Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Survive the Credit Crunch by Sticking With Good Stocks / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Roger_Conrad
How do you solve a liquidity crisis? The simple answer is to inject more liquidity into the financial system. The hard part is not pouring in too much and thereby setting off a speculative boom in the markets that leads to a greater meltdown later on.
That's the dilemma facing the world's central bankers today, as the investment markets confront their worst crisis in half a decade. And unfortunately, the answer is no easier this time around than it was in the summer of 1998, the time of the last liquidity crisis.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
The Fed says, “Don't Panic!” / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Yesterday the Federal Reserve “injected” $24 billion into the market. This morning they “injected” another $19 billion. Yesterday the world banks collectively “injected” $150 billion of cash into the markets. This morning, they repeated the procedure with another $173 billion that I can account for. What does that mean? In a nutshell, the Federal Reserve and the other central banks have become the buyers of last resort for Wall Street's toxic waste.
Last night, the banks raised their overnight interest rate from 5.25% to 5.5% as a move that reflected an increased demand for cash and higher risk, even in the overnight (read: bank funds and money markets) accounts. The Fed move was meant to keep markets “orderly” by lowering rates back to 5.25%. The result was to stop the market decline , if only temporarily.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
MPTrader - Small Cap Stocks Recovering / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
By: Mike_Paulenoff
Purely from a technical perspective, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (AMEX: IWM) currently is in the midst of a recovery rally effort in the aftermath of the downleg from 85.74 to 73.95 (14%). The initial upmove of the recovery started at Monday's low of 76.43, and hit its initial high yesterday at 85.74.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Full Blown Liquidity Crisis Hits Stocks And Gold / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Christopher_Laird
As news of new subprime losses emerges around the world, stock markets are selling off. What began as the first string of losses at Bear Stearns has now become wider. In fact, it is beginning to look like a developing world liquidity emergency.
This week, the large French bank Paribas froze 3 funds worth about $2 billion after it became clear they cannot value the mortgage derivatives held by the funds. Soon after this news, EU banks and institutions started to flee to cash. The ECB had to lend an unprecedented $130 billion to stave off a banking/liquidity crisis. European investors said the ECB was acting on an emergency basis.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Mortgage Backed Securties Are America's Shoddiest Exports / Stock-Markets / Subprime Mortgage Risks
By: Peter_Schiff
For years, Americans have been able to pay for enormous trade deficits by exchanging IOU's for imported consumer goods. Unfortunately for foreign creditors, a substantial percentage of those IOU's have recently taken the form of mortgaged backed securities.
Sporting higher yields than Treasury bonds, investment grade ratings from reputable agencies, and juicy commissions for the investment banks that packaged them, these structured mortgage bonds have quickly become America 's greatest export. Ironically, amid cll the recent hoopla about defective Chinese exports, America has proved that when it comes to flooding the world with shoddy merchandise, nobody beats the good old USA .
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Surprises Abound - Central Banks Liquidity Flood Fails to Prevent Stock Market Plunge / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
By: Andy_Sutton
Just as everyone thought things were getting back to normal. Just as everyone thought that all the bad and ugly stuff had receded into seldom-accessed portions of the subconscious. Just as the bulls were starting to get a little of that swagger back and talk of new records filled the airwaves... BANG! The markets were once again slapped with another dose of reality. The really interesting thing about today was not only what didn't happen, but what DID happen.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 10, 2007
Subprime Mortgage Mayhem Spreading! Stock Markets Plunging! / Stock-Markets / Subprime Mortgage Risks
By: Money_and_Markets
Mike Larson writes: If you think yesterday's 2.8% plunge in the Dow was severe, take a look at the shellacking of bank and brokerage stocks: Down 5%, 6%, even 7% across the board.
Why are things getting so hairy? Precisely because of the spreading mortgage market mayhem I've been warning about!
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Friday, August 10, 2007
“ARM”ageddon As Subprime Financial Dominos Fall / Stock-Markets / Subprime Mortgage Risks
By: Ty_Andros
The dominos have begun to fall, look for it to cascade into the fall as markets reprice the normalization of credit conditions, and CURTAIL the most risky and foolish lending practices. Cov lite, LBO's, private equity and CDO/CMO paper is dead until the deals are priced in a manner that secures lenders interests in a RATIONAL manner, as they should be as they are just SUBPRIME on a gargantuan scale. I love it as volatility is opportunity for the prepared investor. Volatility rose from 1997 till the high in 2000 and the markets did fine. After several weeks of market turmoil it's time to look at the factors that are the catalyst to this market sell off. It's not over by a long shot but some curious things are happening and I want to inform you of them.
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Central Banks Bailout of Financial Markets Backfires / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
By: Brady_Willett
The central bank support that Cramer was crying for last week arrived, and it didn't work
A funny thing happened during today's central bank bailout attempt: the markets plunged. Is it just me, or when central bankers unite and throw money at a problem isn't that problem supposed to go away?
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
A Credit Crunch, Investors Selling, and the Fed Pumping in Liquidity to Keep the Market Up / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Marty_Chenard
The trickle down of sub-prime problems are now accelerating across the world. France's biggest bank (BNP) stopped withdrawals from investment funds because it can't determine a fair value on their holdings. As this happened, credit default traders are now saying that the risk of holding corporate bonds increased as well this morning.
The Fed and European Central Banks are now planning to increase liquidity in an effort to stem what appears to be a deepening financial crisis.
Where does that leave Bernanke?
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
Mortgage Backed Securities Monetization and the US Dollar / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
By: Jim_Willie_CB
Fannie Mae is being groomed to be the central clearing house for mortgages and their bonds, sponsored by the USGovt and the US Federal Reserve. Fannie Mae (FNM) just requested permission to take on much greater volume of mortgages, in order to alleviate the secondary market flow of capital funds. Since the accounting scandal which peaked in September 2004, a limit was imposed on FNM on its holdings at $727 billion. In today's climate, marred by credit seizure to some degree, FNM is deeply missed in its former prominent centrifuge role.
A key question arises on the general inflation impact, if and when FNM expands its role and is the nexus (surely a hidden basement) of grandiose illicit monetization of mortgage bonds. If the banking maestros undertake to put a secretive floor on mortgage backed securities (MBS), a solid bid to prevent further breakdown, then vast amounts of new printing press money will enter the system. The mortgage finance sector desperately needs a bid on subprime MBS bonds so as to clear them upon liquidations. The bank wizards could start monetizing them, and work their way up the quality ladder toward Alt-A loans which are also in trouble.
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
MPTrader - Near-Term Work Remains Positive on Nasdaq (Q's) As Long as 48 Holds / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The Q's (Nasdaq: QQQQ) rocketed nearly $0.90 (1.9%) off of this morning's pre-open low at 48.08, but stalled and reversed right just below a key near-term resistance plateau between 49 and 49.15, which if (when) hurdled should trigger a powerful upside acceleration off of the development of a 3-week base-like pattern in the aftermath of the Jul-Aug decline.
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
The “Plunge Protection Team” Working Overtime to Save US Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
By: Gary_Dorsch
“Imagination is more important than knowledge”, the brilliant Albert Einstein used to say. Imagine for just a moment, that the Dow Jones Industrials has become a key instrument of national economic policy, and that by “actively managing” its direction, the government could impact the wealth of tens of millions of US households, and by extension, influence consumer confidence and spending.
Since the appointment of Henry Paulson to the helm at the US Treasury, the US stock market has always found a way to defy the law of gravity. During Paulson's short reign, the Dow Jones Industrials (DJI-30) broke an 80-year old record for the longest streak of gains with only three declining days in between. During the first seven months of his tenure, the S&P 500 did not decline by 2%, the second longest-period without a 2% correction since 1964.
The market savvy Treasury chief, who built a $730 million fortune at Goldman Sachs, is also the chairman of the Working Group on Financial Markets, commonly known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT), created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown in October 1987. The PPT is empowered to intervene in stock index futures and the foreign currency markets in the event of a crash.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Financial Markets Critical Signals Updated / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
By: Money_and_Markets
Larry Edelson writes: In times like these, when markets are swinging wildly, I pay particularly close attention to my systems and the signals they generate.
Not only have those signals proven themselves over the last 30 years, they also help eliminate emotions from the investing process. That's a key ingredient to successfully navigating the markets.
Indeed, the last time I published my signals they should have served you very well. Here's a reminder of what I said back in May, along with what happened afterward:
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007
MPTrader - Semiconductor Stocks Heading Higher / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The Semiconductor HLDRs (AMEX: SMH) briefly popped above key near-term resistance at 38.00/05, but did not sustain that level -- at least not yet. However, my near-term pattern and momentum work argue strongly that higher price will emerge in the upcoming hours that will propel the SMH towards 39.00/25. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT), and Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) will be the big drivers of the next upleg in the semiconductors.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Stock Market Troubles - Three Ways to Protect Yourself / Stock-Markets / Risk Analysis
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: Although they posted a heck of a rally yesterday, U.S. stocks have had a couple of rough weeks. The S&P 500 lost 7.7% of its value from its peak in the middle of July through last Friday. That was its steepest three-week slide since 2003.
Friday was an especially ominous day because the S&P 500 fell below its 200-day moving average. Many market watchers consider that a key technical level. Picture Wile E. Coyote running on thin air and you'll get an idea of just what this break signifies!
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Japanese Deflation... A Global Liquidity Wild Card / Stock-Markets / Liquidity Bubble
By: John_Mauldin
This week in Outside the Box we turn our eyes on Japan and as promised offer a report by macro-maven and good friend Greg Weldon. Japan is the world's second largest economy and a major source of liquidity. While China has captured the headlines in Asia, Japan is still the big economic dog and supplier of capital on the block.
Greg argues that there is the potential for another asset bubble popping in Japan at the same time as we see our housing market and subprime mortgages implode. That could have considerable implications for world wide liquidity and the yen carry trade.
While this prints out longer than usual, it is mostly charts, as Greg likes to illustrate his thinking with lots of graphs. Follow his logic and reasoning. He is pointing out a potential problem that no one else I know is paying attention to. At the end is an offer for a trial subscription to his work, which I find quite valuable... John Mauldin, Editor
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Monday, August 06, 2007
MPTrader - Dow Jones Relative Strength Versus Russell 2000 Nearing Short-Term Top / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
By: Mike_Paulenoff
I have been long the Dow Diamonds (AMEX: DIA) vs. short the Russell 2000 Small Caps (AMEX: IWM) in our ETF Trading Diary model portfolio since last September, when the base pattern started to mature. Looking at the weekly relative strength chart of the two indices, the powerful two-year base pattern in the DIA/IWM spread has accelerated from its breakou level of 1.6400 to a high today of 1.7775 (so far), which is nearing my secondary target price of 1.8200.
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Subprime Housing Market Financial Sector Crash and Jim Cramer's Sage Rage / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
By: Brady_Willett
In what is quickly becoming one of his most popular television tirades to date (which is saying a lot), Jim Cramer completely lost it last Friday during a discussion on CNBC. Coined a "passionate plea to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to consider cutting interest rates" , the incensed Cramer said: "It is no time to be an academic... open the darn Fed window. He [Bernanke] has no idea how bad it is out there. He has no idea! He has no idea! I have talked to the heads of almost everyone single one of these firms in the last 72-hours and he has no idea what its like out there. None!!!...
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Revenge of Frankenstein Finance / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
By: Michael_J_Panzner
A chimerical force has been rampaging through global markets in recent months, wreaking widespread havoc. Cobbled together from myriad agreements, assumptions, and transactions by academics, financiers, and marketers, this labyrinthine creation was once seen as an unmitigated success of new age financial alchemy.
But now, with changing economic and financial conditions exposing the derivatives-securitization monster to the harsh light of day, the nightmare of Frankenstein finance is coming home to roost.
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