Money, Power and Wall Street
by phil - April 28th, 2012 6:57 am
Have you seen this?
Frontline did this very good documentary and I'd file it under "those who forget the past are CONDEMNED to repeat it" – let's all TRY not to repeat the mistakes of 2008… "Wall Street got bailed out and Main Street didn't" is the quote that neatly sums up the present situation. Wall Street and the top 10% of this country – of this World – are partying like it's 1999 while the bottom 90% continue to languish in the worst Recession since the Great Depression.
Despite a myriad of worrying data, the Corporate Media is in full-blown promotional mode – pushing stocks as if it were modern snake oil – the panacea that will cure all your ills. We often forget that essentially ALL of our news sources are publicly traded companies and have a vested interest in the stock market going higher. Hell, we have an interest in that too, as our longer-term virtual porfolios are entirely bullish - but that shouldn't preclude us from making a realistic assessment of the CURRENT situation, should it?
Caterpillar, 3M, United Technologies and ABB are among the manufacturers that have reported weak performances in China in the first quarter as economic growth has slowed nearly to a three-year low. Caterpillar’s sales in China fell between $250 million and $300 million in the first quarter, pushing the company, the world’s largest maker of earth-moving equipment, to export to other countries a large share of the equipment it made in China.
Concerns about China overshadowed better-than-expected earnings at the company, which is based in Peoria, Illinois, and led investors to push the stock down 5 percent Wednesday, which was great for us as CAT was on our Long Put List.
ABB, a maker of power equipment, reported profits in the past week that were below analysts’ expectations, caused by weak Chinese demand. “It was a very slow start to the year for China. China in January was extremely weak,” ABB’s chief financial officer, Michel Demaré, said Wednesday.
“Our business in China is off to a slow start,” said Gregory J. Hayes, the chief financial…
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Monday Musings – New Quarter Not So Shiny
by phil - April 2nd, 2012 8:29 am
I played poker this weekend.
I entered a few tournaments in Atlantic City, made it to a couple of final tables but didn't win any. It did remind me that a bluff can only get you so far – at a certain point, you have to actually have the cards in order to win. As I pointed out to Members this morning – the Global Markets have bluffed their way through the first quarter and now comes earnings season and it's time for the economy to show it's cards and now we'll see who ends up with all the chips!
Just this morning we got this disturbing data:
- Eurozone unemployment ticked up to 10.8% in February, compared with 10.7% in January and 10.0% in the year-earlier period.
- Eurozone Final Manufacturing PMI 47.7 in March (confirming preliminary estimate) vs. 49 in February. That's the 8th consecutive month of readings below 50, which signals contraction.
- German PMI fell to 48.4 in March from 50.2 in February, slightly beating estimates for 48.1 but still well within the range indicating contraction in the manufacturing sector.
- France March PMI slides to 46.7 from 50.0 previously and the flash estimate of 47.6. The read is the lowest since June 2009, led by a sharp decline in New Orders.
- U.K. February PMI rises to 52.1 from 51.5 previously and beating expectations of 50.7. The devil, however, is in the details: "The increase in output was heavily supported by a depletion in backlogs of work and record inventory building," note CIPS, the survey firm
- Spain's March PMI falls to 44.5 from 45.0 previously, inline with expectations. It's the 11th consecutive decline in the index.
- HSBC China PMI, which measures smaller factories, 48.3 in March (flash reading was 48.1) vs. February's 49.6, marking the fifth successive month of contraction.
- South Korean Exprts Fall 1.4% on Weakness in Global Demand.
These are NOT cards you want to be playing with unless you are forced. That's the thing, GS, JPM, MS, Fund Managers, etc – they HAVE to play. Since they have to play whatever cards that are dealt – they do the logical thing – THEY BLUFF! Although what's scary about the Banksters is that, when they bluff, it's like the dealer bluffing because they control so much of the game and their only real goal is to get you to play so they can rake…
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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 site