Wowza...... You're gonna be rich...............

Wanna adopt an old man (me)...

I'll let you spend as much as you want to take care of this senile old guy......

Hi Dave, Nice to see you here.

I hope all is well and you are making lots of cash$$$$$$$

Sure looks like a V shaped recovery.................................

I've trading the financials (VIA options) since January...

Chrysler just filed for bankruptcy..............

sixtythree...., It looks like we might be in the beginning of a V shaped recovery that started in March.

sixtythree......., The new strain of swine flu has been reported as a "possible" terrorist action.

This is a rare occasion that I hope your wrong. The last flu pandemic killed millions.

============================================================

WHO Cites Potential for Swine Flu Pandemic

Mexico's Leader Orders Sweeping Measures As Cases Exceed 1,000

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 26, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042503128.html
============================================================
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, April 26, 2009

Past flu pandemics

Flu pandemics occur when a new strain of the virus arises and most people have no natural immunity.

Experts think they have been occurring at irregular intervals since at least the 16th century.

In the 20th century, there were three flu pandemics:

1918: The pandemic that started in 1918 might have been the deadliest of all time. It was first identified in the United States but became known as the Spanish flu because it received more media attention in Spain than in other countries, which were censoring the press during World War I. The 1918 flu mostly struck healthy young adults. Experts estimate that it killed 40 million to 50 million people worldwide.

1957: This pandemic, known as the Asian flu, was first identified in China. There were two waves of illness; the first mostly hit children, and the second mostly affected elderly people. It caused about 2 million deaths globally.

1968: The most recent pandemic, known as the Hong Kong flu, was the mildest of the three during the century. It was first spotted in Hong Kong in 1968 and spread globally over the next two years. The people most susceptible to the virus were elderly. About 1 million people are estimated to have been killed.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/04/26/0426flubox.html
============================================================

GM's time is growing shorter. I heard that Chrysler might announce their BK intentions tomorrow if the deal with Fiat falls through.

The UAW is what brought these companies down. Too many concessions over the years.

Bankruptcy is good for GM. They will remain in business and all the contracts with the UAW will be rendered null and void.

The picture is not so rosey for Chrysler. They are looking at a complete Chapter 11 liquidation( going the way of the Studebaker).

LoL......, That's about how the market has been trading.

Pavlovian style.....

Hi Swampy......, There's lots of good stuff cheap out there and whenever the market sells off for no reason (which has been most the time lately)it's time to hold your nose and buy.

I've been trading more the past year than I ever have. (Not daytrading).

Sold my Ford 2.5 calls for a 200% gain and still holding Ford $5 leaps.

Also holding GE, BAC and C leaps.

Have orders in for PRU, MET and CAT.

Hello Star, MSGI..... It's been awhile..........

I just stopped by to see if there was any posts and was surprised to see "ALL" the new stuff.

Yup! 4 Posts this month and 1 is garbage so the MMCLUB is now 25% trash.

Sorry! Didn't mean to sound so cynical. Must be that I'm off my meds.......

8K total on a scalp??????????????? You win...!
[ edit ] forgot the smiley face.....

sixtythree........: Just yanking your chain.

I originally thought that the recession would end in the first quarter of this year but it is much worse than I expected.

With 500k jobs lost per month and an additional 3 million more "expected" to be gone makes this one bad ass recession with no end in site. I was wrong with my original forcast.

sixtythree.....: I told you that the recession would end by Feb or March.........

http://www.sleazeballs.net/

EYE......: One of Madoffs victoms started selling golfballs with his face on it.
http://www.sleazeballs.net/

Here's an article about Zeev from the newspaper. It probably has been posted here last year but is good to read again.



Article published Mar 26, 2008

Well-grounded physicist led quiet, inventive life

Patents about better chemistry for superconductors and faster hand-drying in bathrooms, about secure time stamps for computer files and remote lighting of appliances, about magnetic heat pumps and disposable paper cups.

That's a lot of intellectual ground for one man to cover.

"When you have an active mind, a busy brain – you can do more!" said Urszula Hed, of Nashua, speaking of her late husband, Zeev, a physicist who turned the joy of invention into a profession. "I lived with him so long I didn't think it was unusual."

Hed died earlier this month at age 69 after a short illness, stilling what had been a very active mind, indeed. He was involved in at least 45 U.S. patents, including those cited above, plus an equal number of international ones. For decades he slew corporations' intellectual dragons as part of an unusual inventor-for-hire company in Massachusetts.

"He was really a generalist," said longtime business partner Richard Pavelle, one of four men who made up the firm Invent Resources. "He had expertise in chemistry, biology, medical instrumentation, medicine, music history . . . and a degree in physics. He and I would be on the phone with experts at various companies, and the remarkable thing was that after a couple of minutes in these meetings, it was clear to everybody there that he knew more than the experts."

His motto as an inventor, as I was told by everybody I talked to about him, was simple: "I am too stupid to know it cannot be done." If it wasn't perpetual motion or other violation of the laws of nature, he was willing to take a shot.

He and his family lived in Nashua for a quarter-century, since he first came up from the New York area to take a corporate job he quickly ditched. All four of their children were raised here.

So why haven't you ever heard of him? More importantly, why haven't I?


My first inkling of this amazing man, I must admit, came last week when anonymous e-mails landed at The Telegraph, asking about his death. It turns out they were from fans at an online personal finance forum where Hed had posted free advice for years.

"I have been corresponding with him for nearly 15 years, both publicly and privately. The world has lost a true champion and a humble, giving soul," wrote one of these people in response to my query. "I would write more but tears are dripping into my keyboard again."

Urszula Hed said the family wasn't known here because they were more oriented south of the border, for business and personal reasons (the kids all went to private schools).

And Zeev Hed didn't go public, as many would have, about his astonishing life.

His father was born in Cologne, Germany, and his mother in Lodz, Poland – not great places to be in the early years of the 20th century if you were Jewish. His siblings were born in Germany, but by the time he came along, his parents had gone to Belgium to avoid the Nazis.

It didn't work, unfortunately; both his parents were killed as part of the resistance, and Hed ended up as one of a group of children who fled the Nazis during World War II, moving from location to location until they were finally rescued by Allied forces.

"He learned to read by drawing letters in the sand," said his wife.

Hed was taken to Israel, where he grew up on a kibbutz. Eventually he got a doctorate in solid-state physics and made it, like so many bright, post-war children, to the United States.

He worked for companies and on his own, before hooking up with three other, like-minded engineer scientists to create Invent Resources. Companies came to them with problems they needed solving.

"There are many Fortune 500 companies that have virtually no technical ability in house," said Pavelle.

So the quartet got to do the enjoyable part of R&D – that is, the R. What happened afterward wasn't their problem.

"We did the fun work," said Pavelle. "Clearly, in any product development, the most difficult part is the marketing . . . It's not uncommon for a company to spend 20-30 million (dollars) on a new product that never sees the light of day for whatever reason."

This unusual career allowed Hed to work mostly at home, cranking out patents and helping companies from the huge to the startup.

There are a surprising number of very clever but overlooked people like Hed around, doing amazing stuff with no recognition. I'm sorry I didn't know about him while he was still alive; but perhaps that's the way he liked it.

His wife told me about a job interview in which the not-particularly lofty Hed said he should be hired "because I'm the tallest man you've ever met."

The reason for that odd boast?

"He told them, 'I have my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds,' " Urszula Hed said. "That's what he was like."

-----------------------------------
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/COLUMNISTS03/320280847

Links to a few of his patents.:
http://tinyurl.com/zeevhed
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6926197/claims.html

schloss...... Thanks for the memories.

It's hard to believe he's been gone for a year.

He was a great trader with superior intelligence.

The AAA Rated Bond Club Gets Smaller (GE,XOM,MSFT) - March 05, 2009

The list of companies that carry the coveted AAA rating on its debt gets smaller each day as the recession cuts cash flows in corporate America, and there is at least one company that carries the rating that may lose it in 2009.

Standard and Poor's (S&P) rates debt issued by corporations that have little or no default risk as AAA, while Moody's uses the similar Aaa rating. Investors use these ratings as a guide to the financial strength of a company, although the last two years has certainly tarnished the reputation of the insurers as many structured products rated AAA began to lose value.

Who Will Lose It?
General Electric (NYSE:GE) carries the AAA rating on its debt, and is often mentioned in the press as the one most likely to lose it. The issue is not only the company's industrial businesses, which are under pressure due to the recession, but its GE Capital subsidiary. Standard and Poor's put the company on a negative credit watch in December 2008. If GE is downgraded, it will raise its borrowing costs. (For more, see The Debt Rating Debate.)

Here to Stay
There are several AAA heavyweights that are under no pressure and are expected to keep its ratings intact. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) reported more cash than debt at the end of 2008. It would probably take a collapse in oil prices into the single digits for any threat to the AAA rating to appear, and even then Exxon spent more than $40 billion in 2008 on dividends and share buybacks and would trim that back in the future to avoid any cut to its rating.

Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) also received a AAA rating when it filed a shelf registration last Fall. The company had $2 billion in short-term debt at the end of 2008, and cash and short-term investments balance of almost $21 billion.

Bottom Line
An argument against paying any attention to these ratings is how accurate and useful they are in the first place. Anti-ratings commentators would point to the original AAA ratings on American International Group (NYSE:AIG), which has received hundreds of billions in government aid, as an example of how shallow the ratings system actually are. Also, the bond insurers MBIA Insurance (NYSE:MBI) and Ambac Insurance (NYSE:ABK) had AAA ratings at the start of the financial crisis despite the intuitively risky nature of the sheer amount of par value bonds that they insured.

While some commentators look at the decline in AAA companies as a reflection of the leveraging of our society, there is something they are missing. There are actually many companies that carry no debt at all in its capital structure, so in essence these companies would carry a quadruple A rating if such a thing existed and if such a thing made sense. Few pundits focus on how many public companies carry no debt relative to historical trends and such an exercise might be useful in interpreting credit trends.

The AAA credit rating club has only a handful of members, and is expected to fall in 2009 due to the recession. There are also serious concerns in the marketplace as to whether the ratings have any utility as they failed to alert investors to various credit disasters in 2008.

http://community.investopedia.com/news/IA/2009/The-AAA-Rated-Bond-Club-Gets-Smaller-GEXOMMSFT0305.aspx?partner=YahooSA

Perhaps we should impose an ugly tax. Defazio sure would have to pay pay up........

That really pizzs me off when Rep Defazio looks down his nose at traders and calls us gamblers.

We know more about the markets and how they work that most people(and politicians) do, spending years learning our craft and it is a craft that we all hone and polish each day/month/year. This is no throw of the dice game we play and requires a high level of financial and emotional education.

The real gamblers are the buy and hold crowd. The people that put there money into mutual funds and depend on fund managers to decide what to buy and sell are the real gamblers.

What a crock......... And the bill will probably pass.

Morning Joe,

Thanks for the link to the MET cc,

It confirms my opinion on the financial strength of the company but there still might be some downside with investors including MET in with the financials (and with MET expecting some loses in 2009) but with 38 billion in T-Bills on the books the company is pretty healthy looking forward into 2010.

I'm thinking of either playing a bear put spread on MET on the short term weakness. I've sold puts on MET (and PRU) in the past for some extra cash but am unsure about the direction it's going to trade so I might just sit on my hands for a few days.

No reason for it to be selling off as far as I can see except for following the general market trend.

The only possible reason is that interest rates are so low that if might effect METs ROI.

You did it..........!

AD..... Most of the time the common shares are declared worthless.

Your friend can declare them as a loss on his taxes.

Ford Reports February Sales Tuesday March 3, 12:00 pm ET

 
      - Ford, Lincoln and Mercury February sales totaled 96,044, down 48 
        percent compared with a year ago. 
  
      - Ford's Czubay: "We're focused on building a foundation for future 
        growth." 
  
      - Ford continues to align production and inventories with demand. 
  
      - February inventories totaled 405,000 vehicles. 
  
      - Ford announces second quarter North American production plan. 
  
      - US Automakers vow to stop manufacturing crap..! 
 

MET now trading below it's IPO price (in 2000).....

Way overdone.....

Gartner: 2009 Will See Worst PC Sales Drop In History

12:25 PM EST Mon. Mar. 02, 2009
The news is getting worse for the PC market: According to Gartner, the PC industry will see a near-12 percent decline in 2009, with the research house seeing "unprecedented contractions" in both emerging and mature PC markets.

"The PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC suppliers grow increasingly cautious," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in the report.

Gartner projected PC shipments for 2009 of 257 million units, which would represent an 11.9 percent decline from shipments in 2008. Emerging markets previously saw their worst growth (a decline of 11 percent) in 2002, according to Gartner, and mature markets saw theirs (a decline of 7.9 percent) in 2001. Both those markers will be passed this year; Gartner has emerging markets expected to post a 10.4 percent decline and mature markets a 13 percent decline.

Slower GDP will further weaken PC demand and keep inventories at "historic lows," the report suggested. Shiffler said that in mature markets, replacements are expected to account for about 80 percent of shipments.

Desktop PC sales will be especially hammered. By the numbers, Gartner sees worldwide mobile PC shipments of 155.6 million units (a 9 percent increase from 2008) and desktop PC shipments at 101.4 million units (a 31.9 percent decline from 2008). Without accounting for mini-notebook shipments--which Gartner sees as almost doubling, from 11.7 million units to 21 million units in 2009--mobile PCs will grow by only 2.7 percent, the firm said.

Mini-notebooks are gaining traction in the marketplace. Gartner Research Director Angela McIntyre writes in the report that the market is dividing thanks to vendors offering more systems with 9- to 10-inch screens and 7-to 8-inch screens. She said Gartner expects the average price of a common mini-notebook (defined by Gartner as one with an 8.9-inch screen,Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows XP and a 160-GB hard drive) to drop to $399 by the end of 2009, and that mini-notebooks will proliferate in emerging markets.

In a note of optimism, Gartner said OEMs and channels would be able to adapt to changing market conditions better than they had the past, thanks to many of the lessons learned following the dot-com bust in 2001.

"Normal seasonality typically means that the third-quarter sell-in is stronger than sell-out, due to inventory build effects, but clearly in the fourth quarter of 2008 vendors saw signals that demand was weakening and sent signals up the supply chain to stop building," said Gartner Managing Vice President Charles Smulders in a statement. "At the same time, the channel cut back inventory due to a combination of economic uncertainty and the credit squeeze. Unlike 2001, vendors were able to react relatively quickly to the signals and push the inventory risk on to the component suppliers. We expect the pattern of stronger sell-out demand than sell-in to continue through the first half of 2009, with the channel choosing to hold inventory at historically low levels."


http://www.crn.com/it-channel/215600226;jsessionid=NEPPXPG5UHFT4QSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?_requestid=150077

They are being pretty hard on him today and he seems to be a bit uncomfortable.

Another doggy day.... The VIX is over 52 and rising.....

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Yup....... Even the dogs of the dow want to rain on the investors parade..............

Bill Gates is getting poorer each day......................

sixtythree.....: Nice chart...... That about sums up todays action........

ummmmmm! I was wondering why the name Ponzi kept popping up in my mind when I wrote that........

BAC down on nationalization fear again.

If the Administration doesn't come out with a statement clarifying their intentions on this issue then BAC, C along with the rest of the market will languish in penny hell..

conelda... I think his statements on the issue were ambiguous and left the door open for the possibility for taking over some of the big banks.

There's been a lot of buzz on Bloomberg news that nationalization of BAC and C is a going to happen but this news clip/PR looks like they are trying to remain independent....

============================================

Bank of America Corp. has made a $402 million dividend payment to the U.S. government as part of the bank’s participation in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The banks said total cash dividend payments to the government this year will reach $2.8 billion.

“It is our intention to pay back these loans, as soon as possible,” said Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis. “In the meantime, we are using these funds to support the U.S. economy by extending credit to individuals and businesses.”

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2009/02/16/daily19.html?ana=yfcpc

Any reason for the BAC selloff in afterhours....???

I sold all my puts last week expecting a rally on the stimulus news but now it looks like a bad idea.

Taking profits on my protection was like going into a brothel without a condom............ Bad idea........

Historically, recessions only last as the length of time the yield curve has been inverted and that was from 07-17-06 to 08-10-07( approx. 11 months) and recessions start approx. 4 to 6 months from the end of the inversion.

The NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) stated that the recession started Jan 2008 and should declare that it ended Feb 2009 (give or take a few months). ********BUT******* they will not do so until the recession has been over for close to a year.

The economy should start growing even though unemployment is also increasing (the same as the end of the last recession in Nov 2001) so it (the recovery) will be barely noticable.

This looks to be a long tough (and tradable) recovery.