beijing. But as foolish as it would be to ignore this, it’s equally foolish to see too much novelty in headline-grabbing stories that fit neatly within established patterns. Chinese officials have expressed outrage before about meetings between foreign leaders and the Dalai Lama. And the Taiwan arms tale follows an even more familiar script. There’s nothing new about a U.S. Administration announcing, as Obama’s just did, that it’s going to sell military hardware to Taiwan. Nor is there anything new about Beijing treating this announcement as proof that the U.S. lacks respect for Chinese sovereignty and for the principles of the "one China" policy that, since the 1970s, has provided the groundwork for relations between the two.
Both sides need to guard against overstating the extent to which the landscape of the international order has changed and against treating China’s rise as a more exotic development than it actually is. Keeping these four things in mind should help:
• Just as all politics is local (to a degree), all diplomacy is domestic (to a large extent). China’s dramatic growth may have increased its ability to be less deferential toward the U.S. But when officials loudly proclaim that foreign leaders should steer clear of the Dalai Lama, lash out against Clinton’s "information imperialism" or stoke popular indignation about Taiwan, their motivation is largely a desire to…
I just got back to Beijing three days ago and am still seriously jet-lagged, but I wanted to post a piece today anyway. Last night I celebrated the new year at D22, where a group of very cool musicians (including the amazing Snapline, for one of their very few shows this year and perhaps one of their last ever) serenaded the passing of 2009. What a great show.
I suppose it is traditional to dedicate the new-year piece to evaluating the “year that was”, or to make predictions for the coming year, but my only concession to this tradition will be to make the very (I think) obvious prediction that trade tensions are going to rise dramatically in 2010, and even more so in 2011 as interventions initiated in 2009 and 2010 come to fruition. I am no expert on the subject of criminal law or the environment, and so have little to add beyond all that has already been said, but the huge amount of angry criticism China has received on the very visible subjects of the Copenhagen meeting and the execution of a British subject caught smuggling drugs will make it easier for tariffs and restrictions aimed at China to generate popular approval in Europe, North America and the developing world, especially since protectionists can easily add a “moral dimension” to their arguments.
I am not sure Chinese policymakers fully understand how vulnerable China is to trade war. This is perhaps because the “success” of the stimulus package has convinced them that they are less vulnerable to external demand than they originally thought. But this would be a serious misreading. The stimulus package has postponed the effect of declining net foreign demand on Chinese unemployment, but has actually increased its vulnerability by increasing the future gap between what China produces and what it consumes. China needs foreign demand to keep absorbing its excess capacity for several more years while it engineers the difficult transition to domestic consumption-led growth, but I don’t see either China taking the necessary steps to force the transition or foreigners looking very eager to help China through the process.
As if to confirm my pessimistic trade expectations, the US on Tuesday announced that it would impose tariffs on Chinese
Here is a great metaphor for the emptiness of the global recovery:
An entire city in China, tens of billions of dollars in construction, sits empty. They also built the World’s biggest shopping mall, also empty. As they say in the video, people can’t move in because there is no economy. Yet the building of the city of Ordos and the Utopia mall have allowed China to hit their 8% GDP growth target because it doesn’t matter whether you build something worthwhile – as long as you build SOMETHING, it’s going to count as part of your GDP. It’s ironic that this country still hasn’t bothered rebuilding New Orleans, which was once a healthy, vibrant city and we are letting Detroit die a little more every day when it’s ideally situated to attract (comparatively) wealthy Canadian tourists but China is willing to build entire cities from scratch.
Ironically, Louisiana is one of 8 US states that export more than $2Bn worth of goods to China, who is, by far, our fastest growing trading partner. We get trade data later today and hopefully, at least one benefit of the week dollar will be to help boost our balance of trade but we’re a very, very long way away from balance and, as I pointed out last month, almost all of our gains are coming from lowered US consumption, not a real increase in exports.
Speaking of lowered US consumption, just as we predicted, crude oil fell to the lowest in a month yesterday as the inventory report showed inventories in the U.S., the world’s biggest energy consumer, climbed DESPITE a drop in processing runs. Oil extended Wednesday’s 3%decline after an Energy Department report showed crude stockpiles rose a more-than- expected 1.76 million barrels last week. Refinery operating rates fell to 79.9 percent of capacity, the lowest in more than a year. Gasoline inventories rose 2.56 million barrels to 210.8 million, much more than a forecast drop of 350,000 barrels.
“The U.S. numbers were incredibly bearish, especially the gasoline build,” said Clarence Chu, an options trader at Hudson Capital Energy in Singapore. The decline in U.S. processing runs is in line with low rates in other developed countries. Japan’s refiners operated at 71 percent of capacity last week, an industry report said on Nov. 11. The two nations were responsible for about 29 percent of global demand last…
The dollar rose against the Yen for the first time in 5 days and the most in 2 months this morning.
Bernanke finally came out of his stupor and said the Fed is ready to tighten monetary policy once the economy improves. Once the economy improves? Hasn’t Ben been telling us how great everything is for the past 3 months??? The Dollar Index, which tracks the currency against six U.S. trading partners, recovered from a 14-month low after Bernanke signaled interest rates may rise when the economy “has improved sufficiently.” The yen dropped against all but three of the 16 most-traded currencies after Japan’s machinery orders gained less than forecast.
“People took the comments as an opportunity to take some money off the table before the weekend,” said Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist in London at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. “They came at an opportune time and allowed some people to get some profit out from bets against the dollar.”
White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers repeated the administration’s commitment to a strong dollar, citing recent comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. “He made it very clear that our commitment is to a strong dollar based on strong fundamentals,” Summers said at a Bloomberg forum in New York.
We’ve been talking dollars all week at PSW because it has been my opinion that there has been nothing supporting this rally, especially on the commodity side, other than dollar weakness and fears of further dollar weakness. It’s been a case of so far, so wrong though as our short plays have gotten hammered this week and I was thinking of opening this morning’s post by saying: "Hi, my name is Phil and I’m a shortaholic" because, try as I might, I have been unable to stop taking short positions all week. Even yesterday, as we tested (but did not break) our upside target levels, I found myself putting up 8 bearish trade ideas for Members (DIA puts, FSLR puts, GLD puts, USO puts, EDZ calls, TBT calls, TZA calls, SRS calls) and just one bullish play, which was a DIA vertical spread to cover, just in case we got burned by today’s open.
Fortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll have to do a mea culpa this morning as FINALLY the dollar is finding some support at pretty much the exact same place we found support on 9/23, which was the beginning of our last…
As I have recently pointed out, there are strong arguments for ongoing deflation.
But even deflationists think that – after a period of deflation – we might eventually get inflation. For example, in October, I guessed 1 1/2 to 2 years of deflation, followed by inflation.
Moreover, noted deflationist Martin Weiss – after predicting for 27 years straight that we’ll have deflation – has now changed his mind, and thinks inflation is a greater short-term threat than deflation.
For these two reasons – and to make clear that the inflation versus deflation debate is complicated and includes many factors – this essay will focus on the arguments for inflation.
Faber’s argument is that a weakening dollar will lead to inflation (as every dollar will buy less goods and services).
Government Printing
The government has injected trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of TARP bailout funds and other programs. Indeed, the government’s own watchdog over the TARP program – the special inspector general – said that number could be $23 trillion dollars in a worst-case scenario.
The basic argument for inflation is – as everyone knows – that the government has injected so much money into the economy (through bailouts, quantitative easing, purchase of treasuries, etc.) that there will be a lot more dollars chasing the same number of goods and services, which will drive up prices. In other words, the supply is the same, but demand has increased.
Indeed, the U.S. has also provided huge sums of dollars to foreign central banks. Could dollars given abroad cause inflation inside the U.S.? Yes – because some proportion of those dollars will be spent by citizens in those countries to buy stocks, commodities, goods and services within the U.S.
Three well-known advocates of the inflation argument are Rogers, Buffet and Schiff.
Specifically, billionaire investor Jim Rogers said we are…
Fresh from the UN general assembly in New York, heads of government and a vast diplomatic entourage will descend on Pittsburgh today to kick off two days of talks on economic stability, financial regulation, climate change and bankers’ bonuses. They will be greeted by boarded up shops and energetic protests. On the eve of the summit, China indicated it was willing to countenance an initiative by President Barack Obama to smooth the flow of capital around the world in the hope of securing greater long-term economic stability. The US proposal calls on rapidly expanding economies such as China, Brazil and India to boost domestic consumption in order to lower their trade surpluses, while the US and Europe would encourage more saving to reduce long-term budget deficits. Gordon Brown yesterday (see UK protests in picture) backed the effort, saying he hoped "different continents can better work together to achieve the growth we need."
Yes, like any addict we NEED growth. Stability just won’t give us the fix we need as our entire global economy is based on borrowing to spend money we don’t have today in anticipation of being able to pay it off in the future, when things are "better." The fact that this has clearly not worked out at all for the past does not seem to deter our leaders. In fact, in 2009, our pals in the G20 have borrowed an additional $5,365,000,000,0000 to see them over this little "rough patch" we’re having:
This doesn’t take into account the $6Tn worth of debt OBLIGATIONS taken on by our own Fed and Treasury, not to mention whatever nonsense the rest of the world is into – this is just the checks they wrote in excess of the cash that came in – and the year isn’t even over yet! Now $5.3Tn may not seem like a lot to you but it is a 16% increase in total global debt in just 12 months. In fact, according to the Global Debt Clock in the Economist, our friends in the G20 are on a path to increase our debt from a "mere" $30Tn last year all the way up to $45Tn in 2011. That’s a 50% increase in just 3 years! …
A "Description of Principles" concept paper by Barney Frank essentially proposes that only dealers are allowed to trade CDS going forward. Barney believes, this is critical to "limiting speculation." Here is what will actually be considered:
1. Limitation on Speculation
Prohibition on any purchase of credit protection using a CDS contracts unless:
The party owns the referenced security or (one or more) of the securities in an index of securities.
The party has a bona fide economic interest that will be protected by the contract.
The party is a bona fide market maker.
Regulators will have authority to monitor market activity and impose position limit where necessary.
Here is Barney’s tremendous regulatory insight on the matter:
"The fundamental purpose here is to improve the regulation of derivatives so that they continue to perform their important market function but are less likely to contribute to a kind of irresponsibility that can cause a crisis. Nobody here wants to ban them or even severely diminish them as an economic instrument. The Committee on Agriculture represents a lot of end users for whom they are very important. The Committee on Financial Services deals with a lot of the financial institutions. They have an interest that has to be blended. I thank Chairman Peterson and his staff for their cooperation on this effort."
Well, if the Committee on Agriculture believes that Merrill trading exclusively with Goldman and vice versa will promote lower irresponsibility, we can see why they are the Committee on Agirculture.
The prophetic words of Antal Fekete in his now infamous 'essay' on Gold are as relevant now (perhaps more so) as they were when he first wrote them 15 years ago - especially as the Euro-zone migrates from lossening fiat-money to quasi-money (greek pharma bonds for instance). While summarizing this must-read discussion of mainstream economic orthodoxy's mis-teachings is impractical, his initial introduction sets the stage for what is to come: "The year 1971 was a milestone in the history of money and credit. Previously, in the world's most developed countries, money (and hence cred...
Damn. Two (MJ and Whitney) of the big 4 of the 80s gone – Madonna and Prince remain. Probably the most well known Star Spangled Banner ever…
Disclosure Notice
Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund's holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog
Mario Draghi captured the utter ineptitude of him and every other Eurocrat out there when he said the following at today’s press conference in response to a question about a Greek exit: “To have a Plan B means defeat already. I am confident that all the pieces of this will fall in the proper places.”
Most 5-year old children in pre-school have already been told not to believe that they can always win and that “winning isn’t everything”, but Draghi & Co. still refuse to consider the possibility of failure even as it is staring them in the face. What’s really disturbing is that the stakes here are obviously much, much higher than they are o...
What with the word "next"? Also what's with the words "could be"? Without a doubt student loans are in a bubble and have been for many years. The source of the problem, as it always is with financial bubbles, is cheap money, loans to nearly anyone, and in the case of student loans, no way to discharge the debt, even in bankruptcy.
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisICABUYThe projected value for Empresas ICA is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.XBUYThe projected value for US Steel is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.FEICBUYProjected value continues to rise for FEI while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.ASBCBUYMany analysts are expecting higher than previously expected long term growth from Associated Bancorp, and its near-term earnings outlook is also improving....
The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Friday February 10, 2012:
Actuant Acquires Jeyco Pty
The Deal: Actuant (NYSE: ATU) announced Friday that it has acquired Jeyco Pty Ltd (“Jeyco”). Headquartered near Perth, Australia, Jeyco designs and provides specialized mooring, rigging and towing systems and services to the offshore oil & gas industry in Australia and other international markets. Additionally, its highly engineered products are used in a variety of applications for other markets including cyclone mooring and marine, defense and mining tow systems. Jeyco generates annual revenues of approximately $20 million.
Actuant shares closed at $27.33 Friday, a loss of 0.18% on average volume.
Greece was “saved” for less than 24 hours but now major ETFs around the world skid into the weekend on Greek fears
After wangling for a week or more, Greek took their new deal to the European Ministers meeting, only to have it promptly rejected and so as we go into the weekend, major global markets and ETFs have again hit the skids on Greece.
After two years of wangling, the European zone is demanding yet more and deeper cuts for Greece to qualify for the next round of bailout loans that will keep the country from going bankrupt on March 20th.
Major European and United States ETF responded negatively to the new developments:
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.
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Here is a quick update of past trades and our current position.
AA Money
No trade this week as we wait for AA to settle. Phil remarked last week that AA seemed overvalued. In the meantime, it looks like we might have to roll our Feb 9 calls. Good thing we sold only 5 of them against our position.
Last week P&L - 310.00
We lost ground last week, but we still have 11 months to sell premium!
FAS Money
Very good week for FAS Money as we benefited from the large amount of premium sold the previous week. We covered most of the shorts in advance of the Fed speech, but sold another set of options on Wednesday after the speech - 2 FAS calls that expired worthless on Friday, 2 FAS put that we are still holding and 2 FAZ put that we bought back for a profit on Friday. A late stick comparable to last week's almost gave us problems at the end of the day though!
Last week P&L - $4277.00
IWM Money
A decent week in this virtual portfo...
Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
Finding new and exciting Biotech companies that target novel mechanisms is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure there are many companies working on cutting edge science, but investing in those companies to reap the rewards of their work is a very dangerous game. More often than not, companies fail because the mechanism does not pan out, the compound(s) do not have pharmacokinetics (get into the body or last very long in the body), or an adverse event happens that knocks years off a development timeline. In addition, the stock can be manipulated by market makers so investors don't know which way is up. I approach investing in biotechs as a long term prospect. I continue to like our current portfolio of biotech companies (join in chat for many of those plays), and we continually add/subtract shares and sell/buy options on ...
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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It is, of course, all about the Dollar and our poor currency has been brutalized in the past 24-hours, with…
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Since AAPL makes their IPhones in China – using the remaining FoxConn employees who haven’t killed themselves to escape their 
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Courtesy of Michael Pettis of China Financial Markets
The dollar rose against the Yen for the first time in 5 days and the most in 2 months this morning.
We’ve been talking dollars all week at PSW because it has been my opinion that there has been nothing supporting this rally, especially on the commodity side, other than dollar weakness and fears of further dollar weakness. It’s been a case of so far, so wrong though as our short plays have gotten hammered this week and I was thinking of opening this morning’s post by saying: "Hi, my name is Phil and I’m a shortaholic" because, try as I might, I have been unable to stop taking short positions all week. Even yesterday, as we tested (but did not break) our upside target levels, I found myself putting up 8 bearish trade ideas for Members (DIA puts, FSLR puts, GLD puts, USO puts, EDZ calls, TBT calls, TZA calls, SRS calls) and just one bullish play, which was a DIA vertical spread to cover, just in case we got burned by today’s open.
Our global leaders all get together today with the Global Financial Crisis (yes, it’s still a crisis) t![[global_debt.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7Se7iswAanA/Smm61lFPL8I/AAAAAAAAIcY/HCyeVuT39Y4/s1600/global_debt.jpg)
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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
(