cpi unchanged due to falling energy prices.... hmmm

They should begin these reports with "Once upon a time"

Does anybody believe this fertilizer anymore?

reg sho lists companies with large naked short positions.

What could the fed do that they have not already done? They muffed the last surprise rate cut. They failed to bail out ABK. They have pumped more than 200 billion into the banking system. I agree that they will cut rates next week, but what if the market tanks anyway? I think that VIX spikes higher, volume is heavy and we finally get a capitulation event.
disclaimer: I'm short. ;)

Well said, Newly.

Lindsey Williams is a Baptist preacher with no training in geology or petroleum engineering. He has bought into several conspiracy and pseudo science theories. Be sure to wear the right head gear http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

So over the past 2 days ,CDE is still 4.84 while SLW has advanced to 17.60 and HL to 11.38. Your stats page needs an update. Also, add in PAAS and SSRI and use 30, 60 and 90 day charts instead of picking an arbitrary start date. http://stockcharts.com/charts/performance/perf.html?hl,slw,cde,paas,ssri

So over the past 2 days ,CDE is still 4.84 while SLW has advanced to 17.60 and HL to 11.38. Your stats page needs an update. Also, add in PAAS and SSRI and use 30, 60 and 90 day charts instead of picking an arbitrary start date. http://stockcharts.com/charts/performance/perf.html?hl,slw,cde,paas,ssri

I like silver. HL, SLW and even the SLV etf are way ahead of CDE. Unless and until that huge supply overhang is cleared, CDE is probably the worst choice to play silver. It isn't going to run away, not with 700 million shares outstanding. I have an alert at 5.10 but really don't expect that to trigger for quite a while.

CDE is at the low of the day as sellers continue to exit this stock. When the price gets through 5.10 on 20 million in volume, then it will be "great news".. lol

CDE merged last year in a deal that doubled their outstanding shares. So now there are a half billion shares out and 270 million are in the hands of the people who formerly owned the target companies. Those shares are steadily coming to market, imo. The quarterly report on Friday will not be a barn burner to put it mildly. So even with silver at multi-decade highs, CDE lags badly. The new properties are good and will eventually help the financials. But the question that must be answered is how long will it take to burn through the vast overhead supply of shares. At 10 million per day, it could take another month or two.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86472&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=995047&highlight=

ABK nice bounce.

DRYS earnings are scheduled for today after the close. Yahoo says they are expected to show 4.07 for the quarter. It will be interesting to find out how much of their fleet is booked for '08 and at what prices.

The BDI was green again today. The dry bulk shippers are showing lots of green.

deleted

I don’t think we’re bears,” said one of the report’s authors. “I just think we are highly cautious about certain things that I don’t think have been factored in yet.

They should post their short position. The recent CEO forum of dry bulk shippers addressed some of the concerns raised. New ship orders won't all be built due to the financing problems. Many older ships and all the single hulls will be retired to razor blades. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, DRYS is up over 5 bucks today.

41.9 on the services ISM

Don't try to understand 'em, just rope, throw and brand 'em,
soon we'll be livin' high and wide....

Rawhide lyrics by Ned Washington.

Big spike down in gold and some big swings in currencies, must be Friday.

The annual revisions were pretty bad too. The dollar is tanking.

DRY bulk CEO Forum today... may help the rally. The BDI turned up over 5% today.

http://www.capitallinkwebcasts.com/2008/ceo_virtual_forum_january/main.html

Power shortage in South Africa closes gold and platinum mines.
Gold is up 15 bucks.

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page34?oid=45146&sn=Detail

So is AMGN. More rumors about ABK moving it higher.

Fidelity is awful today too. Their order status is broken and trades are taking 30 minutes to an hour to fill. They never can handle the high volume days.

Looks like the FED added 10 billion today.
http://www.gmtfo.com/RepoReader/OMOps.aspx

Discount rate also cut 75bps

Ahem, well a few things might change the direction.
1. Seller exhaustion, the indices have been falling for a month already. This looks like a capitulation move with a V shaped bottom likely.

2. Any announcement that helps the bond insurers. I think Cramer got wind of this possibility and made it part of his schtick on Friday. Now it will appear to be his idea, lol. The downgrade of ambac and threatened downgrade of 3 more bond insurers is the real cause of this sell off, imo.

3. Some combination of central bank moves to support markets.

'MAD' JIM CRAMER LOSES GOLDEN $50K BET

By ZACHERY KOUWE
Click to enlarge
January 18, 2008 -- Should stock jockey Jim Cramer be locked up for aiding and abetting the subprime market meltdown?

The host of CNBC's "Mad Money" now owes $50,000 after losing one of the worst wagers of his entire career to rival trading wiz Eric Bolling.

Cramer, who favors the phrase "Boo Ya," made an on-air bet with Bolling about a year ago that financial services would be the hottest sector of 2007.

Bolling, a former trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, placed his money on oil and gold.

Investors who took Cramer's advice would have taken a 30 percent hit to their portfolios as the stocks of financial titans such as Citigroup and Merrill Lynch got hammered by the mortgage crisis.

On the other hand, investors savvy enough to follow Bolling's bet on gold and oil would have hit the jackpot, as the hot commodities jumped over 60 percent in the same period.

Cramer, through a spokesman, blamed his loss on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's failure to cut interest rates more aggressively.

"The bet turned on Jim Cramer emphatically calling for the Fed to ease rates. The Fed didn't follow Jim's advice, and as a result he'll be happy to write a check to the charity of Eric's choice," a spokesman said.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/01182008/business/mad_jim_cramer_loses_golden_50k_bet_44498.htm

He was wrong then, bet he's wrong now too....

Gold going through 900 shows more than just jewelry demand, I think. Yes, class of '77.

Dry Bulk shipping article with some specific info on stocks.
http://www.seekingalpha.com/article/60101-drybulk-fundamentals-remain-healthy

DryShips Inc. (DRYS)

DryShips owns five capesizes, 29 panamaxes, two supramaxes and eight newbuilds to be delivered the next two years. The company have a Net Asset Value of $73.3 per stock based on the current market value of the fleet. The newbuilds may rise further in value when closer to delivery.

The CEO and main stockholder, George Economou, is spot oriented with currently 75% of the 2008 capacity in the spot market. The time charters are mainly one year deals to expire at the end of 2008. Today these time charters are 25% above the current spot market rate.

When calculating earnings based on the time charters and 2008 freight derivates for the spot fleet, one might expect an EBITDA of $750m in 2008. Using the current one year T/C rate on the spot fleet, EBITDA amounts to $940m. These estimates equals to $20.7 and $26.0 respectively. DRYS is currently trading around $61.5 per stock, with P/E multiples between 2.4 and 3. Looking at 2009 one has to discount rates further. The 2009 FFAs gives an EBITDA of $505m or $14 per share, but based upon the current two year T/C level one might expect an EBITDA of $760m or $21 per share. This equals to a P/E between 2.9 and 4.4.

Regardless of calculation method, there seems to be an upside in the stock. The currently low multiples reflects the higher risk, regarding DryShips' charter strategy. A trigger for the share could be more revenues locked in for the long-term, or a more aggressive dividend policy. Last week DRYS announced a regular dividend of $0.20 per stock, which arguably is low when considering its free cash flow going forward. However this must been seen in line with the company's outspoken growth strategy.

Another news blurb:

Rio Tinto: China To Double Iron Ore Imports Next 6 Yrs
Last update: 1/15/2008 2:11:37 AM
SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Rio Tinto Ltd. (RIO.AU) Tuesday said it expects a strong demand outlook for iron ore to continue, based on China's voracious appetite for the steel making ingredient.
Sam Walsh, Rio Tinto's chief executive for iron ore, presented the company's bullish assumptions for the market during a media tour in Western Australia's Pilbara region.
According to Rio Tinto's forecasts, China will double its iron ore imports over the next six years, as domestic demand underpins steel consumption.
Combined with restricted imports from India as a result of taxes and India's own growing consumption, the outlook for the market will stay strong, Rio Tinto said.
The rise in spot prices on imports into China indicated significant upside for the market. The three iron ore majors BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP.AU), Brazil's Vale (RIO) and Rio Tinto are currently locked into negotiations with key consumers for yearly contract settlements.
Rio's media tour comes before a backdrop of intensifying speculation of the next step in the takeover tussle with rival BHP Billiton Ltd.
Ongoing rumors point to BHP Billiton upping its offer before a Feb. 6 deadline, but a source close to BHP said Tuesday the company was still weighing its options for its next move.
-By Elisabeth Behrmann, Dow Jones Newswires; 61-2-8235-2965; elisabeth.behrmann@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires

The gold spike in Jan '80 was the result of inflation from the Johnson era wars on poverty and Vietnam, with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and Iran taking over the U.S. embassy thrown in as kickers. Nixon had closed the gold window just 7 yrs prior. The U.S. was still a creditor nation. Gold spiked in January of an election year. That sounds similar to now. We had high unemployment, high interest rates and high inflation and one political party put these together and called it the "misery index". The Hunt brothers tried a silver corner driving the price to 50 bucks, while amassing 200 million ounces of inventory. People were melting everything silver. I was able to sell a small box of junk silver coins collected as a kid and buy a washer and dryer. The COMEX changed the rules and put Nelson and Bunker out of that business. It took 20 years to work off that glut of silver.

Fed chairman Volcker came on the scene in the fall of '79 I think and began raising rates hard and fast, sometimes as much as 200-300 basis points at a time (2%-3%) until gold and inflation croaked. Fed Funds hit 17% or thereabouts, Mortgage rates were nearly 20% at one point and they stayed high for several years.

There are a few critical differences now. Demand from rapidly developing countries in Asia is one. A billion additional people on the planet is another. The scale of this derivative problem is vastly larger than anything seen then. This time the inflation problem is world wide, not just limited to the U.S.

The key now as then is confidence in the system. When that confidence weakens, gold goes higher. It takes drastic action and considerable time to get that confidence back.

Gulf Air Orders 16 Boeing 787s for $4B

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080113/boeing_gulf_air.html

The BDI isn't evidence that the world economy is slowing. Commodity prices are rising to all time highs indicating that the world economy is growing.
"Dry commodities trading analysts have so far attributed the steep pullback from the all-time high (BDI) hit last November to a correction at the top of a white-hot market and an expected seasonal downturn in shipments in the first quarter."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7217569

"I don't see any reason why there should be a recession or growth element to this drop," said Jim Lennon a commodities analyst at Macquarie Bank who monitors freight prices.
"We've had this many times before over the last few years. We've had corrections and people have then thought it's over," he said, pinning the decline instead on easing global port congestion and lack of fresh commodity supply."

DRYS doesn't depend on growth in the US, per their CEO in this interview. http://www.forbes.com/video/?video=fvn/business/da_dryship120407
59% of their business goes to China and 24% to Europe with only 4% to North America. http://www.irwebpage.com/dryships/files/3q07_Presentation.pdf

DRYS has already booked $2.60 per share in EBITA for 2008 using only 9% of its fleet.
That puts them well on the way to earning 15 to 20 bucks per share in 2008 with analyst expectations avg 17.77. Perhaps they are rediculously oversold?

As far as oil goes, the U.S. is still importing over 10 million bpd and drawing down commercial inventories. From the latest EIA report: "Total products supplied over the last four-week period has averaged 21.3 million barrels per day, up by 2.6 percent compared to the similar period last year."

Industrial demand for natural gas is RISING yoy, indicating growth not decline.

Those are historical highs. Wow.

Are you trading the metal or stocks? If stocks, which ones have the best leverage? tia

I read and appreciate your posts.

Stratfor does a shallow analysis of one aspect of oil prices without looking at the fundamentals. Then they call geopolitical problems the "real" reason behind high oil prices. As Simmons and Boone have correctly pointed out, demand has increased faster than production every year for the last 6, reducing spare capacity from over 10 million barrels per day to less than a million barrels per day. The EIA publishes a weekly detailed report that Stratfor apparently hasn't read. http://tinyurl.com/17a

Here is one line from that report today... "Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 7.3 million barrels last week, and are in the bottom half of the average range for this time of year." Total inventories have declined every week for the last 6 or 7. Why ? Oil is pressing 100 bucks so every producer has good reason to get oil to market. Why are the inventories falling with record high prices if there exists an abundance of cheaper oil?

I would have expected better from Stratfor. T. Boone and Matt Simmons have been on the money wrt oil.

That ISM number is pretty bad. Ouch

The large draw from inventory this week was caused by delayed deliveries. It is possible that next Wednesday's report will show a large build. It does look tempting to short.

Gold is smacked down and the dollar is at 76.