Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, August 10, 2007
Mortgage Backed Securties Are America's Shoddiest Exports / Stock-Markets / Subprime Mortgage Risks
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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Monday, August 06, 2007
United States Day of Reckoning! / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
Last week, I sent you a crash alert on Monday and then sent it to you again on Saturday. If you've seen it and you've taken the five protective steps I recommended, you should be in good shape. If not, before you start on this morning's message, I think you should go back and read my crash alert now .
— Martin Weiss
I was born in New York but raised in Brazil.
Elisabeth was born in Brazil but has spent most of her adult life in the U.S.
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Sunday, August 05, 2007
Dow Jones Stock Market Meltdown - It's a Bloodbath! / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
On Friday the Dow Jones took a 280 point nosedive on fears that that losses in the subprime market will spill over into the broader economy and cut into GDP. Ever since the two Bears Sterns hedge funds folded a couple weeks ago the stock market has been writhing like a drug-addict in a detox-cell. Yesterday's sell-off added to last week's plunge that wiped out $2.1 trillion in value from global equity markets. New York investment guru, Jim Rogers said that the real market is “one of the biggest bubbles we've ever had in credit” and that the subprime rout “has a long way to go.”
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Stock Market Update: So Much for a Vacation! / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
Well, Dom's going for a second take at his first vacation since starting TTC, so this is Joe filling in again. Dom's attempt at getting some time off ended when he returned early to prepare members and guide them through what turned out to be an important and profitable week. While he should have been on the beach, one of hardest working man in the business was instead at his desk pounding the table and getting members to buy the bottoms and sell the tops… again and again.
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Saturday, August 04, 2007
Foot and Mouth Outbreak to Hit FTSE 100 Index / Stock-Markets / UK Stock Market
Latest reports suggest that the Foot and Mouth virus strain to hit the UK on Thursday is one that is NOT normally found in animals and is linked to vaccines. The strain is thought to originate from the Institute for Animal Health just three miles from the outbreak farm.
The last out break of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK in 2001 cost the Economy an estimated £10 billion ($20 billion) with the agricultural and tourism sectors of the economy hit hard. The government at the time was accused of gross incompetence in the handling of the crisis which saw the destruction of more than 6 million animals and closure of much of the British countryside as well as export bans.
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