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B4 The Bell, Thursday May 6


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:D Welcome to B4 the Bell! :D

 

Congradulations to all those who predicted $40 oil a while back (myself included :wink2: ).

Anyone say $50? :lol:

 

Don't think it will stop at $40, nor will bonds yields stop rising - even if a they drop back for a few days over the next week.

 

Bank of England raises rates to 4.25 per cent

By Ed Crooks and Scheherazade Daneshkhu

Published: May 6 2004 12:00 | Last Updated: May 6 2004 12:00

 

The Bank of England raised its main interest rate to 4.25 per cent on Thursday, in line with market expectations.

 

Independent economists had almost universally forecast a rate rise, and had had their expectations reinforced by recent comments from members of the Bank's monetary policy committee.

 

Inflation is well below the government's target of 2 per cent. It was at 1.1 per cent in March, and may yet fall further. Growth in the first quarter was disappointingly slow at 0.6 per cent, according to initial official estimates.

 

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?p...&ExpIgnore=true

 

Lonely Bears

 

Cottage Industry for Economists in Foretelling Job Data

By EDUARDO PORTER

 

Published: May 6, 2004

 

Richard Yamarone, the chief economist at Argus Research, was pummeled by reality last month, when his forecast that employment would grow by only 44,000 in March met the reality of 308,000 new jobs. "I was creamed," he said.

 

But as investors await the Labor Department's release of the April figures tomorrow morning, he is sticking to his guns, forecasting a slim gain of 95,000 jobs. "I could be blown out of the water again on this thing," Mr. Yamarone said. But "it just doesn't feel like the economy created another 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 new payroll jobs last month."

 

Mr. Yamarone's position is getting lonely, at the bottom end of the job forecast range. In an era when all forecasters have been widely missing the mark, he can point to his relatively respectable track record. Five times in the last 12 months, most recently in February, his curb-your-enthusiasm forecasts have been closer to the government's actual data than the economists' consensus tracked by Bloomberg News.

 

And he was far more prescient than many other, more bullish economists in predicting the overall growth of the economy in the first quarter.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/business/06jobs.html

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Guest yobob1

Oh how I love a good hydrogen debate. Thoughts range from , "Oh someone will discover a miracle way to make hydrogen at 1 cent per gallon" to " Hydrogen will never work as an everyday fuel due to simple physics." Place me in the latter camp. I view hydrogen becoming a commonplace fuel about as likely as discovering a way to travel between planets in a few hours and upon arrival do an instant terraforming to a human friendly environment.

 

RE:Hybrids - there's no free lunch. Firstly the inherent complexity and true cost (hybrids are somewhat subsidized by the mfgs) will never achieve a payback as opposed to a straight gasoline version of the same vehicle. Do the math. Compare Toyota's hybrid to their gasoline version of a similar car and I'm quite confident the fuel cost savings over their expected life will never offset the differences in the initial purchase price of the vehicles. This doesn't take into account the likely higher true costs of service and repairs, like eventual battery replacement in the hybrids. The same can be said for most diesel versus gasoline versions of an American pickup for the typical driver. Only in extreme examples that the typical driver will not encounter or experience can any savings be found. Also consider that if hybrids become more popular the manufacturers will be forced to reduce their subsidies due to profit concerns and the cost spread between the hybrid and gasoline vehicles will widen either through outright increases or reduced content in the hybrids.

 

Is it over for America? Well, yes, the old America that most of us think about as being a good and noble country with a concerned and involved populace is dead. We have become a self absorbed "me first" society in decay ruled by elitists only concerned with lining their pockets with gold. However a cleansing by a debilitating depression could possibly set the stage for a rebirth. It remains to be seen if the people in this country have enough backbone left for the job ahead. As to the Californinans moving to New Zealand - ROTFLMAO. Pity New Zealand, they'll destroy it too. If they're typical they'll want to change everything to what they just left and then bitch about how bad it's become.

 

However in the end Mother Nature will get even. This planet cannot support 6 billion people without oil. Period. Oil is what has made the last 150 years possible and as there is no substitute on the horizon, the world must go through a prolonged depopulation. Of course we could just nuke ourselves into a rapid depopulation or some "bug" may finally emerge that we are powerless to stop and reduce our numbers that way. One way or another there will be a lot fewer people on this planet when it's all said and done. Heaven and Hell are likely to get a lot more crowded, so reserve early. :lol:

 

More shorts are unwinding in silver. This time it came out of Hong Kong. It's simple really, the big players who are short simply pull the bids and let the price decline and then they cover. Those are the nasty little vertical spikes you see once or twice a day. You can see it in the black line on the left of the chart here: World Silver Chart

 

Interesting read here: The Pending Bear Market For Central Planning

Basically it states, in a well laid out argument, a long held belief of mine which in short is that the PTB can alter the path but not the final destination of any economy. IOW, despite all of the puffery, the power of the fed is wildly overstated in the long run, something I think we're all about to witness in reality.

 

Someone call the FBI - Nurse Ratchet has gone walkabout.

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Uncle Bucky's demise has been prematurely reported. With oil set to breach $40, the demand for bucks should be stable at least.

intraday.gif?s=NYBOT_DXY0&t=f&w=15&a=2&v=w450

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Galesburg's Maytag plant will close early, Spokeswoman cites sagging demand for September shutdown.

 

Workers at the Maytag plant learned Wednesday that the top-mount refrigerator line will close in September rather than in November as had been previously scheduled.

 

Maytag announced in October 2002 it would close the 1,600-employee plant by the end of 2004 and move production to Mexico and Iowa.

 

http://www.pjstar.com/news/topnews/b2uh32ul033.html

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Guest yobob1

I used to wade throught the automakers reports to pull out the fleet sales ratios. In short fleet sales in current atuospeak is the selling of vehicles to their fully owned rental agencies. It's a nifty way to off load excess inventory which will quickly find their way to the auction maket. Hudson over at Prubear saved me the trouble this time, so for those wondering what delayed GM's sales report - it was paperwork.

 

Hudson at Prubear - Mid week Analysis

 

Additionally, most of GM?s sales were driven by fleet sales, which rose 30%. Retail sales fell 8%. The slower sales pushed inventory levels up to 85 days, about 18% higher than last month. Fleet sales are also helping Ford. Fleet sales rose 9% while retail sales fell 9%. Ford?s inventories also increased substantially, up to 87 day. This is about 20% higher than average inventory levels. With inventories high at most automakers, the next couple months might be a good time to ?hold hands and buy a SUV,? to borrow a line from our hometown central banker, Bob McTeer.

 

Once again, the lagging data is confirming a marked deterioration in the consumer market. Not to fret, I think it's going to get much worse in the month's ahead. The consistent high price of fuel, with no relief in sight is starting to affect buying decisions. With Detroit's offereings loaded with gas guzzling SUVs and trucks they are in for a very rough stretch. If the consumer goes away and becomes fuel sensitive Detroit could fail totally. Bye-Bye Ford first.

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With Detroit's offereings loaded with gas guzzling SUVs and trucks they are in for a very rough stretch. If the consumer goes away and becomes fuel sensitive Detroit could fail totally

yobob, I agree. Hybrids are all the rage around the office. EVERYONE is talking about them and complaining that they are tired of putting gas into their trucks. There are even complaints that you can't get a test drive of a Prius because they are sold too quickly. You could be right about the higher cost of ownership of hybrids, but Joe Public doesn't seem to be doing to math.

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Yeah. This market has an impaction, and when it lets loose look out.

 

Is today the day?

The market is lying face down on the table, fists and teeth clenched in anticipation of the approaching enema. It's only a matter of time, and time is running out.

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If you recall, in last weekend's Fed Turdsday Releases, I pointed out that the discrepancy between the recent uptick in C&I loans, and the stall in total loans and leases in the banking system could mean only one thing.

 

That consumer borrowing had plunged. The auto sales data reported above by yobob would seem to confirm that.

 

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Guest yobob1

Some very interesting perspectives on real estate here:Anatomy Of A Real Estate Crash

I think the potential for problems in the US are somewhat understated. Given the simple fact that the housing market has been scraping the bottom of the barrel (meaning taking on all buyers regardless of credit quality) for the last couple of years, I think the housing market dies from exhasution as much or more so than it does from rising rates, though that will be like throwing a drowning man an anchor.

 

In the 20's Florida became a popular destination for those who were seeking to escape the cold. Unfortunately, housing could not keep up with the demand, so as prices started to go up as people started to compete for housing.

 

Soon a speculator decided to jump in and before you knew it an ocean of money was chasing limited housing. House started to double and triple in value.

 

The only way to realize profits was to sell at a higher price than you paid for the house. For a while everything was great but the supply of idiots willing to pay such inflated prices for property came to a halt. That is when the situation abruptly changed and individuals started getting vaporized by the hundreds. Before you knew it, the prices had fallen down to pre boom levels. If you look at the price of some houses, you will see that after almost 70 years some houses are still selling for less than what the owners paid for them.

The Florida real estate crash of 20's did nothing to quench Americans desire to speculate and they carried on pushing money into the stock market until the now infamous year of 1929. In October 1929 in one day the market lost 22% of its value, subsequent plunges wiped most of the stock market.

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"The disappearances, which were first reported on Wednesday in The Record of Hackensack, have been noted from Paterson to Irvington. Aluminum facing has been painstakingly removed and the bolts holding it to posts sawed off, leaving stretches of stumplike posts lining the roads."

 

"Why, say the experts, is understandable. It's a little bit of chaos theory and the so-called butterfly effect meeting Adam Smith's invisible hand, say state transportation officials and scrap metal experts."

 

New Jersey Guardrails Glamorous for Metal Thieves

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