Archman Investor

More signs of housing confidence, as lenders are easing down-payment standards for some applicants, who can borrow 95% of a home's value instead of 90%. Changes are happening on a market-by-market basis, but indicate some companies think the worst is over for price declines.

Niner:
I am not really sure of your hostility or what you mean by your comment.

Been where? Or you suggesting that "everyone" in this country is entitled to something, regardless of the outcome?

Hope your not a cop, teacher, fireman, town worker, railroad worker, or maybe MTA worker here in NY. That would explain the hostility.


On Dec 19 11:48 AM Niner wrote:

> My initial opinion is that the majority of you are ultra conservative
> assholes. But then I could be wrong.
>
> You guys just don't understand because you have never been there.

Not a single bear in Barron's 2010 survey. (via Roger Nusbaum, whose 2010 S&P target is 1,000)

Amazing isn't it?

When the world is ending and the S & P 500 was below 700, all the pros yell: sell sell sell, and the financial media says its the end of the world.

Now the market is up 60% from the "bottom" and its buy buy buy till the cows come home.

If only mom and pop America could learn the real truth.

compdivplan.com

More signs of housing confidence, as lenders are easing down-payment standards for some applicants, who can borrow 95% of a home's value instead of 90%. Changes are happening on a market-by-market basis, but indicate some companies think the worst is over for price declines.

Michael:
I agree. The average American should be "forced" to put down no less than 20% of the down payment and be able to fully document all income and assets.

It is the same joke, and it is done to make a select few wealthy in the short term while hurting the country in the long term. The really sad part of it is: most Americans just do not give a damn. As long as they have their reality TV shows, their I-Phones and all their apps, they sleep soundly at night.

There will clearly be winners and losers in the coming decades with most Americans on the losing end sitting around and wondering out loud where everything went wrong. It just boils down to stupid, lazy people.

The FDIC celebrates the last business-as-usual Friday of the year by announcing a total of seven bank failures, bringing the year's total to a nice round 140. Banks were closed in California (2), Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Alabama and Illinois. Total assets of the seven banks were $14.4B. Estimated cost to FDIC: $1.8B.

Kick the can down the road, doo dah, doo dah.

That will probably win song of the year.

USA still thick in denial on all fronts. All debts have been magically pushed down the road, all bank balance sheets are considered improving or healthy thanks to mark to market being abolished.
Amazing.

Hovnanian (HOV): FQ4 EPS of -$3.21 misses by $1.81. Revenue of $437M (-39%) vs. $454M. Shares -9% AH. (PR)

Misses by $1.81. Oh wait, and revenue falls another 39%.
But don't worry, housing is getting better.

Yeah. Wonder why the FED refuses to raise rates as well.

Dubai Supreme Fiscal Committee Chairman: "We are here today to reassure investors, financial and trade creditors, employees, and our citizens that our government will act at all times in accordance with market principles and internationally accepted business practices. Dubai is, and will continue to be, a strong and vibrant global financial center. Our best days are yet to come."

Translation:

Just like the US and other countries around the world, we will step in and bail out those who are completely irresponsible at the expense of those who are either to afraid or to stupid to stand up to such recklessness.
We will worry about the consequences of our actions at a later date, where those involved at the present time, will in the future, be safely living on their own private island, away from all the misery and heartache certain to be shouldered by the average citizen.

California cut pay by 18% today for lawmakers and elected officials for the first time since establishing a full-time legislature more than 40 years ago. The cuts reach from top to bottom, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't taken a salary since taking office.

If anything this should be a "warning" of things to come especially in New York where i live.

All forms of state government, police unions, teacher unions, civil servants, town workers, et al had better have a plan in place to deal with the coming problems.

There seems to be this consensus among the entitlement worker crowd that "benefits will never be cut, or my pension will always be there for me" because the taxpayer will just keep on a payin'.

Guess what, when there is no more gold to be dug and the taxpayers have been squeezed to the point that they can't be squeezed anymore, all bets are off.

A lot of people are going to be shocked when "guaranteed" pensions are no longer guaranteed. Or when health insurance deducted from paychecks goes from 10% to 50%.

Glad I learned this all from being self employed for many years. Being self made and self reliant atleast prepares you and you are not completely at the mercy of others.

An early look ahead at what you should be doing with your money in 2010, through questions and answers with a panel of six investment advisers.

I had read this article during my usual hard copy reading of the WSJ every morning.

Conclusion: They are all just the usual pack of "salespeople" who have no idea how to protect a person's money during bear markets.

Ignore this article and the views in it. Once you understand how to manage your own money, how Wall Street and the financial media really work, you will always make more money managing your investments yourself.

compdivplan.com

A quarter of U.S. households don't have access to full banking services, while nine million of those households have no checking or savings at all, the FDIC says in a new report (.pdf). Those households - which depend on payday loans or other "problem" alternative services - face more loss and theft, and struggle for financial security, the agency says.

The real issue is that 9 million households are essentially one paycheck away from bankruptcy. That is the real issue.

If these 9 million households have no checking or saving accounts then they certainly have no investment accounts either or any other forms of net worth.

9 million households = bankrupt.

It all adds up to more green shoots I guess.

Food stamps, rebranded as "nutritional aid," now help feed one in four U.S. children, and one in eight adults - even as welfare rolls have stayed virtually flat.

It's pretty sad isn't it? But one has to think to themselves :"Why the spin or rationalizations or name changes?"

Simple.

The powers that be are doing everything they can to settle Americans into a new mindset. A mindset of "This is the new, accepted norm of the country."

Remember, the top 10% of this country controls 90% of it's net worth, and by all accounts it is getting worse.

Who is to blame? It seems everybody I guess. Gov't is in collusion with Wall Street and the financial media. Our citizens seem to accept this as normal now, even as the nation's largest employer Wal-Mart doles out an average of $9 / hour wage. Who lives on that? Adults living on $9 / hour in the US?

And then there are the White House dinner party crashers. These supposedly "wealthy" individuals who are in line to appear on the next "Real Housewives of Washington", yet they crash a White House dinner so they get recognized?
In my business I have met and known many "real" wealthy people. Net worths ranging from 2 million to 800 million. If there is one thing I know about the "true" wealthy: They have no interest in flying above the radar and want to keep their lives private. Again, these reality shows are just another symptom of a much larger cultural disease this country is suffering from.
(How did everyone just like that off topic rant? Sorry folks)

Getting back to unemployment and food stamps (I call it for what it is- nutritional aid? What a joke.) I wonder how far all this will go before people wake up and stop accepting these things as the new norm?

In an op-ed this weekend, Ben Bernanke worries about leading proposals in the Senate that would strip the Fed of its powers: "These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the U.S."

Translation of Bernanke speak on this matter:

If you mess with the Fed, we are going to use our partner banks (GS, MS, BAC, C, et al) to tank the market and then blame it on a loss of confidence in the market and system.

Anyone who thinks this is not how it is going to work needs to wake up now.

The inspectors general of the Fed and Treasury criticized both agencies for being too slow to prevent risky lending at U.S. banks that were brought down by real-estate losses and other problems. Ten of the 12 bank-collapse reviews (I, II) released by inspectors this year fault oversight weaknesses including failure to limit excessive concentration in commercial real-estate loans.

Oh my God really? They just figured this out now?
Wow, glad to see these people are on the ball giving us timely information.

I mean really you just can't make this sort of stuff up. To comical.

Signs of Extreme Complacency in the Market

Mr Gould.

As an individual investor who has money in markets around the world, (and I am not wealthy enough at all to just assume everything will be ok either) I make it my business to know exactly what markets and news are around the world regardless of holidays.

As papaswamp said, Europe got poleaxed yesterday for 3%. You have to cut down on the early Turkey dinner. It must have knocked you out early in the day yesterday.


On Nov 27 05:19 AM Denis Gould wrote:

> It is amazing that European stocks are barely changed on the Dubai
> news. Maybe it does reflect a generalised belief in "the recovery",
> or extreme complacency as you put it.
>
> Accumulating bad news plus complacency is a truly horrifying combination.

U.S. stock futures, which stopped trading at 11:30 a.m. and will resume at 6:00 p.m. (schedule (.pdf)), reflect the overseas carnage. Dow -1.7% to 10261. S&P -2.2% to 1085. Nasdaq -2.5%.

<<Hubris Archman Hubris Archman....looks like credit is important to you....Blah Blah Blah....>>

It really upsets you or even scares you when someone like me is out there, telling the truth and not rationalizing everything in the hopes that it will be ok doesn't it?

Like I have said before, I do not post on SA looking for friends, nor admiration. Anyone at anytime is free to "un-follow" me. I let the Facebook losers pretend that they are important while they post their updates about how tired they are, etc.

I could care less about "credit" but if you are going to make it an issue that I think the S & P 500 is at some point going to revert to its 25 year continuation trend line of 750, then you personally should be able to stand up and give me the credit i deserve should that happen. If you are not man enough to do so, then why bring it up? It works both ways my friend. At least I am not afraid to stand up and make a statement VS many others who just cheerlead an obviously FED induced stock market.

What is most sad, is that I have seen this all before, so many times. The denial is so thick and the thought of the market not going up everyday scares you doesn't it?

My guess is you lost a boatload of whatever portfolio you might have had from 2007-2009, and more than likely is a repeat of what you lost from 2000-2003 so seeing a guy like me, telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear brings you down.

I can tell from all your other comments on SA. its bull market , bull market , bull market, 24/7 and everything is ok now right?.
You must need stocks to keep going up pretty badly i guess.

Doesn't matter to me. You seem to think it's about being right or something. It's not. I'm just a guy who learned long ago how to really invest, and I expose Wall Street, the financial media, and all their buddies for what they really are.

Don't worry Bbro, you can still sleep at night for now. The Fed is going to make sure nothing derails this market rally for their partner banks, even as Rome burns. To me its all about 10 year investing time frames.

What's comical is that I fully participated in this run up by adding to my "long term core positions" and buying some "trading only positions" when the S & P was around 700, and yet the critics love to assume that people like me didn't participate in the run up simply because we know exactly what is going on and tell it like it is. I still have all my long term core positions and have pretty much taken all the gains in my trading positions, which probably contradicts the thoughts of many who might think I am short the market big time or something. I love that.

Like i said before, the average American's net worth is at 1999 levels, assuming they have any left anyway. Mine is exactly where it should be at 2009 levels. You seem to think this is hubris. That's to bad, for anything I post here is not meant to hurt people, it is meant to help people and wake them up from the constant stream of lies they are fed by those who only want to take their wealth from them.

U.S. stock futures, which stopped trading at 11:30 a.m. and will resume at 6:00 p.m. (schedule (.pdf)), reflect the overseas carnage. Dow -1.7% to 10261. S&P -2.2% to 1085. Nasdaq -2.5%.

<<Archman always writes too much...remember archman believes in
S&P 500 at 750.>>

I wonder.
When the S & P does revert to its 25 year uptrend of 750 will I at least be given the credit for being right?
I doubt it.
When I say to people "Buy stocks when no one wants them, when CNBC is yelling sell sell sell, and the criminal asset gathers are telling people to sell sell sell at S & P 750, will everyone else be standing there like a deer in the headlights like last March, or will they be buying new positions or adding to existing long term positions like I did last March??

I see so much denial out there, so much hoping and praying out there. I have never seen so many people who desperately "need" stocks to go up.

I thought the losses from 2007-2009 were bad for most people. But it is obvious that a lot of people truly like pain and enjoy walking in front of an oncoming train.

I always say: "things take time to occur" and this time is no different. The FED can keep this charade going for only so long, and once it stops its lights out. Then we can finally fix all the real structural problems we have in this economy that many many people are in complete denial of.