October 20, 2009 –
All growth is kind of inflation. The economy can't exist in between, it is either growing or shrinking. A year ago we started to show signs of deflation, we got hammered. Backstopping of financials restored confidence, and the stimulus helped. [more]
March 20, 2008 –
What is the problem with the bear sterns company? That is what I'm trying to figure out and that requires some research. They're a secretive company that had something called proprietary trading inventories. They didn't act like a broker or a fund manager, they took on some direct liability. Or a lot. Their hedge funds that collapsed were using leverage, which is ridiculous. If I read their SEC filings right they were taking on mortgage backed securities during rising interest rates. They had or have SPE's or special purpose entities that allowed fund managers to buy or trade, essentially monetize, anything. Or so they thought. When merrill lynch tried to seize some of the asetts from one of their hedge funds they found that 850 million could only be sold for 100 million. James E. Cayne the CEO was 73 when he retired a few months ago. How can an old man be in charge of anything without diversity and transparency and risklessness like Warren Buffett? Shouldn't there be a retirement age? Jack Welch was forced to retire and is GE ok now? Bear stearns tried to break every rule and blew it. [more]
December 28, 2007 –
I hope Dennis Kucinich wins Iowa. Kucinich is the best because he is a liberal fighter who hasn't watered down his message for mass consumption. John Edwards is next best but he is a flip-flopper on the war and some social policies. Mike Gravel is as good as Edwards, his fault is age and lack of specifics. Christopher Dodd is below the top 3 because he is a compromising legislator. Joseph Biden is even more of a compromiser. Bill Richardson is too authoritarian for me. Hillary Clinton is very conservative for a democrat when push comes to shove. For some reason Barack Obama turns me off the most, he seems like a huge compromiser. I'm voting in the democratic primary in California, I don't care who will win. In the mid 90s I voted libertarian in the general election. In 2000 and 2004 I voted for Gore and Kerry because I thought they could win. [more]
December 06, 2007 –
I started making my portfolio all underperforms and have been rewarded in one month with a 98.67 rating, 1700 points, and a rank of 543. At first I used parabolic SAR in the red as an indicator for some underperform picks but now I'm using any company with negative earnings, starting with the ones getting worse. I believe that efficient market theory rules shorts and longs that can make actual money but it has little to say about stocks that go up less than the market. Because underperforms are not good for making money they may always be easier to find and I intend to continue concentrating exclusively on them. I cannot enter outperforms until I have a good strategy and I'm working on that. I don't see how it could be immoral to issue underperforms because they are just a warning. Shorting with real money is difficult on paper because the whole market is geared to go up and I've never done it in real life but it is just making money on a situation that has already been set up. If a person was a good shorter they would have something to say. [more]
October 30, 2007 –
Because I have entered more underperforms I am more interested in the housing crunch and want to have my say. Everybody else has an view. Obviously, Housing as an industry can be rated 1 star but if I had to rank currently pickable stocks in 5 tiers this is what it would be. [more]
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