http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices

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










http://www.kitco.com

Energy futures

Currencies/Au/Ag

A pullback to support today after Friday's new record high. All Ords -0.6% with most sectors in the red to some degree. IT is down the most -2% followed by Energy -1.4%. The only green sector is Telecomms, +0.2%.

Miners are down somewhat although nothing serious at this stage: BHP -0.6%, RIO -0.1% with the golds around -0.8%.

The big oils getting a hammering: Woodside -1.8% and Santos -3.7%.

Not too much to report, just a general downwards drift today. All Ords closed -0.4% with IT remaining downside leader, -1.5% followed by Energy -1.2%. Telecomms and Utilities were the only green sectors, +0.2% and +0.1% respectively.

Miners were pretty much stalled: BHP -0.3%, RIO flat and the golds -0.4%.

Oils remained down in the dumps: Woodside -1.4% and Santos -3.2%.

Mixed in Asia, ranging from China -3.5% to Nikkers -1.1%.

Over to UK/Europe:







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

The Chinese and Singapore governments have become key investors in Barclays, helping the UK firm to raise its offer for the Dutch bank ABN Amro.

If Barclays acquires ABN, the Chinese state would emerge with a shareholding of 7.7% in the enlarged group.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6911305.stm

I had selected a setting in the new media player which caused a problem for everybody. Should be working now. If not, let me know.

There used to be a word for that-- where the state owns the means of production. What was that???

Every week there's a new opulence record setting. Be it in consumer products like bling H20 or quasi jewelery-art like that ugly skull, well this week it's time for the crossing between a consumer product of the poor farmers and factory workers in Mexico and quasi jewelery-art.



Yes, 1 Million Bucks for Tequila.



Maybe Mr. Slim will contribute to this welfare cause

They're just trying to dump their hard earn doolahs before Heli Ben pulls a 1980's dollah crash on them.

I think I've seen the scenes that will follow in the old spaghetti westerns where the stranger enters the bar everything and everyone stops what they're doing to turn their heads at the intruder and following is spur steps down to the bar where the barman with a poker face replies to the whiskey order with a dry "YOUR MONEY'S NO GOOD HERE!"

Colonization? That's not the word but it comes to mind.

My wife worked for Barclays and I recall some of the investments that she had with the firm.

We also had a visit with some relatives from Singapore with some of them involved with high finance though I don't know exactly what they do. I am somewhat curious about it though.

AP
Halliburton 2Q Income Doubles
Monday July 23, 7:25 am ET
By John Porretto, AP Business Writer
Halliburton 2Q Income Doubles on KBR Separation

communism

RIG and GSF are going to combine. I don't have the details of the deal though. Source: Etrade Alert.

China is a communist country as much as the USA is a free and lawful democratic country.

Ironic isn't it. We beat the commies, but they are going to end up owning us because of consumerist, buy now-pay later lifestyle.

Remember, already 52% of Fannie and Freddie's debt is now owned by foreign central banks, and I'd guess the PBoC is probably one of the biggest holders.

You knew that this was coming! More energy mergers announcements to come.

OSLO, July 23 (Reuters) - Shares in Norwegian oilfield services companies jumped on Monday after U.S. rivals Transocean (RIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and GlobalSantaFe Corp (GSF.N: Quote, Profile, Research) announced they would merge to create the world's largest offshore driller.

Link

There is nothing wrong with it since it’s a means of getting what they want also can't changed the monetary system in placed by the west.

They work hard to produce real and crap goods and send it by container loads to west in return west ships toxic waste by containers load back to china….

Wonder who is getting free rides???

Even if there is Doom and gloom, no governments will give up their right to print worthless papers…

Democratic??? I just don't think so...Capitalist yes

We sign our rights away every 4 years on fake promises

Carl Swenlin on gold.



[attachmentid=86194]



Link

The podcasts are working now. Just downloaded it to my iPod and will listen to it on the way into the office. Was working a wee bit late this morning due to some high-priority stuff that I had to look into.

I took the MacBook Pro into the office last night and it the three pounds lighter than my current notebook was noticeable. I also found that I don't have a decent bag for the thing. It takes up so little space in my current pack that the notebook flops around. Truly an amazing piece of hardware.

On Apple stuff that I read last night and this morning:

1) There was a survey out based on web usage that Mac/OSX is stagnant and that Vista is growing. This is based on the reported Operating System tags on surfers browsers. The implication is not that Apple isn't selling more systems but that it's percentage of the market is stable. In a growing market, that's not bad but it would be nice to grow your marketshare too. Of course it's not completely clear that this survey is 100% accurate as there are people that run Windows on Parallels on OSX and that would report as Windows if they ran their browser on the virtual machine.

2) Intel will be lowering their prices on their chips this week. Some retailers had the lower prices a bit early. They are also introducing a lower-clocked Xeon processor around 2.0 or 2.1 Ghz. At this point, it is possible for Apple to move to all 8-core machines in their Mac Pro line. At the moment, they have three quad-core machines and one 8-core machine. The new lower-speed quad-cores would fill in a little of the gap between their iMac line and their Mac Pro line though they have a lot of work to do in creating new iMac models for introduction later this fall. I'm looking forward to the Mac Pro price cuts as it may give me an idea of how much profit they're making on Intel chips. And it would be interesting if they didn't cut prices which would mean higher margins on their high-end machines.

The stuff about the chinese this morning is pretty interesting. Particularly the Singaporean link. They seem to be middlemen taking great advantage of the commerce and finance from China to western countries. How they inserted themselves there makes for an interesting story that I'd like to hear. They weren't expected to do well as China took over cheap manufacturing and would eventually take over Singapore's manufacturing but apparently it hasn't worked out that way.

Microcrap users are not going to Buy Apple unless they make operating system to run Microcrap based Applications. IMHO


All we have to do is watch Mystic East charts to get an idea what may be happening

A few tidbits about Singapore.....

1) About 75% of the population are ethnic Chinesse.

2) The state investment firm Temasek has been making major investments in China for year- Have seats on boards in China, including the likes of BoC.

3) Tamasek was (is?) run by the Prime Minister of Singapore's wife.

Kinship, money and politics makes for a powerful combination for influence.

Last Friday I was in Reno, NV on vacation without the internet.
Wanting info about the market I turned on C_N_B_C.
I knew GOOG missed on Thursday night and wanted to see where it was trading.

NOT ONCE in the hour I watched did a Google trade go by on the bottom ticker. NOT ONCE.

Then Crapvision gives us a Nasdaq report, the reporter is forced to mention GOOG.
She doesn't know the current price and asks if they can throw up a GOOG chart.

NOPE.

Finally on a report from the Nasdaq site we get to see the price GOOG is at.
Which of course is followed by a story on how the GOOG drop is over done.

It was simply amazing. Just don't mention the bad news and everybody will continue to invest.

C_N_B_C truly is the mutual fund network.

Maybe it's a stealth bailout...

Barclays may sue to recover losses at Bear Stearns

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Barclays Plc, once an investor in a now worthless Bear Stearns hedge fund that bet on subprime securities, is now considering its options for recovering $400 million it invested in the fund, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Saturday.

Yaryman,
I noticed the same thing. Truly amazing...

Personally I think gold is going to launch into a brand new pattern fairly shortly and it won't be a top... ie I'm rabidly bullish...

I am looking for consolidation then panic buying..

Next year should be good for gold bulls

DJ Fed Accepts $8.25 Bln In Overnight RPs

Type of transaction: Overnight RPs
Total accepted: $8.25 Bln
Total submitted: $57.5 Bln

Agency Collateral Operation
Total accepted: $4.406 Bln
Total submitted: $19.05 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: 5.25%
Weighted Average: 5.25%
High-rate submitted: 5.25%
Low-rate submitted: 5.17%

Treasury Collateral Operation
Total accepted: $3.844 Bln
Total submitted: $23.1 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: 5.15%
Weighted Average: 5.15%
High-rate submitted: 5.16%
Low-rate submitted: 5.09%

Mortgage-Backed Collateral Operations
Total accepted: None
Total submitted: $15.35 Bln
Stop-Out Rate: N/A
Weighted Average: N/A
High-rate submitted: 5.25%
Low-rate submitted: 5.23%

(Data was provided by the New York Federal Reserve Bank).

[quote=FeedFool,Jul 23 2007, 09:39 PM]
[quote=aussiebear,Jul 23 2007, 01:31 PM][quote=linrom,Jul 23 2007, 08:46 PM]Carl Swenlin on gold.

Personally I think gold is going to launch into a brand new pattern fairly shortly and it won't be a top... ie I'm rabidly bullish...

[/quote]

I am looking for consolidation then panic buying..

Next year should be good for gold bulls

[/quote]

I agree ...

You can run Microsoft applications on Mac/OSX using Parallels or VMWare Virtual Machine software or you can run it using Apple's Boot Camp. Our new MacBook Pro boots up Windows by default (Macs make great Windows machines as they are generally high-spec hardware systems).

Virtual machines have really changed the game for alternative operating systems. Yes, you can run Linux as your main OS and then Windows as a VM. On my personal laptop, I have three Windows operating systems. Windows 64, a Windows 32 OS that runs under Windows 64, and a native Win32 Operating system. I use this combination for development work.

Some long term secular trend indicators for gold are on sell signals. These take a long time to play out. A top can last a year or more during which time the price can go higher, but usually in a slow and grudging fashion. Or it could just mean a very long period of consolidation ahead.

Or.....

Anyone looked at the sectors to see why the spoos are so much stronger than the Qs?

Huge jumps in VIX and VXN this morning

Bain Capital is at it again. Just after buying Guitar Center they announce this acquisition:

Last update: 7/23/2007 10:00:04 AMDOW JONES NEWSWIRES American Standard Cos. (ASD) said Monday it will sell its bath and kitchen businesses to a Bain Capital Partners fund for $1.76 billion in cash. The division posted annual sales of $2.4 billion last year, the Piscataway, N.J.-based company said. American Standard said in February it would focus on its flagship Trane air-conditioning business, selling or spinning-off its other concerns.

Bain is sailing away into a consumer products gail just when the people who have manned the ships for decades are jumping overboard.

Maybe they think the terlet business is recession-proof.

Or maybe they see some synergies between Guitar Center and American Stanturd.

NDX 30 minute chart......starting to exit the rising trend lines....

[attachmentid=86196]

We have some relatives that have some interesting contacts over there and have some friends that were in high places over there that are living in the US now. We should probably go back and visit one of these days.

QQQQ huffing and puffing around 50

ALCOA SWINDLE

Since the close of 7/11/07, following a rather mundane earning announcement, rumors of impeding Aloca takeover began to circulate. Early in the morning of 7/12/07, one of the most manipulative investment houses, Credit Suisse , issued a stern Alcoa upgrade citing nothing of substance but with new target of $55 per share.

Now, two weeks later Alcoa has completely broken down and is threatening to take out its gap from $35.68. In the meantime a staggering 30% of Alcoa outstanding shares of 883 million traded at a fantastic premium.

This is a perfect example of rampant fraud on Wall Street. Will the SEC investigate the source of these bogus rumors(London Hedge Funds)? With the biggest shill occupying SEC Chairman's job since 1934, I wouldn't even consider that.

Just revisiting one of my old momo haunts: ONT. It's back to just above $2. This thing went from about 70 cents to four bucks and has since taken a 50% haircut. I had a great time in the stock and was happy to exit in the high $3. I'm wondering if this gets down to $1 again in the next year. Penny trash can be fun but keep one foot out the door.

The guy that mentioned it to me had it as a fundamental play and maybe it still is. I like the concept but didn't see the kind of money returns to justify the runup.

I mentioned CVS on friday jokingly as a good stock to buy on the dip as wall st bankers would be loading up on antacids and headache medication. Well it's having a pretty good day today.

Pretty quiet around here this morn.

Maybe they'll indict some foreigners they can't touch just look like they're doing something about it while they leave the real crooks home free.

I only watch CNBS when traveling as well. Last time I watched, the talking steaks were "reporting" that the markit was down because oil was up 2 bucks. The next day, oil was down 2 bucks, yet the schlock markit was selling off anyway. The talking steaks didn't mention earl. Funny how that works.

I notice some bullzies mention that the fact that CNBS viewership is well below 2000 levels as a sign that sentiment is still bearish. But I think they aren't taking into account the competition CNBS now has vis-a-vis 2000: ROBTV in Canada, Bloomberg TV, etc. Not to mention all the real-time Internet sites that cover the same ground.

Maybe some of the goofballs who were daytrading in 1999 are no longer watching CNBS. They're probably broke or looking to buy the condo dip. But perhaps most folks are increasingly getting their info elsewhere and prefer biz coverage without the cheerleading and booyahs.

I would imagine the debut of the Faux Business Channel will likely siphon off even more CNBS viewers. No doubt Faux will do an even better job than CNBS at cheerleading and happy talk for those who seek such infotainment.

Schlock manip via rumornoize has been part of the Cheat Street landscape since time immemorial. It was covered in detail in "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" written almost 100 years ago. Even Krammer regaled folks on CNBS recently about the fun he had spreading false rumors to goose stocks up or down.

I assume nothing will be done this time, given that nothing has ever been done about stuff like this. They might arrest some Albanian goat farmer or Japanese housefrau who made a couple thousand bucks. But they'd never touch the folks who make multiple millions off these schemes.

As always, when it comes to Cheat Street fraudsters, it pays to think big.

Yes, u can run anything with VM or boot up with option of multiple systems, is that what most people wants??

Most people don't want to add other layers and end up using more resources.

Great to have a system out from the box without the bugs and get baggy as time progress

Great Picture! I can't imagine what they value here. They bought this for $1.76b CASH. While sales of $2.4b look nice, they have been flat for the last 3 years. What they didn't mention was the K&B division had net income last year of ($18m). The K&B assets are worth $2.18b. So they just paid cash for a business that is currently losing money, at the beginning of an industry cycle downtrun. Good Luck!

Most People aren't interested in stocks only us die hard stock junkies and the big Boyzs...

Housing is another the story

Socio-capitolism----Cronyo-capitolism--Kapitolo-cronyism; Fascisto-Sinoism

Sovriegn-shoppers-warehouse; Cronyo-communism; Fascisto-communism,

Whatever you call it we are in a new ball game---The chinese have only one goal in mind and it isnt profit--its defined like the three magic words in REstate--but instead of location,location location---its
JOBS--JOBS--JOBS.....They are about to go on the world's biggest shopping spree...

Scenario for future movie....Hey Everybody Hands Up, My name is Juan Kow Suck, and I dont speak spanich-so no Manos Ariba Senor,but Harvard aquired english--Keep those hands up I say---and If you behave yourself then there's something in it for all of you---

What I want you to do is this---see this bag?--Ok I want you to put C Bank-Macys-Target,Kraft Foods,Some of those steel companoes,Ford Motors inside, and for that I got this double bottomed bag of Treasuries; and theres more of that where that came from--Comprende? Great!!!

beardrech Ill be back tomorrow as soon as I swallow some Malox--you know it takes a day or two to digest Barclays ;next I'll want some of your finest Physicists,Chemists,Nuclear engineers, of any ethnicity including cold-hearted esqimaux....Dont worry I aint gonna leverage your labor on the cheap--thats for peasants--you get top dollar==depending on youur IQ....Patriotism??? I got u figured that there's abut as much patriotism in your scientific hearts as lint in the belly button of a fleas...

Adiois Muchachos;I dont need your stinking badges--and if I give u nightmares--start counting sheep

I dont spell as bad as my copy looks its just the G'damn Keyboard doens have the action necessary for good copy I apologidse----

You can't run anything you want to. You can't run Mac OSX on non Apple hardware (legally). Most people don't want to run multiple operating systems but it's just a fact that operating systems have advantages and disadvantages. There's a huge amount of legacy software and access to that software carries value. There are software segments that favor Mac/OSX, particular in creative areas. And some far prefer the Mac/OSX operating system to Linux and Windows.

The other unfortunate thing is that all software of consequence has bugs. And architecture matters. Windows has a lot of architectural legacy cruft that uses up a lot of resources in maintenance. Mac/OSX is built on Open Source so there's a lot of free and open source work that Apple builds on reducing their development and maintenance costs. GOOG takes the same approach in platforms and leveraging the work of others.

My bad on previous trend line drawing...this is more likely...

[attachmentid=86197]