a friend of my dad's who used to work for symantec has been preaching one thing for years: drop MS outlook. do that, and the vast majority of worms will disappear. and its not like there is no alternative; the cross platform "evolution" (from ximian) is compatible with exchange servers and looks and acts just like outlook. and its free.

I think that if you'd asked Fleck

well, i'm not sure what fleck said in march, but i know pretty well that fleck said in april or may that the better strategy was to step aside and "give the bulls wide berth". the only time i remember him explicitly talking about taking short positions was on intc at ~21+. and from the look of the chart, that was probably mid june and covered on a dip.

> intc looks like a pump and dump

well, conspiracy theorist that i am, i'll tell you why i was so confident shorting on friday, and why i chose some of the things i did: because of that "accident" on the s&p on friday. lots of the things i was looking at seemed to become very illiquid and made big plunges. my distrustful mind, that thinks that often the market is just "all theater", figured that the intel news was their way of taking it down in a more controlled manner. i would have bailed if we continued bouncing off 998 on the spx all day (i covered gm after we did the 2nd time), but when we finally failed, i held on to the end. even kopn, which rose to a new high while everything else was bleeding (8.25) - because of the huge illiquidity i saw on the tape thursday; and sure enough, during the last 20 minutes, huge volume came in to drive it down 8% off its high.

A potential cure for this economy that noone publicly wants to discuss is inflation, IMHO. Remember Reagan days?

hmm. but isn't this actually the potential cure that everyone has been talking about since forever? way back to december 01, as i recall (although i read stephen roach alot), the solutions are either deflation or stagflation. (and deflation is not quite a "solution", more like a possible outcome.) and isn't this part of what has the bond market moving now? (something i read this weekend characterized the former bond vigilantes now as a posse: they know greenspan wants inflation and have no faith that he can hit a modest target and not overshoot.)

anyway, reagan years. or carter years. lol.

I pitty myself, and time I wasted

ah, you watched longer than i did. after mr kim (?) came out with ge, ibm, msft as his picks, i was outta there ...

actually, come to think of it: rukeyser started his opening speech mentioning "the most dangerous words are 'this time is different'", and then when mr kim actually said that - 'i think its different this time' - i was done ...

an interview with some sort of obscure fund manager...my God is it garbage

well that's what you get when you take obscure fund managers and try to make them into tv personalities. they should take a cue from jay leno: he'd never interview such folks. or from lou ruckeyser. (i never watch that, though i did tonight; how deep did he have to dig to get 3 fund managers who each think we have 10-20% upside and that the best picks in the market now are ge, ibm, msft, csco and harley-davidson? oh, and that there's absolutely nothing they'd even think of selling here.)

yah, i kept the swks short open. covered gm for 0.45, about 1/3 the pmcs short for 0.64. half of kopn for 0.50 and a bit of extr i picked up off the high .

kopn had similar behavior to yesterday's "s&p futures accident"; bumping up against an all time high at 7.25 all day, even during the decline in the rest of the market. and then an 8% swandive in the last couple minutes of trading. i would have held onto the rest if it hadn't done that though.

I think that that specific tax loophole has been closed. You can no longer count the time you were short against the block to get LT Cap gains.

correct. you need to calculate on your net long/short position

did i miss this?

was there something that triggered the rally in bonds and gold today?

will they rotate into other stuff now

well if this rally is real, they're gonna have to push up the bkx, right? has anyone been watching? is the selling there real or more like "accumulation" moves?

Street People coming into buy at the 2:22 hour?? Hope so.

jeez, better not be that guy i just gave a buck to at 7-11. i explicitly stipulated, no alcohol, drugs or tech stocks.

covered gm short here for 0.45. still hanging on to pmcs, kopn, swks. and some gg long from this a.m., trading position.

but core bio/gold longs red too

gg coming back pretty fast. seems to have been slapped a bit harder than others lately, esp relative to hui (which it had previously underperformed).

This is exactly the mentality of a strong bull rally. [...] I just moved my stops up.

a weak bull in a strong bull rally?

i'm also short gm and kopn here. as mlsoft would say, whips 'n' chains.

okay, call me incorrigible, but i'm short swks here @ 11.16 and 11.18. and pmcs. lets rock 'n' roll.

Welcome to Da Club.

nah, i'd rather eat worms. just scalpin' here and there for me.

> You just took the first step to a 12 step program.

lol. and the next step is ... buy akam!

This news was enough to convert the hardest short.

who? not me. though i will probably cash in my hedging calls today ...

Then again, maybe it's just me

no, its not just u. i'd say something about iraq, but we'd get into politics and this is the wrong board ...

That is why the world is now playing competitive devaluation ...

yah, i know this. but i meant now as in right now, because of the recent strength in the yen. i think this was on a story linked to news on nikkei on yahoo last night (claiming that the expectation of a very near term intervention was putting a lid on the nikkei's advance)

Stopping the dollar rise is very important here, both for corporate profits and for the overall economy.

on the other hand, there's already been a warning that japan might be intervening here to stop the rise of the yen. (or is that what we're now seeing? ... no i guess not, those moves are generally well publicized.)

well, i don't have my own gold model, so i have to rely on the kindness of strangers. again, from that previously referenced thestreet.com article:

------

"From 1989 to the present, each 1% shift in the spot price of gold has meant a 1.9% shift in the S&P 500 gold index," said David Kerans, an analyst at Argus Research.

Kerans said he is expecting gold to climb to about $380 an ounce by the end of the year, partly because he feels the supply of gold will be constrained going forward. He is looking for gold production to decrease by 3% per year until at least 2007.

"There's not enough money being spent on exploration to maintain current production levels in the longer term," agreed Geoff Stanley, an analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

They will pull all the stops including ...

but then, this is all in nobody's interest unless they believe it leads to a sustainable recovery.

cliggott was on cnbc today making some good (bearish) points, including the observation that the various fiscal stimuli we're seeing were coordinated to hit now (tax cuts, mortgage refi peak). to that, i'd add a (failed) attempt to get oil prices down. he sees this becoming more obvious over the next few months (and, of course, new lows - but not this year; within the next two years).

These btb numbers may go up a few tenths of a percent, month to month. But the erosion factor is so deep.

i would think these folks aren't just looking at the btb to predict future rise, but rather capacity utilization at semi's (which i just read recently was up to 85% - apparently, the average since '94 and 5% below the level where they would invest in new capacity). [although those numbers all seem pretty suspect to me. this must be in terms of current employment levels at fabs etc, no, and not idle capacity at fabs?]

a strong dollar is negative for gold

although this is not yet showing itself. interesting article from cramer's rag (thestreet.com):

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscfoc/markets/rebeccabyrne/10109169.html

Analysts also note that demand for gold continues to be strong, particularly in India, where jewelry makers have been stepping up their gold purchases.

Merrill Lynch, which is looking for bullion to rise to $370 an ounce by October, also noted that demand in China is likely to increase from both the public and private sectors.

"Continued gold market reform is expected to enhance China's gold demand," the firm said in a recent report. Merrill and Goldman Sachs now recommend a 5% weighting of gold in client's holdings.

If we changed that then all our historical databases on valuations will be out of whack.

what!?!

if i pick up s&p reports on a stock and its history, its all gaap earnings, or something standard. the "historical database" of earnings doesn't remember pro forma. its only being used in this game of "beat the analysts' concensus". well, maybe except for amazon.

ride it down with the core shorts and gold stocks

interesting. i was thinking of asking you guys about this. like you, or er, your daughter, i have a huge chunk of my "investment" portfolio in gold (gold funds actually, since those are my only options). so it sounds like you're predicting here that, if the market does stumble here, miners will continue their march up.

now that seems to be plausible (considering how they've reacted when the general market turns down), but is that also what you'd expect if we get a big "barf up a hairball" flush? or would the baby get thrown out with the bathwater?

the fire has been sucessfully started

although, note that everyone here as said that they have their finger on the sell button; and, if that little "accident" that happened today is an example, a decline - when it happens - will make some smaller stocks very illiquid. e.g. kopn, which i was playing with at the time, dropped 3.75% within 10 mins. and that, after having made a new recovery high earlier in the session.

this does not strike me as a recipe for economic recovery"

well for the last two years everyone has been saying that greenspan's choice is between deflation and stagflation. now, i wasn't even an embryo during the 70's, but i've seen "all in the family" reruns, and this sure sounds familiar. except for beef prices.

There's a lotta positive energy in a stock when that happens.

yah, although the chart from here upwards is a blank slate, and it seems to have given up some of its momentum after failing at 11 the first time. we'll see ... i sold my calls 2 days ago and covered the rest of my short yesterday. so here, i'm just watching.

i've been watching swks, and even scalped some on the short side (and had some calls).

positive for a long position is the hype around wireless and the short interest. negative (or positive) is a shelf that they filed a few weeks ago. actually, if you look at the chart, it was hovering around 9 when the announcement of the shelf facilitated a little shakeout, and then off it went ... however, there might perhaps be a secondary offering in the wings (which could be good for a long position, if you don't overstay). anyway, other insights welcome; its on my radar.

My goodness today's news is great, nobody sells it

but how many times do you buy the same news before its priced in?

Anyone want a slam dunk short??? Pick any mortage comapny.

any opinions on a mortgage insurance company, say PMI, in this environment?

[actually, my "slam dunk short" has always been - shh, i don't wanna jinx this - kopn. high beta and yet very low short interest. and looking very illiquid right now, i might add.]

thud

snap

the two are like mixing oil and water

probably. that's why i have my trading portfolio (little) and investment portfolio (big).

well i found the following heartening after just seeing a tech fund manager on cnbs hawking SCOX as a tech value that he likes.

http://www.thewest.com.au/20030819/business/tw-business-home-sto109287.html

Newman bearish on US economy

AUSTRALIAN Stock Exchange chief Maurice Newman has painted a pessimistic view of the US economy, warning business to be prepared for another global retreat.

"I don't think one should underestimate the impact of a significant decline in the US economy and how that would cascade to Europe and Japan," he said yesterday.

"I hope people will reflect and not simply accept without question what is constantly being fed up to us as being that 'she'll be right'.

"We are, in my view, in uncharted waters."

Mr Newman told a function in Brisbane the US, European and Japanese markets were all fragile with increasing debt levels and decreased savings.

In the US, despite growing unemployment, consumers continued to spend, pushing the current account deficit out to an annualised $US548 billion ($833 billion) - a record 5.2 per cent of gross domestic product.

And the pressure would only increase on both sides of the Atlantic as populations aged and relied more on pension funds. Mr Newman said he was concerned businesses would take an eventual market recovery for granted.

"My only concern is that people take it for granted it will happen and do not do what is required to prepare their organisations for what might be some cold winds ahead," he said.

"I am sure all organisations can do things which will stand them in good stead if conditions do deteriorate."

He said that while the market was encouraged by positive results coming out of the US in the last quarter, deeper analysis of the results showed they were not as strong as previous recoveries and were less likely to be able to shake-off the long-term downturn.

He further warned of the increased "spin" emerging from Wall Street, which he described as symptomatic of the market bubble of the 1990s.

However, he said Australia was in a much stronger fundamental position than the three major economies.

"We are not as indebted," Mr Newman said.



-AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

aha! so that's how they got ebay over 100 .....

Exclusive to American Free Press
By Gordon Thomas

The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) are accused by International Currency Review, the London-based journal, of mounting a joint ultra-secret operation to electronically remove an estimated $10 billion out of the Iraqi Central Bank hours before the start of Persian Gulf War II. The whereabouts of the money is not known.

[...]

(borrowed from prudentbear)

> T.J. Ya agreed,but how long before it falls into Pacific?

old wives' tale. like "oh, intel is so overvalued at 27.50." or so my real estate agent told me. :-P

> They are Bankrupt!

book value. all that beachfront property.

or perhaps he meant it in a non-tangible sense. our great sense of inner peace and such like. :-P

whoever made that great prediction that ntap would reach for 21-22 again: bravo! i never would have believed it ....