Shorts got a little nervous there on Friday. All rallies start with a short covering panic. Whether they amount to anything or not depends on whether the bulls come back.

Doc,

Can you comment on Russ's observations about the Fed's loose TOMO since May?

I, for one, am relieved that the credit crisis is over and the resilient consumer is going to give us a huge xmas shopping spree to save the eCONomy.

From IDS...



Now, just behave yourselves while I'm out. Run up gold, the miners, and get the Canroys turned around.

Then when I get back We'll sell all that and reload for the big Dec turn date.

Let's synchronize our watches

BIDU down in the red the second half of the session....

GO LONG for the 2 point last second assblasst.

Think I'll go bottomfish at CostCo now. I want to see what kind of business they're doing.

One thing that strikes me is that people are talking about how things like the Tanger Outlet malls are doing a great business this year, much better than previous years.
Maybe that's because people are trying to save money by shopping at places like that, instead of paying retail (puke puke) as they did when they felt rich?

The Fed has been anything but loose. The Fed retired $10 billion in 4 week repos in August, replacing them with the new 7 day repos that they now do each week. That accounts for most of the difference. Permanent money is high powered money. The repos leave some room for doubt because they are only around for a couple of days.

The Fed withdrew $10 billion over the last 5 days. So far this month they have cut total holdings by $1 billion.

About to do some more field research shortly at the stores.

Thanks Doc for your insightful answers on IDS and M2M.

Will let you guys know what I see, although my sample size will be small.

Can't do department stores, malls, or ladies/teen type stores. Every man has his limits.

Well, then maybe could you just sit outside Victoria's Secret with binoculars?


[attachmentid=92846]

pic source

Judging from the size of those muscles, SOMEONE's been doing a lot of watching....

Yes, thank God for those patriotic consumers doing their part!

I did not read whole IDS, so I do not know whether anybody mentioned that most of the retailer fell from their heights at the end of the session.

DJ ECB To Add More Liquidity To Money Markets Next Week - FT



Amid renewed fears that liquidity in the credit markets is starting to dry
up, the European Central Bank announced late Friday that it would pump more
funds into the money markets next week, the Financial Times reported on its
Web site.

The bank said Friday night it would inject an unspecified amount of extra
liquidity next week, noting "re-emerging tensions," and would do so until at
least the end of the year, the FT reported.

Earlier Friday, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet vowed continuing action to
keep short-term money market interest rates in line with its main policy rate,
according to the FT report.

Got back from Best Buy. One of the smaller stores.

They had racked up promotional items in these islands along the aisles - deeply discounted stuff for the early bird shoppers. Last year, this stuff was gone within the first hour. I got there at 11 AM today, 6 hours past their store opening. Lots of these promotional items were still available.

It's an absolute disaster.

Perhaps today it was the last chance to prop the retailers stock price.

Retail report, part 2.

My somewhat early morning (pre-market opening) trip to the electronics store and the big local hardware store chain (think Home Depot size, but with more stuff like toys and candy) did not impress me. Like me, the other shoppers were buying loss leaders only, not other stuff.

I went out again this afternoon. Managed to hit the lunchtime lull at CostCo, but there seemed to be plenty of big TVs stacked up. The one thing I saw a shortage of was the watch I wanted, on sale for 35 bucks instead of the usual 66. Fortunately I managed to dig through the empty boxes and miraculously there were a couple left at the bottom. I did not see big-ticket items in people's carts. They only had 3 checkout lines open, and there were only 2 people ahead of me. The woman ahead of me had two loaves of bread and one of their prepackaged party trays.

I was burned enough about the electronics store that had sold out of their advertised special on the TV that I wanted, that I stopped back there. Maybe 5 other customers in the store. I asked a salesperson how many of those TVs they had had in stock -- he hesitated, then said, "I think about 5." I figure that means 3. So I looked at their TVs, determined that all their sale prices were $50 more than CostCo's regular price, and left.

There seemed to be lots of cars in Best Buy's lot when I drove by, but I didn't see anybody wheeling out big TVs on dollies. People seemed to have a regular sized shopping bag. I figure it was the 5 buck DVDs they were buying, stuff like that.

Then I went to Target. It was fairly busy, about like a normal Saturday afternoon.

I'm not impressed.

jickiss is back!



jickiss is back!


and

ok, here goes, but first, credit to Mr. George Ure of http://www.urbansurvival.com, to da General, to Doc, to N1N, (for the Weimar Run theorem), and to all the bears that have been slapped so hard for such a long time....

1. Next week is Major Critical for the INDU. (your jickiss likes to use the INDU as a reference point, as Doc said that it ought to be the last toothpick to crack, or whatever). Ure notes 13,050 as the key number that would defeat, for the time being, the tendency of the INDU lately to track either the 1929 chart pattern, or the 1987 chart pattern. You can review the details at his web site if you so elect.

2. The ECB says they will put in liquidity......to your jickiss, at Wharton this meant that the ECB will buy bonds......the interbank market in the covered Euro bonds has stopped trading, according to various reports.....to your jickiss, it sounds like the ECB will do some serious buying through the end of 2007. do they have a choice???

3. The us Fed will also inject liquidity for real, as they can say that they are following the ECB, if they need a "cover" reason. Of course, they can do whatever they want, but maybe this is a Sign that the Eurozone is now being granted more latitude in initiating policy.

4. If, remember who can say for sure, but if the liquidity starts to Flow in, then the inflow should become clear in the following names: GS, IBM, MSFT, CSCO, AAPL and GOOG. your jickiss imagines that the Treasury Stabilization Fund will Weimar these items. why? easy, if they bull a few, the many will follow, as the Sign will become a Wonder to the world. Follow that star into the end of 2007 up and up via a free ride deal funded internally by the princes of printing.

5. the performance of Gold today was very impressive, and your jickiss says that if the liquidity gets seriously injected, then the metal heads to the 850-900 zone. Expect to see very favourable price action in: GG, NEM, AAUK, AUY, ABX, TRE, CDE and others, but these look to be the easy and safer plays. GG is supposed to have -0- deriviatives. NEM bot back its book from the crims that wrote it, for 2 Billion, so NEM is OK. AAUK is supposed to be strong, unlike GFI and AU, which have deriviative book issues. ABX is da boyz vehicle to do magic things, so you are not to worry about their derivative book until the Metal prints $1,000. TRE is making a giant saucer bottom of great duration, and it will soon enough print over $10, then $11 will be easy, and that price will make your jickiss correct on all the $11 price targets written on all of those annoying TRE jickiss charts, for the Mills of the Gods do grind slowly.

CDE is the best, for the last time, Please take a very good close look....$4.50 and then above $5.50 and Ten will be easy, as Silver, the metal not the Horse, advances to $23.

And why not this year for $23 Silver? Once the liquidity gets injected for real, prices will change.

finally, finally, and finally, will the Gold at $1,000 level really be the Final Top indicator for the INDU, with DXD at $38 and Goldman Sachs at $280-$300, and IBM forced up to the $150 zone?

these times are deeply troubling, for so little is now grounded in REALITY that all bets seem to be subject to being pulled off the table in a Flash.

well?

regards to one and all
Hold Fast!
acres of diamonds are ahead
for in the end
Only the Gold and Silver and Miners and Miners Related Longs
and the Broads Bears
can
win big

the only question to your jickiss is the duration of the final Liquidity Trick, if such Trick is in fact play-able.

jickiss is back!



jickiss is back!

and here is an INDU chart to review, in the context purely of a boyz Liquidity Trick that starts next week....

Black Friday report from Campbell, CA. I live next to a Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, and Fry's Electronics. Went over to that area at 2:00pm

All parking lots full. Lots of foot traffic. Lots of people leaving stores with bags. Saw some people walking between stores to buy stuff.

I only went in to Fry's because it is geek heaven and it was very busy inside. The checkout line was long and perhaps had 100 people in it, and another 30 people at the registers buying stuff. Lots of TVs and other items in shopping carts. Fry's is not running a huge number of daily specials today.

There is also a big shopping mall close by but I am not setting foot in that area... too much traffic.


Shopping enthusiasm has not abated around here.

Bernie Schaeffer is on Nitely Bidness Report ! ! ! ! !

Really bad face lift.

Okay, he sez buy calls on PCLN and PCU, puts on XLF.

Wow. I guess people still have their re-fi money. Or good-paying jobs.

Or maybe they're buying stuff before they declare bankruptcy, so they can keep it in the in-laws' garage, and sell it to raise cash after the bankruptcy. That's a strategy I've heard advocated for the soon-to-be bankrupt. Nice, huh?

Don't judge anything on the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday is the meanest sheeple ass-pounding addiction-frenzied day in the world. You can't quant buyer sentiment on this day, like you can't accurately count all the alcoholics on July 4th. The data point is so many standard deviations beyond the mean, anyone with an agenda on either side can make a case for their point of view.

That said ...

I couldn't find a wheelbarrow at Home Depot today.

But I did see a lot of Ron Paul bumper stickers.

Why did you need a wheelbarrow? Planning to move your precious metal stash out of the backyard?

I'll lend you my wheelbarrow. You're welcome to bury it in my yard. I won't tell anyone else where it is.

My Boyz are wondering why you think my backyard isn't safe enough ...

No particular reason....

Some money came out of the short end of Treasuries...

Sector scan sez belief is "selling tech to millions"

looks like the UK will be in recession soon too


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7108970.stm

Slump in bank mortgage lending

The British Bankers Association (BBA) said that in October its members lent 44,105 mortgages for house purchase. That was 19% fewer than in September, and 37% down on October 2006 when more than 70,000 mortgages were lent.

Last month also saw a big fall in approvals for remortgaging - where people sit still but change their mortgage deals - and for equity withdrawal, where homeowners borrow more against the increased value of their homes.

I'm getting awful tired of people crying about 2% dips in prices of houses that are up more than 100%, sheesh!

Housing price drops, driven by soaring foreclosure rates, accelerated during the three months ended September 30, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors

The median single-family house price in the United States fell to $220,800, which was down 2 percent from a year ago.

WOW! TWO PERCENT! WHAT A TRAGEDY! BETTER CUT RATES AGAIN!

Condo prices rose 2 percent compared with 12 months ago.

INFLATION!

Regionally, the best performing area was the Northeast, where the median home price rose 3.2 percent to $286,300.

INFLATION!

In the Midwest, the median price, at $170,800, was up 0.5 percent.

INFLATION!

JUST BECAUSE SOCAL AND FLORIDUH AND ARIZONA HAD A BUBBLE, WE GOTTA PANIC AND BAIL EVERYBODY OUT???

I think IBM had a helluva run to 120 as predicted by our jickiss many months back, butt any more upside now is wishful thinking.

This chart shows one seriously busted POS.

And I still predict that accounting fraud will be exposed at Big Blew.

Oh yes.

So I look forward to shorting this over-rated pig on any pitiful sucker attempt it makes to drag its sorry wasted aSS substantially back over the 200-day MA.

Bobby: wink
Hank: nod
Z-E-R-O

pump, distribute

pump, distribute

pump, distribute

long way down before they start the next bull market from much lower levels

faSScinating to watch people get sucked into sucker rallies on these sucker stocks

over and over and over

Big Buybacks Begin to Haunt Firms
Now, as the economy slows and credit markets buckle, high-profile companies are cutting back on buybacks, and some wish they held on to the cash they gave back to shareholders.

"Gave back to shareholders" my aSS. What a stupid statement.

Billions of dollars in shareholder $caSSh was flushed down the terlet these paSSt few years on stock buybacks, the sole purpose of which was to goose insider stock options (the angle made famous by Fire & Pump maSSter Lou "I got mine" Gerstner).

Now the game is over.

The insiders have $caSShed out.

And the stock prices of these hollowed-out shell CONpanies are destined to implode.

I think the only thing you're going to see from the government is blowing smoke out of their ass. That and trying to secure their tax revenue and bond financing any way they can.

Interestingly, Barney Frank's subprime bill does nothing to bail out anybody. All it does it tighten lending standards and ground Bernanke's helicopter.


===================

The Modesto Bee.

“Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaimed ‘a very, very big victory for the people of California’ this week in getting lenders to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, but the deal he announced apparently isn’t new at all. The governor took credit Tuesday for negotiating an agreement with mortgage lenders Countrywide Financial, GMAC Financial Services, Litton Loan Servicing and HomEq Servicing to help keep subprime borrowers in their homes.”

“Those four lenders, however, told The Bee on Wednesday that their lending policies haven’t changed and the governor didn’t get them to agree to anything new.”

“‘The governor’s principles already are in alignment with what we already do,’ said Larry B. Litton Jr., who heads Litton Loan Servicing. ‘Nothing’s substantially changed.’”

“‘We’re already doing what he suggested,’ GMAC spokesman Stephen Dupont said. ‘No. Things really haven’t changed.’”

Same thing here at the Fry's in Concord. The parking lot was so full at 1pm, I couldn't find a spot and left.

I only stopped by to see if they still had the 24" monitor that was on a one day sale.
I think they get about 10 in stock, and then run out during the first hour.

On Bernanke's Helicopter Policy

I'd like to see him try to implement it in light of all these credit losses. The Fed chairman is completely powerless against psychological risk aversion and massive losses that have to be recognized.

Unlike the Japanese who mostly held their debt in house, US debt is held everywhere.

It's quite possible that Bernanke's helicopter drop was already implemented through Greenspan and Bush's actions in 2001. It would be right to blame both of these bastards for this mess.

I thought I would check in, although I don't really have anything to say.

Over the holidays, I met a woman from Gambia who landed a job with Ernst & Young and has been here for a few years. She showed pictures of the land she had bought for her parents and many siblings and the house she is building for them. The costs are amazingly different, $500 for the land and about $6000 for the house, which appears to be concrete brick, with noted cost increases as the project commenced. Water is an issue that remains to be solved but where two alternatives might be possible, one to tap into the community supply and another to have a well.

Gambia is a tiny sliver on the west cost of Africa. So small on my altas that the name has to be written above the country.

I thought about on thanksgiving her efforts to help her family in a meaningful way, and wondering about high-paid people trading CDOs, SIVs, ABMS, etc. who have no idea what they are trading or a meaningful connection to their own families other than some wall street bonus.

And I also learned something new, which is that cold food is icky to people who live in a culture where hot food is expected. I suppose that relates to lack of refrigeration and the need to cook food for safety reasons. But I had never known before that anyone would absolutely hate the sandwich. So I pass that on.

Best thanksgiving wishes to everyone, while hoping that we all make changes in our lives to be more environmentally friendly and be responsible to our particular communities. I know I have more work to do in that area.

perfect.

your sounding grumpy .. try newegg .... they have plenty on sale.

I learned this morning that my company is buying back $100 million + of stock. We had $250 million in cash in the bank, and the analysts were demanding on conference calls for that money to be used to buy back stock.

Going into a period of economic uncertainty it seems stupid to blow so much money on stock support, when the money could be used as a "rainy day" fund instead.

We recently ended a one year ban on employee stock sales due to an options investigation. The day before the ban on selling was listed the price went from $27 to $22. Jerks.

Risk aversion will take hold among the maSSes eventually, and it will be GET ME OUT GIVE ME MY MONEY NOW.

Until then, they're content to hold onto all their stocks as long as Maria keeps barking at them that everything's good and they need to own AAPL, etc.

But how long will they hold on to ANY stocks once they see a few more get pole-axed by 50% without warning?

Oh, how nice of them to "give all that money to shareholders". Giving back, ain't it wonderful. How much are they gonna give you I wonder? You're a shareholder, right?

At least FRE is smart enough to be selling new stock as fast as it can, gotta give 'em credit for that.

Drano, if they had any serious money to spend - they sold their stocks.

tip of iceberg?

yup.

In the Matter of International Business Machines Corporation, Exchange Act Rel. No. 34-55954, Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Rel. No. 2623 (June 25, 2007)

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the filing of a settled civil action against Kevin B. Collins, an employee of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) , for aiding and abetting Dollar General Corporation's commission of accounting fraud. As set forth in the Commission's complaint, Collins assisted Dollar General's commission of accounting fraud through a sham transaction.

Also today, the Commission instituted a settled cease-and-desist proceeding against IBM for its role in the Dollar General fraud and for IBM's own books and records violations.

The order also finds that IBM violated Section 13b(2)(A) by failing to keep accurate books and records. IBM, without admitting or denying the Commission's findings, consented to the issuance of the Commission's order directing IBM to cease and desist from committing or causing future violations of these provisions. Under the terms of the order, IBM also undertakes to pay $7 million to the court.

It appears to me that all this bad paper was originated by the Wall Street Fraudsters and denominated in USDs. I can't see how this can help either the buck or the stock market.

oh Bobby

show me them Citicorpse books!

Speaking of Black Friday, one needs to look at a retail chart like CC - circuit city or JCP - JC Penney to get a perspective of earnings. Obviously, earnings is not going to support some stock prices going forward, unless of course everyone sold their stock to buy christmas gifts.

but what would really convince me of an all out blood bath going on is if HPQ - Hewlett Packard's stock price would drop like JCP's did.

JCP
http://www.StockSharePublishing.com/ChartL..._1195880623.png

HPQ
http://www.StockSharePublishing.com/ChartL..._1195880658.png

I just looked at the CSCO balance sheet on Yahoo finance. These are annual number with July 05 on the right.. It looks to me like the common share count has increased 8 bil in 2 years and the book value has stayed at about a dollar a share. I would guess that share increase went to of exec options, although I know CSCO buys a lot of small companies with stock.
I would like to hear from some real accountants if I am reading that correctly.

Stockholders' Equity
Misc Stocks Options Warrants - - -
Redeemable Preferred Stock - - -
Preferred Stock - - -
Common Stock 30,687,000 24,257,000 22,394,000
Retained Earnings 231,000 (617,000) 506,000
Treasury Stock - - -
Capital Surplus - - -
Other Stockholder Equity 562,000 272,000 274,000

Total Stockholder Equity 31,480,000 23,912,000 23,174,000

Net Tangible Assets $16,819,000 $12,524,000 $17,330,000

This is from the income statement


Net Income 7,333,000 5,580,000 5,741,000
Preferred Stock And Other Adjustments - - -

Net Income Applicable To Common Shares $7,333,000 $5,580,000 $5,741,000

It would appear to me that CSCO has had a total income of 18 billion of for the years 2005-2007 although the book value/share has remained the same.
What am I missing?

Nymph, glad to see you posting. We do have so much to be thankful for.
What most don't realize is that most rural Americans including my greatgrand parents and my grandparents in the early part of their lives lived pretty the same way.