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You've got that right, Gleno. The real unemployment numbers are shocking and if known would create revolt and revulsion among the electorate. The biggest crook is our own government, which constantly lies and under-reports these numbers. Two
OT: Goldman sent around a document in Congress that basically said it's all right for the company not to be fully transparent. Taibbi had a few comments. Two
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There is a lot of crazy stuff in this document, but the most notable is probably this passage, in which Goldman pooh-poohs the notion that complete transparency in markets creates accurate prices.
Instead, the bank argues that an over-the-counter market in which big traders like Goldman get to do deals in the shadows in “dark pools” without the retail investor having any knowledge of what the hell is going on is somehow better for everybody, that this somehow produces better prices. Of course the reality is that the two-tiered system creates one pool of fools whose every movement is visible to every animal on the Serengeti, and another pool of giant bloodthirsty carnivores who get to walk around invisible, picking off the dik-diks one by one.
Everyone I showed this to had the same reaction — “I can’t believe they said this out loud.”
One friend of mine put it this way: say Goldman buys a big block of stock from a pension fund in a dark pool. Now they have shares they want to get out of and flatten out their risk. So where do they sell? Well, a big chunk of it might go to the retail schmuck who has no idea what’s going on. He’s buying 1000 shares of whatever at $28, not knowing that Goldman has another 50,000 shares to go. Next thing you know, the schmuck’s shares are at $27.
Goldman salutes this process, noting the magic of so-called “non-displayed liquidity.” What the rest of us would describe as “hiding shit from the rabble,” Goldman calls “separating liquidity from information about the transaction.” You almost have to admire the sheer balls of this sort of propaganda.
In Goldman's own words yesterday. What crooks! Two
"We estimate that real GDP grew 2.7% (annualized) in the third quarter. Our number is below the Bloomberg consensus of 3.2%, probably because our estimate of the pace of inventory liquidation is more aggressive than that of other forecasters." - Goldman Sachs
You were right, Dan. I took a small NDX long position at yesterday's close. That said, I don't think the run into Friday will challenge the recent NDX high. Rather, I think it will fall short and drop next week. Which makes me think the Bradley turn date of Nov. 9 might be a low, rather than a high. My intuition (and that's all it is) suggests we go up into Thanksgiving, and then again at Christmas. JMHO. Two
What made me suspicious yesterday was Goldman's rumor that the GDP number would miss, which panicked a lot of bulls and brought in new bears. So what happened today? The GDP met expectations. What a racket. Two
Fox, do you see the possibility that Da Boyz set up a bear trap and will now take up the indexes into tomorrow's close (end of month window dressing)? Sure looks that way now. Two
Tomorrow's GDP number could be a significant market mover, according to Ty Durden at ZH. Two
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Did Someone Just Leak The GDP Number? Of Course Not, But Goldman Has Some Things To Say About It
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/28/2009 08:34 -0500
Jan Hatzius, who was recently rated "most accurate economist" for good reason, after exhibiting phenomenal precognitive abilities to revise payroll numbers within 24 hours of actual number release to within 0.0001% (roughly) of the actual final number, has just decided to become a shoe-in for the next year's award nomination by announcing that tomorrow's GDP number, to be released at 8:30 am and expected to be 3.0%, will now be 2.7%. Now, we tend to joke about leaks and such, especially when it comes to Goldman (one would think Goldman's PR department has their hands full as is), but if tomorrow's GDP really is a surprise miss, which this client note seems to indicate, things will get just plain silly.
This ewave mumbo-jumbo is enough to drive you crazy! Anyone want to comment on McHugh's analysis? Either we've started "catastrophic wave c down" or we haven't? My guess is that we haven't, mainly because the holidays will soon be upon us and I doubt Da Boyz will want folks to become upset and pull their money out of the market. But who knows? Two
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We believe wave (C ) down is very close to starting, maybe a week or two away or so. We are watching for downside breakouts of bottom boundaries of Rising Bearish Wedge and Ascending Broadening Wedge patterns to confirm wave (C ) down has started. We are now seeing new sell signals in most of our key trend-finder indicators. So the question is, has wave (C ) down already started?
We cannot rule out that possibility. However, we have another labeling that considers the decline the past few weeks is wave b-down of (E) up. Next would be wave c-up of (E) up of C-up of (B) up. Once c-of (E) up completes, (C ) down follows. If c-up is coming, it better st art soon. Because there is a phi mate turn date and a Bradley model turn date both on November 9th, wave (E) of C-up of (B) up may not have topped yet. A significant top is either in or approaching fast. The Demand Power and Supply Pressure indicators have now converged, in an environment where Demand Power is declining in a Bearish Divergence against rising prices. Historically, when this happens and there is simultaneously a DP SP convergence, a significant top is approaching. We saw this set-up in late 2007.
Hey, Fox. Ty Durden at ZH has an interesting piece on the SPY rally. Two
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SPY Hits 3-Sigma Divergence From VWAP
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/27/2009 09:21 -0500
All those who have had a fishy feeling about this whole volumeless rally may be curious to take a look at the following graphic which indicates that unprecedented divergence between the VWAP on the SPY, which since the beginning of the rally in March has hit just over 91, and the actual SPY which as of last night was at 107. The difference between the two data series is now roughly 15 points, or about 150 on the S&P, or just under 1,500 DJIA points. This differential is entirely due to the low volume aggregation on the way up, in essence the entire run up has been a lite version of a 6 months long gap move up. What the chart also explains is the propensity by the market to see every potential sell off have a dramatically broader volume participation than the computer driven trickle higher, as all market participants realize there is insufficient accumulation interest to justify this 3 Sigma divergence.
Thanks, Foot. By the way, Matt Taibbi posted this very amusing MonkeyBusinessBlog video. It sort of expresses how most thinking people feel about the Fed, Obama, Congress, banks, etc. Two
http://www.monkeybusinessblog.com/mbb_weblog/2009/10/hell-it-takes-even-eli-manning-six-years-to-make-a-hundred-million-dollars.html
Hey, Foot. What effect will TOM have on this decline, I wonder? So far, the NDX drop has been shallow and it makes me wonder if they'll pull up the indexes mid-week into 10/30? Thoughts? Two
I bow to your experience and knowledge. Two
Good point. But several stocks have been used during the past few weeks (INTC, for example) to create the perception that the market is healthy. These companies set the bar so low that their earnings looked spectacular. Every index has been rising on fumes; there's ever-decreasing volume. Two
My opinion is that Da Boyz are using this stock to hold up the NDX and, possibly, keep the other indexes from falling too hard too fast. Two
Hey, Fox, could your "magic 1.5" still be in effect? Two
LOL, Gleno. "GS taketh and GS giveth." Two
OT: Are we about to encounter something "big" around Oct. 25-26 that will upset the market? Mr. Ure at UrbanSurvival presents an interesting thought or two on this subject. Two
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One Trading Day Till....What?
We've got - from when the market opens in NY this morning - only about 6½ trading hours to go until we get to the long-awaited October 25/26 emotional turning which is due to take place according to the work out of www.halfpasthuman.com. If you're a newbie, the general concept is that changes in language tend to precede changes in reality and for quite some time, in fact on the other of months and months, we have been looking at the period we're just coming into as when 'emotional tensions releasing' turn back into 'emotional tensions building'.
The modeling of events suggests that whatever is going to happen will arise out of 'globalpop' which means the center of the buzz amongst humans will not be limited to a few trading wonks; it'll be something big and something that will be on the tips of people's tongues by next Friday worldwide. A quick check of the kind of events that could fit the linguistics...and you're welcome to throw your own darts here:
The #1 possibility - never to be overlooked - is that we've got the processing wrong and nothing will happen. Unfortunately, since the predictive technique has worked well in advance of previous events, it may work out again. So we move down the list of possibilities...
A mega-quake would certainly do it. As our Indonesia correspondent BG reported earlier this week, the Indonesia meteorological office's geophysical group issued a warning for this time period of an 8.0 to 8.4 quake. That could put the scale of destruction from resulting tsunamis and such up near the Banda Ache (9.1 to 9.3) size and that would cause building tensions while damage is assessed and the world assimilates impacts.
Israel could decide to get after Iran's nuclear facilities - something that has been in the cards for a long time. But that might be considered 'release language' - which is what short-term striking out pencils in modelspace. What could change it into an emotional build period? Well, if the bunker-buster bombs set off a nuclear explosion, or it a huge cloud of radioactive debris is popped into the atmosphere and we have a period of a week or three while the fallout from the event drifts eastward toward China and then down froim Alaska via the jhet stream to guess where? Or, what is as a consequence OPEC allied with China and Russia draws an embargo around the West for it's nominal support of such an operation, or if Iran responds with multiple NBC weapons aimed at Israel and we get an escalation sequence over a several weeks period?
Who needs exogenous events, however, when the market's rally is so long in the tooth already? Yeah, the happy-talk is that 'good times are here' but there are some bothersome bearish divergences if you study the technical picture. Just as one 'for instance' consider that the 1.33% rally in the Dow on Thursday was accompanied by a just darn near flat Dow Transports move. Under Dow Theory, as go transports, so goes the Indoo's over time.
Or, the problem could be a huge jam-up in the US dollar starting Monday. Such a scenario might have a trigger event like words that the Euro is in trouble and may not be a dollar-equivalent within the EU because of bickering in Europe. Conversely, the possibility of a unilateral - preemptive - 40% devaluation of the dollar when most people aren't expecting it could catch global markets off balance and while sending a flood of dollars home to the USA ensuring a lower lifestyle) it would nevertheless set up the possibility of announcing partial gold convertibility at the new lower price. The ramification of this open were outlined in yesterday's column.
There are plenty of other 'events' or 'event clusters' that could have the same impact (rising tensions for two or three weeks would likely track with a declining market by the end of the next trading week, but that's only if the dollar isn't devalued. Pick almost any global-sized headline you want - like the American Bankers Association meetings in Chicago that kick off Sunday and where protests - perhaps large back by angry unemployed and foreclosed homeless - might be a trigger.
Yes, the possibility of a nuclear terrorist event (again with tensions building as the internet is dialed back and so forth) would be another one that could have a 2-3 week 'tail' of worry. We don't run too much processing in that area, though, since that's Homeland Security's playing field and we'd likely be unwelcome interlopers. Still, I've taken the unusual step of setting up a static IP address for this page ( http://72.52.163.140/week.htm - bookmark it) along with an SSL layer so access via https://72.52.163.140/ will be possible. Subscribers to my Peoplenomics.com newsletter will still be able to access via http://67.225.203.185/ and again, an SSL layer is provided. All this on the incredibly thin chance that Monday might bring a massive coordinated attack on the internet's name server architecture. If you have all your bank IP addresses cached (a poor pun, indeed) then disruption should be minimized, but as I've pointed out before better to be prepared and wrong, instead of ill-prepared and thrown under the bus.
My hope is that the technology finally be horribly wrong and that Thursday or next week, the market will still be where it is, green shoots talk will be building, and peace & harmony will be breaking out globally. But realistically? Something 85% economic in nature, 15% 'other' seems to be in the cards.
That's good news, Gleno, and I wish her a speedy recovery. Question re. your trading: I know you make good use of MAs. Have you noticed any peculiarities or abnormalities re. the MAs you employ during the past several months? In other words, things happened that didn't occur before the rally began last March? TIA. Two
You may want to check out the Steve Meyers videos at Jesse's Cafe Americain. Meyers thinks we may see a steep decline in November and again in 2010. Two
http://www.jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
You got me, Fox. Are you saying the 1.5 is still in effect? Or not? TIA. Two
Only thing I see is housing starts tomorrow pre-open. Consensus is down a little. But does that mean anything? Two
I'm holding a straddle with a small bias to the short-side on the NDX (started at 1775). But it's dicey, to say the least. Two
Did you mean "gosh darn busturds"? LOL. I feel the same way about them, you. Two
Hey, Foot, here's how "your" president is doing, according to Matt Taibbi. Two
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We’re coming up on the one- year anniversary of Barack Obama’s election. I think it’s maybe time that we asked ourselves how he’s doing.
He didn’t close Guantanamo Bay, and not only didn’t reject the idea of pre-emptive detention but added spice to his own new version of pre-crime prosecution, “prolonged detention.” He promised health care reform and campaigned on a public option, and we all know how that is going to turn out.
But most importantly, he came into office amidst sweeping crises in the financial sector and did not do what needed to be done, and what had been done the last time the U.S. was sent careening into a depression because of Wall Street: he failed to push for tough financial reforms. Barack Obama needed to be the FDR figure who remade the American capital markets and made them fair again, and he barely laid a finger on the whole scene.
Instead, he put the people who created the problem in charge of fixing the mess, and ended up bailing them out instead of the rest of the country, at huge current and (presumably) future cost.The total bill for the Bush-Obama bailout is certainly above ten trillion at this point — Inspector General Neil Barofsky thinks it might hit nearly $24 trillion ultimately — and this went through without much fanfare. Meanwhile, the congress is stuck in the mud, panicked at the thought of paying three or four trillion over a decade or so for a health care program.
None of this is new news. What is new is the question of what to do about it. I’m personally of the opinion that our main problem lay with the fact that the Democratic Party as currently constituted is more afraid of losing the financial support of Wall Street and the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry than it is of losing progressive voters. In fact, I think I’ve put that wrong, because it implies that the Democratic Party pushes the agenda of industry insiders out of fear. That is a misread of the situation, I think.
I think they prefer those people to their voters. I think they feel more comfortable with them. I heard a story recently from a Democratic Party operative who tells me that certain members of one of the president’s cabinet departments only got wind of how hard it is out there for ordinary people to pay their bills when they invited in a major corporation to give them a presentation about their financial outlook for the holiday season — and through that report found out that this company’s prospective customers were spending less because large numbers of them had been laid off, or had huge medical bills, or had maxed out their credit, and so on.
Letters from customers, survey answers and such, were read to the cabinet group. And they were shocked. This is how they find out about the economic reality of this country — accidentally, from a major campaign contributor! That’s how out of touch these people are.
On these financial issues, not just the issue of financial regulation on Wall Street but the larger issue of income distribution and what kind of country we want to be — the Democratic Party no longer has a policy that makes any sense. They do not seem to understand or even recognize that real wages in this country have not grown for most people for decades. Or if they do understand, they refuse to imagine any solutions that are not in some way a compromise with their major campaign contributors. They talk about closing tax loopholes and phony corporate addresses in the Caribbean as solutions to economic problems, policy initiatives as absurd and inconsequential as then-comic Al Franken’s fictional decision (in the novel Why Not Me?) to run on a campaign promise of “ending ATM fees.”
And perhaps you read what he had to say about someone manipulating the dollar today just about the time when the SPX was ready to drop even more? Two
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Just as someone poked their head out of their shell, and started accumulating dollars, they got soundly denied: whether it had to do with the SPY about to test the VWAP resistance or other "structural market support" issues, is unknown... The inability to follow through on attempted dollar strength was reflected immediately in the equity market. And still some naive investors think that fundmanetals matter
Fox, I agree with your analysis (my sell signal came in at 10:45 yesterday). We may test the highs, however, before the drop commences(?). Here's a little ditty that says a lot. Two
Smoke And Mirrors Everywhere
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/22/2009 08:48 -0500
The S&P 500 Index is now selling at 26 times operating earnings. That's more expensive than at the bull market top in 2007. Are things really better than at the five-year bull market top in 2007? What about the trillions of dollars of bad assets still on the books of financial institutions around the world? Most analysts agree that the market is over valued. Yet they have to participate because the market is going up. They hope to be the first ones out of the exit when the plug is pulled. Do you think you can do that
Hey, Fox, are you still thinking the "magic figure 1.5" will cap this rally for now? I shorted the NDX at 1775 and I hope you're right(?). Two
Hey, Gleno, without the funds participating, this low-vol rally won't go on much longer. Two
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Equity Mutual Fund Outflows Accelerate As Market Ramps Higher On Low Volume, Computerized Churning
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/22/2009 10:22 -0500
The most recent data from ICI demonstrate that even as the market continues melting-up on low volume HFT churning, domestic equity mutual fund outflow have accelerated: the week of October 14 saw a quarter high ($5.3) billion withdrawn, and the cumulative ouflows since August have hit ($25) billion: a number that makes no logical sense when juxtaposed with the overall 7% market move higher during the period. What does explain it is the roughly $200 billion in USTs and MBS purchased by the Fed during the period. Yet, the take home message is that the money on the sidelines is not only not entering the market, it is getting bigger, despite endless attempts by CNBC to get everyone and the kitchen sink to open an E-trade account and fund their margin calls with Capital One 19.95% APR credit cards.
OT: Does this disturb anyone...even just a little? (Forget the SEC.) Two
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On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, somebody — nobody knows who — made one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen. The mystery figure spent $1.7 million on a series of options, gambling that shares in the venerable investment bank Bear Stearns would lose more than half their value in nine days or less. It was madness — "like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets," according to one financial analyst.
But what's even crazier is that the bet paid.
At the close of business that afternoon, Bear Stearns was trading at $62.97. At that point, whoever made the gamble owned the right to sell huge bundles of Bear stock, at $30 and $25, on or before March 20th. In order for the bet to pay, Bear would have to fall harder and faster than any Wall Street brokerage in history.
The very next day, March 12th, Bear went into free fall. By the end of the week, the firm had lost virtually all of its cash and was clinging to promises of state aid; by the weekend, it was being knocked to its knees by the Fed and the Treasury, and forced at the barrel of a shotgun to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase (which had been given $29 billion in public money to marry its hunchbacked new bride) at the humiliating price of … $2 a share. Whoever bought those options on March 11th woke up on the morning of March 17th having made 159 times his money, or roughly $270 million. This trader was either the luckiest guy in the world, the smartest son of a bitch ever or…
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story...s_naked_swindle
Looks like up in the a.m., Foot. The NDX hasn't topped yet, from what I can see. Two
As I recall, you were the one who put me on this newsletter many months ago. It's one of my favorites. Thx. Two
Not so OT: If you believe in Arch Crawford's work, then you may want to read what George Ure reported today on his Urban Survival site. Two
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Had a most interesting conversation with Arch Crawford last night about what's ahead, not only for the ugly part of this year's market (wait a week or two and you won't be saying "huh?") but also about the really ugly part of 2010; which is you want to mark it down should show up sometime between late July and Early August of next year by his work.
Crawford ( www.crawfordperspectives.com about $250/yr ) has been writing a financial newsletter for about 32 years and was "ranked #1 market timer for the 2008 calendar year" by Hulbert's Financial Digest. What's interesting about Crawford's work is that it's an astrologically based report - although other cycles are considered, too - which makes it interesting when a person (like me) is trying to line up periods where multiple predictive systems are all pretty much saying the same thing.
Just as the predictive linguistics work is pointing to big market moves starting as early as late Sunday (Monday in Asian trading time) Crawford's work shows there's a rough patch there.
But more worrisome is his take on the mid-2010 period. "It's about the worst we've ever seen," he told me.
How bad is bad?
"Well, when something is worse than the Revolutionary War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, that's bad - it's the worst I've seen the charts in over 200-years.
As he explains it, there's Mars conjunction Saturn which will be in opposition to Jupiter conjucting Uranus all squaring Pluto.
Not that it means a hill of beans to me - I'll take a GPS reading, thanks - but because of the Pluto is where it is mid summer of next year the biggie stuff out there is likely to be planetary in nature.
Interestingly, this also corresponds to the predictive linguistics work what has the big showdown basically between good guys and bad guys there; a time when the global mass of humans will be seeking revenge/change/retribution from the PTB.
If you were sketching out a kind of mid-range path between Crawford's work, Cliff's linguistics work, Robin Landry's Elliott (and then some) and trying to sketch out a trading path, it might go something like this:
From late October till early/mid December, a good-sized market decline, perhaps testing the March '09 market lows around Dow 6,627.
Right after the first of the year, I'd be expecting a whole new chorus of "Good times are just ahead" and the 'gloves to come off' in terms of government control, imposition of group-think, and once the mutated swine flu comes out of the Winter Games, then lots of clamping down of people's freedom of movement.
During this period, I'd be looking for energy to 'shoot the moon' along with the precious metals - oh boy!
And then as the social order collides with the globalist agenda over July-August, I'd look for the markets to be as bad as at any time in 200-years.
Hard telling how it will all play out, but the predictive linguistics would seem to fit this pretty well (they tend to state the most dire of language) but when other systems of getting a bead on the future start to line up, as I explained to Peoplenomics subscribers last week, that's when I start figuring out how to be as we say here in Texas 'all in'.
OT: CA Attorney General Brown, who is suing State Street Bank on behalf of his state, really puts it to the CNBS a-holes, Kneale and busty Cabrera, who sound like they're pimping for Wall Street and State Street bank (which they are, of course). Two
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1301828700&play=1#
OT: Is the Fed smart or stupid? Denninger answers that question. Two
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On Monday the Federal Reserve held a major reverse repo test, as was announced by the NY Fed and by Zero Hedge. We have subsequently received several unconfirmed reports that the conducted test has been a disaster (we have calls into the Federal Reserve to confirm or deny this, we are eagerly awaiting their reply).
How do you do a reverse repo when there's no cash to tender?
Bottom line: JP Morgan/Chase appears to have only $21 billion in actual cash. Their "Cash" position as stated on Yahoo Finance and other places includes deposits with banks and fed funds - that is, cash "equivalents" that are not actual money in their possession.
That, of course, doesn't count when The Fed wants to drain liquidity and needs to drain actual cash.
It also belies a bigger question - what is the true leverage ratio of JP Morgan/Chase, if their actual cash is only $21 billion? Oh, that's kind of an ugly question, especially with some $700 billion in debt outstanding....
Are people really this dumb over at The Fed?
It appears so, and begs the question - how big of a disaster are we about to undergo?
Well put, Fox. I respect the e-wavers because they exhibit great tenacity and intelligence when it comes to plotting their charts. It's the lack of precision that bothers me. Of course, I could say the same about my own charting system (lol). Regarding McHugh, I pay attention when he says the end game is near. He's usually correct, and his "phi dates" are sometimes very amazing. The next "phi date" happens to be November 9 (plus/minus a day or two). This corresponds with the next major Bradley turn. Something to watch. Two
Thanks, Fox, good update. You've got to be nimble if you take any short positions in this market. My old buddy and ex-guru, McHugh, keeps warning that the market is about to implode. At some point he and the other e-wave gurus will be right, I guess(?). Two
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Stocks are rising in their final wave for this rally from March 2009, wave c-up of (E) up. This wave c-up is a five wave move and so far waves 1-up and 2-down are complete. Monday's rally is part or all of wave 3-up of c-up. If all of 3 up then Tuesday's decline is wave 4 down, which mean s Supercylce degree wave (B) could be topping with a week to ten days. If part of 3-up, then we have 2 to 3 more weeks left before catastrophic wave (C ) down starts. There is a small Bullish Reverse Head & Shoulders bottom in the Industrials that is looking for a rally to at least the 10,200 to 10,300 area. This could take a couple of weeks which is interesting as it places a top for this rally around our next phi mate turn date and Fibonacci Cluster turn window. However, the Rising Bearish Wedge patterns in the Industrials, S&P 500, and NDX we are following and show in this newsletter are all very close to completion, and there is an even chance that this pattern could truncate, and prices not spike above the upper converging boundary line, missing the upside targets. The point is, at this time there is substantial risk in the stock market - right now.
Hi, Fox, I think the Qs/NDX are in a short-term pullback that started yesterday a.m. at the highs. My guess is that the pullback will continue this week and we'll start up again next week for the end-of-month ramp. JMHO. Two
OT: What's wrong with Barney Frank? Either he's not reporting all the cash given to him by Morgan Stanley, or he didn't squeeze hard enough? This man is despicable and should be removed from office immediately. (Ask me if I have an opinion about him and others like him.) Two
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Morgan Stanley Resumes PAC Giving After TARP Funding Repayment
By Jonathan D. Salant
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley’s political action committee resumed donations in the third quarter of this year after the New York-based investment bank paid back its U.S. taxpayer rescue funds, Federal Election Commission records show.
The PAC had ceased making campaign contributions until Morgan Stanley repaid $10 billion in June under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. After making no donations during the first six months of this year, Morgan Stanley gave $157,500 between July 1 and Sept. 30, including $120,000 in September.
The investment bank made $374,000 in political contributions during the first nine months of 2007; its donation total for the comparable period this year represents a 58 percent reduction.
“Since repaying TARP, Morgan Stanley’s PAC has resumed normal PAC-related activity,” Carissa Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, said in an e-mail yesterday.
Most of the other large U.S. financial institutions have reduced their political giving at a time when Congress is drafting new financial regulations. Just two of 10 institutions reported increases in their PAC contributions through the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2007.
Morgan Stanley has long been a major political giver. Its employees contributed $3.7 million for the 2008 elections, fifth among financial companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.
Donation to Frank
The company’s PAC donations this year include $2,500 to Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. Frank’s panel is writing the revamp of financial regulations. The PAC also gave $5,000 to Representative Melissa Bean, an Illinois Democrat, and Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat. The two lawmakers co-chair the financial services task force of the pro- business New Democrat Coalition.
The PAC of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, gave $195,000 in donations during the first nine months of 2009, as compared with $349,122 during the same period in 2007, a decline of 44 percent.
Hey, you, here's McHugh's latest market summary. He's pessimistic, but also holds out for a little more upside during the next few weeks? Gurus can drive you crazy. What's you take? Two
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Stocks are down sharply mid-day Tuesday, as Monday's 30 and 60 minute Full Stochastics suggested was likely, the Industrials losing 100 points, the S&P 500 off 11, and the NASDAQ down 21. We are watching the Rising Bearish Wedges in the major U.S. averages and they are not far from completion. Downside targets from these patterns are the March 2009 lows, which means a return to the lows for this Bear Market from 2007 is likely. Larger Bearish Head & Shoulders patterns warn that if we drop below those March 2009 lows, prices could head toward zero. Not all at once, but slowly and relentlessly like occurred in the early 1930's. Timing allows for a bit more rally over the next few weeks. However, we are in truncation territory where this particular Bearish pattern can either see prices give one last throw over spike above the converging upper boundary, or can truncate, meaning fail to reach the top boundary and plunge.
OT: Excellent Dylan Ratigan discussion of Obama's "secret agenda" and the mistake he's making by linking his administration too closely to Goldman Sachs. Two
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/dylan-ratigan-discusses-obamas-purported-secret-agenda-0