But which kind?

ESLR 6% dead dog bounce today

solar stocks will do better when we're under Hillary

TASR zapped shorts again today

another lil' 5% jolt

some of the top 1% are a little goofy I guess

Ex-Broadcom CEO broadsided by cocaine and orgy torture charges

Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas is locked in a lawsuit with former aide Kenji Kato, as the parties fight over drugs, prostitution and Judo allegations.

A copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Register shows Kato accusing Nicholas of carrying a concealed weapon with him at all times, performing Judo chops while standing close to others, threatening people like an angry drill sergeant and vowing to "make people disappear" using contacts formed through work with the Defense Department. You know - typical officer banter.

What about the Stem cell stocks? Time for a speculative bounce?

My guess is a 50 bp cut and a flat market.

The official annualized seasonally adjusted US CPI inflation was 5.6% over the last 3 months of 2007. And the FED is cutting at least 1% in January. Who are they fooling?

How bout GERN?

Me thoughts eggzactly! Bought some sep 5 calls yestidy.

I voted for a rally, but I'm thinking about a one day wonder, not an IT or even ST bear scalding.

Herb has got a conversation with Trim Tabs Biderman....

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

Should Investors Fight the Fed?

“At some point,” Charlie says, “return ‘of’ investment becomes more important than return ‘on’ investment.”

What about not fighting the Fed? “Flow follows performance,” he says. “Also has always will. If stocks go down, money will leave equities, even if interest rate is zero. Japanese investors ignored Japanese stocks for a decade even as Japanese interest rates hovered around 1%.”

But surely, you would think, with nowhere else to put the money, in a market ruled by computer programs and speedy flow of information, there will be a mass rotation back into stocks after another cut or two.

Won’t happen this time, Charlie says, because the mortgage market isn’t what it once was.


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Great job!

Looks like yhoo beat EPS and revs handily...still going down?

YHOO getting clobbered...below 19.

I dont get it... YHOO beats by .04 in eps, smashes revs, Guides waaaay above the street for next year. I'm not long or anything, I just dont understand the reaction.

Ah, the guidance out originally didnt have acquisition stuff backed out of the numbers. Now looks like the guidance is more or less in line with analysts.

Some know how to do it


Others Don't!


"Bayou's Marino Gets 20 Years for $350 Million Fraud"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aWb_2wN49h2I

Interesting fed chart on Mish's site...Net Borrowed Reserves (lending institutions borrowing from the Fed market or Discount window):

GOOG whacked. When does it report?

Tanks, Mies! Here's his explanation for said chart.

The NFORBES Chart above is courtesy of St. Louis Fed.

Here's an interesting excerpt from the book Investing Public Funds by Girard Miller about borrowed reserves.
"Another useful indicator of the Federal Reserve's relative monetary policies can be found weekly in the Federal Reserve data. A key statistic is the net free reserves or net borrowed reserves line item. This statistic measures the degree to which depository institutions have found it necessary to obtain funds in the Fed Funds market and through the Fed discount window in order to obtain required reserves.

During periods of central bank credit-tightening operations, the depository sector might find it necessary to borrow funds to meet reserve requirements. This practice results in net borrowed reserves, which shows as a negative number. Conversely, if ample funds are available through the banking system to meet reserve requirements, banks can become net lenders of reserves through the Fed Funds markets"
Given that the Fed is not in a credit tightening mode, we must look for a better explanation. Here it is: Banks in aggregate have now burnt through all of their capital and are forced to borrow reserves from the Fed in order to keep lending.

Detail comes from the Federal Reserve H3 Release. MISH

Here in OZ we are largely insulated from the subprime problems in the US.

Despite our ridiculously overpriced real estate market, our rampant inflation,our massive debts and our crazy spending habits, we have China as our biggest customer.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Right!!

Economic shockwave hits China

By Rowan Callick and Sid Marris
THE rampant Chinese economy that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are confident will help insulate Australia from the worst of the global financial meltdown is starting to falter, with Chinese leaders warning of a "most difficult" year ahead.

As US President George W. Bush used his last State of the Union address to urge bipartisan support for measures to stop the world's biggest economy slipping into recession, China blamed an uncertain outlook on the financial turmoil emanating from the stressed US housing market.

Premier Wen Jiabao warned that 2008 would be "a most difficult year".

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23...118-462,00.html

Whoa... Shorty got caught up in some mortgage scam.

Looks like SG's CEO Bouton is about to get Le Boot.

I expect the Socialist Republic of France to make SG whole again.

a month back these crazy, party loving dudes were sponsoring the OZ Open golf tournament,rubbing shoulders and sipping cold beers with some of the worlds best golfers no doubt.

Apparently no-one was minding the store.



MFS freezes $770 million

By Anthony Klan

MORE than 10,000 investors in embattled finance group MFS have had $770mn worth of investments frozen as the company battles to stave off collapse.

The Gold Coast group is chaired by former Opposition leader Andrew Peacock,

MFS yesterday froze its $770 million Premium Income Fund for six months amid a run on redemptions as the company struggles to source $150 million of debt due within weeks.

While MFS said its other funds were unaffected, the freeze raises questions for tens of thousands more investors in MFS who have ploughed $5.4billion into the company's investment syndicates.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23...116-462,00.html

Woa....Shorty == Marino

Shorty, Marino, .... Norm from Cheers.

Ahhh..... what's the difference besides age and a few pant sizes?

What bear market?

this is getting serious.




Broker can't pay but says it's OK

By Geoffrey Newman

LEADING stockbroker Tricom Equities was last night fending off speculation it was in financial trouble after it failed to come up with the money to settle its trades with the Australian Securities Exchange.

Tricom confirmed it had failed to settle its trades, leaving it at risk of being suspended from the exchange.

It is understood to be the first time in many years a major broker has been unable to settle at the required time.

The news whipped around the market yesterday, helping to shatter an already fragile confidence among investors, who drove stock prices down another 2.5 per cent with the S&P/ASX200 down 143.8 points to 5716.5.

Tricom managing director Lance Rosenberg told The Australian in an email that the company was experiencing "administrative issues''.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23...120-462,00.html

The new Amerika

Yet now we have this pervasive mentality where people are not only willing to let their homes foreclose and let their debt obligations fail, we have people that border the criminal. In the piece we also hear about people taking out “some equity” before knowingly letting their homes foreclose. Think about the mindset that occurs when this is happening. “Hey honey, we signed a contract but that doesn’t mean anything. How about we tap into our HELOC and take out $50,000 and let this home go into foreclosure. By the time we buy our new home and have some cash, who cares how our credit looks. After all, Wall Street is corrupt and the lenders were more the willing to give us the money. Take that Wall Street!” I assure you this conversation is happening at many households in the US as we speak. That is why fierce regulation and enforcement is utterly important. Trying to rush to raise caps is a knee-jerk reaction to the deeper and more profound problems with the economy. People are willing to go to any length so long as they can get away with it. All these get rich quick books cater to this free lunch mentality. Once at the fringe of late night infomercials, now a majority of Americans think nothing down is a birth right. Ben Bernanke was surprised that a trader in France was able to milk $7 billion from the markets. Why is that so shocking? If you allow people to take out $2 million loans in California I assure you people will. Yet when will the Fed and politicians stop and think, does this actually make any sense? I guess that is a lot to ask in an election year
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/

Looks like that Bradley thing has really nailed the turning point. Interesting. Has someone the chart handy? When is the next turn? TIA.

phuck it...... categorize all the problems as level 3 assets, increase stock buybacks to pay off the management, and rape the shareholders.....

*DJ Lehman Bros: Had $38.9B Level 3 Assets At End Of FY07 >LEH

The Firm's Board of Directors has authorized the
repurchase, subject to market conditions, of up to 100 million shares of
Lehman Brothers common stock for the management of the Firm's equity capital, including consideration of dilution due to employee stock awards.

These egregious forms of behavior are typical of end-of-an-era excesses.

Why get pissed? I welcome these excesses, as they will only ensure the destruction of a fraudulent system and culture. It's when these fools all lose their money will they get their head out of their ass and demand better.

Fools = foreign chumps, debt investors, equity investors, Western serfs everywhere

Some of you may think I'm a doom-and-gloomer. Not true. It's only when the shit hits the fan will our people come to their senses and become not only better human beings, but a better society.

This guy was wildly bullish at the top last year all the way through the initial downleg.



Y'all should be listening to Radio Free Wall Street! I raised this issue in the last program with Aaron, pointing out that the spike down in free reserves corresponded directly with Citibonk pulling billions of leaky SIVs onto its balance sheet. They weren't the only one. Mish is right. It's about the disappearance of bank capital as they are forced to bring all the worthless off balance sheet crap back on the books.

Still scratching my head. Are you saying they don't want to borrow anymore because the jig is up?

Repeat.

Nothing to do with that. Net free reserves disappeared when they were forced to bring the huge losses in the SIVs onto their books, wiping out regulatory capital. So the system as a whole went from net free to net borrowed reserves. They had no choice.

I see.

And those tougher Basel II requirements aren't gonna help the big money center banks one bit. No sirreee.

I believe Thursday Night.

"I can't believe that my superiors were not aware of the amounts I was committing, it is impossible to generate such profits with small positions," Kerviel said, according to the account confirmed by Montagne.

Very interesting the rogue trader is only rogue when he has a loss! otherwise he is given the green light, a pat on the back and wink from top mgt.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080129/france_societe_generale.html

All those YHOO call buyers got taken to the cleaners.

GDP numbers are coming out tomorrow. I have done a bit of research on correlation of quarterly GDP and monthly change in unemployment rate. The data goes back to 1st quarter of 1948.

The following chart illustrates a good fit around the data points, with correlation of 76%.

Last month the unemployment rate jumped to 5%, representing an increase of 6.4% which correlates to decrease in GDP by 2.5%. While I can't seriously consider that 4th quarter declined by such a high percentage, the potential exists for significant decline.


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Very nice....

Something is upside down in the Land of Opportunity:
youwalkaway.com

So far, it's been pretty good. I actually broke it down by month (by hand) and it's been within a week of some nice turns. If it plays out at all (and i would never look at siderograph alone...as i know you wouldn't either ), this should be a nice down move through February. I took some cheap, deep OTM SPX puts with entertainment money just for kicks based off of this and a few other "novel" approaches i have been following and have looked good the last three months:

That 60 minutes thing pissed me off. It's a culture of dishonesty. People stealing as much as they can then raising their middle fingers to all when their house value goes the wrong way.

It won't change because the people in charge of the rules are themselves dishonest and behave in exactly the same way!

the idea that people can 'walk away' from their obligations is a furphy.

You can walk away, but the consequences are enormous.

You want finance...forget it.

You want to rent a house...forget it.

You want a credit card...forget it.

You are basically locked out of the 'system' for years.

Life becomes very difficult indeed.

You need to be part of the black (cash) economy.

Also the idea that you can foreclose one property and just buy the property across the street is also a furphy.

People are not clever enough to think like that.

Most of these folks who are losing their homes will be living in their cars(if they still have one) or on the streets if they dont have family somewhere.

MD-money outflow away from US RE market will be the final result. Investors that put money into buying GSE bonds will get tired of both the lenders and borrowers.

not really Bris, yes they will get a credit nick, many of these folks are actually buying another home first then sending the keys to their current home. There is always a certain amount of divorce, death , health issues, loss of jobs which produce a certain amount of this anyway, its just the jump in numbers given the bubble aspect has given this issue some daylight. Like I said before sooner or later this gets reflected in the cost of capital that is directed at the RE market and credit become more expensive.

That site has a very "Don't worry, be happy" sales pitch.... most Amerikans are such simpletons.......

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here is what I got when giggglled "house of cards"

Derby - you still got your KBH short. I have betting on a sell off after the fed.

Maybe this will help too.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080129/subprime_mortgages_fbi.html

FBI Is Probing 14 Companies Over Loans
Tuesday January 29, 6:23 pm ET
By Alan Zibel, AP Business Writer
FBI Says 14 Companies Under Investigation for Possible Fraud in Connection With Subprime Loans

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday said it is investigating 14 companies for possible fraud or insider trading violations in connection with loans made to risky borrowers, and investments spun off of those loans.