Stock World Weekly
by ilene - January 30th, 2011 8:23 am
Here’s this week’s Stock World Weekly. Enjoy! Comments welcome.
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Mubarak’s Acts of Cowardice; Obama Calls Mubarak for 30-Minutes; Cell Service, Internet Total Shutdown; Anarchy in Cairo; How Long can Mubarak Last?
by ilene - January 29th, 2011 3:04 pm
Courtesy of Mish
The situation in Egypt has gone from bad to worse. Cairo is in a state of near-anarchy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s cowardly disruptions to the internet and cell phones have made things worse.
Egyptian citizens unable to get news on the internet or cell phones have only one place to get it now, the street.
President Obama called Mubarak in a 30-minute phone call. Obama’s message was "Ultimately, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people."
If that was a hint, Mubarak did not get it. Instead, Cairo is in flames as protesters have turned more defiant.
Mubarak Orders Crackdown, With Revolt Sweeping Egypt
The New York Times reports Mubarak Orders Crackdown, With Revolt Sweeping Egypt
With police stations and the governing party’s headquarters in flames, and much of this crucial Middle Eastern nation in open revolt, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deployed the nation’s military and imposed a near-total blackout on communications to save his authoritarian government of nearly 30 years.
Friday’s protests were the largest and most diverse yet, including young and old, women with Louis Vuitton bags and men in galabeyas, factory workers and film stars. All came surging out of mosques after midday prayers headed for Tahrir Square, and their clashes with the police left clouds of tear gas wafting through empty streets.
By nightfall, the protesters had burned down the ruling party’s headquarters in Cairo, and looters marched away with computers, briefcases and other equipment emblazoned with the party’s logo. Other groups assaulted the Interior Ministry and the state television headquarters, until after dark when the military occupied both buildings and regained control. At one point, the American Embassy came under attack.
Six Cairo police stations and several police cars were in flames, and stations in Suez and other cities were burning as well. Office equipment and police vehicles burned, and the police seemed to have retreated from Cairo’s main streets. Brigades of riot police officers deployed at mosques, bridges and intersections, and they battered the protesters with tear gas, water, rubber-coated bullets and, by day’s end, live ammunition.
Cairo in Near-Anarchy
The Washington Post reports Cairo in near-anarchy as protesters push to oust president
The Egyptian capital descended into near anarchy Friday night, as the government sent riot police, and then the army, to quell protests by tens of thousands of demonstrators determined to
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Egyptian Protests Send Tourists Scrambling
by ilene - January 29th, 2011 1:43 pm
By AP / TAREK EL-TABLAWY, courtesy of TIME
Riot police force protestors back on the Kasr Al Nile Bridge as they attempt to get into Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, Egypt.
(CAIRO) — Foreign tourists and Egyptians flocked to Cairo’s main airport on Saturday, scrambling to find flights out of the country as days of often violent protests that forced the resignation of the government showed few signs of abating.
Israeli carrier El Al was trying to arrange a special flight Saturday to take roughly 200 Israeli tourists out of the country, a Cairo International Airport official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. Israel’s embassy in Egypt declined to comment.
The efforts came as between 1,500 and 2,000 travelers were at the airport’s two main departure terminals, most without reservations and frantic to find any available seats of outbound flights. But the bid could prove difficult, if not futile, as some European and U.S. airlines began to announce cancelations or suspensions of service to Cairo and Egypt’s national carrier was said to be experiencing lengthy delays.
EgyptAir had suspended overnight departures Friday because of a government-imposed curfew. The carrier had yet to take a similar step Saturday, though the expansion of that curfew to between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. made it increasingly unlikely that travelers would be able to head to the airport for evening flights.
German carrier Lufthansa said it had canceled both of its two scheduled flights to Cairo on Saturday. Air Berlin canceled one flight to Cairo. U.S. carrier Delta Airlines, which flies direct to Cairo from the U.S., said service to and from Cairo would be "indefinitely suspended as a result of civil unrest."
The violence that gripped Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and several other cities over the past few days has presented President Hosni Mubarak with the biggest challenge of his nearly 30-year rule. The protesters are demanding his ouster and that measures be taken to address rampant poverty and corruption, the…
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Wildlife Wednesday – The Portu-Goose!
by phil - January 12th, 2011 8:27 am
"Portugal will not request financial aid for the simple reason that it's not necessary" – Socrates
Of course, that was Jose Socrates, Portugal's Prime Minister, not Σωκρτης the great Philospoher, who was more famous for saying "False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil" as well as "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." More apropos for this morning is the more famous Scocrates' more famous observation that "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."
The investors jacking up the markets at 6am this morning understand very little about the relevance of Portugal's sale of $1.62Bn in bonds. While the auction was a "success" with longer bonds going off at 6.7% that's WITH intervention by China and Japan on an auction amount that either one of them could have tipped the cab driver on the ride over from the airport and not missed it. This is like going to your rich uncle for a used car loan because the bank wants 12% and your uncle says "sure I will help you out but you will owe me big time and I will make my brother's life miserable because I have to give his kid money and I'll never let him forget it" and then he hands you a contract to pay him back at 11.5%.
Actually, Portugal didn't even get that much of a "family discount," The last bond auction of 2010 went off at 6.8% and the fear was that the rates would go over 7% but let's not do cartwheels over 6.7%. Oh, sorry, too late, the markets are already doing cartwheels with a 0.5% gain in the futures and just look how excited the Hang Seng was after lunch, gaining 200 points in a virtual straight line and almost doubling the day's optimistic opening. The Shanghai was just as exciting, falling from 2,828 down almost 1.5% to 2,788 but then flying back to 2,821 to book a 0.6% gain on the day and giving Mainland China's Main Market this exciting profile:
So it's no surprise Uncle China doesn't want Portugal falling apart but…
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Stay Safe, Vince Fernando
by ilene - May 19th, 2010 5:09 pm
Stay Safe, Vince Fernando
Courtesy of The Reformed Broker, Joshua M. Brown
Clusterstock has its first embedded reporter and he is currently keeping us posted on the riotous protests in Thailand.
Vince Fernando, one of the better bloggers at The Business Insider, is keeping us updated on the explosive situation in real-time.
Having drinks with Joe Weisenthal a couple of weeks back I was amazed to hear about Vince’s insights into the protests. In retrospect, these were the early rumblings of what has now turned into a full-blown riot, complete with burning stock exchanges and shopping malls.
Here are some of Vince Fernando’s missives from Bangkok. Stay safe, Vince.
Thai Army ‘Live Fire’ Slaughter Zone
All Hell Breaking Loose, Stock Exchange On Fire
Shocking Pictures of the Last Six Hours (yes, of course there’s a slideshow, it’s Clusterstock)
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Greek Riots Escalate, Branch Of Finance Ministry Set On Fire
by ilene - May 5th, 2010 6:58 pm
Greek Riots Escalate, Branch Of Finance Ministry Set On Fire
Courtesy of Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
Things are heating up again in Greece. Literally. After a firebomb at a Marfin branch earlier today was the cause of three tragic deaths, the latest building to succumb to rioting pyrotechnics is a branch of the Greek ministry of finance, reports Market News. We eagerly await for the Greek FinMin to announce that the docs burned down were the only copies of all sovereign lending agreements with foreign entities… all $300 billion of them. Perhaps now that Greece has lost all control is why the Greek president Karolos Papoulias just said that "The country is at the edge of the abyss." Luckily for the country, its riot police is not striking just yet. Which is more than one can say about Greek journalists: "Even Greek journalists were on strike, but they later went back to work in order to cover the riots." And that about explains all you need to know about Greece.
From Market News:
ATHENS (MNI) – A building belonging to Greece’s Finance Ministry was set afire Wednesday by rioters protesting the stringent four-year austerity plan the Greek government has agreed to accept in exchange for up to E110 billion in aid from fellow Eurozone countries and theInternational Monetary Fund.
The Finance Ministry issued a statement Wednesday night saying that no crucial documents had been lost, though the damage to the building was extensive.
The fire came on a day when a general strike against the government’s new fiscal plan erupted into violence, leaving three dead and tens of others wounded. In Athens, protesters gathered around the Parliament while some groups threw fire bombs at buildings, cars and banks. The police answered with tear gas and arrests.
The package of spending cuts and tax hikes is intended to reduce the public budget deficit by 5.5 percentage points of GDP this year alone, from 13.6% to 8.1%. It is envisioned that by 2014, the deficit will be brought under the EU’s limit of 3%. But in that same year, outstanding public debt is projected to be an astronomical 144% of GDP, up from 113% in 2009 — leading many to predict that a Greek bond default is inevitable.
All we know is that Lazard, which no way, no how is advising on…
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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.