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"So there was still more support this week for my warnings through the winter to enjoy the rally while it lasts, because the market is likely to experience a serious decline when its favorable seasonal period ends in a few weeks – if not before. And that profits this year will likely have to come from positioning for the downside, in short-sales and bear-type mutual funds. "

Sy Harding - http://www.streetsmartreport.com/comm3.html

 

Sy and Doc are the only two guys I subscribe to. Because they use different TA tools, they are often not in complete agreement.....But when they are in agreement, I've learned it's a big, big mistake to fade them. :)

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Condo riches vaporize into thin air...

 

The Krystal Sands was just another Vegas high rise condo project, one of 70 already approved for construction to begin within the year. When the sales office opened with the usual big "reservation party", realtors and eager speculators flocked in to sign up and pre-reserve units before they were all gone. They entered into contracts and wrote deposit checks to the LLC which was doing the development. Few intended to really live there, many were out of state speculators intending to flip for gain even before the units were completed. Many used family members to buy multiple units under different names.

 

Now, only a few weeks later, the sales office has closed. Phones are disconnected. No one seems to know anything. Where did the money go? Will the people get a dime of their deposits back? Are the developers in Brazil? Where is the money? Who is this LLC? Will the condos ever be built? Is this the only one that will disappear into the night?

 

Larger projects abound. Deposits for a decent $1M condo can be $100K. I have heard of people buying 5 in a building, putting down $500K cash to pre-reserve 5 units. Monthly homeowner dues for a high rise start at $500/month. Many have paper gains already where they are locked in at a $1M contract price and the current market price is $1.2M. Will they sell (assign their purchase contract) before they are built? Will they really be built? Will everyone continue to make money selling at ever higher prices to new speculators, again and again? Is there really any need to build them if no one intends to live there?

 

 

Story

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Do you believe this biznez in which Mr TwoScrews alleges he hASS the SAME birthday ass your mASS(_)_)ter, Igor?

It gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective). After seeing Clint Eastwood's Million Dollah Baby (highly recommended), MH looked up the bio of lead actress Hilary Swank. Her birthday: July 30th! (1974).

 

Warning: if you whisper menage a trois, I'll scream ...

 

1506889_Hilar_Kambo.jpg

 

source: http://img.actressarchives.com/swank/1506889_Hilar_Kambo.jpg

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Jimbo .... "Expensive credit arriving at an economy near you....If I were a corporate I would be grabbing all the cheap long term money I can....Investors are giving it away."

 

I hear you, but this is the dilemma I have (as an individual utilizing the same corporate logic), and others too I imagine ... What if incomes or revenues drop to support those "low" interest rate payments ?? What if business dries up, demand slows, or assets stop appreciating at the levels we have seen ?

 

Isn't this the whole issue ? Nolan's piece seems to suggest that we have asset appreciation room still, but then he speaks of the meltup of others currencies, higher sustainable higher US rates ...all leading to ???? So.. no collapse in asset prices ? Are todays cheap interest rates to be locked up to maximum loan levels ? Mortgage everything as much as possible, so then even if asset deflation occurs, these are STILL low rates not to be seen again ??

 

Damn.. I'm confused even more now ...

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The 'old grey lady' New York Times, in a rare fit of relevance, has posted not one but two 'Bubble top' articles in recent days -- both indexed at Prudent Bear. One is Friday's Trading Places: Real Estate Instead of Dot-Coms. The other, from today, is If I Only Had a Hedge Fund, by Jenny Anderson and Riva Atlas. [Go to bugmenot.com if you need a logon/password.]

 

The opening almost conjures up F. Scott Fitzgerald:

 

It seemed like an ordinary evening at Crobar, the trendy Manhattan nightclub. Two weeks ago, as Counting Crows performed on stage, young women dressed in expensive jeans pushed toward the front with their khaki-clad, mostly older boyfriends. Few, however, were regulars. On this night, the very rich and the merely rich intermingled on the club's two floors - V.I.P.'s upstairs ($1,000 a ticket) and the rest down below ($250).

 

Most of the 1,250 people gathered for the event, the Robin Hood Foundation charity ball, were part of the city's unlikely new "it" crowd. Richer than Wall Street rich and more willing to take risks than their traditional money management peers, they are the managers behind the staggering growth in hedge funds, those private, lightly regulated investment vehicles aimed at the ultrawealthy, the run-of-the-mill wealthy and, increasingly, the not-so wealthy.

 

If I Only Had a Hedge Fund

 

The authors come up with a clever quip that may appeal to Marky Mark: "In a way, hedge funds are to mutual funds what Evel Knievel was to weekend motorcyclists."

 

Unfortunately, the typical innumeracy of 'journalists' intrudes on their worthy attempt to compare mutual fund and hedge fund fees:

 

Instead of just receiving a fixed percentage of the funds they manage, hedge fund managers generally make "1 and 20" - that is, 1 percent of assets under management and 20 percent of profits.

 

To put that in context, a mutual fund company managing, say, $100 million and earning 1 percent of assets under management makes $1 million. By comparison, a hedge fund making the 1 percent management fee and a 20 percent "carry" takes in $1 million for opening the doors, and an additional $10 million if the fund returns 10 percent. That's $11 million in revenue.

 

Wrongo. Twenty percent of a $10 million return is $2 million, not $10 million.

 

[Will the august Times issue a correction tomorrow? Sure -- "We were misled." :lol:

Who needs copy editors anyway?] :lol:

 

It raises a good point, though. You've heard the claim that stocks have returned 10 percent annually since 1926 -- a claim that Dr. Stool has demolished. Nevertheless, just to be super-generous, imagine it were true. In a hedge fund fee structure, you're going to give away a sickening 3 percent (1 percent fixed + 2 percent incentive) right off the top. It gets even worse in a 'Fund of Funds,' which ought to be called 'Fees on Fees.' But again, being generous souls, we'll ignore that for a moment.

 

From your much-reduced 7 percent return, now subtract 2.5 percent for taxes and 3.5 percent for inflation. You are left with a pitiful 1 percent. But wait -- adjust that 1 percent for risk (high in a typical hedge fund), and you'll find that a plain old laddered portfolio of intermediate-term T-notes will beat the crap of that hedge fund in risk-adjusted return.

 

Bottom line, hedge funds are sucker investments.

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...in Andre's article, he wrote "The long term trend turned up in October 2002 in conjunction with the 12-year cycle. It is now reinforced by the 10-year cycle which turned up in the Fall of 2004. A top is likely in late 2005, or early 2006.". I doubt.

My rhetorical question is: do I need to learn more about cycle theory (which I'm sure I do) or do I smell a dead rabbit in a hat?

 

Now that wave/wavelet theory complexities are common public knowledge, have we come to the point where all wave cycle periods are variable at the whim of the technician? Any math-inclined high school student can figure out the 4 or 5 best period matches to impute the reality of current market activity.

 

I understand Doc's cycles, and several others, because he has spent a lot of time back testing them and they actually make some sense in terms of the psychology of the various actors in the market throughout time.

 

But I need a little breathing air, here, when a guy shows a confluence of peaks of a random period starting at the first bear market rally in 2002, and at the start of the decade, which I presume is what his 10 year cycle is about. But on further reflection:

 

12 years is the time the average Wall Street professional takes to start a career, start a family, become reasonably successful, have kids who need dancing lessons, have a soccer wife who needs an SUV, and start an affair with an aspiring Ukrainian tennis semi-pro who demands fine hotels in exotic locations.

 

Makes perfect sense to want to take some money off the table after 12 years.

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Hedge Fund rant, continued:

 

In the South Sea Bubble of 1720, one notorious IPO raised funds for 'an undertaking of great advantage, only no one to know what it is.' The promoters, according to Charles Mackay, skipped town and disappeared across the Channel.

 

Hedge funds have a lot in common with that wheeze. First, there's the lock-in requirement, which means that you can't just sell today and have cash in your account tomorrow. Sometimes initial investments may be locked in for years, and after that, you may be able to withdraw only once per quarter, with advance notice.

 

The 'South Sea mystery' aspect of Hedge Funds involves reporting, which again may be only once per quarter, and may consist of as little as 'your account balance is now $X,XXX,XXX.'

 

Even when positions are listed, it may not mean much. Take a look at the positions in Pimco's commodity mutual fund, for instance. It's full of private commodity linked contracts. You can discern that they have a position in soybeans worth $5 million, for instance. But not knowing the details of the contract, and not being able to get a public quote on a private contract, you can't analyze how it will vary with the market.

 

In virtually every case of hedge fund fraud, the minimal reporting allowed the fraud to go on. Clients were told their accounts were gaining in value, when they weren't. You can be sure it's still happening.

 

It's really remarkable that even as the sewage spills of Bubble I fraud are being cleaned up, the septic tank is refilling with the yet-undetected defalcations of Bubble II.

 

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

 

With last week's revelation that 71% of NYSE volume in mid-March was program trading, the old 1987 chestnut of 'dynamic hedging' rears its ugly head once more.

 

Consider Dr. John Hussman's Strategic Growth Fund, a mutual fund which is run like a hedge fund. His methodology is to pick outperforming stocks with a proprietary process similar to VectorVest. During unfavorable market conditions, the market risk is hedged away with synthetic shorts on indexes, constructed with options (long put / short call).

 

Currently Dr. Hussman is 70% hedged, and has stated that with further deterioration, he will move to 100% hedged. That's dynamic hedging. Thousands of hedge funds are doing that, because short positions tie up margin. Why establish them until they're needed?

 

But as revealed in 1987, the assumption that 'everybody' can put on dynamic hedges when needed is wrong, because it depends on liquid markets. Liquidity is exactly what dries up in a panic, and it creates 'air pockets' where the next bid may be 3% or 5% or 10% down from the one that was just hit.

 

The 'bots' are programmed to go exponential under those conditions. When that 5% air pocket is registered, they triple the size of their short orders, and another 5% air pocket ensues. Everybody can't get out through the same narrow door at the same time.

 

Hedge funds -- and mutual funds with trivial cash reserves -- are setting up another such accident. You can depend on it. Read the Times article, and realize that it's five minutes to midnight at Cinderella's ball.

 

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

 

:ph34r: Slobbering, psycho bearish :ph34r:

:ph34r: Death to the Bubble! :ph34r:

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Personal Ad found in The New Yorker magazine.....

 

INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL SF, 24, sparkling smile, sensual, classy, thin, with extraordinary all-natural 34C breasts, seeks extremely wealthy hedge fund manager for mutually rewarding, month-to-month arrangement. Must be very generous and be able to help me with my singing career. Prefer those who reside in Manhattan or The Hamptons. Nothing west of NYC, please.

post-184-1111950944_thumb.jpg

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Personal Ad found in The New Yorker magazine.....

 

INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL SF, 24, sparkling smile, sensual, classy, thin, with extraordinary all-natural 34C breasts, seeks extremely wealthy hedge fund manager for mutually rewarding, month-to-month arrangement.  Must be very generous and be able to help me with my singing career.  Prefer those who reside in Manhattan or The Hamptons.  Nothing west of NYC, please.

 

 

u MUST be joking/putting us on.

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Personal Ad found in The New Yorker magazine.....

 

INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL SF, 24, sparkling smile, sensual, classy, thin, with extraordinary all-natural 34C breasts, seeks extremely wealthy hedge fund manager for mutually rewarding, month-to-month arrangement.? Must be very generous and be able to help me with my singing career.? Prefer those who reside in Manhattan or The Hamptons.? Nothing west of NYC, please.

 

 

u MUST be joking/putting us on.

 

no, of course not. This is a "personal" personal ad from Mark himself. Marks real name is Marge, incredibly beautiful, lives in NYC and has large breasts (or as in some circles it is said "a good hand full"). See, things are easy.

No, of course he was kidding, wasnt he? :unsure:

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here is an example that in some stocks the bull whioch began in 1982 never really ended:

 

Anheuser-Busch (BUD; way cool symbol if you ask me  :lol: )

 

look at the monthly EMA 50, price went above it in 1982 and with one short lived exception in 1994 never traded below it again. Right now price is at that EMA, thos who beleive that the Bud-Bull wont die will buy here, but maybe they should better look at these neg divs with MACD, o la la! This is only the TA aspect, if BUD uis fundamentally a good short i doubt.

 

big.chart?symb=BUD&compidx=aaaaa:0&ma=2&maval=50&uf=0&lf=4&lf2=0&lf3=0&type=4&size=2&state=8&sid=601&style=320&time=20&freq=3&comp=NO_SYMBOL_CHOSEN&nosettings=1&rand=7423&mocktick=1

In times of noisy economic desparation new and ofttimes surprising vulnerabilities appear and make rocks of gibraltar like bud look like mounds of papier mache--for example some genius in electrolysis coould come along and create a machine that will distillate recycled beer from surplus plutocratic urine--and then wot????

 

beardrech :ph34r: :ph34r: In times of War and economic distress never underestimate the inventiveness of man

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Condo riches vaporize into thin air...

 

The Krystal Sands was just another Vegas high rise condo project, one of 70 already approved for construction to begin within the year. When the sales office opened with the usual big "reservation party", realtors and eager speculators flocked in to sign up and pre-reserve units before they were all gone. They entered into contracts and wrote deposit checks to the LLC which was doing the development. Few intended to really live there, many were out of state speculators intending to flip for gain even before the units were completed. Many used family members to buy multiple units under different names.

 

Now, only a few weeks later, the sales office has closed. Phones are disconnected. No one seems to know anything. Where did the money go? Will the people get a dime of their deposits back? Are the developers in Brazil? Where is the money? Who is this LLC? Will the condos ever be built? Is this the only one that will disappear into the night?

 

Larger projects abound. Deposits for a decent $1M condo can be $100K. I have heard of people buying 5 in a building, putting down $500K cash to pre-reserve 5 units. Monthly homeowner dues for a high rise start at $500/month. Many have paper gains already where they are locked in at a $1M contract price and the current market price is $1.2M. Will they sell (assign their purchase contract) before they are built? Will they really be built? Will everyone continue to make money selling at ever higher prices to new speculators, again and again? Is there really any need to build them if no one intends to live there?

 

 

Story

 

 

 

PD, Glad see your post

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