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Bloomberg radio has played Bernanke's speech about 3 times today already.
He thing I am focusing on is how FED plans to "break inflationary expectations"
Doing a google search on that exact phrase doesn't turn up many feel good stories from the first page of links.
One can't get too happy about the medicine to come from the FED if energy prices don't head back down from where we are now.
The only profit I turned before college graduation was borrowing student loan money offered by the State of NY for 7% and buying a 6 month CD for 12-13% back in late 70's. Back then all you had to due was prove you were a student and the money was yours.
The broad leaf weeds have been very pernicious this spring in NJ.
I just can't imagine how bad the crabgrass is going to be this summer.
The winter was warmest on record and this is the first year I can remember any of my chrysanthemums (half survived) coming back and a border plant listed as an annual that I planted two flats of last spring came back 100% which is a godsend in terms of time saved replanting.
I got sugar peas vines growing in the garden that are about 7-8 ft tall by now and should be ready in 2 weeks. I drool like Homer Simpson for a serving of sugar peas.
Sorry not a reseller
RE ADBE
June 5, 2006 (FinancialWire) Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) talks with Adobe (NASDAQ:
ADBE) about using the company's business software technology have broken down, with
Adobe threatening litigation against the Redmond based company.
The negotiations between the two companies were centered on a plan by Microsoft
to allow users to save work under Adobe's PDF format in its Office 2007 software
for the upcoming Vista operating system. Adobe objected to the use of its technology,
saying that the ability to save a document in such a format constitutes a separate
product, which should not be built into the other system
I would think that MSFT got to pony up and buy ADBE. They just couldn't stay in the 10% niche market for publishing and media applications. How dare ADBE threaten the giant orge by putting acrobat reader technology on every desktop and refuse to let MSFT rebrand it for a fee as in-house technology without a King's ransom.
Looks to me like ADBE is sitting in the position of Fox Software coveted Rushmore database technolgy when Windows 3.1 OS which couldn't index any data items. All of us remember if you wanted to find a file that began with letter P you opened up the file windows and just kept scrolling to that letter without the OS knowing how to skip files beginning with A-M.
I been shorting just about any momo that been upgraded by the pied pipers in last two weeks: RIMM ISRG SNDK DNA
This is not a market that one should think they got all figured out.
I would think that prices for metals will drop sharply considering big houses with many bathrooms and home theater wiring schemes will decline. Building 4000 sq ft move up homes and inner city first time buyer speculation have fueled the increased demand in US for many years. I do not see much of an increase from service related business that form 70% of the current economy.
PS My broker said his compliance office is fraging a lot of clients who write naked options.
Let just say the difference IMO between now and 2000 is that knowledgeable investors know how bad a impending train wreck this time around.
to correct about 1/2 to 2/3rds across the board
The only way that is going to happen is worldwide recession which cuts into demand side.
I've seen very lean inventories recently from bulk distributors of cabling products not knowing how high replacement inventory will cost.
We have been so ingrained that next lot of Chinese goods was cheaper then the previous batch for the last 10-15 years as they found cheaper sources of labor. One could look at any outdated price list and almost guarantee that you would pay less now.
The inflationary mindset of raising prices on each subsequent new lot is starting to kick in. FED will be behind the curve not looking to kill economy right off the get go.
PS By the way, there seems to be a lot of general contractors employing cheap immigrant labor. I wonder how many are going to find new professions if housing busts.
Slightly OT
I saw the "suites available" sign go up at the local up scale Christian retirement home. I haven't seen one since 2002. Either they got some "natural" turnover or retirement home as investment asset is fading.
PS Local high schoolers painted in large letters "Deport immigrants, jail bush" on Cement wall neat . I usually see the Dick loves Jane stuff or beat the local football team.
Hard to get too enthused about market.
BTK and energy issues still strong. GILD ISRG BTU
It would be good day to chase the shorts
DXE has turned negative for the day
What sector is someone going to make money long.
PS Only a few "gadget plays" look green
RIMM BLUD XMSR
I am asking the question:
Does end of month DOW play reverse directions when mutual fund net monthly inflows flip flop and become outflows as is the case right now?
Do you beg to offer a guess on what per cent of trades today were program trades.
Most individuals are following the sell in May and go away adage.
PS ticks just went form pretty positive to pretty negative inforcing my idea that a lot of program trades
They got second long trade of day in already now time to sell off to the close for second profitable short trade of the day.
You have to remember it all about making profitable trades. There is not too much respect for what the stocks are priced at.
Traders got profitable 10 pt long S&P trade in early; profitable 18 pt short trade and they may be able to swing another 10+ pt long trade before day is out.
Now back to 1252 unchanged but 3 points below FV.
I heard from Microsoft today that Vista is pushed back to "sometime in the 1st quarter 2007" So don't look for too much help from large cap names like INTC MSFT and DELL.
Something just smells so foul with the market declining with no corresponding news items to rationalize it.
I am looking at Fannie mae web site data for the possible stench. You just have to pick out the individual snippets out of each month.
http://www.fanniemae.com/ir/pdf/monthly/2006/033106.pdf
ARMs declined from 30.3% to 29.6%. Average loan is $174K.
http://www.fanniemae.com/ir/pdf/monthly/2006/022806.pdf
Mortgage debt outstanding (MDO) grew at 13.8% to 9.8 trillion in 2005. That matchs the rate of growth in 2004 to post the biggest back to back increases in 2 decades.
http://www.fanniemae.com/global/pdf/ir/financial/monthly/2000.pdf
ARMS crossed the 10% of mortgages underwritten point in Apr 2000 just as everyone thought the the market could only go up and it was OK to mortgage the house and invest in the stock market.
It sounds like they are writing a lot of risky loans to first time buyers if interest rates continue to go up.
Foreigners have to buy $60 B in new US debt every month to exchange with the out of balance trade deficit. Fannie mae provides a substancial part of the foreigners purchases.
If Fannie MAe is capped in it's underwriting ability at the $727 B level with this current slap on the wrists, foreigners will be forced to buy more of some other form of asset class with their every expandfing trade deficit dollars.
S&P futures off 5 to 1247
If reversal has any chance of happening it got to be mid morning rally that whipsaws the shorts otherwise they are firmly in control.
S&P futures unch @ 1252.2
Gulf war III will be in US against bands of illegal laborers
US large cap indexes as measured by DOW and OEX lost only about 5% while more speculative NDX index lost 8% recently and 10% going back a month.
Foreign markets indexes lost 10% or more in last 2 weeks and we will find out tomorrow if their current round of correction is over.
Is the US markets still the envy of the world in terms of stability and safety or is the reality worldwide of inflation and higher FED rates hasn't sunk in yet in the U.S. which will yield more pain to the downside.
Looking at large cap stocks excluding energy, MER DNA are only ones of 2%.
NG under $6 BTU has been tumbling
Mutual fund inflows are still positive through APR so I not seeing much need to panic.
However, you are not going to see me long until FED rate debate and foreign market jitters are settled.
Large caps are holding up well but you never know when they are flush the toilet.
Last but not least, I kept telling you through the spring that I was getting assigned long stock from short PUTs. I think I got the message loud and clear to stay away from high P/E equities.
This last hour is going to be down from here.
I think most long day trades will not be held over the weekend assuming lower prices next week.
Plus PPT doesn't work past 2 PM on a Friday<g>
We've been having a hard time with interfence with the wireless WIFI provider for our office connection
I think I indicated earlier that wireless service is a little more problematic then wired service.
In NJ, telecom firms are able to source for their customers T1 circuits for their customers in the $350-400 per month range which pay residual commissions of 12%.
PS My cable service starting to flake out again; just like the 9:15 AM futures values do as the day wears on. <g>
A google map popped up on screen slowly like filling in a jizsaw puzzle.
I have been hard pressed to post from home recently. The cable modem is started to lose about 20% of packets this week sporadically. Cable company Cablevision diagnosed problem quickly and professionally but they can't make it out until SAT afternoon.
This problem with modem doesn't bother stock downloads since I get other 80% that are not dropped but it makes VOIP call poor quality for the listener; web browsing is spotty and forget any about remote connections with that degree of packet loss.
PS your rasies are basically bribes to prevent the staff from moving on for higher pay.
I read the UI numbers for NJ in the newspaper this week.
The only sector with double digit gains in the absolute numbers of unemployed was the IT sector up 9K to about 99K individuals looking for work.
So much for creation of high paying jobs. I have not been studying the hourly wage gains recently but I haven't heard anyone like Steve Forbes crowing on CNBC about them either.
At some point, you can't ascribe the market declines being that the market is uncertain about FED policy going forward.
PS "Bank the profit" is starting to kick in. I would have to Mccellen Oscillator would have to be wash out more then where we are now.
Did a search on "hang" to see if anyone commented on yesterday's 4% drop in Hang seng.
Karachi and Shanghai markets were off over 3.0%. The end of the world is coming but people are getting more liberal with the sell / panic sell button
Spiro Agnew was Nixon's waterboy on discrediting Vietnam era critics until he resigned after being disclosed taking petty bribes as MD governor.
Cheney a little smarter then Agnew not to be the front man but staying behind the scenes and letting the paid press and underlings do his dirty work..
They both been engaged in 2 different types of fiscal thuggery, albeit Cheney adds a couple of zeros in the money made while being a public servant.
Rapid Pre 2008 election regime change is coming. I would not be surprised that it will be violent. Eithere way U.S. financial markets could get messier as this adminstration warns thin with American public.
I got to stop posting before NSA chief Gen. Hayden starts to track the IP of my internet connection.
Cheney the focus of CIA leak court filing
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a new court filing, the prosecutor in the CIA leak case revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney made handwritten references to CIA officer Valerie Plame - albeit not by name - before her identity was publicly exposed.
The new court filing is the second in little more than a month by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald mentioning Cheney as being closely focused with his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, on Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, who is married to Plame.
With the two court filings, Fitzgerald has pointed to an important role for the vice president in the weeks leading up to the leaking of Plame's identity.
In the latest court filing late Friday, Fitzgerald said he intends to introduce at Libby's trial in January a copy of Wilson's op-ed article in The New York Times "bearing handwritten notations by the vice president." The article was published on July 6, 2003, eight days before Plame's identity was exposed by conservative columnist Bob Novak.
The notations "support the proposition that publication of the Wilson Op Ed acutely focused the attention of the vice president and the defendant - his chief of staff - on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in the article and on responding to those assertions."
The article containing Cheney's notes "reflects the contemporaneous reaction of the vice president to Mr. Wilson's Op Ed article," the prosecutor said. "This is relevant to establishing some of the facts that were viewed as important by the defendant's immediate superior, including whether Mr. Wilson's wife had 'sent him on a junket,' the filing states.
From google search on Agnew's Vietnam diatribe shortly before he resigned.
At the White House, the plotting against Kerry continued.
"The concern about Kerry was that he had great credibility as a decorated Vietnam veteran," Colson recalled in a recent interview. So Colson and his staff tried repeatedly to dig up dirt on Kerry. The effort failed.
"I don't ever remember finding anything negative about Kerry or hearing anything negative about him," Colson said. "If we had found anything, I'm sure we would have used it to discredit him."
Colson's memos, in storage at the National Archives, show that he tried mightily to discredit Kerry. On April 16, Colson noted that, "A number of tough questions have also been planted with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War questioners for `Meet the Press."'
Vice President Spiro T. Agnew briefly led the White House charge against Kerry. Appearing in the Bahamas, Agnew said that Kerry, "who drew rave notices in the media for his eloquent testimony before Congress, was later revealed to have been using material ghosted for him by a former Kennedy speechwriter, and to have spent most of his nights in posh surroundings in Georgetown rather than on the Mall with his buddies."
Both of Agnew's charges were false, according to Kerry and Walinsky, the former Kennedy aide to whom Agnew referred.
It now costs 1.2 cents in copper to mint the penny.
We, the U.S., are geting more and more like the Weimar Republic. So dependent on massive loans.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/weimar_depression_1929.htm
I am going out to McDonalds and ask for my change in pennies. <g>.
PS Now I know why Commerce bank has free coin counters in every branch.
What happened to market sentiment when gold went to $700 last time.
http://goldprice.org/30-year-gold-price-history.html
The year was 1980.
Yep we had the second oil price shock
http://www.oilnergy.com/
copper prices spiked with the oil prices as well
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/copper/240798.pdf
AMGN and DNA were the cult stocks that traders loved
DOW went no where price wise until 1982
IMO We got some major sideways to go through after overvaluations are let out.
Next we will hear about compression in P/E ratios as interest rates rise to combat commodities rises
And if you don't think interest rates will go up to combat commodities price rises look here.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WDISCRT/118
Market reminds me of my days as grad student in NYC. I had apartment near Columbia and it had plenty of roaches. At night, I would come home and turn the lights on in the kitchen. The clatter of hundreds of roaches scurring for cover reminds me so much of the flitting back and forth long and short from energy, home builders, internet to large caps.
The only temporary remedy was to get one person ready with a can of RAID and head for the stove gas pilot light area in the dark while another person hit the light switch.
I his home state newspaper disses him it's getting pretty bad.
If I had a hammer, I'd take it to Springsteen's new record
By Paul Mulshine
The Newark Star-Ledger
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Let's do a little thought experiment here. We'll try to think up the most boring CD imaginable.
Barry Manilow does the Bee Gees' greatest hits?
John Tesh covers the Carpenters?
Wait, I've got it: Bruce Springsteen performs a collection of Pete Seeger songs.
Unfortunately, that last one is real. It was announced last week that Springsteen will be releasing an album of Seeger covers next month.
Crank up the coffee pot. Get out the No-Doz. The new Springsteen disc, "We Shall Overcome/ The Seeger Sessions," has the potential to be the single most boring event in rock'n'roll since, let me think for a minute, oh yeah, since Springsteen's last album. That was the one in which he did a bad imitation of the early Bob Dylan. The tour was so unexciting that toward the end the man whose band fills football stadiums was having a hard time filling movie theaters.
The reason for the empty seats was obvious. Springsteen may be a hell of a rocker but he is an awful folk singer. If you doubt this, I invite you to hunt down the Springsteen version of "We Shall Overcome" that is available on the Internet as a preview of the album to come. The first thing you will notice about it is that Springsteen is singing in a sort of generic middle- American drawl. The second thing you will notice is that he is singing out of tune. The effect is to create a false air of authenticity.
Seeger was just as bad in this regard. While posing as a humble hick, Seeger was in fact a Harvard dropout who adopted a folksy air as a means of inflicting his Marxist views on audiences. Dubbed "Stalin's songbird," Seeger sang these lyrics on a 1941 album by the Almanac Singers:
"Franklin D., listen to me,"You ain't a-gonna send me'cross the sea."
The album also included a ditty in which President Roosevelt was decried as an agent of banker J.P. Morgan because of his insistence on aiding the British in their struggle against Uncle Joe Stalin's noble ally. A week after the album's release, however, Hitler invaded Russia. The albums were pulled from the racks and a new one issued calling for the U.S. to get into the war.
I'd pay good money to hear Springsteen cover those Seeger songs. A complete retrospective of Seeger's work would remind Americans of just how thoroughly misguided the so-called Old Left was in the 20th century. Just what did these folkies find so attractive about Marxism? Whatever it was, it didn't carry over into the rock era. Seeger famously resisted Bob Dylan's move to electric guitars at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, saying, "If I had an ax, I'd cut the cable."
The cable remained intact, however, and Dylan escaped the world of fake folk music and entered the electric'60s. This was a wonderful era, an era when even Seeger tunes could be made listenable. The Beach Boys' transcendent version of "Sloop John B" apparently stemmed from Brian Wilson's having heard Seeger mangle the song. And then there was the Byrds' wonderful version of the Seeger song "Turn, Turn, Turn," the lyrics for which Seeger, who lacks any visible talent for either singing or songwriting, lifted directly from the Bible.
If Springsteen were planning that sort of a remake of the Seeger songs, this CD might be worth the effort. All evidence, however, is that Springsteen plans to drone on in that fake hick accent of his. His fans aren't happy. Every Springsteen fan I know dreads the thought of this disc. One wag on a Web site in Minneapolis created a spoof story headlined "Springsteen to release album of TV Song Covers." The article by Steve Perry quotes a bogus Boss telling the listener that the theme from "Green Acres," a 1960s sitcom about a Manhattan couple who moves to the country, "captures a strain of agrarian utopianism that has very deep roots in America."
The funny thing is, it does. The music of sitcoms is every bit as authentic as the "folk" music that emanated from Seeger's crowd. In both cases, you had a bunch of city slickers trying to figure out what goes on in the real America. Seeger at least had the common sense to imitate the true practitioners of authentic folk music -- Appalachian fiddle players, Mississippi Delta blues singers and the like. Springsteen imitates the imitator.
His fans would prefer if he would just imitate himself. The concert video he released with the 30th anniversary CD of "Born to Run" shows the band dressed like a bunch of pimps on a Saturday night. The look was perfect and so was the music.
Back then, Springsteen was supposed to be the future of rock'n'roll. It turned out he was just the present. And now he's the past.
RE Housing
I talked to an appraisal company I work with Friday and owner said most banks are asking for more then 20% down they are so scared.
I talked to a real estate agent today and he's pretty downbeat that long cycle of price appreciation is kaput.
RE Springsteen
Can the new album be listened to or should I take a pass.
Comcast is promising businesses 6 M x 768 K for $90 add $10 for 5 IPs. This type of service is all I need. They state it is fiber optic to the telephone pole.
Cablevision, who covers almost the other half of NJ that Comcast doesn't cover can not offer businesses static IPs just one semi permanent IP.
Comcast is not rolling out a phone service for businesses yet only for the homeowner. Cablevision got both home and business offerings. The business plan is interesting: they will provision a maximum of 4 analog terminal adaptors for $25-30 each. Only thing I don't like is voice mail messages get turned into email and cell phone alerts. The only place you can listen to them is from where they are downloaded to a folder on your local hard drive.
Vonage offers your voice mail message as a wav file email attachment which I think is cat's meow.
COVAD retention dept is offering me a 30 money back guarantee on a dedicated dsl circuit instead of shared dsl line with Verizon phone number for $120 with 5 IPs. They are promising to waive all installation fees since previous shared dsl install in NOV 05 didn't work out.
The only thing holding me back from accepting COVAD's offer is the fact that they can't guarantee any speed ratings where as cable is a given since they don't use too much copper wire.
Sorry for repeats
COVAD DSL line getting slammed by Verizon hegemony.
Verizon thinks by messing with Covad's book of business I will return to mothership but I'm going to Comcast for cable internet service at my office.
Pardon me if I do not reply unitl I get home with stable line.
Sorry for repeats
You think Verizon thinks I can't see who is causing the bad dsl signal
They have been putting COVAD through the wringer with multiple service calls.
RE INTC
Anything but P4 core is amazing.
Ortellini announced cuts to the bone to get competitive with AMD
So much new economic activity that went on hold by the 70% of economy which is consumer/small business in last few days will stay on hold if energy prices don't start to retreat.
All MSFT money when into BKX index today.
Next week should be proof of direction market is heading since if another DOW component gets downgraded (HON MSFT this week) BKX can't hold all the additional rotated money.
BKX will crack along with long delayed 10% market correction if "panicky" economic crisis anywhere in world develops AKA 1997 or 1999.
In Ah, it hasn't hit new 52 W low so the bullish feeling of market may not busted.
ORCL ADBE ADSK JCOM INTU SYMC all unaffected AH by their miss.
I think street will give them a pass; reiterate ratings and not downgrade stock if it continues to flounder badly tomorrow.
At $283B market cap, it means a lot of money flowing out of tech if it doesn't stabilize and come back some.