Apr

17

The Podcast for Friday

Teresa Lo @ 10:37 AM | | Leave a Comment

I am out of the office today, but since Mike wrote another excellent missive — this one on happiness — I thought the following podcasts might be of interest to my readers. Enjoy!

  • ‘Bliss’ Follows Globetrotting Grump’s Search for Joy
    Weiner says finding happiness hasn’t always been a goal for the masses. “Happiness went from being this glorious benefit bestowed on the fortunate few to something that each one of us expects to obtain, and expectations and happiness are not necessarily related. They often go in opposite directions,” Weiner tells Scott Simon.
  • The Life of a Dandy [DOWNLOAD PODCAST]
    The full uncut Q interview with “Dandy in the Underworld” author Sebastian Horsley. Listener discretion advised.
  • Yeah, some people are just so … anal [DOWNLOAD PODCAST]
    It’s a bodily function we all have to perform, yet most of us feel uncomfortable discussing. Yet it may hold the key to your health. The Current asked: what is your poo telling you?

Apr

16

The Podcast for Thursday

Pete @ 5:20 PM | | 2 Comments

DOWNLOAD (Right click, “Save Link/Target As…”) today’s podcast at your leisure.

Charts of the Day: $TYX, GOOG, NCC, SOLF, CBS, PBR

The following charts were mentioned in today’s podcast. As usual, we applied our analytics to the daily chart along with the widely-watched 50- and 200-day moving averages. The pink/cyan dots provide potential entry/exit signals while the price bars are colored red/yellow/green to identify relative performance.

  • Oil and Brazil: What lies beneath

    • But last year, Petrobras, Brazil’s partly state-owned oil firm, announced the world’s biggest oil discovery since 2000: the Tupi field, which it hopes will produce between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels. Now the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) says another nearby discovery might hold as much as 33 billion barrels, which would make it the third-largest field ever found.

  • Wilbur Ross Seeks $4 Billion to Purchase U.S. Banks
    Ross, 70, will talk with Gulf investors in Abu Dhabi next week about 100 to 200 so-called thrift banks, he said in a phone interview from New York today. He said some of the lenders are good investments, even after a mortgage-market slump led to $245 billion of asset writedowns and credit losses at the world’s biggest banks. Regional depositary banks have “more narrowly defined” problems and “a more stable base of deposits” than cross-border lenders such as Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG, Ross said. He plans to package U.S. thrift bank acquisitions “as a finished product” to sovereign wealth funds, he said.
  • As Banks Reel, Advantage Investors
    National City Corp., buckling under the weight of bad loans, has spent weeks trying to sell itself or secure a capital infusion. The Cleveland bank is hustling to wrap up the process by early next week. One possibility: It collects as much as $5 billion in new money, according to a person familiar with the matter. National City’s predicament is being followed closely by regulators and investment bankers, in part because it could have implications for other financial institutions that are scrambling to shore up their balance sheets.

  • Don’t Stop with Katie Couric
    So what do the network biggies do about the evening news? Well, they’ve started to make changes. All three shows replay their nightly news on their Web sites; Gibson does an early-afternoon, Web-only version; and ABC (DIS) and NBC (GE) have wireless shows on cell phones near you. That’s a great start. But Gibson, who just turned 65, is going to retire one of these days. And Couric, well, she seems to be a short-timer. That gives the networks a chance to make even more dramatic changes in the not-too-distant future.

Articles mentioned in today’s podcast

  • Protecting Your Portfolio (Video)
    Stocks ended slightly higher today, despite evidence inflation is starting to gain speed. Robert Balentine, of Wilmington Trust Investment Mgmt., and Ron Insana, of Insana Capital Partners, discuss how you can protect your portfolio.
  • Food Price Squeeze (Video)
    From milk to meat, the price of just about everything we eat is on the rise, with CNBC’s Jane Wells; Pat O’Shannassy, National Australia Bank; Ron Insana, Insana Capital Partners; and CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera.
  • They’re Coming to America
    For the first time since 2001, the U.S. is the most favored regional bet among global fund managers, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch released today. Thirty-five percent of those polled said they would “overweight” the U.S. market on a twelve-month basis–in other words, that they would allocate more to stocks there than a benchmark index suggests. Next in order of preference: emerging markets, Japan, the euro zone, and the United Kingdom.
  • No minced words about ‘recession’
    While Achuthan does not think that recessions are completely avoidable, he said he believes this recession could have been held off. “Yes, with rising inflation in things like the housing market, the bubble needs to pop - but the problem is, how to pop it gently?” Achuthan said. “The earliest the recession would end would be the end of this year, but first we’re going to see job loss, more foreclosures, and the credit situation is not going to be helped.”
  • Recession looms, but US companies loaded with cash
    The US economy has what Alan Greenspan calls one ”major advantage” as it falls into a recession: Businesses are in far better financial shape than they were entering the past two contractions. Corporations outside of financial services - from Cisco Systems to Coca-Cola - have collectively socked away more than half a trillion dollars in cash. They have also reduced short-term debt and cut inventories to record-low levels in relation to sales, leaving them better prepared than in the past to weather a contraction. ”We still have what, at the moment at least, appears to be a reasonably good real economy, as distinct from finance,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said at an April 8 conference sponsored by Deutsche Bank and co-hosted by Bloomberg.
  • U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Rise on Gain in Gasoline
    “You’ll still see a sluggish if not contracting economy,” Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Fed will cut rates “more than you think. Right now, it’s about fighting the recession.”
  • One on One with Lakshman Achuthan
    [Editor: A very good read.] Article is in the middle of the transcript, following What Led to the Grizzly Demise of Bear Stearns.
  • Achuthan Says Recession Could Have Been Averted [DOWNLOAD PODCAST]
    Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, talks with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene from New York about whether the U.S. economy is in recession, Federal Reserve monetary policy and the effectiveness of the government’s economic stimulus plan.
  • US economic gauges fell last week - ECRI
    April 4 (Reuters) - A gauge of future U.S. economic growth and its annualized growth rate were lower in the latest week, evidence that the downturn in the U.S. economy shows no sign of abating, a research group said on Friday. The index’s annualized growth rate slid to minus 10.7 percent from minus 10.0 percent. This reading hit the same low in mid-February, and is at its lowest since October 2001. “With the WLI continuing its slide and WLI growth back at its cycle low, an end to the recession is nowhere in sight” said Achuthan.

Media Digest

  • PIMCO’s Gross: Food, Energy Are Key to Inflation
    Measuring inflation without including food and energy costs no longer makes sense, PIMCO Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross told CNBC.
  • Issing Says ECB Will Fight ‘Intolerable’ Inflation Rate
    Former European Central Bank chief economist Otmar Issing talked about monetary policy in the 15-nation euro region, inflation and the outlook for an easing of the credit crisis. Issing, the ECB’s chief economist from 1998 to 2006.
  • US Plans for Hedge Funds
    US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called the on the hedge fund industry to implement new business guidelines Tuesday. Stuart Feffer, co-chief executive of LaCrosse Global Fund Services, has analysis.
  • CSX Earnings & Outlook
    The railroad company powers past the Street’s expectations, with Michael Ward, CSX chairman/CEO and CNBC’s Joe Kernen
  • What lies beneath
    Just how much oil is there off the coast of Brazil? Until recently, Brazil’s oil reserves were thought to be relatively modest: about 12 billion barrels at the beginning of 2007, according to BP, or about 1% of the world’s total. But last year, Petrobras, Brazil’s partly state-owned oil firm, announced the world’s biggest oil discovery since 2000: the Tupi field, which it hopes will produce between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels. Now the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) says another nearby discovery might hold as much as 33 billion barrels, which would make it the third-largest field ever found. That alone would be enough to raise Brazil to eighth position in the global oil rankings—and there is talk of further big discoveries. But the peculiar way in which the information came to light is casting doubt on its significance.

Apr

15

The Podcast for Wednesday

Pete @ 5:00 PM | | 1 Comment

Pete and I are back in the saddle after a long absence. DOWNLOAD (Right click, “Save Link/Target As…”) today’s podcast at your leisure.

Charts of the Day: INTC, CROX, SIGM, MON, ABX

The following charts were mentioned in today’s podcast. As usual, we applied our analytics to the daily chart along with the widely-watched 50- and 200-day moving averages. The pink/cyan dots provide potential entry/exit signals while the price bars are colored red/yellow/green to identify relative performance.

Articles referring to CROX were:

Articles referring to SIGM were:

Articles referring to the agriculture play were:

Further Reading

Articles mentioned in today’s podcast were:

  • Exclusive century club welcoming new members, doctors say
    There are three kinds of people who hit the century mark, says Bill Dalziel, chief of the Regional Geriatric Program of Eastern Ontario. The first are the “genetically well endowed” who come from long-lived families and reach 100 remarkably healthy because they simply don’t get diseases such as cancer and heart disease. This group defies the notion that people only get sicker as they age and offers living proof that “the older you get, the healthier you’ve been,” according to the New England study. The second group of centenarians eventually develops life-limiting diseases but their internal clocks delay the onset a decade or two later than most people’s, Dr. Dalziel says. “These are people who have great biological clocks, and their clock is set for 110 where yours and mine is set for 80,” he says. The third group is mostly women, he says, and they reach 100 in extremely frail condition but they’re just “too stubborn to die.”
  • Lapham’s Quarterly: The journal that enlists the counsel of the dead
    [Editor: Looks like I mangled the pronunciation of his name, which should be LAP-ham]
    As an heir to the ambiguity in the Puritan body politic, and as a lifelong and card-carrying member of the society alluded to by Emerson, I never know for certain whether money is an enemy or a friend. Its intentions fluctuate, and its appearance shifts in accordance with the angle of the sales pitch, the size of the number, the tone of voice and time of day, the chance of its arrival in the mail. By the age of four in San Francisco, I knew that money was the elephant always in the room, never to be addressed or seen, but whose will was done on earth as it is in heaven. At school and college in Connecticut in the 1950s, I understood that I was being groomed to meet and greet the august personage recognized by Coltrane as the Man. Resident for fifty years in the city regarded by Ambrose Bierce (also by John Adams and Henry James) as sacred to the worship of Mammon, I’ve learned to look upon money as the hero with a thousand faces, to know that nowhere under the light of the American moon or in the heat of a noonday American sun was its hallowed name to be spoken lightly or in vain.
  • Can You Beat the Market? It’s a $100 Billion Question
    Investors collectively spend around $100 billion a year trying to beat the stock market. That’s the finding of a rigorous effort to measure the total costs of Americans’ efforts to surpass the returns they would have received by simply holding a stock index fund. The huge price tag helps explain why beating a buy-and-hold strategy is so difficult.

Media Digest

  • Sharga of RealtyTrac Says Home Prices Haven’t Bottomed
    Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac Inc., talks with Bloomberg’s Lori Rothman from Irvine, California, about data for U.S. home foreclosures in March and the outlook for housing prices. Foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled last month from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders.
  • Delta/Northwest CEOs
    Shedding light on the merger news, with Douglas Steenland, Northwest Airlines CEO and Richard Anderson, Delta Air Lines CEO
  • Metal Mania
    Thoughts on metal production, with Dennis Gartman, The Gartman Letter
  • Global IPOs Fall in First Quarter
    Initial public offering (IPO) activity slowed sharply in the first quarter of ‘08 due to the global credit crunch, according to Ernst & Young. Mark Jarvis from Ernst & Young discusses the report.
  • China’s Food Prices Rise as Population, Wealth Grow
    A key factor in soaring food prices is growing demand, not just from increasing population but also because people in big developing countries like China are becoming richer and can afford more food.
  • Inflation is creating headaches for Asian policymakers
    Rapidly rising inflation is emerging as one of the biggest economic worries facing Asia. The problem could hardly have come at a worse time for policymakers, amid fears over the extent and impact of the US slowdown on Asia’s export-dependent economies. Inflation will bring with it serious economic and political risks for the region in 2008, although the Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that inflation will moderate in 2009.

Apr

14

Observations and Stocks for Tuesday

Pete @ 5:12 PM | | Leave a Comment

Portfolio strategy for individual investors is finally here. We will be back to blogging actively this week.

And the Winners Are…

The stock scan conducted after the close on Monday found 31 winners and 39 losers.

The winners are listed in alphabetical order below. Click on the column headers to sort the list. Our scan criteria incorporates price movement, range and liquidity (500,000 shares on the day, 20-day average of 1.5 million).

Ticker Close Change Sell Buy
AGU 76.59 6.74% 63.44  
BG 109.42 5.45% 88.96  
BTU 62.05 1.60% 53.17  
CAL 21.89 1.34%   22.56
CAM 47.17 3.19% 40.87  
CF 144.42 4.33% 116.06  
CLF 147.91 5.18% 120.21  
CNQ 80.57 4.51% 71.34  
CSIQ 25.64 6.52% 20.61  
DO 131.52 5.03% 115.9  
FTI 63.92 3.41% 53.81  
HAL 44.08 1.29% 40.48  
IMCL 44.81 0.58% 40.6  
KWK 40.1 4.59% 33.11  
MOS 126.4 4.02% 101.18  
NBL 85.41 3.21% 73.55  
NE 55.25 4.70% 48.85  
NSC 56.19 2.18% 52.87  
NTRI 19.52 7.08% 16.75  
OIH 193.44 2.87% 175.98  
PBR 122.18 7.27% 103.59  
PDE 39.32 3.15% 34.82  
PDLI 13.84 0.66% 11.54  
POT 181.9 2.03% 154.15  
RIG 151.89 4.69% 137.57  
SLM 18.01 0.90% 14.83  
TRA 46.28 3.79% 38.19  
TSL 43.95 13.55% 30.33  
TXT 58.24 1.89% 53.71  
WMB 35.04 1.18% 31.61  
XTO 64.74 2.62% 57.78  

Media Digest

  • Almunia Says IMF Shares View That Euro Is ‘Overvalued’ [DOWNLOAD PODCAST]
    European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia talks with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene in New York about the Group of Seven finance ministers meetings in Washington this weekend, the value of the euro and the impact of food prices on the Doha round of global trade negotiations.
  • Have we begun the countdown to the maxi-revaluation?
    I don’t know if Mr. Zhu’s $80 billion is correct – no one can really say how much hot money there is because most of it is necessarily hidden – but I am intrigued that whatever proxy he uses suggests that hot money inflows have tripled compared to last year. That certainly fits in with my own intuition. The existence and size of hot money inflows is not just a debate about monetary growth. I believe it is the key determinant as to whether or not the PBoC will continue the current appreciation path or be forced into a maxi-revaluation. Rapid but gradual appreciation of the currency will actually worsen the country’s financial imbalances if they cause such an upsurge in monetary inflows that the PBoC becomes totally helpless in controlling monetary growth.
  • Paulson Says G-7 to Cooperate Closely on Banking Crisis
    U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson speaks at a news conference in Washington about talks with finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven countries and the outlook for the U.S. and global economy. The officials met to address a credit crisis sparked by losses on U.S. mortgage securities that have caused financial institutions to write down $245 billion in assets. The International Monetary Fund said two days ago that there is a 25 percent chance of a global contraction.
  • Zhou Favors Interest Rate Tool to Maintain Stable Growth
    People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan talks with Bloomberg’s Klaus Wille in Washington about China’s yuan, risk management strategy and interest rate policy. They speak at the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund.
  • High End Retail Outlook
    Taking the pulse of the luxury consumer, with Burt Tansky, Neiman marcus Group president/CEO; Gilbert Harrison, Financo chairman/CEO and Joanne Lipman, Conde Nast editor-in-chief
  • Maoists take the lead
    Nepal’s Maoists, who until two years ago were a vicious rebel party to a decade-long civil war, look likely to have won a general election. Of 186 seats declared on Monday April 14th the Maoists had won 103. A complicated electoral system mixing direct elections with proportional representation makes the overall complexion of the impending 601-seat assembly still hard to predict. But the Maoists may have won an outright majority.
  • A mixed outlook
    In its recent semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund sees few silver linings in the storm clouds gathering over the world’s richest economies. The world economy as a whole is expected to grow by 3.7% this year, well down on the fund’s last estimate in January of 4.2%. America is expected to enter a mild recession this year–its growth forecast has been cut from 1.5% to just 0.5%. The prospects for Spain, Canada and Italy are also gloomy. But the forecast is sunnier for the developing world, whose economies are predicted to grow by 6.7% in 2008, led by China and India.

Apr

13

Observations and Stocks for Monday

Teresa Lo @ 5:58 PM | | Leave a Comment

Check out the Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey with Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Genographic Project. Helps to put our current problems in perspective. Look forward to blogging again this week.

And the Winners Are…

The stock scan conducted after the close on Friday found 9 winners and 43 losers.

The winners are listed in alphabetical order below. Click on the column headers to sort the list. Our scan criteria incorporates price movement, range and liquidity (500,000 shares on the day, 20-day average of 1.5 million).

Ticker Close Change Sell Buy
CAL 21.62 2.39%   22.56
CSIQ 24.08 1.18% 20.61  
FE 74.96 -0.53% 68.71  
ICO 6.86 -1.33% 5.54  
IMCL 44.55 1.04% 40.18  
PDLI 13.69 16.31% 10.56  
SLM 17.85 1.87% 14.83  
TRA 44.8 5.91% 35.59  
TSL 38 9.76% 30.33  

  • Global banks seek to head off further regulation
    “We are resolved to do the utmost to clean our houses first and not to let regulators do it for us,” said Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank and chairman of the group, which is based in Washington. Specifically, the organization said that regulators would not add to the expertise in the industry for avoiding crises. “We have technical knowledge enough of risk management in our own organization,” said Rick Waugh, chief executive of Scotiabank in Canada and a board member of the group.
  • World’s biggest banks accept blame for Credit Crisis
    The report says that market changes that have both catalyzed and resulted from the growth of the “originate-to-distribute” business model have created incentives for both firms and individual employees that have, in some cases, conflicted with sound underwriting practices, realization of risk-management goals, or the long-term interests of shareholders, reflecting, in part, the emphasis on short-term profitability in financial reporting and bonus payouts.
  • Masaaki Shirakawa Brings Chicago-School View to BOJ
    “There was a belief that inflation is a monetary phenomenon caused by government policy, basically printing money,” said Gary Becker, a professor of economics at Chicago since 1970 who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992. What Shirakawa brings to his new job from his school days is a recognition that well-functioning markets are at the heart of a well-functioning economy, Frenkel said: “If you have these foundations in place — financial institutions and strong financial markets — then you can rely on the market to guide the economy.”
  • Chile Thirsts for Rain as Goats Drop, Mines Face Power Cuts
    “There’s more industrial activity, there’s more agriculture, the population has grown and the temperatures are very high,” said Rodrigo Weisner, the administrator for water at the Ministry of Public Works, in the rural town of San Pedro. “We’ve got the worst situation in 100 years.” Much of the mining industry in Chile, the world’s biggest copper exporter, depends on hydroelectric power. In central and southern Chile, where Codelco, Antofagasta Plc, Anglo American Plc and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. all have mines, 45 to 70 percent of the electricity comes from water turbines.
  • Immelt on GE Earnings
    General Electric’s latest quarterly results fell short of Wall Street estimates, with a challenging environment for financial services the key reason. GE CEO Jeff Immelt discusses the results with CNBC’s Joe Kernen.
  • Hedge Funds Under Scrutiny
    A San Diego judge sentenced a hedge fund partner to six years in prison for perpetrating a “massive fraud” on Thursday. Florence Lombard, CEO of Alternative Investment Management, considers whether hedge funds are getting the scrutiny they deserve.
  • The comeback of private equity
    SOVEREIGN-WEALTH funds did not do it. Joe Lewis, the billionaire investor who bet and lost on Bear Stearns, definitely did not do it. Will private-equity firms be any more successful at calling the end of the credit crunch?
  • The great American slowdown
    AMERICANS are unaccustomed to recessions, particularly ones that involve shopping less. During the past quarter-century, the world’s most powerful economy has suffered only two official downturns, in 1990-91 and 2001. Both were short and shallow. In 2001 consumer spending barely skipped a beat; a decade earlier it fell, but only briefly. Buoyed by rising asset prices and financial innovations that allowed ever more people to tap ever more debt, the collective American wallet has not snapped shut in almost two decades.

Apr

10

Observations and Stocks for Friday

Teresa Lo @ 9:22 PM | | Leave a Comment

The interview of the day is with Dmitry Medvedev. Russia’s president-elect talks in depth with FT editor Lionel Barber about the social and economic course for Russia.

And the Winners Are…

The stock scan conducted after the close on Thursday found 86 winners and 17 losers.

The winners are listed in alphabetical order below. Click on the column headers to sort the list. Our scan criteria incorporates price movement, range and liquidity (500,000 shares on the day, 20-day average of 1.5 million).

Ticker Close Change Sell Buy
ACN 38.07 3.00% 34.82  
ADI 31.56 4.41% 28.21  
AGU 71.75 2.15% 62.58  
AKS 66.95 4.82% 55.26  
ALTR 19.42 1.62% 17.86  
ANAD 8.01 4.96% 6.53  
ARRS 6.36 3.75% 5.46  
AU 36.72 0.96% 33.61  
BG 104.92 3.46% 88.42  
BIDU 292 1.54% 242.48  
BIIB 66.43 3.04% 59.24  
BJ 36.76 4.05% 32.47  
BTU 61.23 3.06% 51.89  
CBE 42.04 2.21% 38.92  
CECO 16.65 4.72% 13.4  
CELG 63.89 3.14% 58.88  
CF 137.1 2.43% 111.69  
CHL 82.86 3.30% 75.5  
CLS 7.34 2.33% 6.2  
CNET 7.94 1.74% 6.86  
CNQ 78.05 1.44% 70.08  
COCO 9.37 7.26% 7.73  
DD 49.64 1.96% 46.72  
DISH 31.63 3.40% 27.82  
DNDN 5.44 -0.38% 5  
DRI 34.38 3.18% 31.33  
ELN 23.44 2.36% 20.08  
EMC 15.21 3.53% 13.63  
ENDP 26.28 6.44% 22.97  
ESI 62.65 1.10% 50.12  
FDG 63.09 1.58% 55.95  
FXI 145.66 3.61% 134.11  
GGB 36.84 0.70% 32.54  
HAL 43.54 3.18% 39.22  
HD 28.38 2.57% 26.8  
HERO 27.99 2.85% 24.9  
HK 22.05 2.07% 19.26  
ICE 150.16 1.65% 121.75  
ICO 6.79 4.59% 5.54  
IMCL 44.09 1.68% 40.17  
INTU 28.02 1.01% 26.27  
ITT 56.59 1.87% 52.28  
JDSU 14.37 1.13% 13.86  
JOYG 71 2.04% 63.64  
KEY 23.98 2.35% 21.53  
KLAC 43.18 1.50% 38.92  
LEN 18.79 1.13% 17.08  
LLY 52.39 1.28% 50.35  
LRCX 43.55 2.11% 39.43  
LSI 5.61 5.24% 4.89  
LUV 12.94 2.40% 11.26  
MDR 59.06 2.11% 52.36  
MLNM 24.34 48.62% 18.52  
MOS 122.65 2.04% 99.96  
MU 6.99 3.25% 5.77  
NE 54.3 1.31% 48.53  
NSM 20.66 6.28% 17.92  
NXY 32.43 1.77% 28.95  
ORCL 20.45 1.73%   20.85
PAYX 35.85 1.59% 33.97  
PDE 38.06 1.63% 34.18  
PH 73.38 0.95% 68.93  
PKD 7.45 1.37% 6.2  
POT 178.1 1.48% 151.4  
PWR 25.12 1.99% 22.44  
PXP 63.27 2.81% 56.15  
QCOM 42.58 2.19% 38.68  
QLD 75.86 2.77% 68.42  
RIMM 120.68 2.23% 107.49  
RRC 67.32 3.53% 60.17  
SAPE 7.49 -0.23% 6.67  
SEPR 21.22 1.77% 19.09  
SFI 17.66 2.70% 13.42  
SGMS 27.46 10.82% 21.4  
SHW 55.12 1.76% 50.63  
SID 40.96 1.33% 35.88  
SLB 92.6 2.77% 84.36  
SPIL 9.08 7.89% 8.27  
STLD 36.21 1.45% 32.53  
TEX 66.74 1.17% 58.85  
TQNT 5.61 2.56% 4.8  
TSN 16.96 2.89% 15.35  
TXN 30.07 2.46% 27.37  
VMC 70.54 1.37% 63.09  
WYE 45.55 4.21% 41.81  
XRX 15.05 1.51% 14.2  

Media Digest

  • Sovereign wealth funds an opportunity, not a threat
    [Editor: While most have focused on the gloom and doom projected by the OECD, they forgot to mention the thumbs up for SWFs.] At the same time, the fact that SWFs are controlled by foreign governments has raised questions in recipient countries regarding their intentions and investment objectives and possible risks for national security. Most OECD countries have one or more investment measures designed to safeguard national security. A handful of OECD countries formally identify foreign government control as a factor in deciding whether to authorise inward investment. But national security should not be a cover for protectionism, and OECD countries have agreed to use the security argument with restraint. They have decided that any restrictions designed to protect national security should be transparent, subject to accountability, proportional to the objective pursued and used only as a last resort.
  • Simons, Mandel Post Biggest Drop in Hedge Fund Slump
    Hedge-fund titans James Simons and Stephen Mandel are showing the biggest losses of their careers in the $1.9 trillion industry’s worst start in more than a decade.
  • Starbucks’ New Brew
    In a move to revive its U.S. sales and its floundering stock, the coffee giant is launching a new, everyday coffee called Pike Place Roast. Howard Schultz, chairman & founder of Starbucks, discusses the launch with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
  • The New Gold Rush
    Gold may be off its recent highs, but the soaring price of the precious metal has sparked a new gold rush, reports CNBC’s Jane Wells
  • The bust begins
    FOR years the housing market in Britain has defied gravity. For a few months in 2004 and 2005 house prices moderated, before taking off again. But now, finally, tighter credit and overstretched household budgets are pulling prices down.
  • Paulson Urges Congress to Pass Colombia Free-Trade Pact
    U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson speaks at the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual meeting in Miami about the outlook for the U.S. economy, benefits of integration between national and regional markets, and the need for Congress to pass a free-trade agreement with Colombia.
  • The New Gold Rush
    Affluent Americans go to new lengths to cash in on gold, with CNBC’s Melissa Lee
  • Toxic shock: how the banking industry created a global crisis
    Sir Howard Davies, who heard the warning about CDOs in Alsace in 2000, first warned the City about the toxic nature of some financial instruments in January 2002, when he was chairman of the FSA. . . . Six years on, Davies is director of the London School of Economics and modest about his ability to claim that he was one of the first to foresee the events of the summer of 2007, when these CDOs proved their toxicity. He refuses to identify the banker and launches into a lengthy description of what was worrying him. The distilled version is that insurance companies were buying products they did not understand because they were attracted by the higher returns on offer. Little attention was paid to any potential risk because the rewards were so attractive. He describes the buyers of these CDOs as “naive capital”.
  • Measuring the Economy
    Discussing the economic slowdown, with Martin Feldstein, The National Bureau of Economic Research president/CEO and CNBC’s Steve Liesman
  • Greenspan’s Comments on US Economy
    Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said recently the US housing crisis was not his, nor the Fed’s fault. George Magnus, senior economic advisor for UBS considers Greenspan’s comments.
  • The view from afar
    The thrills and spills of the presidential primaries in America are captivating audiences far beyond its shores. And not unreasonably so: whoever makes it to the White House will influence far more than America. In particular many in the Middle East are engrossed in the American campaign.
  • Stars in their eyes
    With the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Soviet Union kick-started the space race with America in earnest, but when the cold war ended America’s lead was cemented. A new report by Futron, a technology consultancy, underlines America’s dominance. Futron’s space-competitiveness index ranks the nine leading countries, plus Europe, in space technology according to 40 measures in government spending, human expertise and the private sector. Europe benefits from its joint policy and the expertise of multinational companies, while China and India are using their economic clout to become bigger players.

Apr

10

Alan Greenspan: A response to my critics

Teresa Lo @ 4:01 PM | | Leave a Comment

Greenie responds to throngs of Monday morning quarterbacks:

Much of the commentary critical of my FT article is directed less at its substance and more, as Wolf describes it, to “the ideology I display.” Ideology, which regrettably has become a pejorative term, defines that set of ideas that we each believe explains how the world works and therefore how we need to act to achieve our goals. Some of our views of causative forces are rational, some are otherwise. Much of what we confront in reality is uncertain, some of it frighteningly so. Yet people have no choice but to make judgments on the nature of the tenuous ties of causation or they are immobilized.

I do have an ideology. So does each of the members of the Forum. I trust our views are subject to the same standards of evidence that apply to all rational discourse. My view of how the efficiency of global capitalism has evolved over the decades as new evidence has appeared contradicting some earlier judgments and confirming others. I have been surprised by the fierceness of investors in retrenching from risk since August. My view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken, but not my judgment that free competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies. We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the evidence?

Apr

9

Observations and Stocks for Thursday

Pete @ 4:56 PM | | Leave a Comment

I was out of the office for the past few days attending to personal matters. Hope to be blogging again soon.

In the meantime, check out Christopher J. Neely’s work. He’s an assistant VP at the St. Louis Fed and has written many excellent papers. Traders might be interested in reading An Academic Perspective on Technical Analysis. Bond traders will like The Microstructure of the U.S. Treasury Market.

And the Winners Are…

The stock scan conducted after the close on Wednesday found 52 winners and 23 losers.

The winners are listed in alphabetical order below. Click on the column headers to sort the list. Our scan criteria incorporates price movement, range and liquidity (500,000 shares on the day, 20-day average of 1.5 million).

Ticker Close Change Sell Buy
ACI 51.35 -2.72% 44.48  
AKS 63.92 -1.83% 55.26  
ANR 48.7 -0.23% 40.81  
APA 133.89 3.11% 119.67  
ATI 81.11 -1.73% 72.69  
BHP 78.31 0.00% 71.41  
BIIB 64.69 -0.66% 59.24  
BTU 59.43 -1.29% 51.89  
CF 133.75 2.11% 109.9  
CIG 19.28 -0.92% 17.66  
CNX 76.77 -1.67% 65.71  
COL 63.2 2.38% 59.3  
CSIQ 24.2 -0.86% 20.61  
DVN 112.05 1.73% 101.67  
EOG 127.69 -0.71% 111.32  
ESLR 11.07 -2.46% 10.14  
ESRX 67 1.20% 59.41  
ESV 66.95 2.25% 60.22  
FDG 62.11 -4.26% 55.95  
FST 56.9 0.87% 51.48  
FTI 62.57 0.56% 53.81  
GRP 54.3 1.29% 49.89  
HAL 42.16 0.59% 38.87  
HERO 27.71 2.24% 24.9  
HK 21.74 -0.37% 19.26  
HMA 5.96 1.19% 5.27  
ICO 6.53 -0.16% 5.54  
KWK 39.13 1.48% 32.84  
MA 228.75 -0.70% 201.27  
MLNM 16.35 -1.62% 15.01  
MOS 120 0.07% 99.96  
MUR 86.65 -0.11% 80.09  
NBL 82.86 2.42% 71.9  
NE 53.6 1.63% 48.53  
NOV 69.64 2.52% 59.33  
NTRI 19.88 6.99% 15.76  
OCR 20.15 -0.39% 17.22  
OIH 190.28 1.27% 175.5  
OIH 190.28 1.27% 175.5  
PBR 114.64 0.59% 102.95  
PCU 117.57 -0.51% 104.86  
PKD 7.29 6.02% 6.09  
PXD 54.99 1.35% 50.04  
PXP 61.54 1.84% 55.24  
RDC 42.81 0.50% 38.65  
RIG 148.19 2.95% 133.64  
RRI 26.06 4.78% 22.63  
SGMS 24.77 1.15% 21.13  
SID 40.46 -0.22% 35.88  
TLM 19.55 1.07% 17.43  
XCO 22.45 1.95% 19.27  
XLE 78.75 0.41% 72.89  

Media Digest

  • Investing in Funds of Funds
    [Editor: And most of all, the benefits go to the fund manager.] CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore asks Frederick Lorenzini from Morningstar France about the benefits of exchange traded funds of funds.
  • Churchill Mansion Schools Butlers for London’s New Rich
    Rick Fink runs a butler school in former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s weekend mansion outside Oxford, England. Fink, a butler for over 50 years, teaches an unabashedly old-fashioned style of buttling, where students pay 7,900 pounds ($15,600) for a four-week intensive course. Demand for the buttling arts is rising in London, where expatriate oligarchs and hedge-fund billionaires are employing servants in displays of status unrivaled since Victorian times.
  • Harris of UBS Sees ‘Slow Recovery’ for U.S. Economy
    Maury Harris, chief U.S. economist at UBS Securities LLC, talks with Bloomberg’s Betty Liu from New York about the outlook for economic growth, consumer spending and Federal Reserve monetary policy. Economic growth in the U.S. will come to a halt in the first six months of 2008 as consumer spending cools, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. A majority now projects the U.S. is, or will soon be, in a recession.
  • Greenspan Speaks
    Fmr. Fed chairman Alan Greenspan coming under fire for actions taken during his tenure, with CNBC’s Steve Liesman.
  • Egypt’s Rising Food Prices Swell Bread Lines, Deficit
    Atyat Musa Bakri, a Cairo mother of nine children, was waiting in line to buy subsidized bread for the third time in one day. . . . Bread is just about the only affordable food these days in Egypt, where rising commodity and energy prices have sent unsubsidized food prices up 20 percent or more in the past year. The rising cost of subsidies is damaging the government’s efforts to reduce its budget deficit. “We have seen riots around the world and there’s risk that these will spread because of rising prices in countries where 50-60 percent of incomes go to food,” Jacques Diouf, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said in India today.

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