Or just a garden variety bear market short covering rally that goes straight up for a few days?

This is clearly the boner of the week. I dare you to short it. I dare ya!

Woa, those are some big a$$ candles!

[attachmentid=95027]

"I can't say that I'm totally pleased with the package, but I do know that it will help stimulate the economy. But if it does not, then there will be more to come," Pelosi said.

I think that breaks down to:

X = Y

But if X does not = Y,

then X + Z = Y

But if X + Z does not = Y,

then X + Z + A = Y

. . .

This is like crack to gold kooks like me.

I'm probably way too soon but I chorted this baby with a small position at the highs.

I have a feeling Asia and/or Europe will sell off tonight.

Don't ask me why.

Sofite beats by .04

+400mm on revs

guidance will make or break the day tomorrow for the NAS...doh!

Hello God,

Can you help me with my debt problems,or just give me the lotto numbers.

Thank you in advance.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/pop...226720&src=news

Facebook Friends Desert French Rogue Trader

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/ja...feed=technology

Like MyBM, a dollar phenomenon ibetcha...

Vista upgrades in Zimbabwe.

I love how the stimulus plan is now $600-$1200/family....because they know if they say $300/person it will sound ludicrous (as if it doesn't anyways).

I like the 'social mood indicator' as my guiding light.

I suspect the mood in the US is somewhat gloomy.

These stimulus packages may give sentiment a short term boost,but I think reality will kick in soon enough and gloom will return.

For the millions of people who are upside down on their mortgages,a govt handout of a few thousand dollars is peanuts.

For people who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole,it is a joke.

The numbers are too big.The debts are enormous.

The conditions that allowed and fostered the housing bubble have all been reversed.

Those conditions can't be repeated.

House prices will slowly deflate for years to come.

People can't tap equity in their homes anymore.

The consumer will stop spending and probably try and save money for awhile.

Job losses will increase rapidily,putting more pressure on the ailing economy.

Its a vicious cycle and it has to play out.

In bizarro world we need conditions to be the exact opposite of what they are.

This is going to be the mother of all recessions and it hasn't even started yet.

Thats my story and I am sticking to it..

Headline of story on MarketPimp:

"Average Joe's win as market springs to life.Buy and hold strategy never
looked so good."

Written by the 'editor-in-chief' of that steaming pile of week-old
mule stool.

What a f*&@!?* lying/ignorant shill of a whore.

Headline of story on MarketPimp:

"Average Joe's win as market springs to life.Buy and hold strategy never
looked so good."

Written by the 'editor-in-chief' of that steaming pile of week-old
mule stool.

What a f*&@!?* lying/ignorant shill of a whore.

The idea of MSFT getting anything but lambasted is beyond me in the wake of Vista, its flagship product. Even novices (like my dad) are stunned at its poor performance. A multibillion dollar company spends years on an "upgrade" to its headline product, only to release a bloated, slow rehash of its older model. At any other time in history, that would be that. But MSFT is an institution, a keystone in the markets, and so the world collectively looks the other way. And the stock remains strong. And everyone's spanking-new dual & quad-core 2gb machines run as slow as an old 286 running Windows 3.0. It's all just UFB.

Mies van der Rump,

Good point Mies.

I remember in OZ a few years ago the govt was trumpeting their Tax cuts.

It worked out that most people received about $5 a week.

It seemed (and was ) such a lousy amount of money.

One very fat minister said you could get a sandwich and a milkshake with the money.

I think they changed their approach to tax cuts after that.

They work in % or yearly figures these days..

New podcast posted at http://radiofreewallstreet.fm with Aaron Krowne and me.

It just pissed me off so much I had to spew twice.

Also, absolve Herb Greenberg from mule stool shilling, whoring,
yadda, yadda.

Prechtoid yappin' about cash levels in mutual funds.

Asia looking weak on the futures....Euro not so much.

Hotel california. A look at things to come?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmeHiFZUWtE

Mutual funds? You mean those sad little things from the 70's that are being replaced by ETF's and hedge funds?

vista is NOT that bad. please list a couple of facts to those assertions you make about the performance being akin to the 286 ?

i have blazing performance on a c2d e6600. the boot time is about 15-20 seconds. i never have pop ups. never had a virus. i can run all my apps. IE is solid. i run AUTOCAD products in tandem with dual monitors.

why so bitter sir ??

Speaking of Herb....

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

Reality Check on Raising Mortgage Caps
Nobody in a high-housing-price state will scoff at raising the cap on government-sponsored loans to $700,000 from $417,000, as is proposed in the economic-stimulus package. If nothing else, that should give psychological relief.

However, checking in with our old friend Mark Hanson, a mortgage banker and the author of the very well read “Straight talk on the mortgage mess from an insider” post here, the reality is:

–New borrowers still have to qualify. Fannie/Freddie is full doc only primarily.

–Without stated income for wage earners, it’s tough to qualify for a $700,000 loan.

–In 2005 to 2007, 70% of all jumbos were stated income for a reason: Ninety percent of all stated income borrowers lied about their income to qualify.

–Refi’s will still have trouble due to values dropping in jumbo areas by such a large amount. These are the ones that really need the help.

And the good news, says Mark: “This will be a positive for those purchase money loans for people that actually make the money and have the down payment.”

To put this in perspective, Mark adds:

For the past several years, a husband and wife working at McDonald’s for two years could borrower $650,000, STATED income no problem. They just put enough money as income listed on the application to qualify. Wall Street banks that ultimately bought the loans did not care. Lenders also qualified at interest-only payment rate with zero to 5% down. Credit scores at 600 were okay.

NOW, you must have earned $135,000 to $150,000 FULLY DOCUMENTED for the past two years and have a current pay stub and average ‘other’ debt to borrow $650,000. You must have at least 10% equity or down payment. You must have a credit score of 700 or above. This is not a large number of the population.

Without stated income for wage earners, how much will this raise really matter? From 2005-2007 70% of all jumbo loans were stated income…and for a reason: Ninety percent of all stated income borrowers lied about their income to qualify. Fifty percent by more than 5% and 50% by more than 50%.

This loan limit raise definitely will not help all the lenders with all the old vintage trash loans on their books.


It just aint gonna matter....

Maybe my count is off, but I think Prechter's reputation is in a downward 5 of 5 of 5.

He LOOKS prospeous enuff.

And, if your count's right, shouldn't we be looking for a major reversal?
Or at least one of those 'blind sow gets an acorn/stopped clock...'?

Also, Fed Report-MIA? Usually have it in time for my post-lunch
constitutional.

Jerome Kerviel enjoyed his job at Societe Generale .

It may have been boring working in the mailroom but he was glad to be employed in these uncertain times.

Little did he realise that his employer needed a scapegoat and they needed one fast.

Someone had to be the fall guy for the banks disastrous foray into the US subprime mess.

Tell them we had a rogue trader and he lost alll of our money.Tell them anything but just dont mention subprime.

Tell Jerome I want to see him in my office pronto.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...H6sY&refer=home

Saw a picture of Carl Futia and Prector reunion.....

[attachmentid=95029]

Someone put this in the comments section:



Spot on. Amazing losses on mortgage lending are being kept quiet. This bailout won't work. Real estate values will continue to fall.

The spring selling season starts soon.

cnn/money source

If you thought Carl Futia was bad, what about a guy that loses 7.2 bi?


"Please send more money, tanks!"

There are going to be alot of unhappy homedebtors when they realize that they never should have drained all their savings accounts and maxed out all their credit cards in order to "save" something they didn't own in the first place.

Broke, in massive credit card debt, and homeless.

sweet!

Now posted.

Sorry about the delay. I had to deal with a dental emergency which my mother is having. Also, trying to make new living arrangements for her. She has Alzheimers, and while she has a live in aide, I am essentially completely in charge of her life. Unfortunately, this often requires a significant amount of my time often on short notice.

Fortunately, her condition has been stable for about 6 months now so we count our blessings.

I'm not convinced that it's not going to matter.

The bottom line is that the feds are likely to increase the available subsidy. That means that if you did qualify for the smaller conforming loan, and you have incrementally more downpayment, you can now enhance your leverage with that government subsidy at the conforming rate.

That means that, on the margins, homesellers seeking a transaction (assuming 20% down) between the old implied maximum conforming transaction price (of 417/.8 = ~$521,000) and the new implied maximum transaction price (of 625/.8 = ~$781,000) have seen the available pool of purchasers increase.

Any seller above the legacy $521,000 transaction was looking at finding a buyer who would finance with a jumbo, which have been demanding a spread above conforming of between 75 to 100bps.

Sellers between $521K & $781K just saw their market marginally boosted.

Sellers above $781K have a smaller knock-on benefit from the seller/buyer seeking to move up-market.

There's no two ways about it.

I can't even imagine how they must feel after going thru their 401K's....Oofaa

[attachmentid=95030]

THe lower mortgage rates, and higher loan limits should help the higher end of the market somewhat. But the problem is at the base. Prices have to fall a great deal more to get the low end moving again. That will pull everything else down since move up buying is essential to the market.

And I'm not so sure that this spike down in interest rates is going to stick. If it does, the market should gradually begin to stabilize after prices fall somewhat more, but if rates start up again there will be no end to the carnage.

This business of people dipping into their 401ks to bail themselves out is going to get worse, and that will keep pressure on the market. That's one of the reasons this will be a secular bear. Another is simple demographics. Baby boomers are also going to need to begin pulling cash out of their retirement accounts. And the lower interest rates are, the more they will need to pull out.

The Great Stagflationary Depression has begun.

GW to the maSSes:

"Joe, we sent yer job to India and we doubled yer cost of living. Here's a check fer 600 bucks. Don't let the door hit ya in the aSS on yer way out. Good luck, sucker."

Scary

The sordid details are so surreal that it's somewhat hard to believe.

"The trades first came to management's attention on the evening of Jan. 18, when a compliance officer found a trade that exceeded the bank's limits, Mustier said. When Societe Generale called the counterparty, they were told the trade didn't exist."

I think it's mucho weird no one in the back orifice or partners or the boss noticed this guy losing billions under the cover of fake counter party positions.

"The trader didn't enrich himself from the fraudulent trades, which began in early 2007, and his motivations are unclear, Bouton said at the press conference."

"By the end of December, he was ``massively in the money,'' said Collas. Since the beginning of the year his trades became unprofitable."

One year of trading "massively in the money" goes down the drain in 3 trading weeks?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...H6sY&refer=home

If this story is real, it just proves any big bank can fail at anytime without any notice. And it's not a black swan long shot.

If AH holds, i'm going to unload my C March 25 calls tomorrow. I picked this batch up at 1.80s. It closed at 3.15, if i can get anything above 3.5 i'll unload it.

Positive wealth effect versus negative wealth effect.

Its that simple.

Trillions of dollars lost in housing and more recently off world stockmarkets.

That money has gone to heaven(or hell).

People feel poorer,people feel gloomy,people feel bitter, people feel angry.

When folks feel like this,it aint conducive to spending.

And of course the folks who have lost all this money ,don't have money to spend even if they wanted to.

I wish that were true, but I bet GSE's will change the rules in a snap if instructed.

I call bullsh*t...NO WAY this is the real poop. They just f'd up on a bunch of bad paper and this is how they are covering it. Give the guy a slap on the hands, a year behind bars and 20mm for his trouble to be the fall guy.

Maybe

I see 30 but what do I know, other than not much.

Good, then the faster they go BK!!!

Bob Brinker's Marketimer: Bullish. In his most recent issue, published in early January, editor Bob Brinker wrote that "the risk of a cyclical bear market decline in excess of 20% is not likely to materialize any time soon ... We expect the S&P 500 index to achieve new record highs this year and to reach the 1600's range in the process." Brinker's model portfolios are fully invested.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/cont...E389BC7C430F%7D