Lockstep Investing

Silver Prices Likely to Hit New Highs in 2010

Good write up. I am not a metals guy so I will look for responses from some people who have more details on this.

Q4 Outlook: Real Life Stress Tests Begin

Woops! I hope it was a small position. It sounds like you did not hedge it at all.

Copper ETFs Are Shining: Will It Last?

Not one of the tickers you list are a true Copper ETF.

Cramer's Mad Money - Paul Krugman Is Wrong (8/10/09)

Yes, because at that time Cramer was right, you had to sell AA and C considering the data available.

What makes me sick is how many people lose sight of what kind of trader Cramer is. He is a momentum trader plain and simple. He will never understand financials, that is why he recommended Countrywide so many times on the way down. But he is a great market movement reader and has a great nose for a bull run. That is how he made his money over the years. Just take the good parts of him and don't listen to his blind spot areas. Or just short anything he is long about for financial reasons.


On Aug 11 09:44 AM Novice Trader wrote:

> Another example of why I ge frustrated with Cramer... not 1 or 2
> months ago, a caller asked about WEN and he responded with a strong
> sell.... Same with AA and C.

Buying Some Gafisa on a Share Offering

Hillarious post. China's credit splurge is easy to make fun of.

Bristol-Myers Gets Its Antibody Deal at Last

Good article. More people need to perform indepth research like this.

JPMorgan: Counting Bailout Money as Profit

Apparently Congress has the same concerns that I have...

www.nytimes.com/2009/0...

"Tens of billions of those dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners, shielding them from losses. The Fed has refused to provide the names of those financial institutions, and senator after senator, Democrat and Republican, said that was an outrage."

I wonder what these congressmen would say if they found out it was the company they lauded so much as the "prudent navigator". Horsepucky to that!!!

What to Buy: Debt

Good article. I definitely think there is upside in corporate debt, but only in specific non-cyclical industries.

seekingalpha.com/artic...

E*TRADE Financial: It Was Good to Be Long

My friend, you are an idiot. Buying AIG because you think the sum of the parts = $10 when they admit they have $500B in unhedged credit default swap exposure is really short sighted.

It does not matter if the company is worth $1T, if you don't have at least $250B in cash laying around as a company to meet the CDS collateral requirements, you are toast. That is what is happening to AIG. If you did not know that in Sept or now, you are investing with like a driver with their eyes closed.

Buy index funds and don't complain about how much social security pays.

HSBC: Interesting Options Activity, Proceed with Caution

Good observations. I am looking for an update on your assessment on HBC and the future prospects.

Rating the Top 12 U.S. Banks - From Hidden Gems to Zombies

Martin, on Wells Fargo you miss the California exposure and the Wachovia (Golden West) exposure. That alone pushes that bank into walking wounded status.

On JPM you fail to mention that they are the biggest CDS broker in the market. Counterparty risk anyone? They are a zombie in their own right. They know if a crisis happens the only thing that can save them is government intervention. That is why the Fed gave them Bear Sterns to begin with, it is better to have all the counterparty risk in one spot so it is identifiable and manageable, rather than spread across market players.

Overall, good summary.

Ford a Likely Survivor of the Auto Industry Crisis

There is absolutely no analysis in this article that I could not get from NBC Nightly News. Give me numbers, give me cashflow analysis on a company with debt out it's ears and rated as junk, give me a look into product line that will drive growth through the downturn, give me insight into how they can turn the unions contracts into competitive advantages, or something. Instead, you gave me nothing.

Don't Short the Fed Yet

Many of the comments to the article restate that our debt numbers are recordbreaking and that money will flee for one thing or another.

What I am talking about is reiterated by mkreisel, this is about relative strength of the US economy. When Japan is declining at a 13% annualized rate, there is no need to worry about global inflation. Look at the Moody's report today discussing how the Eastern Europe foreign denominated debt will bring about major defaults for Eastern European countries and major Western European banks. China does not have reliable statistics to report the forward situation, but I am sure we will see symptoms of the problems festering there soon. But they still need to invest their account surplus. Seeing this, is the US really so bad off? No. Many nations need to invest their account surplus and there has been marked decrease in the securities marked "AAA" in the world. (Is that the understatement of the year right there?). That is why a 100% increase in US debt issued per year is not a crisis inducing phenomenon in the short term.

I appreciate all the comments and feedback.

Crocodile Investors Smile at Bank of America

Transparency: On Dec 24th I closed the BAC-PJ position at 17.40/share.

The reason for closing the BAC-PJ position is the poor leadership decisions of Ken Lewis, CEO of B of A. The recent acquisitions of Countrywide, a defunct mortgage originator, and Merrill Lynch, an asset manager with an unknown quantity of toxic assets on their balance sheet, are questionable at best. Due to the unquantifiable risk and need for capital to sustain this new financial conglomerate, I see preferred shares as at risk for being seriously being diluted. Thus I am closing my position with a small gain and moving on.

Implications of the Fed's Purchase of Treasuries

Horrible article. If you are just going to parrot Peter Schiff, then just let him write the articles. No new thoughts in this article at all.