So, Where's the Beef?

[Jimi]

i ONCE THOUGHT OF SHORTING wrigley spearmint and instead of doubling my pleasure i almost lost a leg\

Let a word to the wise be sufficient

Uhhhhhh....

 

Staying groovy, ya'll? I'm packin' to join the Great Post-Tech-Wreck Bay Area Exodus: got a lease on a li'l craftsman north of Wilshire in Hell-A, town of my birth.

 

Here's what this rally's taught me:

 

M-O-N-E-Y M-A-N-A-G-E-M-E-N-T

 

I'm lurking: lot of smart and general stuff said here recently. I think it was a General Custer who asked, "Think there are any Indians over that ridge?"

 

I've had my ass handed to me. I'll close out for a loss if this rally ever falters.

 

Pfft...."new bull market," my foot.

 

I'm shorting wrigley spearment at the open Monday.

 

Don't listen to me: you'll lose money.

 

Stay groovy,

 

Jimi

[pooperscooper]

Delurking to ask if any of you have heard of the so-called "smart money indicator."

 

Philosophy of it is that the dumb money gets in at the open, and the smart money makes its moves at the close. When the moves at the close start getting bigger than the moves at the open, it could signal a change in direction. As long as the market continues to rally into the close, the trend is bullish; as long as it sells off into the close, the trend is bearish.

 

I read something about it over the past few days, in Barrons I believe, but haven't seen anybody mention here. I bring it up because in the past few days there last-hour rallies have failed to materialize, after showing like clockwork for days at a time. So maybe there's something to this on top of all the other turn indicators out there.

 

Of course the past few friday "reversals" have been headfakes. I think as long as we see rapid moves to the downside and slow crawls to the upside -- the opposite of what happens in a bear market -- the bull is still breathing.

 

I hope Doc gets the turn he's been shouting about. It'll certainly be good for business (his anyway) if he gets it right.

[Whadda I Do Whadda I Do]

For all you late night readers:

 

With all these efforts for naught, I am offering this final answer. Take this chart of Homestake Mining to your local tattoo artist - usually directly across the street from your Harley Davidson dealer - and instruct the artist to emblazon your chest (arms only for ladies) with this chart as a living testament to the price action of 1930 to 1935.

[Guest yobob1]

how long before others follow and eventually the govt steps in to "sponsor" or guarantee the peniosn bonds under the guise of "too big to fail" or keep spreads "low". this is step #1 in a predetermined outcome. mismanagement is rewarded.

Ah yes grasshopper, but who guarantees the US govt?

 

I just love all this talk of improving the balance sheet by borrowing money, and that is exactly what a bond sale is, incurring debt with interest. Of course it is possible to borrow your way out of debt, assuming someone will loan you money and pay you interest to do it.

 

Noticed some of the proceeds will go to GMAC, the one division that has been "making" money (literally).

Its finance unit General Motors Acceptance Corp. (GMAC) will raise about $3 billion in bonds to fund ongoing operations, the world's largest automaker said.

Wonder how much of that 3 billion is to cover up the defaults in their mortgage business that they (along with the rest of the world) have charged headlong into.

 

Your next Impala could be built in China.

 

2 thoughts: Shorts are their own worst enema. The next couple of weeks could run those increased shorts in the final "orgy". Perfect time to load up the last of those that are having a hard time believing in the NEW BULL MARKET. But buyers seem to be dwindling. Perfect set up. Kill the shorts one last time just as you run out of buyers. Can you say giant sucking sound?

 

The macro fundamentals absolutely suck major root 100%. The second half recovery is of course, once again missing in action. Fool me three times, may as well shoot me, for I am a dolt. Talk should soon turn to the re-erection recovery in 2004, which won't be happening either. Our economy is toast, debt saturation has been achieved. The pendulum will begin it's back swing and from these lofty levels it's got some real inertia stored up. Wouldn't be standing in the "pit" if I were you.

 

Bush II = Hoover

[DrStool]

I hope Doc gets the turn he's been shouting about. It'll certainly be good for business (his anyway) if he gets it right.

Tanks pooper. I hope so too. Otherwise old Doc is gonna have to do a lot more begging.

[PileDriver]

"Big up, then huge down" (March 11th, 2003)

 

well, if this was the 'big up' ending now or late next week I can't wait to see the 'huge down' :grin:

 

Mark, the rally is over...I'd dump the rest of your longs and not risk it for one more week. The ST dong game is over. Now soon comes the real easy fast money game (aka dart throwing season for bears)

 

Just looking at the VV numbers, major mo-mo breakdown...bwhahahahaha

 

This rally since July/Oct 2002 was exactly what the bear doctor ordered. He's back on his feet again and going to kick some major ass very soon.

 

The stage is set, all the jokesters are on board to receive some major whopassing.

 

My strategy for upcoming week is 100% cash (just long PMs) as we transition IT trend from current up to down.

[wndysrf]

From that Foreclosure article:

 

"The first-quarter increase in foreclosures was driven by the rise in foreclosed home loans owed by homeowners with blemished or "subprime" credit histories, Mortgage Bankers Association chief economist Doug Duncan said in a conference call on its latest loan study.

 

Until the economy improves and companies hire again, more Americans will default on their debt, economists say, and if defaults gain and the increase in home values slows, this will hamper economic growth.

 

"It will be more difficult to work out trouble loans," Duncan said.

 

Economists and the financial markets have been hopeful that the economy will pick up steam in the second half of the year, boosted by money from refinancings, the latest round of tax cuts and an anticipated rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

 

Mark's Translation:

 

The Paper Pyramid, gasping for air, has been on life support provided by the worst of the worst subprime borrowers. The Matrix Agents are hoping to score a touchdown in the second half, after it failed to do so in the last 3 games, by running a series of desperate plays, including long shot "Hail Mary" passes.

 

Good luck to Team Green:

 

Al Green, Agent Bernake, Agent Poole, Agent Snow, Agent Freidman, Agent Weill, Agent Harrison, Agent Bush, Agent Cheney, Agent Rumsfeld, Agent Powell.

[PileDriver]

We'll just indefinitely borrow and spend our way to prosperity and economic recovery, damn it !

 

Problem is we're not going into just a recession, we're going slowly into a long protracted DEPRESSION and it will outlive their efforts to "float the boat" until a turn around comes.

 

It worked all the other times but not this time. Just too many decades of crud buildup to have to scrub away.

[thisaintthebottom]

Got an email hypothesizing that an imminent Chinese

decoupling of their currency might happen soon..an announcement might happen during China day July 1...

anybody got a way to play chinese assets when Yuan goes ballistic from its pegging at 8.2ish/$ to its prepegging level at 5.2ish mid 90s?? Apparently a bigMac is 1.20$ over there where it is 2.40$ here...

 

Anybody know what the IRS does for large buys of gold

of 100K$ do they keep track of that..must you keep receipts and show cap gains?

 

Read also a good play is the St. Gaudens as it has numismatic value and is only 80$ above price of bullion

this 80$ numismatic value(at MS 63) is the lowest ever and should expand in a bull market...MS65 and higher should have even higher expansion multiples

[wndysrf]

From Doug Fabian, the ETF Market Timer:

 

I just completed reviewing the gains for the most popular aggressive stock funds in the investment world today. And quite frankly... I was shocked at what I discovered.

 

Simply stated, funds that used to buy stocks of dot-com companies are now buying "BIOTECH" like there's no tomorrow. And these are the same funds that lost 50%, 60%, even 80% during the bear!

 

For instance:

 

* ROBERTSON STEPHENS DIVERSIFIED GROWTH (RSDGX) has soared 33% in just 3 months. Why? Because it has made heavy bets on companies like Regeneration Technologies -- a biotechnology hopeful that may or may not provide viable bone and tissue healing products.

 

* PBHG EMERGING GROWTH (PBEGX). This aggressive growth lemon has had an annualized loss of 33% each of the last 3 years. Now it's up 24% on the year and we're supposed to celebrate? Not when the returns are based largely on ridiculously overvalued biotech stocks like Martek BioSciences.

 

* NASDAQ BIOTECH INDEX (IBB). This exchange-traded iShares fund has pulled off a 36% run-up in 2003 alone. That's better than any sector and any index so far this year!

 

Yet, the hype on biotechnology is beginning to look a lot like 1999's dot-com "boom-n-bust." There's lots of hype over the future success of 100s of new drugs, with a severe lack of genuine company growth.

 

And consider this fact: The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (IBB) broke below a 10% stop-loss point yesterday, falling 10.9% from its high. That's a SELL signal!

[TheMotleyStool]

Just watched "Bulls and Bulls" on Fox. Gary B. Smith says NAZ 2000 by end of year, agreeing with bulls who say the same thing. All are cynical, no pickup in fundamentals but it's all about money flow, valuations don't matter.

 

I hope they're wrong. Fleck has been right so far, every step of the way including this massive rally, and he says the indices close the year down. He'd better be right, my BEARX is riding on it.

[PileDriver]

Just watched "Bulls and Bulls" on Fox. ?Gary B. Smith says NAZ 2000 by end of year, agreeing with bulls who say the same thing. ?All are cynical, no pickup in fundamentals but it's all about money flow, valuations don't matter.

 

I hope they're wrong. ?Fleck has been right so far, every step of the way including this massive rally, and he says the indices close the year down. ?He'd better be right, my BEARX is riding on it.

He will

 

BEARX is acting nicely. Its perfectly hedged with PMs which will do nicely. That's why while the market has been going up BEARX is flat.

 

Just wait until this pig goes down and PMs really start going up. Both oars will be in the water.

 

At year-end BEARX will be where those losers on Fox think Nasdog will be

[PileDriver]

Mark,

 

My VectorVest Shorting Strategy has losers finally showing up on it again.

 

Guess who has been first to arrive to the loser party in droves?!

 

"Drug (Biomedical/Genetic)"

 

A.K.A "BIOTECHS" hope loser stocks!

[depends]

My mr market meter is showing what all the other indicators are showing.

 

As an aside. . .

Just got this in an email from a relative in the Middle East. Who's growing?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dubai 2003, The Real Story!

 

The United Arab Emirates has placed the biggest order for aircraft in civil aviation history. The IMF and World Bank meet in Dubai in September. Just what is going on in Dubai these days?

 

This week saw the start of the 100-day countdown to the Dubai 2003 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in late September.

 

It was also the week when Emirates Airline unveiled its $19 billion order for 71 aircrafts at the Paris Air Show, this is the largest order ever placed in the history of civil aviation. These two announcements were both marked by appropriate media events, and yet the real story behind Dubai 2003 was missing.

 

For the real story is that a small city on the edge of Arabia has developed its infrastructure to such an extent that it can handle the influx of 20,000 VIPs, bankers, media folk and camp followers. And, that this same city is growing at such a pace that its airline is going to fly superjumbo jets all over the world.

 

This vision of modern Arabia is somewhat different from the view often presented by the Western media.

 

Yet there is a big untold success story in Dubai. The present expansion of the real estate sector is every bit as big and ambitious as the Emirates? ambitions in the sky. Dubai is one huge construction site with billions going into real estate.

 

You can see it all from the moment you land in the emirate, with the airport undergoing a $4.2 billion expansion plan with an underground third terminal. Move up the Sheikh Zayed Road and skyscrapers soar ever higher, including the soon to open Shangri-La Hotel.

 

Out towards the Dubai Internet City the scale of development becomes overpowering. Next to the Burj Al Arab the Madinat Jumeirah, a mini-city of hotels is currently taking shape, further along is the Knowledge Village and the site of the Dubai Pearl office development.

 

Look out to sea and you face the Palm Island, a five kilometer-long artificial island shaped like a palm tree, which is soon-to-be-home to 2,000 villas, 47 hotels and apartment buildings.

 

Advancing, comes the Dubai Marina where the six Emaar towers are just the start of an enormous high-rise residential zone that will see up to a hundred towers completed within the next few years. The 45-storey Grosvenor House hotel complex is rising from the ground, so too are the first high-rise towers of the Jumeirah Beach Residency.

 

Turn to face the desert in the hinterland and a sea of cranes shows up. Thousands of villas are under construction in all sizes from town houses to small palaces.

 

But this is just the beginning, a second, even bigger Palm Island is under construction at Jebel Ali, two stops down the highway. Five kilometers offshore a series of man-made islands are to be created in the shape of a map of the world and sold to the super-rich.

 

The real success story of Dubai 2003 will come as a surprise to many of the visitors who come to the IMF and World Bank events, but keep your eyes open because, yes, there seems to be a real estate boom of global scale in progress!

-----------------------------------------------------------

map

[Yellowstone]

Bare Un's mid year update

 

Felix Zalauf in todays Barrons:

"As for the stock market, the best part of the rally is over. It is not a straight line into next year, because there could be some disappointments in the fourth quarter. The unhappy part concerns bonds, which are beginning to top all over the world. I think the bond market will sell off hard over the next 12 months, which could hit the stock market also. Therefore, we have a rally, a setback, and probably another rally from the fall low into the first half of next year."

and...

"But the big trade here is shorting the JGB [Japanese government bond]. This is the top of the Japanese bond market. It is the sell of a generation. Short JGBs, buy the Nikkei. The Japanese market is underrated. There are important changes going on in Japan. The corporate sector enjoys a financial surplus. Japanese corporations have much stronger balance sheets today than the U.S. or Europe. Twenty years ago it was just the reverse. The recent decision by the Bank of Japan to buy corporate bonds and asset-backed securities is also great news. They are pushing liquidity into the corporate sector. Again, this is very bad for JGBs. This morning the 10-year was yielding 0.43%. I think we have a relatively straight move to 2%. [indeed, the trade already has paid off. Ten-year bonds plunged late last week to their lowest level in months, pushing yields up to 0.73% in Thursday's session.] The Nikkei fell 80% over 13 years. In April it was around 7600. Now it's up to 9000. The next move could lead us quickly to 12,000. I see a lot of great news for the world. It's been rare in recent years that I had something bullish to mention."