B4 The Bell, Moonday, June 7 - Stool Pigeons Wire Message Board

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B4 The Bell, Moonday, June 7 A Day Without Money Rate Topic:

#1 Hiding Bear

Associate Professor of Stock Proctology

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 07:15 AM

Welcome to another week of trading, humor, insights, and what-not at B4 the Bell!

What would it be like when banking systems fail? Some Canadians are finding out:

Bank Software Woes Leave Many Canadians Without Money
By IAN AUSTEN

Published: June 7, 2004

OTTAWA, June 6 - When Andrea Mitchell, an executive assistant at a law firm here, went to an automated teller machine on Thursday morning, she assumed that her pay had been deposited directly into her Royal Bank of Canada account as usual. Instead, she found that her balance was just over nine Canadian dollars.

"I'm one of those people who lives from paycheck to paycheck," Miss Mitchell said. "I'm still paying off student loans."

She was not alone. After a software upgrade went badly awry last week, the holders of some 10 million accounts at the bank, Canada's largest, had to wait days in some cases for deposits to be credited or prearranged payments to be completed.

Many, like Miss Mitchell, had to make alternate arrangements. Down to her last $4 on Friday afternoon, she obtained a cash advance from her employers.

Even for customers with a cash cushion, the disruption was hardly welcome. "It's ludicrous," said one woman, who declined to give her name, as she left a branch here late Friday. It took her three visits in three days to deposit checks drawn in American dollars. "They said they couldn't get the exchange rates," she said. "You know what they've done to make everyone feel happy: they've put out muffins and cookies."

http://www.nytimes.c...ess/07bank.html

Some housekeeping:

During trading hours, 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM eastern US time, please try to keep off topic stories to a short size - or just provide a link to your discussion on LOB, Political Stool, whatever... Also please avoid negative comments about fellow posters. Tanks!

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#2

Group: Guests

Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:09 AM

Off topic issues?

Hmmm....this will be a difficult one to discern...what is topical and relevant to the markets?

A week-long Republican love fest that totally changes the subject and takes the heat off the present administration's lies? Closing the Government on Friday (and presumeably the markets as well?) to engage in the Government Mandated National Day Of Mourning to honor a former President's passing? Has this occurred in the past on the death (by natural causes) of a former President? Will this occur in the future when Carter dies? Is the Government being used in a political way, just prior to elections? Would criticism of this week-long Republican propoganda coup, supported by taxpayer dollars, be perceived as unAmerican? What is the cost of this decision?

Is this topical? Watch the markets today. Watch the wall to wall coverage on Crapvision today. Watch how this administration plays this to the benefit of their agenda. There are strategists at work right now in the White House, plotting to capitalize politically on the imagery and the emotions that this country will be exposed to this week. How many hours of imagery will be seen with the face of Bush and the face of Reagan, side-by-side, in split screen? You cannot even calculate the value of this marketing for Bush. Discussing it will be "political." What a coup!

The greatest political coup imaginable has just occured. Will you recognize how they use it? Will the markets respond accordingly?

Is it relevant? Would it be unpatriotic to sell stocks this week?

We report, you decide.

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#3 Bastiat

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:15 AM

An anecdotal view from an IT contractor. I have worked at five financial institutions in Canada including two large banks and two trust companies. A few years ago, I worked at Royal Bank and supported a system that took a data feed from the one that failed. In order to understand how and what the feed was, I had to learn some of the features of the one that crashed and I remember being surprised at the limited controls used to check the success of a daily transaction update. Well, I am not so surprised now. The big banks do not generally attract the level of staff that other more dynamic environments do and sometimes it shows as now. CIBC also had a major dust-up a few years ago when their entire ATM network was taken down for two days because of a similar "event".

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#4 DrStool

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:20 AM

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#5

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:27 AM

Level With Americans
By BOB HERBERT

Published: June 7, 2004

"They don't have enough soldiers," said Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island who is a member of the Armed Services Committee. "And when you don't have enough soldiers, you have to keep the ones you have longer. And that's exactly what they did."

The shortage of soldiers was widely recognized by insiders, but the administration never made the problem clear to the public, and never took the steps necessary to deal with it. Senator Reed, a former Army captain, told me in an interview last week that he felt the civilian leadership at the Pentagon "should have recognized very early on that we needed a bigger army and should have moved aggressively" to expand the force.

"Last fall," he said, "I sponsored an amendment along with Senator Schumer on the supplemental appropriations bill to increase the Army by 10,000, just as sort of an opening salvo. And they vociferously opposed it. They lobbied against it and they killed it."

Almost the entire burden of the war has been loaded onto the backs of a brave but tiny segment of the population � the men and women, most of them from working-class families, who enlisted in the armed forces for a variety of reasons, from patriotism to a desire to further their education to the need for a job. They never expected that the failure of their country to pay for an army of sufficient size would result in their being trapped in a war zone with the exit doors locked when their enlistments were up.

http://www.nytimes.c...ion/07HERB.html

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#6

Group: Guests

Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:37 AM

Watch for the Ten Year Yield to blow through 49 today.

This is significant.

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#7 Optical Rectitus

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:52 AM

Re the Canadian lady Ms Andrea Mitchell----Is not that Mrs Alan Greenspan??

Poetic justice IMO....LOL

Morning all

Optical

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#8 Bearbones

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 08:58 AM

"So the question becomes, where are we in the cycle? Well, except for investors with no knowledge of how valuation levels translate into prospective returns, it's fairly clear that the 2000 peak represented the peak of a very, very aggressive secular bull move. At a current price/peak earnings multiple of 21, the S&P 500 is even now priced at about the same valuation as we saw at the beginning of very extended flat periods for stocks (notably 1929 and 1965, as well as important peaks like 1972 and 1987). "

http://www.hussmanfu...c/wmc040607.htm

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#9 Bearbones

Master of Stock Proctology

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 09:04 AM

"While the employment report was good enough to hold the unemployment rate unchanged, it was certainly nothing extraordinary from an economic perspective, except in the context of the past couple of years. Based on the current labor force, job creation of 235,000 per month would be right at the historical average. Since that historical average includes recessions, it's still a fairly tepid rate for an economic expansion. "

http://www.hussmanfu...c/wmc040607.htm

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#10 Ned38

Doctor of Stock Proctology

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 09:20 AM

Plunger

Yep

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#11 brian4

Clinical Professor of Stock Proctology

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 09:25 AM

Morning Crew-Let me elaborate a bit on what HB said-this is a free and open thread for discussion with respect for others. Yesterday when I wasn't in the room, Doc was forced to delete some 20 odd posts when 2 of our brethren who loathe each other got out of hand. Now you know who YOU are and so do I...cool it or I will have to hit the delete key. Disagree, fine that is the essence of debate...but don't get personal please..keep it civilized. Now to Biz-this is make or break day we must have a close under 1127 or we are going higher. Window opens at the Bell for 50 minutes. Helmets on, Buckle uo!