Hiding Bear Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Welcome to B4 The Bell! New quarter, new trading opportunities may develop on the short side soon. Faster!: As Greenspan Chases Inflation, Critics Shout, 'Faster!' By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Published: July 1, 2004 nflation and market interest rates are far ahead of Alan Greenspan's federal funds rate, which he raised yesterday to 1.25 percent. Now the nation will see how well Mr. Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, plays the game of catch-up. Fears that Mr. Greenspan has opened wide the door to inflation in the United States by keeping interest rates too low for too long prompted a sell-off in the bond market recently. That has pushed short- and long-term rates far above the federal funds rate and produced the worst quarter for bond investors in almost 25 years. "Every time that profits growth has peaked out, people say it doesn't matter, and every time the Fed has started raising rates people say it doesn't matter," Mr. Bernstein said. "But every time it has mattered. The combination played a major role in terms of getting investors to be more risk averse. So to me it is a little remarkable that people are so sanguine about this." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/business/01place.html?hp What a Rate Increase Can't Hide By STEVEN RATTNER Some who are relaxed about the deficit say that we will "grow into it," that a faster rate of growth will lead to more tax receipts and close the gap, thereby taking pressure off interest rates. But assuming current policies are continued, the government will need to borrow $5 trillion more over the next 10 years. Even one percentage point more in economic growth than is now expected ? a hugely ambitious goal ? would cut the $5 trillion only in half. There are many reasons that we need to find a national consensus to reduce the budget deficit ? bankrupting Medicare and Social Security, burdening our children with debt and the like ? but now that we have entered a period of rising interest rates, a higher cost of borrowing for both business and consumers is perhaps the most immediate. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/opinion/01RATT.html Actual picture of AG used by the NY Times today. He is looking a tad yellow these days! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lock Limit Down Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Plunger; This one is for you. Read the entire piece... http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/m.../2004/0629.html Dollars weakness continues looking for a move in the metals today. Gold showing signs of life early. Nice little bit of frenzied spoos buying at 450 am 990n must have overslept Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lock Limit Down Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Bernie Schaeffer was on the borg channel early this morning saying bearish things about the market. Suggested potential 25% decline as volotility is at multi year lows. Also mentioned the small craps could continue their leadership and chop higher yet. Huh??? Didnt make a lot of sense to me but then again not a whole lot does these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 S.E.C. at Odds on Plan to Let Big Investors Pick Directors By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON, July 1 - The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that he had been unable to forge an agreement among his deeply divided colleagues over a proposal to permit large shareholders to nominate a limited number of independent directors to corporate boards. The deadlock all but dooms prospects for the rule to be adopted in time for the new proxy season that begins early next year. The paralysis at the agency is a major victory for corporate executives who have fought to kill the rule and a setback for labor organizations and institutional investors who have pushed for years to get the commission to adopt it. It also marked a retrenchment for William H. Donaldson, the chairman of the commission. Last summer and last fall, Mr. Donaldson embraced the broad outlines of the plan, but he has since become lukewarm about several of its key details in the face of opposition from the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, an organization of chief executives from the nation's largest companies. MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/business...print&position= ............................................. Yeah...FASTER is better for the retirees that have had to go back to work as bagboys in grocery stores or 'greeters' at China world. This big tax squeeze on seniors with low CD rates and inflation has hurt many of them financially and spiritually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiHat Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Ayn Rand had it so right..........Looters are in control of levers of power. Fiat is what enables this to be so. Fiat was designed for this to be so. Let us paraphrase Edgar Allen Poe................ ......"Everything that we see or seem ; is but a dream, within a dream". ..........................that was then, this is now......................................... ......."Everything we see or seem: is but a scheme, within a scheme". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStool Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Should you sell your house? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStool Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Your Golden Stool, including short and long term updated charts and price targets, is loaded. Even if you are not a goldbug, you should check out the Golden Stool. It's in your Anals daily. Take a subscribatory and download the Golden Stool RIGHT NOW! 30 Day Intro Subscribatory. Just $16.99! Get In RIGHT NOW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Should you sell your house? -------------------- Download your Anals now! Take a subscribatory! Is your house your home? Are other income producing assets providing adequate cash flow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lock Limit Down Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Should you sell your house? Nice post Doc Real estate demand and price are directly related to the cost of money. Most are in agreement with regards to the future in yields. The risks outweight the rewards especially in my area, where rents have been declining as everyone has purchased. I have sold and am happy with my decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twignberries Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Happy Canada Day eh? I'll be missing the fireworks show in Edmonton again this year They usually have a real good one out over the river, right in front of the Convention Center. Absolutely beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tchaikofsky Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 Associated Press Donohue Endorses Outsourcing of Jobs Wednesday June 30, 10:52 pm ET By Rachel Konrad, AP Technology Writer U.S. Chamber of Commerce Leader Thomas Donohue Promotes Outsourcing of Jobs to Boost Economy SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue is promoting overseas outsourcing of jobs as a way to boost the economy and even increase employment -- a stance that rankles jobless white-collar workers, particularly in the flagging technology industry. Donohue, speaking Wednesday night to the Commonwealth Club of California, said he believes exporting high-paid tech jobs to low-cost countries such as India, China and Russia saves companies money that they may use to create new jobs for Americans. CEOs from Wall Street to Silicon Valley have embraced the theory, and the pace of offshoring has shocked statisticians and economists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest yobob1 Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 We're all guilty. But, but, there hasn't been a trial! Hey, wake up. This is the new USA, you're guilty until you prove you're innocent. Well, it's not really new, this has been the standard IRS approach since it's inception. Really amazing considering the IRS isn't even a true government agency. Don't take my word for it, dig into the laws. The IRS is nothing more than a strong arm contract collection agency for the Treasury. But I digress. We're all guilty of agreeing with those that agree with us and dismissing those that don't agree with us. Nothing new here, primarily human nature. Birds of a feather and all that rot. Personally I haven't found anyone I agree with completely. I find bits of agreement in some, and some I nearly agree with completely, while in others I can find total disagreement, yet in no one can I find total agreement. Laugh if you must, but Hyper may come as close as anyone, though I supect we are at opposite poles on politics. Greeneggsandspam did what he had to do yesterday. He had no choice. He could ill afford to surprise anyone in this extremely fragile environment that seemingly increases in fragility. And now the fun begins - guess when and how much the next rate increase will be. Well I've made my guess and I don't think I agree with anyone. I think you've seen the only rate increase out of the fed you'll see for a considerable length of time. How long is that? Probably years. In fact I think this increase will be reversed within a year and likely within 9 months or Q1 2005. Are you out of your mind, the crowd asks? Quite possibly, but then again maybe not. Inflation is screaming, they say! Oh really? Why has the CRB broken several MAs here recently? Economics is a sloppy art. It is definitely not a science since no real world experiments are repeatable to the degree required of a science. Economics is really a guessing game of what the instantaneous individual actions of 6 billion people will result in over various time frames. It is impossible to construct any workable model as the variables explode exponentially. It is far more challenging than trying to model weather, which so far has escaped man's ability despite employing the most powerful computers available. Yet we toil on and make our "guesses". My guess hasn't changed much over the last 4+ years, though my time-frames have been distorted some-what by Greenie. I felt last year that the Summer plunge in yields that whipsawed would set in motion a chain of events culiminating in the first big economic plunge 15-18 months later. Early this year I said that the lagging data would begin to reveal the rot by the edge of Summer. It has. The automakers are rolling out new models at a prodigious rate now, but have no pricing power on any of them. New models receive incentive packages almost immediately following their introduction. GM by their own admission says prices are still falling. When gas prices started to hit $2, the automakers assured everyone that SUV and truck sales would stay strong. Ford now will buy your gas for 6 months and give you a $5000 rebate on their SUVs. (Stupid move by Ford - all they have done is call attention to the fact that SUV's suck gas and neatly quantified it by attaching a dollar value - uh no thanks, I'll take the Focus that you lose $2000 on instead.) Another bit of early year wisdom - gas prices won't affect consumption. Record high demand they said. I took a trip over Memorial Day and I had the odd sensation that this was the last big hurrah before retrenchment; a final party on dude. I think I was right. Seems gasoline demand is slackening. Discount retailers are starting to feel it. Joe and Mary Sheeple are feeling the pinch big time; they're doing what they must do and that is cut back here and there to make their monthly income cover their outgo, and yet they still must resort to borrowing on the cards to close the gap. That capacity will rapidly disappear as the Sheeple's hit the limits and indeed fail to make payments. They may resort to standing at the top of the stairs and tossing the pile of bills down the stairs and then paying only those that fall on the first three or four steps. On top of all of this year over year comparisons are going to get much tougher in the next 2 quarters. Just as the bloom fades. I think we're finally going to see production volumes and prices falling at the same time. That's a death knell for corporate America. Squeezed by recent input cost increases, rising short term rates and falling demand they will begin in earnest round two of cost cutting. Fixed cost are just that-fixed. No savings there. Indeed the only two variables that can have much influence are cap-ex and labor. Cap-ex is not at a particularly high level, so not much is going to come from that area. That leaves labor. Lower levels of labor have already been trimmed pretty heavily but white collar types are still at bloated levels. Better smear some grease on that collar. The final piece of the puzzzle is construction. I think you can begin to say uh oh there also. I have a friend in the steel business, not you MH. He's telling me that new projects are getting pulled before they finalize bids. When the build-outs start completing, I think were' going to see the impervious construction workers drop like flies. And all of their suppliers, right on down the line to the guy digging for copper in Chile. Enjoy the Summer, I think it's going to be a very cold winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest yobob1 Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 TE wrote: Reading the anals. I can see Doc's numbers by Friday. On a side note. My other people whom I pay thousands of doolars for have not been as accurate as Doc over the last few weeks. They have been good but Doc has been better. Kudos Doc. Uh, why not send the thousands to Doc instead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madame Wrecked Him Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 UI Weekly Claims In the week ending June 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 351,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 350,000. The 4-week moving average was 347,000, an increase of 2,500 from the previous week's revised average of 344,500. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madame Wrecked Him Posted July 1, 2004 Report Share Posted July 1, 2004 I can't tell if the trend in initial claims is rising again; I think the obvious and most objective conclusion is that they have been in a state of moribund stagnation since the beginning of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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