Wow, that was one nasty day. What did the nice folks at Crapvision have to say about THAT I wonder! BAC is gonna rescue CFC, huh? Sell the news I guess.

ignore all ST bottoms

short and hold

Don't forget to pick a fearless leader for next Mourn day and Toos day.

I was at Bankrate.com last night and it appears Indymac Bank just dissappeared from their list for CD rates. I checked Indymac itself and their rates also dropped off.

Maybe California dropped off the rate map.

Countrywide dropped down to second place for rates, and now the pigmen appear to want to entice all the old ladies to put their money into Corus Bank
Chicago, IL for the top returns on CD's.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/high_rate...oduct=14&sort=3

Have a safe trip, Lee.

May the StoolSh!t Force be with you.

I still think the crooks are gonna set a decent high some time next week.

How decent?

NFI halted!?!

Such a fine outfit -- what could it possibly be? Mebbe Mr. Buffet buying 'em for big money?

Not nasty at all. Trading was dignified, even decorous, at all times. Sow down 246, VIX up .23 -- commendable. No fear at all -- just the kind of decline I like to see.

For a while, I was a little dismayed by rutty's dragging her feet to the downside, but that was all resolved by the end of the day with the small craps' 2.15% loss once again earning them bottom honors among the fraudexes. No question about it, my gal rutty's a hottie who looks best in red:

Oh man. Played the first bounce at 65 for nice change.
Completely missed the double bottom play at 65. Wasn't Drano suppose to give me a howl at 65? Drano, where you at?

Nice to see ZN and ZB trading in size (300+ at a time) right at HoD in the aftermarket. Must be that inflation expectations are firmly anchored as per BB's speech.

Drano is taking a swim down the beach a spell....uh, he's kinda tied up.....can I have him PM you later?

[attachmentid=94593]

Over on Herb's site....he chats with David Shulman, senior economist of the UCLA Anderson Forecast....

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/

“This economy is either near recession or in recession and it will suffer from a far worse hangover (to mix my metaphors) from the housing bubble than it did form the Internet bubble of the late 1990s.”


Wow! Enough said...

Another rutty component hits the wall and explodes. Scumbag lender NFI finally gets last rites:
Fortune

Not what you'd call FAIR,

or BALANCED,

but, as a part of pop culture...


It's a nuther youtube video!

Saggy boobs.

record bankruptcy numbers NOW!

We are still in a boom(supposedly.. )

Just wait another six months,those records are going to be smashed big time.

Bankruptcy up despite good times

THE number of Australians declaring themselves insolvent has soared to record levels, rising more than 25% in the past two years despite buoyant economic times.

Federal regulators say 32,511 Australians were declared bankrupt or made formal agreements with their creditors last year, 10% more than a year earlier and 27.5% more than in 2006.

Most of that increase was in NSW, where bankruptcies and related agreements have swollen by almost half in just two years, with many households losing their homes after taking out mortgages they could not afford.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/ban...9988590015.html

and on the good ship Titanic aka the Australian property market,not an iceberg in sight.


House prices to keep going through the roof


ONE man's housing affordability crisis is another man's lucrative investment market.

Escalating house prices show little sign of abating and long-term figures confirm Australian residential property is a strong, stable investment — sexy qualities in these shaky times.

He said a wise move for families could be to rent in a new estate and buy an investment property in the inner suburbs. "If you buy a $400,000, two-bedroom flat in Elwood, you've got a great investment. Spend $350,000 on a four-bedroom home in Caroline Springs, you're tying an anchor round your neck."

http://business.theage.com.au/house-prices...80111-1lhr.html

OZ BANKS FALLING NOW

All that foreign money they borrowed - now they are having to pay big time for it.

Nothing like having a bimbo explain the global economy . . .

Try this instead (at least it's funny): BigBoxVideo

STRANGE DAYS OR WHERE HAVE ALL THE ARBS GONE


From the street



Why sell CFC for $6.33 when BA is giving you $7.01 unless you think BA shares will drop sharply before the deal is consumated.[QUOTE]

Clearly a case of day traders selling to cut losses - they overestimated what BA would pay.

Leading to an "inefficient" market in the short term -day scale.
Very strange, a great gift for Arbs - no "efficient" market here.

BA now a short

RETAILERS HAD A LOUSY XMAS

They no longer have all that lovely home equity loan money to spend.

They no longer have the wealth effect of rising real estate prices and rising stock prices

About a trillion in spending power has been taken out of the US economy

Bring on gold equity loans

Noland sums it up very well this week.

My belief has always been that the numbers have never added up.

The world is a much different place today. The Mortgage Finance Bubble is a bust, Wall Street finance is imploding, and foreign financial institutions are keen to cut and run from the business of providing U.S. Credit. Countrywide's mortgage problems will be absorbed - along with so many other risks - by our domestic banking system. Worse yet, the economy is quickly succumbing to recessionary forces. With a high degree of confidence we can proclaim that the Mortgage Crisis has now evolved into a Corporate Debt Crisis - and this crisis will not be resolved anytime soon - by rates, by helicopters, or by bailouts.

Unlike 2002, today's Credit crisis is systemic. Consumer and financial sector fragilities - the heart of our Credit system - are now impaired to the point of imperiling the capacity of the Credit system to finance business spending and intermediate corporate lending risk. To be sure, prospects for a faltering U.S. consumer sector, massive financial sector Credit losses, and an imminent economic downturn have quite negative ramifications for business lending and valuations. In particular, unfolding dislocation in the CDS and Credit "insurance" markets will severely restrict Credit Availability for small, medium and large firms - especially those less than top-tier borrowers.

I'll go further and suggest that a severe tightening of Financial Conditions has abruptly made many business borrowing plans unviable; many a balance sheet and debt load untenable; and vast numbers of business strategies - crafted in altogether different financial and economic times - much less viable. Some companies will make the necessary adjustments and many will not. The unfolding backdrop definitely makes a lot of stock buyback plans imprudent and growth strategies highly risky. The aggressive risk-taking business manager - having previously capitalized on the protracted boom - will now be at a similar handicap to that which afflicted the zealous home buyer and lender banker.

http://www.safehaven.com/article-9205.htm

Unfortunately there are a lot of unpleasant truths in that video, which I don't think Maria is even aware of.

Do you mean borrow FRNs to buy gold?

A cogent look at HK and probably China.

It is painting a monstrous triangle that has to be broken one way or another and lead into sizable move. Which way it will go?

As far as I know Hong Kong is heavy in semiconductors and affiliated sectors. If you look at US semiconductors index ($DJUSSC) it broke down to the ‘05-’06 trading range breaking through all moving averages, even 600 DMA. So why in heck there is even a slightest chance that Hang Seng will not follow? It will, as soon as within this month
http://theroxylandr.wordpress.com/2008/01/...break/#comments

]

Is this a leading indicator for Asia?

finally coughed up some digital dough for the WSE and got myself a stoolie handle.

i want to thank doc and leewhee (bless his endoscope) and all the fine posters here who've taught me fistfuls over the past year. thanks to the stool's TA wisdom/poetry (elegant concepts like entertainment zones, scene o' the crime, etc.) and severe lack of love for the pigmen, i had a purdy good year of trading--that includes avoiding significant hurtage during last summer's bullspanking.

and icing on the cake: you guys dissect the markets while keeping it lively with financial gallows humor--or is it scatalogical?

nah, doc isn't paying me to write this. i'm just really grateful for the edumacation i received here, which in the end is about protecting those i care about--saving for my kids' eventual college expenses, financially assisting my parents, building up the nest egg so my wife and i can have a decent retirement decades from now, buying my own planet for nefarious purposes (maybe a PELOC ), etc.

hopefully i'll have something useful to contribute now and then.

and i raise my fist to the dude or dudette who mentioned UNG a few weeks back. nice trade thus far.

theroxylandr needs to check the facts.

Semi's are 0.04% of the DJ Hong Kong Index.

DJ Components Link Here

Welcome!! I remember when I discovered the Stool, it was like finally coming home...

I don't think it was me, but I've been loving UNG, even having bought badly back in September at 38 or so, holding it all the way through its move to 44 and not-selling, then down to 34... When it reached 35 or so, I started selling naked 33 puts against it, and then starting buying again at an average of 34.60 when I thought it was getting bottomy. I find it easier to trade what I actually want to own, even if underwater for awhile. It's hard for me to feel bearish about natural gas, but then, a loss would probably cure that

I wish I could stop kicking myself for being reticent with DBA. I've been bullish on agriculturals for years, but no time to trade futures and too antsy to buy it when it first came out, as there was no chart to analyze. Now look at that s-car go...

Looking forward to reading more of your posts!

Not trying to be political here at all...i just thought the below (from a current Presidential candidate) was apropos as our financial system looks into the abyss:

"All my life, I've been working to make sure that when the Fed had done its work, and the special interests had looted the system to their hearts' content, and there was a crisis, I would be in a position to speak the truth about why, and what to do about it."

At least someone is paying attention.

MDAX (German Midcaps) weekly chart

broke MASSIVE support on a weekly closing basis

[attachmentid=94595]


now watch the blue uptrendline, i didnt change anything just switched to log chart, here it has acted as pivot line. Thats voodoo!

[attachmentid=94596]

Mies is that RP ?

It's ground hog day again.

Menawhile, Jon Najarian of Optionsmonster.com writes, “To say there was HUGE unusual activity in Countrywide Financial ahead of today’s news that Bank America was close to finalizing a deal to buy the troubled mortgage giant would be as surprising as seeing Dennis Kucinich end his presidential run! We show over 304,000 calls traded against 248,000 puts, but the interesting thing here is that the bulk, some 76 percent of these calls were bought before the announcement! To us this means the likelihood of someone being tipped off was quite high. Like Burj Dubai Tower high!”

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/200...on-countrywide/

The log chart looks a lot more bearish.

Thanks for the correction. I informed theroxylandr of the contents of the index.
The HK chart does look like it is set up for a big move one way or the other.

I hate to show my ignorance, but what are ZN and ZB. Thanks

the dow, at least, has pretty much turned back down

other indexes are on the verge

meanwhile, it's deathly silent at capitalstool

US Bond futures quoted on the ECBOT. ZN is the 10-yr note, ZB is the 30-yr.

Welcome J3P, and thanks for the kind words!

Thanks, glad to see you posting again.

Have you started your trip south yet?

It doesn't look like the Gold Bugs are are all in. They need a subcription to the WSE to get the best info.

No irrational exuberance
Commentary: Gold timers remain curiously subdued about continuing rally
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
Last update: 12:01 a.m. EST Nov. 9, 2007Print E-mail RSS Disable Live Quotes
ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- Things are getting curiouser and curiouser in the gold market.
On one hand, the market has been impressively strong in recent weeks and months, and is now fast closing in on its all-time, set 28 years ago in January 1980.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/gold...0414C0E5BA4F%7D

I wonder how broke the banks really are? The Stock market is only off 10% from the ATH.

Citi looks to secure further $14bn in new capital
By Henny Sender in New York

Published: January 11 2008 22:02 | Last updated: January 11 2008 22:02

Citigroup is putting the final touches to its second big capital-raising effort in as many months, seeking up to $14bn from Chinese, Kuwaiti and public market investors.

Under the proposal being discussed, the bulk of the money – roughly $9bn – would be most likely to come from China, people familiar with the negotiations say. The Kuwait Investment Authority would contribute about $1bn, while $2bn to $4bn would be raised through a public placement of shares
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c6eb81e0-c083-11...?nclick_check=1

doc, GF, thanks for the welcome. glad to be in a place with all sorts of animals running around: grizzlies, polars, browns, suns, and the ozzie marsupial representation.

Do the trading systems and computers allow someone to find out who did all those trades?

We drove down to Montreal last night. We'll be leaving here Monday AM. No problem on the road at all. More snow is expected Monday down through upstate NY.

Last night you asked about freezing rain. The road crews throw plenty of salt on the highways. By the time we got to the 40, which is the I-95 of Quebec, the road surface was wet and completely clear.

The weather was bizarre. 41 degrees in Montreal at 10 PM last night. 120 miles away up in the hills in our area there was about 6 inches of snow and the local roads were snow covered. The highways were wet and slushy. I have an automatic 4 wheel drive vehicle with extreme winter tires. We never had any problem getting around.

The evergreen trees covering the hills were draped in white as we left. It was quite beautiful, and we will miss it until next winter. Danielle and the kids too a day trip to Jay Peak in Vermont for skiing while I stayed here in Montreal to get a little work done and visit with the grandchildren.

That's right! But I think the gold timers are pretty exuberant at the moment. That article is from November 9.

I backed out of gold stocks in my IRA accounts as well this week. I'm afraid that $900 may have some of that bigroundnumber mojo that requires a few sniffs at the line before it boldly steps across it.

The continuous withdrawls from the money system that the FED is doing also argue a case against gold right now.

If/when the FED starts throwing money at the current economic problems is when I want to be loaded way long the goldies.

Good Show!

If memory serves, the Chinese own a bunch of the toxic debt, and now they've gone back to them to get the money to make all that toxic paper good.

Another fine example of sales prowess and chicanery akin to selling ice to the Eskimos.

Again, that article was from November 9.

I just posted Monday's Precious Metals report. That will be the last one until Thursday.

The technical picture for gold and PM stocks has gotten much stronger. I've been taking some profits, holding others, and even added a new one to the list today. The late cycle movers are starting to run.

I don't think that the Fed restricting the monetary base will have any effect on gold, any more than they've had an effect on US Treasury securities. Liquidity goes where it's most loved, and right now gold and gold stocks are it. Gold and Treasuries are in speculative bull markets because they are viewed as safe havens, I guess.

Short term consolidations notwithstanding, I think that gold and gold stocks still have room to run before the annual correction kicks in. Try the Precious Metals report risk free for 30 days and check out today's Precious Metals Report in the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition, for all the details.