Is This The Market Top? How To Best Position For A Sell-Off [View article]
It is very hard for most people to be market short. But taking some short positions as a hedge is not a bad policy anytime besides a market bottom (When most want to hedge. Funny how that is).
Lessons From Earnings Season And The Dog That Did Not Bark [View article]
The market is being propped up by people having nowhere else to get a decent return on their money and even some is now slopping into real estate again. That is a sign that the Feds low interest QE policy is working. Gamble, gamble with your money to get poor returns and then loose on the next downside which is most likely very near.
The End Of The Consumer? What The Long-Term Decline Of Consumption Means For Investors [View article]
It is natural that stocks that offer dividends or grow consistently increase in value as bond rates drop due to artificial means by the Federal Reserve. Given the low rates even weak stocks look good in terms of generating income as interest rates get floored. There is a giant transfer of wealth going from those who have assets and now can't generate interest and income to those who print money and give it out to themselves at zero interest and charge miniscule rates for the free money they get (the Federal Reserve and their TBTF bank cronies that run it).
Threats To The AT&T And Verizon Duopoly [View article]
In the end there is no reason to have a "phone" at all. Internet voice is much easier than half the image based junk you get on your phone already. WiFi providers should roll out en mass and make carriers obsolete.
I opined for WiMax but in the end the market downturn destroyed the fledgling concept of low cost publically provided WiMax throughout the nation.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
On top of that that is just the ore which is RE oxides along with other stuff (and that's just estimated). Do you know how many tons of earth must be moved to reach the given ore... tons more.
As for China, Molycorp has operations there too and buys ore from Russia and still can't meet its production target. It also has been fined for leaking wastewater into the ground already.
Sadly Molycorp does not disclose the total tonnage of earth and ore mined to get its production and it is strange that they mix production in with Chinese and Russian ore so you can't tell exactly what grade or content their own mining produces alone. Also all their percent of RE in their mined material is estimates no actual figures even though they've been operating for quite a while. If it was a gold silver or copper mining company they would have been sued by now (they have been by the way).
I'm still waiting for the facts. But generally speaking you get a few ounces of good sellable purified RE product per ton of earth mined. I'm waiting for Moly to show its tons of earth to RE production.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
RE makers are all trying to make more of the downstream product because there is more supply than demand. That is why China is trying to artificially limit the supply going out and pushing it to go out as component level product. Secondary, the proposal to make America a place where mining results in environmental catastrophe as well is not a good idea either.
Sooner or later Moly will run into the wrong side of environmental regulators and or their neighbors. There's not a big enough hole to dump all their processed waste (esp. the water and if they evaporate it all the energy cost is absurd). Water dumped in a big hole tends to seep into one water table or another along with heavy metals, etc. Last I read even Molycorp states the environmental risks in their reporting. It doesn't help that for a long time it was hard pressed to get the technical experts with even an inkling of real world RE processing to join them. I certainly wouldn't since they will be the first to blame in such an incident (can you say patsy).
Moly is a great story but the particulars under the story are very ugly.
Good long term call. The issue is with a thinly traded stock bankers can push it up on an up market just to exit it which is probably happening now. This is a good stock to bet against when the market falls but so is 75% of the market.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
"I expect additional operating losses, negative cash outflows and asset write-offs during Molycorp's earnings release." good call. For years now I've been saying RE mining in the US is insane. You have to process tons of ore and dump it somewhere. That means the best place to mine is somewhere no one cares about water contamination (mainly China these days). That's why RE mining stopped in the US for decades and probably shouldn't have restarted.
Molycorp in my mind is a scammy way of suckering in people to pay rich salaries to the founders on something they know will never be profitable unless they can scare the government into adding them into the government tax dole by scaring them into thinking third world countries own all the RE in the world. There is RE everywhere. RE means that it is a small percent of total earth mined not that it is located in only a few places like gold. That means tons of ore processed just to get a few ounces of the stuff.
Barron's Takes Another Swipe At Linn Energy [View article]
Personally, I'd be unsettled by using a distribution system who buys out the producers of what it distributes with the profits and capital it raises. That's what Rockefeller did. It means inevitably you will sell out to them or get screwed in the future. If I was an oil producer I'd never use their system unless I absolutely had to.
Last, if their distribution system was so great they wouldn't need to buy oil production to fill their pipeline. Barron's may not be right but there is good reason the be suspicious.
Taking Profits On First Solar As 'Promises, Promises' Begins To Be The New Theme [View article]
Demand for better efficiency in solar panels will make the solar industry tough for some time. First solar has quite a ways to go to make their solar efficiency noteworthy. Fortunately they are large or they'd be dead already. I think their best bet is to have enough cash to buy any new technology or get supply from it because their R&D is pretty sad.
Billionaire John Paulson's Long-Term Stock Picks [View article]
Ughh, MGM and BAC. I guess his gold position looks better than the rest of his portfolio long term. It seems like his call on betting against clients in the mortgage business (with arguably inside information) was his only brilliant idea. Unless he finds another way to commit legal fraud I think his performance days are numbered.
When a fund manager gets in bed with TBTF institutions to gain the favor of the Federal Reserve and gain the benefit from public backstopping etc. I loose all trust in such managers. That goes for Buffet as well. If you can't make money on a fair playing field just get out of the fund business and by privately so no one else can see your shameful behavior.
How Safe Are Silver Wheaton's Silver Streams? [View article]
As silver gold and copper prices fall mining decreases. Since SLW is dependent on silver streams and doesn't control the amount mined weakening gold prices encourage less production and lower silver production. On top of that they get less money from the silver they sell. Last their prices they pay are usually fixed so their margins get squeezed too. All three of these negative factors come into play in a downturn. This is why SLW should probably fall more than it has already.
On SLW's side, their management actually seems to run to make profit per share rather than just up the dole to friends and themselves as silver prices rose. Even then their overhead costs have rises substantially for no justifiable reason the last 3 years when silver prices rose. I doubt they will curtail these expenses.
Google Cannot Penetrate Vringo's 7th Amendment Armor [View article]
I disagree with the 7th amendment issue. Clearly a jury verdict and the awards are much different. You can win a case and the finding can be your rewards are $0. Likewise often jury verdicts with awards are overturned and the awards nerfed or rejected.
How To Identify Market Distortions Caused By The Fed [View article]
Strangely in QE both can be overvalued. QE has nothing to do with capitalism and the normal functioning of economics or the economic cycle because it replaces the cyclical business cycle with a government/central bank managed system much like communism. If you're in the know you make $ if not you're stuck in an everlasting doldrums market with a few market perks from artificial money creation.
Is This The Market Top? How To Best Position For A Sell-Off [View article]
Lessons From Earnings Season And The Dog That Did Not Bark [View article]
The End Of The Consumer? What The Long-Term Decline Of Consumption Means For Investors [View article]
Americans need to see the farce for what it is.
Threats To The AT&T And Verizon Duopoly [View article]
I opined for WiMax but in the end the market downturn destroyed the fledgling concept of low cost publically provided WiMax throughout the nation.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
As for China, Molycorp has operations there too and buys ore from Russia and still can't meet its production target. It also has been fined for leaking wastewater into the ground already.
Sadly Molycorp does not disclose the total tonnage of earth and ore mined to get its production and it is strange that they mix production in with Chinese and Russian ore so you can't tell exactly what grade or content their own mining produces alone. Also all their percent of RE in their mined material is estimates no actual figures even though they've been operating for quite a while. If it was a gold silver or copper mining company they would have been sued by now (they have been by the way).
I'm still waiting for the facts. But generally speaking you get a few ounces of good sellable purified RE product per ton of earth mined. I'm waiting for Moly to show its tons of earth to RE production.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
Sooner or later Moly will run into the wrong side of environmental regulators and or their neighbors. There's not a big enough hole to dump all their processed waste (esp. the water and if they evaporate it all the energy cost is absurd). Water dumped in a big hole tends to seep into one water table or another along with heavy metals, etc. Last I read even Molycorp states the environmental risks in their reporting. It doesn't help that for a long time it was hard pressed to get the technical experts with even an inkling of real world RE processing to join them. I certainly wouldn't since they will be the first to blame in such an incident (can you say patsy).
Moly is a great story but the particulars under the story are very ugly.
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
Akram's Razor: Short CommVault Now [View article]
Molycorp Earnings Preview: What To Look For [View article]
Molycorp in my mind is a scammy way of suckering in people to pay rich salaries to the founders on something they know will never be profitable unless they can scare the government into adding them into the government tax dole by scaring them into thinking third world countries own all the RE in the world. There is RE everywhere. RE means that it is a small percent of total earth mined not that it is located in only a few places like gold. That means tons of ore processed just to get a few ounces of the stuff.
Barron's Takes Another Swipe At Linn Energy [View article]
Last, if their distribution system was so great they wouldn't need to buy oil production to fill their pipeline. Barron's may not be right but there is good reason the be suspicious.
Taking Profits On First Solar As 'Promises, Promises' Begins To Be The New Theme [View article]
Billionaire John Paulson's Long-Term Stock Picks [View article]
When a fund manager gets in bed with TBTF institutions to gain the favor of the Federal Reserve and gain the benefit from public backstopping etc. I loose all trust in such managers. That goes for Buffet as well. If you can't make money on a fair playing field just get out of the fund business and by privately so no one else can see your shameful behavior.
How Safe Are Silver Wheaton's Silver Streams? [View article]
On SLW's side, their management actually seems to run to make profit per share rather than just up the dole to friends and themselves as silver prices rose. Even then their overhead costs have rises substantially for no justifiable reason the last 3 years when silver prices rose. I doubt they will curtail these expenses.
Google Cannot Penetrate Vringo's 7th Amendment Armor [View article]
How To Identify Market Distortions Caused By The Fed [View article]