Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, August 04, 2008
Basic Materials Stocks Sector Getting Clobbered / Stock-Markets / Sector Analysis
Wow?Basic materials names are getting clobbered, as evidenced by the vertical thrust of the ProShares UltraShort Basic Materials ETF (SMN), whose major inverse holdings include Monsanto (NYSE: MON), DuPont (NYSE: DD), FCX, and others. The ETF is now assaulting its declining 200 DMA at 37.80. Today's close will be very important for the SMN. Above 38.00, and let's expect upside continuation to 44.25/50 next.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 04, 2008
Credit Crunch Anniversary and Mega Trends Investing / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
The 'official' anniversary of the credit crunch is linked to when the European Central Bank stepped in to provide an unprecedented amount of liquidity by pumping in $130 billion into the European banking system following news of the French bank Paribas freezing three of its hedge funds due to exposure to the US subprime mortgage market as panicking investors had been dumping holdings of mortgage lenders and mortgage backed derivatives and so began the self feeding credit crunch cycle of mortgage backed losses leading to asset price deflation leading to further tightening of the money markets as banks sought to hoard cash, as they lost confidence in their pricing models of the products they were trading with one another, which is more or less where we are today as the derivatives market continues to deleverage.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Gold, HUI and the Banking Crisis / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
Traditionally Gold has been used as a hedge when times become tough, in his latest article, John Needham, explores the critical market turning points for Gold and and its relationship to the Dollar Index. He also looks at what may be in store for the FTSE index. - Yvonne Lundon-Marchant - The Daniel Code U.K. and Europe
Gold and its D2, HUI
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Sunday, August 03, 2008
French Economic Reforms Improve Appeal of Cheap French Stocks / Stock-Markets / European Stock Markets
Martin Hutchinson writes: French investments might have seemed like a bad idea for the first nine months of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's term. After his election in May 2007, Sarkozy looked like a huge disappointment - unless you REALLY enjoy tabloid stories. He divorced his wife, married the spectacularly beautiful ex-model Carla Bruni, and went on an enviable honeymoon in Egypt - but appeared to do nothing useful about France's economic problems.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Worthless AAA CDO's Hit National Bank of Australia, 90% Debt Writedowns / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Monday's trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was a real humdinger. It started off with the White House announcing that this year's fiscal deficit would soar to a new record of nearly $500 billion. That was followed by news of rising oil prices, weak quarterly earnings and a slowdown in consumer spending. Plunk, plunk, plunk; one domino after another. By mid-morning the markets were in full retreat. That's when investment giant Merrill Lynch announced that it would notch a $4.6 billion second-quarter loss and write-downs of $9.4 billion on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other mortgage-related assets.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Stock Markets Consolidating Ahead of Another Leg Higher / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
The good news is: The market has been working off its overbought condition about as well as could be hoped for.
Short Term - In 7 trading days following the mid-July lows most of the major indices jumped 5%-6% leaving the market overbought. Since then, it has been working off the overbought condition about as well as could be hoped; new lows declined quickly and the secondaries have been outperforming the blue chips.
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Saturday, August 02, 2008
Henry Paulson Loses Control Over US Economy, Financial System / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
When Henry Paulson agreed to leave his job as chairman of the powerful Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs to go to Washington as Treasury Secretary in 2006 he demanded extraordinary powers as de facto economic czar. He got it. Paulson is also head of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets -- the secretary of the treasury and the chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
General Motors Massive Loss Signals US Already In Recession / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
As GM goes…so goes the rest of the country. This axiom has been repeated as far back as I can remember. More recently, the use of that phrase has been scaled back to describe Michigan's situation , as Toyota Motors took the lead dog position in the U.S. auto industry.
Today, General Motors Corp., scrambling to adjust its operations and align production toward smaller cars, reported another massive loss as the auto-buying public's shift away from its profitable truck and SUV lines gathered momentum. The losses totaled $15.5 billion, more than $27.33 per share, compared to a share price of $10.69 at this writing. The math just doesn't look very good.
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Saturday, August 02, 2008
New Investment Era, Contracting Earnings and PE Reversion Below the Mean / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Valuations
This week I am in Maine on vacation with my son, and next week is my daughter Tiffani's wedding, so for the next two weeks I am going to send an updated version of a speech I have been giving the past few months on what I think is the likely potential for the rise of a brand new asset class. It is too long to be sent as one letter, so we will start with the first part today and finish with the second part next week. This first part can be read as a standalone letter.
The Rise of A New Asset ClassI think we're at a watershed moment, what Peter Bernstein defines as an "epochal event," with the very order of the investment world changing as it did in 1929, in '50, in 1981, where a number of things came together - it wasn't just one thing but a number of events happening that conspired to change the nature of what worked in the investment world for the next period of time.
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Friday, August 01, 2008
Panicking Fed Scrambles to Hide Credit Crisis Truth / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
The Fed, now in continual panic mode, Extends Emergency Borrowing Program .The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it was extending its emergency borrowing program to Wall Street firms and was taking other steps to ease a tight credit market that has hobbled the national economy.
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Friday, August 01, 2008
The Best and Worst Investments For the NEXT 5 YEARS! / Stock-Markets / Resources Investing
Larry Edelson writes: I often discuss what I think are the best investments out there. But this morning, I'm going to spend some time talking about what I think are the worst investments for today, tomorrow and the next five years.
Obviously, given the state of our economy and financial markets, there are a lot more lousy investments than there are good ones.
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Friday, August 01, 2008
Special Investment Report: Profit from the BRICs / Stock-Markets / Emerging Markets
Martin Hutchinson writes: If you're a global investor looking for global profits - including one potential way to double your money - you need to "Hit the BRICs." Back in 2003, the Goldman Sachs Group Inc . ( GS ) - eager to push its clients toward emerging markets investment - created the acronym "BRIC" to stand for Brazil, Russia, India and China, the four emerging markets the investment bank's strategists believed would become a dominant part of the world economy in the years ahead.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 01, 2008
Making sense of the Stocks Bear Market- Round Table / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
Anthony: I'm delighted to welcome such a strong panel - a mark of how seriously you gentlemen view the current global financial and economic situation. It's especially pleasing to welcome back some old friends - Marc Faber, Mark Mobius, Ethan Harris and William Thomson.
Overview - Since the sub-prime mortgage crisis burst upon the US a year ago, there have been market rallies and claims that the worst is over, only to be followed by fresh plunges in values and sentiment. Are we near the bottom now, or just at the start of a long, slow meltdown? Our experts take the latter view.
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Thursday, July 31, 2008
America's Lurch Away From Free Market Capitalism / Stock-Markets / Government Intervention
The cover of this week's The Economist magazine reads "Unhappy America". To the authors' credit the article goes beyond the typical Bush-bashing and identifies several factors at play. They were treading down the right path when they observe that "Lax monetary policy allowed Americans to build up debts and fuelled a housing bubble that had to burst eventually." But rather than going into further detail in addressing the subject of easy money, the chief culprit of the financial mess we will be in for years, the authors turn their sights on the need for education, healthcare, and other reforms. The authors exercised relative restraint in assessing America's lurch away from free-market capitalism in the wake of the housing market bailout, the Fannie (NYSE: FNM ) and Freddie (NYSE: FRE ) backstop, the special protected status 17 financial companies are receiving against naked short sales, etc.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Plunge Protection Team Rescues Wall Street Using Bank Window of Deceit / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
As vacation season approaches in the Untied States and Canada , the task of reading should give way to looking at pictures to tell a story, or gazing at scenery from a lodge or campground, or lazy afternoons at the beach. Among the many stories out there in the financial ethos, the one that strikes as most important is the bank sector. The selective enforcement of restrictions on shorting bank stocks sticks out like a child suffering acromegaly (Frankenstein disease) in deformity. Its blatant criminality has given the US financial sector its latest (and not last) black eye. This one is a loud banner of corruption waved for the entire world to see, put in the open. In fact, one can easily make the argument that price controls have finally come into the open. More on this in the August Hat Trick Letter. For the financial sector, price controls elevate prices of various securities.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Institutional "Core Holdings" Warning to Bullish Investors / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
We have spoken at length about the importance of Institutional investors vs. the stock market. The key element of importance was the fact that Institutions control well over 50% of any day's typical volume. So, the market follows the trend of what Institutions are doing with their "core holdings".Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Nasdaq Q's Testing Key Resistance / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
The time of truth for the Q's (NASDAQ: QQQQ), which have spiked to the upside off of yesterday's pivot low at 44.21, and are nearing a test of key resistance between 45.60 and 46.00. If hurdled, the Q's will breakout of a month-long base pattern that will trigger potential to a minimum projected target of 47.80-48.20. A downside violation of 44.20 will wreck the entire rounded base pattern and argue for a retest of the July low.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Financial and Economic Crisis Deepening as House Prices Falls Continue / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2008
Gold finished trading in New York yesterday at $927.70, up $1.30 and silver was up 8 cents to $17.40. Gold rose slightly in Asian trading before falling. It fell slightly in early trading in Europe but remains above yesterdays close.Financial and Economic Crisis Deepening as House Prices Continue to Fall - With the credit, financial and economic crisis clearly deepening as warned of by the IMF yesterday, gold will likely remain firm in the coming sessions due to continuing safe haven demand.
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Monday, July 28, 2008
Stock Market Battles Between Technical's and Fundamentals / Stock-Markets / Global Stock Markets
Stocks bounced from extreme oversold levels just over a week ago, the imminent low was called for the Dow index on the 14th July, which laid a rough road map for a stocks rally into September 2008. However technical's are at the mercy of two key fundamentals and those are corporate earnings and the deepening credit crisis.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 28, 2008
Misplaced Stock Market Optimism Signals Crash Potential / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
As discussed in previous commentary, despite the dire realities affecting the global economy, it appears investors are not heeding the warnings. Sure, some people are paralyzed like a deer in the headlights, where you can't blame them if they are just waking up to the reality of what lies before us. However, these still appear to be the few, with most still in denial concerning future prospects for the economy and markets. This is evidenced in gold and silver's sluggish performance of late. It should be doing far better as an alternative, but again, the public does not see the need to buy it yet. Can you blame them however, with the incessant cheerleading and gaming that the media (CNBC in particular) pawns off as analysis? Exposed long enough to this kind of thing it's bound to have an effect – that's just common sense.Read full article... Read full article...