http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices

http://money.cnn.com/markets/morning_call/










http://www.kitco.com

Energy futures

Currencies/Au/Ag

Basically sellers in the market today. All Ords -0.4% with most sectors in decline. IT is down the most, -0.8% followed by Financials and Utilities, -0.7%. Healthcare and Materials are the only greens, +0.3%.

In the miners, BHP still on the up, +1.1% with RIO down slightly, -0.4%, gold miner Newmont in a dive, -2.3% and Newcrest not looking all that hot, -0.7%.

Oils stagnant: Woodside +0.2% and Santos -0.1%.

Russian Inflation Rate Rises on Foreign Worker Limits

June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's annual inflation rate rose in May to the highest in four months, as a new law on foreign workers boosted prices of fruits and vegetables.

The inflation rate jumped to 7.8 percent from 7.6 percent in April, the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service said in an e- mailed statement today. The result matched the median forecast of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Russia, the world's 10th biggest economy, passed new restrictions this year for foreign employees working in the country's booming retail industry. The government limited the number of trading places given to non-Russians, which boosted food prices and created inflationary pressures, economists said.

Foreign workers could only hold 40 percent of all jobs in the nation's markets beginning Jan. 1 and the blanket ban took effect April 1. The ban on foreign workers was authorized by a government resolution on Dec. 15, after race riots erupted in the northern town of Kondopoga after Chechens killed two Slavic men in a street fight.

Colombia May Lift Rates Further to Fight Inflation

June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Colombia's central bank is ready to raise interest rates as the fastest growth in three decades threatens to put its 2007 inflation target out of reach, Director Juan Jose Echavarria said.

Consumer prices in May and April rose more than 6 percent annually, the fastest pace since 2004 and well above the bank's 2007 target of 3.5-to-4.5 percent. The bank on June 15 raised its benchmark rate to 9 percent, the highest since October 2001.

A wobbly day with uncertain sentiment continuing on from yesterday. All Ords closed flat and there wasn't much movement in the sectors. Healthcare came in with the top gain, +0.8% followed by Telecomms at a considerably less +0.3%. In the reds, Utilities was down the most, -0.6%.

A general drift down in the miners with BHP coming off its highs, +0.8%, RIO -0.6%, Newcrest flat and Newmont -2.3%.

Little movement in the oils: Woodside -0.3%, Santos +0.3%.

Over in Asia, China did a speccy plummet, -3.3% with the rest red to some degree.

Over to UK/Europe:







http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=europe

Early indicators look bearish this morning.

I had a look at the new energy bill passed by the Senate last night which raises CAFE to 35 MPG (it's 27.5 right now) by 2002. The big deal is that it now includes trucks, vans and SUVs. The next biggest deal is that it calls for a seven-fold increase in ethanol production.

CAFE for trucks is 22 MPG so carmakers will have to sell a ton of cars with 40+ mpg to offset the sales of high-margin minivans and SUVs.

There's $32 billion for alternative energy too. The Republicans and the President in particular has trotted out alternative energy bills in the past which has sparked rallies in the sector. Who's going to vote against alternative energy?

GM has been on a tear as of late (poor Kirk) and I'm wondering why. GM does sell a lot of small cars but they sell a lot of trucks too and I have a sneaking suspicion that there's some kind of flexfuel language in CAFE which will allow Detroit to sell big-honking vehicles if they can run on high-percentage ethanol fuel. Otherwise getting union support and support from automaker states would be tough.

I guess GM and TM would make for an interesting watch today.

I'm taking the kids to see my relatives that are in Boston today so I won't be online or trading unless I happen to run into a wifi signal. Times like these are when it would be happy to have an iPhone.

I'm curious to see if AT&T will provide Pay-As-You-Go service for the iPhone. They offer the budget package ($8.33/month) on many of their current phone models and getting that package with the iPhone could make for a lot of hardware sales. I would use existing WiFi signals for net access. I don't need constant connections but something that fit in my pocket with access would be nice.

I also stopped by CompUSA to look at one of the new MacBook Pros. I've been having a discussion with a few folks in the office on whether the 2.2 Ghz model would be a better choice than the 2.4 Ghz model. The price difference is $500 and it gets you 200 Mhz more speed, 40 GB more hard drive space and 128 MB of video RAM. That's a lot of money for a relatively modest boost in hardware.

I also read that Apple's thermal paste problems are back. These were discovered when the MacBook Pros came out with Core Duo processors quite some time ago. Presumably Apple took care of the problem but I've read of users complaining about excessive heat in the MBPs with some taking them apart to discover an inappropriate application of thermal paste. Basically they just use a chunk of it instead of a very thin layer so that it doesn't work well at keeping the laptop cool.

The model that I tested at CompUSA was warm in two areas. Certainly a lot cooler than my current laptop which is ancient.

Good luck to the traders here today.

Is this a bottom in SWC?

"Bear Stearns Plans $3.2 Billion Fund Rescue to Halt Fire Sale" Trillion dollar CDO ponzi scheme from collapse.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...pJHo&refer=home

"Investors from hedge funds to pension funds and foreign banks have snapped up CDOs as a new way to invest in debt, making it the fastest-growing market and pushing the amount outstanding to more than $1 trillion."

1 trillion? that's a conservative guesstimate.

"Bear Stearns Cos. plans to take on $3.2 billion of loans to stop creditors from seizing assets of one of its money-losing hedge funds in the biggest fund bailout since 1998,"

You wanna loan? Pay the man, bubba:


"Sales of CDOs reached $503 billion in 2006, a fivefold increase in three years. More than half of those issued last year were backed by subprime mortgages. "

The meltdown will come! either fast or the Japanese way.

Choose your poison pigmen.

Germans already feeling the US slowdown:



http://www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/por...ndex/10indexgsk

"German Business Confidence Fell More Than Predicted"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...gK9g&refer=home

Ifo Expectations have been highly correlated with the stock market, although recently they topped in mid '06 and the market kept on inflating.

As you can clearly see it topped in early 2000, in the 2002 bear market rally and bottomed in early 2003.

Good Morning!

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What the heck was that? The TNX just gapped up on the open to almost 5.20.

Wow.

If this sticks, it's big Trouble with a capital T I think.

In regard to LT bond yields, don't they have to go substantially higher before equity markets get worried. I seem to remember in most of the late 90's the 30yr spent most of the time above 6% as the SPX continued to soar.

Right. I don't think it's a good idea to try and correlate the two. There have been many periods where yields and stock prices rose simultaneously for years. But if rising yields signal diminishing liquidity, then liquidation pressure should affect all asset classes to varying degrees.

What if they hyped an IPO to death and then discovered they couldn't open it?

There we go....

<Yawn>

Good action on BX today.
Lot's of players.

Blakcstone is quickly turning into a BIG turkey. They couldn't even open it on NYSE, they traded it in third market before they opened it up on NYSE at $36.45 on 17.8million. It's another MELCO. It's over--red Friday?

Hello folks!!!

Good to see the scumbagery on Wall Street is alive and well.

Remember this upgrade by some shill over at Golden Slacks just a week or so ago?

******************
Pier 1 stock up after Goldman upgrades to 'buy'
Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:31AM EDT

NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) - Shares of struggling home furnishings retailer Pier 1 Imports Inc. (PIR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) jumped more than 8 percent on Tuesday after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" and raised its price target by 40 percent.

Shares of Pier 1, which Goldman previously rated "neutral," were up 63 cents, or 8.1 percent, at $8.44 in late-morning New York Stock Exchange trading.

Goldman raised its price target for the stock to $10.50 from $7.50.

*********************
And then today we have this....
*********************

Before the Bell-Pier 1 Imports slides on loss spike
Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:45 PM BST

NEW YORK, June 21 (Reuters) - Shares of Pier 1 Imports Inc. <PIR.N> dropped more than 4 percent before the bell on Thursday after the home decor retailer posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. For details, see [ID:nBNG92752]

The stock dropped to $8.26 in electronic trade from a close of $8.63 on the New York Stock Exchange.

**********************
Oh well, looks like GS or one of their large mutual fund clients needed to take a Pier 1 dump before the yearnings disappointment came out....

They rushed this IPO as fast as they could to suck in as much "cash out" money as possible ....the boys and girls in DC are hot on their trail..... To date everyone is under the (potentially false) impression that Blackstone will get a 5-year pass on any new tax legislation that passes.....problem is, there is no guarantee they will get the pass, and some are now even indicating that they won't get a pass at all once the legislation is passed....that's why they needed to git while the gittn' was good

name of the game.

None of the principals even bothered to show up at NYSE: this is unheard of. No more big institutional support as of 10:18 am. This turkey is on its own.

YM reverses at exactly -100, just like yesterday. NAZ support at 2600 holds at 2600. Jam job next?

EDIT: I guess this would be a tautology, or -- as it's more popularly known -- a brain fart.

BX's shares are only 10% of the company?
Can anyone confirm.

What was the IPO priced at?

Just wondering out loud.... Will the pattern on the left repeat again?

[attachmentid=84750]

Now TNX has completely reversed. Rumor has it that selling in the Trashury market has resulted from the IBs need to raise cash to repay loans for troubled CDOs.

I think the problem with MPEL is similar to what happened to BIDU.
Simply too much hype in the IPO. But as you can see with BIDU, after 6 months of correction from IPO it has rallied to all time highs.
I'm looking at MPEL's potential and based on Macau gambling growth over the next 3 years, i can't see how MPEL will not do well. At these prices it might be worth a play.

MPEL's chart.

Same type of selldown as BIDU after IPO.

Priced at $31.

Yet another new low for the yen.

But is Stockcharts trying to tell us what's coming next?

If 11.20 holds I would think so...

[attachmentid=84754]

JPY (Sep) on sale right now for <.008150. Time to pull the trigger?

Trading at 35.50.

Nice action on GOOG.
Up 8 bucks.
Flight to quality.

I saw it peak out at $38.00 after it started trading.

Since then, it's just slid & slid & slid....

ANF not looking so hot.
The retail business might be going to hell.
BBY, SBUX, CC, COH, SHLD showing alot of weakness over the past few months.

Once NDX breaks 1929 all hell will break loose

Seems to be stabilizing near 36. This kind of volatility not unusual for an IPO. This will be an institutional cult stock for awhile. Never underestimate the stupidity of the professional herd.

That trendline may prove to be support. I see no reason for the trading range to break down yet.

Although the Fed is getting more punitive with a $4.75 billion drain today. Brings the SOMA to the Maginot line after 6 months of zero growth. Details in the WSE Pro Fed and Treasury report just posted. For those of you who aren't subscribers, you can try it risk free for 30 days. Click the link below to get in now.

Just broke 1929

That trendline I referred to before is at 1924 right now. I misread the chart before.

need a lower low need a lower low need a lower low

Will they buy more insurance???

I had the thought last night that the complete dearth of posts and visitors on M2M in the latter part of the evening might be suggesting a dramatic change in the market in the very near future. Mark got in the bears faces again, and other than my pointing out some errors of logic it seemed bears couldn't or wouldn't fight back. Total capitulation.

The end is nigh.

And I'm ready to hear some chest thumping from bears!

"Got stocks?"

When was the last time you saw a head and shoulders top in the middle of a decline.

Well, all those on the other side of the put trade, the sellers might be facing some big losses soon. I wonder if they can buy insurance.