http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices

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










http://www.kitco.com

Energy futures

Currencies/Au/Ag

Oz in soar mode, currently +3.8%. Green across the board with Utilities leading the way, +6.2% followed by Financials +6% and Miners +4.6%. IT has the least gain, +0.6%.

Huge rise for the big miners: BHP +5.2% and RIO +6.3% and more modest gains for Newmont +4.1% and Lihir +2%. Newcrest dipping slightly, -0.3%. Juniors up.

Oils all up to varying degrees: Woodside +0.7%, Santos +1.8% and Caltex +2.5%.

A slow drift down after the initial burst and that was pretty much the pattern for Asian markets as well. All Ords closed +2.4%, Financials took over the lead, +5% closely followed by Utilities +4.9%. A few sectors fell into the red, Telecomms -1.7% and Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary, both -0.3%.

The big miners dropped back a touch: BHP +3.4% and RIO +5%. Golds did ok apart from Newcrest, -0.8%. Newmont finished +4.3% and Lihir +1%.

Oils were mixed: Woodside -2.1%, Santos +7.4% and Caltex -0.2%.

Over in Asia, China is the only red so far, -1.7%, India +2.2%, Nikkers +1.6% and Honkers +1.2%.


Over to UK/Europe:








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

Australian Consumer Confidence Plunges to 15-Year Low

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Australian consumer confidence plunged to the lowest level in almost 15 years after the central bank raised interest rates and the share market tumbled on concern global economic growth is slowing.

The sentiment index dropped for a third month, falling 9.1 percent in March from February to 88.6, according to a Westpac Banking Corp. and Melbourne Institute survey released today in Sydney. A reading below 100 shows pessimists outnumber optimists.

-----------------

ANZ, Outpacing Central Bank, May Raise Rates Further

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Mike Smith said banks may add to three interest rate increases this year as they seek to recoup higher wholesale funding costs.

``All banks will have to adjust rates if the funding costs continue to increase,'' Smith said in a Bloomberg Television interview today.

------------------

N.Z. House Sales Fall, Prices Drop to 12-Month Low

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- New Zealand house sales slumped and prices fell to a 12-month low in February, adding to signs record-high interest rates are cooling the property market and will slow economic growth.

House sales dropped 32 percent to 6,356 homes from 9,357 a year earlier, according to a report today from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Inc. e-mailed to Bloomberg News. The median house price dropped to NZ$337,500 ($271,000) from NZ$340,000 in January.

China's Retail Sales Grow at Fastest Pace Since 1999

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- China's retail sales climbed 20.2 percent, matching the fastest pace in at least nine years, a sign that consumer spending may sustain the world's fastest- growing major economy as export demand weakens.

The increase for January and February was the same as December's and more than the 19 percent median forecast of 18 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The figure was boosted by the fastest inflation in 11 years.

Jewelry sales rose 47 percent from a year earlier. Grain and cooking oil climbed 41 percent. Petroleum jumped 40 percent. Automobiles surged 34 percent. Furniture gained 26 percent.

To foster domestic consumption, China is raising welfare payments and subsidizing farmers' purchases of televisions and refrigerators. Urban incomes climbed 12.2 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, while rural incomes rose 9.5 percent.

India Industrial Production Growth Unexpectedly Slows

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- India's industrial production growth unexpectedly slowed in January as interest rates near a six-year high curbed demand for cars and other consumer goods.

Production at factories, utilities and mines rose 5.3 percent from a year earlier after gaining a revised 7.7 percent in December, the statistics office said in New Delhi today. Economists were expecting an 8 percent increase.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Yaga Venugopal Reddy has raised the central bank's benchmark interest rate nine times since October 2004 and ordered commercial lenders to set aside more money five times since December 2006 to prevent excess cash in the economy from stoking inflation, currently at a nine-month high of 5.02 percent.

That's forced ICICI Bank Ltd., India's biggest by market value, and its peers to raise their lending rates, reducing demand for motor vehicles, homes and washing machines.

``Our mortgage rates are much higher than what they should be,'' said Kushal Pal Singh, chairman of DLF Ltd, India's biggest developer. ``People can't afford to pay a 14 percent rate of interest on a home loan.''

Japan's GDP Grows More Than Estimated, Led by Exports

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's economy grew more than economists estimated in the fourth quarter as exports helped the nation weather a housing slump.

Gross domestic product expanded an annualized 3.5 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo, faster than the 2.3 percent median forecast of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The government last month said the world's second-largest economy grew 3.7 percent.

``Export growth has been far stronger than expected, suggesting a lot of support to the decoupling argument that should limit the length and depth of damage from the U.S. problems,'' said Richard Jerram, chief Japan economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo.

Emerging economies, the destination for more than half of Japan's exports, helped shipments abroad quicken in January even as U.S. sales fell for a fifth month. Machinery orders from overseas rose to a record in the month.

New low on the A-shares



Pump and dump on the knickers

Liquidity flood not helping the market:

"The cost of borrowing euros for three months rose for a seventh day, signaling central bank measures to combat the credit squeeze aren't succeeding."

"``Simply alleviating liquidity pressures does not actually feedback into improving confidence,'' Charles Diebel and Sean Maloney, London-based strategists at Nomura International Plc, wrote in a report today. ``What it does is buy time.''"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...zo04&refer=home

When will they start addressing insolvency problems? The FED has done nothing to help against the biggest insolvency problems in ages. Flooding the market with liquidity and procrastinating the unavoidable only makes the insolvency problem worse!

The only way to address the insolvency problem is to let em fail. Take the bitter medicine.

Do SME's (Small and Midsized Entities) get credit these days? They are the backbone of the economy, right? So if they dont get credit.......

To all the problems due to the credit crisis you can also add the problems the SME's have because of Basle II.

I think it's comical that Basle II is coming after SME's while big corporate and big finanglers are the most corrupt and more prone to moral hazard than SME's where the managers have their life and their skin on the company.

Just look at what happened to the big auditor companies that were in bed with the big corporate liars.

Look at Enron's use of derivatives (WMD according to Buffet), no auditor or rating agency lifted a finger before they were already under. What is the risk of a SME using derivatives and offshores to cook the books and fool the auditors and the tax authorities?

Look at Societe General and the 5 billion euro blunder.

Big crap is riskier than small crap in respect to fraud. Core business wise of course a bigger company has much less risk than a small one, but the market already incorporates that risk in the pricing of loans to SME... no need to jerk it up with Basel. We need a Basel for big crap and big finanglers mortgage companies and the like, that's what we need.

yep, right. I aks myself if there was that big need for Basle II? I didnt hear of many bankrupcies among German banks for example. The last bank which failed was a minor private bank from Cologne, that was in the 70s. Remember Basle II was introduced BEFORE that subprime thing began. So i really dont get why it was so necessary to make the credit conditions for smaller firms that much harder.

They squeeze the SME's. And kill the economy with that.

nothing happend to the Big Four. There is talk that Deloitte wont be there anymore in a few years time, but thats not a given. Something like 25 out of the 30 DAX companies are audited by KPMG, they have a monopoly so to say. They were also there BEFORE and AFTER the scandals at Siemens and Daimler.

Good Morning!

Welcome to Intraday Stool! Thanks to aussiebear for her daily opening!

You can join the discussion by registering (PG rated user names only, please) and posting here as well.

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Many tanks for joining us!

Doc


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testing

Bucky getting clubbed back to it's lows




but almost no reaction in gold.

That should change.

Very interesting, thanks.

I also believe the odds favor an IT move up from here, as I suggested on monday. FWIW, and this may sound ridiculous, but one of the only Wall Street technical analysis guys that I have some respect for is a dude from Citibank (I know, I know... trust me, I know how ridiculous that sounds ), and he came out yesterday with a piece where he's putting his reputation (his wha-??? ) on the line by saying he thinks, at the risk of being remembered as the goofiest call of his life, a very important low has been set. he doesn't go as far as saying the end of the bear, but that at least a good countertrend rally has begun. In only mention it because he uses a different approach than I do, or Doc's, so it's interesting to note. Can't comment too much on it, though, sorry.

OK, the setup for a C---h is now complete.

But credit still looks like crap across the board. Except in EM.

Did he call for a permanently high plateau?

I feel a credit meteorite could hit any minute. Not the space dust that we've seen in the past year or so.

Now they are coming from China - may first email from China



Reply-to: hongwang56@yahoo.com.cn
To:


--

Dear Friend,
I am Mr. Wang HongZhang, Chief Disciplinary Officer, People's Bank of China (PBC),Beijing. I have an obscured business proposal of 24.5millionUSD for you.Please get back at me if you are interested.

Your earliest response to this letter will be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Wang HongZhang

http://www.futurestraders.com/

GREAT VIDEO.....NEED TO WATCH
HE HAS SOME GREAT CALLS THIS YEAR

They are planning on bailing them. Doc's was right. The FED didn't give the Dealers cash. They gave them Treasuries which the Fraudster are short in return for AAA securities which nobody wants. What a DEAL. The Fraudsters are able to drive the price down with FED supplied paper by delivering against their short position and make a killing in the process.
They lifted a lot of money from people on this board yesterday in a blatant intervention. I hope I don't hear any more talk about free markets, but we do the best we can dealing with the riggers., and I am learning.


The BSC CEO on CNBS, We bought some high grade paper which went bad. We have marked every thing properly.We have plenty of reserves. We don't have a problem. If he is lying , where is are the cops?

A Dark and Dirty Job

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/?p=2440

The "Bandaid on a Ruptured Jugular" blog http://wallstreetexaminer.com/?p=2434 is really interesting. (Yesterday sure ruptured my jugular.) People wondering if this is the trillion dollar bailout mentioned in the congressional hearing the other day, with the Fed swapping mortgages for all the treasuries it owns for "as long as necessary". Seems like the dollar bounce is over already. Maybe bucky just doesn't like this. Oil's up. Yen and Euro are back to or near the highs.

I'm thinking maybe some of this new found "liquidity" goes into foreign stock markets.

What's the yen/eruo trade telling you, fxfox?

9:22 (Dow Jones) Sell this rally on the Fed's move, Goldman Sachs says,
since it "does nothing to attack the root cause of credit and funding risks:
asset price depreciation." Firm says housing prices, down 10% since 1Q07, have
another 10-12% to fall and expects commercial real estate prices to fall
15-20%. Firm's conclusion on the Fed's action yesterday echoes an earlier note
by FBR saying that a stablization in housing prices is the real key to solving
the credit problems, rather than liquidity provided by the Fed. Goldman's top
short ideas: Americredit (ACF) and Discover (DFS) on funding and credit
concerns. Neither traded premarket. (EBW)

Windy was correct. These hookers are expensive.

Disgraced Gov. Spitzer dropped up to $80,000 on sex with prostitutes, sources revealed.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03112008/news/...__so_101444.htm

I'm gonna ride out my now somewhat smaller position in qid. At least long enough to go take a shower. Might be a $5000 shower. As Doc would say, yeah, but which way?

spx has hit 5 hr cycle projection around 1320-22, but 3 day cycle still projects 1327-30

what ever you do, just do not take a bath!

I closed my shorts before all my profits diappeared,except for a small position in DSL. I think they are too small to save.
Limron had apiece on M2M last night which showed that we should get a good pop out of yesterday's ASSblast over the next few months.
Maybe he will repost it. Thanks for the excellent research.

dow hits 5 hr projection of 12210. 3 day still projects 12350.

His own bankster reported him to the Feds---taking out too much cash? What business is that of theirs if he kept cash transactions to less than $10,000.

There was a politician in Wisconsin who lost the election, because some utility clerk leaked out information about candidates' "late" payment history.

There is no privacy.

qqqq monetarily ticked 3 day cycle projection of 43.25 in the premarket. 5 day cycle projection was around the same area.

qqqq has dropped below 3 day cycle MA at 42.93, and both 3 and 5 day cycle indicators are on the cusp of sell signals. To confirm a turn, would need to break at least the 5 day cycle MA at 42.48 and rising, and probably the 8 day now at 42.17.

all that money probably from the payoffs from those deals with the Wall Street firms while an attorney general

This is posted on M2M last night. It says pretty much what Doc said except in less refined terms.


Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Short Bus Rolls Again

Let's do The Fed's action today.

The ostensible reason was to "liquefy" agency and other "AAA" securities.

Really?

Let's talk about reality.

Reality is this:

You short something it is to sell it to someone else. One of the ways the primary dealers make their money is by shorting Treasuries into the market, borrowing them from The Fed and then generating carry off the money.

Over the last six months the primary dealers have borrowed an insane amount in Treasuries and are short in aggregate close to $100 billion of them!

What's worse, they're long all the other debt instruments, lots of it involuntarily! Like, for example, LBO debt and mortgage securities they can't sell into the market.

So the primary dealers are short Treasuries, which are going up in price, and long everything else which is going straight in the toilet!

THE PRIMARY DEALERS WERE CAUGHT IN A CREDIT MARKET SHORT SQUEEZE
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/2008/03...olls-again.html

good, 1329 was high in pre-market.

That would make me a long term investor. I ain't got that kind of guts.

Dear Stoolies,

I'm in need of some help. My grandmother 85, has been living in nursing home/assisted living for about 6 years now. My grandfather told her to never live off the government. In her mind she doesn’t wantto be given any assistance. She pays out of her pocket around 78k a year for her stay, sitter, and medications. Note: she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
She has a brokerage account with Merrill Lynch, and the goal of the account is to have a stable income so that the money would last as long as possible. My family understands it, that she gave power of attorney over the account to the broker. My dad and uncle both had the conversation with the broker not put the money at any risk. Well without any warning or notice we find out that the account was "somehow" approved for margin, and there was a margin debt of $116K. The broker is no longer with Merrill and he never informed us. My side of the family hasn’t got a hold of any statements yet. My question is, does this sound like a legal move on the brokers part, and why would a broker need margin on account that was not supposed to be exposed to any risk?

Any help or information would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt C.

Lim, I am posting your piece from last night. Thanks [IMG]

http://www.capitalstool.com/forums/uploads...88264_thumb.jpg[/IMG]
Today was one of those extremely rare events, a Sigma 4 point move on the Dow. Since 1970 there were only 38 such occurrences.

When I examined Dow's historical data, I noticed that during Bear Markets, a cycle of violent and sharp counter-trend moves occur with regularity. Even during the most powerful bear markets, these counter-trend "rallies" were more prevalent than even steep corrective days. I called them buying panics. But unlike Sigma 4 occurrences, they are usually 1-2 standard deviation of lesser magnitude, however, there are a few that can only be described as bear market rallies with magnitude of Sigma 4. Out of 38, at most, 7 could be so classified.

Sigma 4 events are not buying panics. They are trend-changing events that typify: attempts at bottom forming, powerful moves right of the bottom, or bull market breakouts. A characteristic of Sigma 4 move is that they rarely show up in isolation, usually they are followed up by another Sigma 4 event within a week or so.

This is best illustrated by 1998, where following a deep correction, the Dow advanced 3.82% off the low on 9/01/98, This was followed up by another strong move, 4.98% ,on 9/8/98 . On 10/15/98, the Dow broke clean with 4.15% advance and began its plus 1000 point ascend into November, 1998.

Another day like this next week, and its off to new highs.

Call a good securities attorney today.

Dr. Correll, you absolutely need to get a lawyer involved in this.

I sent you an email regarding the situation....

Your parents should hire an elder law lawyer immediately to get control of your grandmother's assets to protect them. They should hire a securities lawyer to get the money back that the broker stole. That's a clear violation of the suitability rule. I would think that the arbitrators will rule in your favor without question. But you need to get competent legal advice immediately to get control of the estate and to take the necessary action.

As one who deals with this problem every day I would advise anyone with an elderly parent to hire an elder law specialist and take responsibility for their affairs, ESPECIALLY if there's dementai or Alzheimer's involved.

Where are your parents in all this!? Why did they allow this!?

Bucky retesting the low for the 3rd time. The more it's tested the weaker it gets. Added a bonus burger for fun.