Six Autumn Outliers
by ilene - September 7th, 2010 5:04 pm
Six Autumn Outliers
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
So that there’s no confusion, these aren’t predictions or forecasts, they are Outliers. I define an outlier as an event that is unlikely but possible. I’m not betting the farm on this stuff, but I wouldn’t fall out of my chair if any of it happened between now and the end of the year.
Enough hedging, let’s go:
1. Silver Explodes: Gold’s flashier little brother has had a decent go of it of late. Silver prices just broke above the $19.50-ish level for only the third time since November 2009, and you know what they say about "the third time". The big boys are usually buying gold right around now to get ahead of holiday demand and the wedding season in India, meanwhile the yellow metal is within melting distance of its high. If the Slingshot Effect that silver prices experience during gold rallies takes hold, look out above. My outlier here is that silver becomes the must-have investment of the season.
2. GOP Takes the House: It is conventional wisdom that Republicans are going to gain some ground at the mid-term elections this November, but I’m going to go a step further and say that the Dems will lose more than 40 seats and along with them, control of the House. Larry Sabato, a political scientist from the U of Virginia, has been quoted as saying that they could also lose as many as 8 or 9 senate seats as well. This ain’t your Daddy’s Midterms, or maybe it is – there are shades of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America tour-de-force against Bill Clinton halfway through his 1st term back in ’94. Peeps is pissed right now.
3. Google Buys Twitter: This would be a real outlier if only it didn’t make so much damn sense. What in the hell are they waiting for in Mountain View, CA? They tried to build their own Twittery-thing (Google Buzz, anyone?), it wasn’t terrible but people don’t need two microblogging platforms even if Google’s did have the advantage of being bundled with Gmail. This is a doable deal for Google financially and as incredible a phenomenon as Twitter is, it’s still not a business yet – just a phenomenon. The Googster ($GOOG) could monetize it on Day 4.
4. Ballmer is Audi 5000: He’ll…