Thread: Bear Cave 2 (Bull Allowed)

Monday, August 30, 2010
The Downturn and the Large Deficits are Due to Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke

http://millionairenowbook.blogspot.com/

August 31, 2010SPY : A thin red line ! As you can see on the short term 30 minute chart, the downtrend is clear and still in effect

http://etfstocks.typepad.com/

Home prices increased by the amount of the stimulus checks, but where did the increase in consumer confidence come from? Nobody I know is all that confident, and munfacturing has continued to slide. Seems like there may be a little data manipulation in the confidence number IMHO

Consumer Confidence, are we talking about monthly or year to date over year to date increase? Year to date 2009 over the same period is going to provide a lower and lower relative baseline as we get further and further into 2010. For instance, Year to date for 2009 Jan-November was really horrible, and a big increase Jan-November 2009 vs Jan-November 2010 will be all very relative.

Thanks, I was just looking at todays release. Shoulda looked at the YOY. jt

Music Corner !

Nothing to say much about the market today. Glad I covered my shorts at the open. I'm 100% cash now.

http://etfstocks.typepad.com/

A Harrowing Session

Today was my worst trading day ever, measured in dollar terms.

I'm done for the day and will probably just go crawl under a blanket now.

http://slopeofhope.com/2010/09/a-harrowing-session.html

The trouble is, the Fed can do what it wants, but the U.S. housing market--which has been the core driver of the U.S. consumer-led economy in recent years--is now well beyond the point of resuscitation.

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell 1.2% in October, while the supply of homes for sale hit a 22-year high.
The median sales price fell by 5.1% in the past year (to $207,800), the worst decline on record, while sales were down 20.7% in the past year.

If the housing market is indeed, as the bulls over here always like to say, a simple case of supply and demand, then to put it politely, the U.S. housing market is dead in the water.
And if, as we think, the price of houses is more to do with supply and demand of credit, then--well, it's still dead in the water.

If subprime has managed to cause so much trouble already, we dread to think what will happen when bad debts start rising among all those people with prime mortgages who suddenly find themselves in negative equity when they try to sell.
--John Stepek, "Don't be fooled by the stock market rally", November 29, 2007.

Posted in Comedy | 3 Comments »

Larry Kudlow is Pure Evil
September 12th, 2010 Think I’m exaggerating? Just wait and see…

While discussing the economy and stock market, Alan Valdes of DME Securities pointed out to Kudlow that there are 41 million Americans receiving food stamps (at 5:40 in the clip below). What was Kudlow’s reply?

http://www.trivisonno.com/

Even as retail investors and hedge funds sour on the stock market, your mutual-fund manager may be betting on stocks with a far a larger share of his assets than he has in a very long time.
Mutual-fund cash levels dropped to just 3.4% of assets in July--record lows--according to this BoA chart via Pragmatic Capitalism.
Presumably, they're going "all in" on the market, though it could also be partly a function of fund redemptions from their customers.
Says Kevin Duffy:
The fact that Jim Cramer and Larry Kudlow are still employed and bullish is all you need to know from a sentiment standpoint.
Ironically, some of these professionals are making the mistake of confusing relative bearishness among individuals as a contrary indicator and reason for optimism.
I like to call this the "double contrary," a rationalization that was quite prevalent during the last market peak in 2007.
--Gus Lubin, "Mutual Fund Cash Levels Hit Record Lows", BusinessInsider.com, September 13, 2010.

About Those Expiring Tax Cuts . . .

4) The bold and confident assertions made about the links between tax rates and economic growth, market performance, and prosperity are almost certainly wrong.

Turn on CNBC or look at the Wall Street Journal op-ed page these days, and you’ll learn that we must keep tax rates on capital gains, dividends, and income precisely where they are because shifting them to different levels will retard economic growth.

Keep this in mind: The people who designed the current, unsustainable tax system promised us that lower marginal rates, and lower taxes on capital and dividends, would boost the economy, promote investment, create jobs, spur market performance, and raise everybody’s income. They were wrong. (It’s no coincidence that these same people also warned us that raising taxes in 1993 would kill market returns and the economy. They were wrong then, too. They’re pretty much always wrong.)

As I’ve pointed out, the years under the current tax regime have been a lost decade. Pick your metric—median income, employment, stock market returns, economic growth—the low-tax ’00s sucked. Yet proponents of keeping the tax cuts persist in making the argument: To avoid a repeat of the past decade, we must have the exact same tax policies as we did for the past decade.

Shorter version: You suck now, you sucked then, you are highly likely to suck in the future, too!

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09...ring-tax-cuts/


Ben Ferguson is a Jackass

Conservative radio talk-show host Ben Ferguson was on CNBC today for a discussion of trade policy. I have never heard of this guy before, but I can’t believe what a jackass he is. He actually thinks that we should lower wages to match Chinese wages:
http://www.trivisonno.com/ben-ferguson-is-a-jackass

Erin Burnett is So Cute!
She think that iPads are made in USA. How adorable!

Note to Burnett: Apple products are made in China.

Burnett, who obviously is a Democrat, was gushing over President Obama’s miracle plan to save the economy by “doubling” exports. At 45 seconds into the clip below, she asks the guest:

http://www.trivisonno.com/erin-burnett-is-so-cute



Overbought Rally at Critical Juncture
September 17, 2010

Both the S&P 500 Index (SPX) and it’s tracking ETF the S&P Deposit Receipts (NYSE: SPY) have moved higher for some three weeks now, but they have reached levels that could slow, or stop, the rally.

http://timing.typepad.com/timer/2010...-juncture.html


The NAAIM Survey of Manager Sentiment

http://www.naaim.org/naaimadsenttrend.aspx



September 17, 2010
'We Just Added and Added and Added to the Debt'
In the latest edition of The Wall Street Journal's "The Big Interview," David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's first Budget Director, doesn't pull any punches when he discusses the damage that has been -- and is still being -- done to our nation's finances:

http://www.financialarmageddon.com/


Rather than trying to pick the market direction, we feel hedged position are the most attractive now, for this market could go either way
about 11 hours ago via Facebook

http://twitter.com/optstrategist

Has the Market Topped?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?vid...3646097&play=1

http://twitter.com/dougkass


Friday, September 17, 2010
Unconvicted

The bears will argue that almost every top in the past year started out as a sideways range such as the one we have been in since Monday. Additionally, expiration often serves to help a trend persist only to see it reverse after expiration.The bulls will argue that the market is working off the overbought reading by going sideways as too many money managers are under invested.

Both have good arguments but gun to my head I would have to side with the bears. Even if the bulls manage to push this market above strong resistance at 1130, that move would likely be a last hoorah, as the market is very extended.

Thank you to the many readers that had kind words to say about the blog this week. Thank you for reading. Have a great weekend.

http://capitalobserver.blogspot.com/


The ECRI Weekly Leading Index
September 17, 2010 weekly update

Today the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) registered negative growth for the 15th consecutive week, coming in at -9.2, a slight improvement over last week's -10.1. The index had been hovering around -10 for the previous five weeks. The latest weekly number is based on data through September 10.
The magnitude of decline from the peak in October 2009 is unprecedented in the Institute's published data back to 1967. Recently, however, the Institute has disclosed that two earlier decades of data not available to the general public contained comparable declines in WLI growth (in 1951 and 1966) when no recession followed (HT Barry Ritholtz).


http://dshort.com/articles/ECRI-Week...ing-Index.html



by Sy Harding

Where's The Beef? September 17, 2010.

Remember that fast-food commercial of the 90’s, wondering where the extra beef being advertised in their competitors’ burgers was supposed to be?
I have the same problem with the economic recovery that Wall Street is touting as being back on track. Economic growth slowed from 5.0% in the December quarter, to 3.7% in the first quarter of this year, to only 1.6% in the second quarter. That rate of decline would have it in negative territory in this quarter if it continued.


http://www.streetsmartreport.com/comm3.html


09/17/2010
New Long-Term Buy Signal
by Carl Swenlin
Today another long-term buy signal was generated when the S&P 500 Index 50-EMA crossed up through the 200-EMA. Normally, we have high confidence in these signals, but, unfortunately, the long-term model has generated four, count 'em, four "long-term" signals in less than three months. On the chart below the red arrows mark the sell signals and the green arrows the buy signals. Prices have entered a trading range and, as you can see, they move just far enough in one direction to trigger a signal, then they reverse and go just far enough in the opposite direction to trigger the reverse signal.

http://blogs.decisionpoint.com/chart...uy-signal.html

Weekend Edition
A serious warning about muni bonds

"To disrupt our services because we can't make a bond payment would just be unconscionable. And as a leader I couldn't do it."

http://www.growthstockwire.com/