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The accompanying table presents an updated calendar of expected FDA decisions along with the trailing 52-week stock price change for each company. In addition to higher volatility, the companies with pending FDA decisions tend to perform worse as a group compared to benchmark ETFs in the past two years that I have tracked this index – making the index an ideal candidate for a new short ETF to provide investors with inverse exposure to this underperformance.

World stock markets seem to indicate the coming collapse of the global economy.  Credit is unavailable to individuals, companies and nations.  Commodities of all types are plunging.  Deflation appears to be inevitable, yet gold prices remain near their all-time highs from earlier this year. 

Why does gold trade at $850-$900 when it should trade below $600?  Old-school economic thinking.

General Electric Co. (GE) may well project the image that the risk emanating from lower earnings has been substantively offset by heavy capital infusions, including a $3 billion package from Warren Buffett. However, GE today is one of the most shorted stocks in the marketplace; three-month put options at $17.50 and $15 respectively are highly recommended.

For many weeks now, analysts have been warning that the financial-services unit of GE is being pressured by the crisis in mortgage debt. But GE remains a barometer of the global economy, due to its involvement in nearly 100 countries in businesses ranging from light bulbs to aircraft engines, from commercial real estate to infrastructure. Therefore, what GE really needs to do is publicly disclose the extent to which the dramatically changed international investment climate has impacted the valuations of various components of the GE business model.

So, the S&P 500 (SPY) is down over 40% from a year ago. All the talking heads on CNBC have their stories on what to do now. Scary times for sure, but what is the perspective that historical data suggest? Is it time to jump back in or do we have much further to fall? Should we go long on SPY, or short it?

The housing bubble has burst and we all buy into the idea that there’s another 10-25% to fall. Prof. Robert Shiller of Yale University has published historical data going back to 1890 (below) that shows a small variation in inflation adjusted home prices over 100+ years prior to 1995.  Variations in fundamentals like interest rates, population and building costs have no correlation to the tremendous ramp up in housing prices after 1995. Common thinking held that real estate always went up has been broken. The real estate tipping point is behind us.

Henderson Group (HNDGF.PK) issued a surprise profit warning yesterday, as shares closed 16.75p lower.

The group. who manage investment products for institutional and retail investors said:

I am a hard core Chipotle (CMG) fan, let's get that straight right off the bat. I was eating at its first store on Evans Ave. here in Denver within their first year of opening (my girlfriend-now wife turned me on to the place). In fact I blame them for adding about 2 inches to my waistline! I took a lot of my friends there, they liked it and likewise have been hooked on those fabulous burritos.

I watched the chain grow by leaps and bounds and followed closely as it partnered with McDonalds (MCD) and later went public. I bought within in the first week of trading and subsequently added to my position in the next few weeks. I rode that stock to an incredible profit. However when I saw food costs rising and the subsequent price increases at their restaurants, I got out. Chipotle used to offer a great value with those $5 burritos, but when the prices started to head above $6 I sensed it'd lose a bit of momentum.

I’ll never understand why, back in August and September, so many people were buying the home improvement retailers. They bought enough shares to pump the price up into the mid-20s. As far as I can see, the retail business is going to be very difficult over the coming few years, and of all the retailers, the home improvement giants, Lowe's (LOW) and Home Depot (HD), will be among the most severely stressed. 

The discount do-it-yourself home improvement stores saw a booming business during the housing bubble. People were buying homes, for themselves and for investment, and they needed all sorts of things to equip those homes. 

As you can see from this graph of Accor's (ACRFF.PK) Market Cap out on loan (%MCOL), short interest in the U.S. hotel group has increased by nearly 100% over the past three months; from 8% in early July to 15.3% as of close of business on Monday. Utilisation is at 36.7% and there are 16.1 Days to Cover. Accor plans to triple the number of hotels in China by 2010. The hotel giant will invest 2.5bn Euros (U.S. $3.4bn worldwide - 24% of which will be injected into China.

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The global slowdown is here to stay and the best way to play it is with oil (USO) puts.  One could argue that even without a global slowdown oil puts would be a great investment (as in here); with the global slowdown, this one’s a no brainer.  Crude oil prices reached a bubble high of $147 in July after a seven year climb.  With current prices hovering between $90-$100 a barrel, this commodity has a long ways to fall.  There are various ways to play the global slowdown (for other ideas check out our investment newsletter at www.lonepeakportfolios.com) but this one trumps them all.

Earlier this week the Chinese government said they have more than enough gasoline stockpiles because of the dramatic slowdown in their economy.  As a result, they won’t be importing any refined gasoline for the second month in a row.  This announcement comes on the heels of consistent United States demand destruction throughout the summer months.  Bad news for oil bulls.  It all comes at a time when oil exploration rigs are booked out for years to come and alternative energy sources like natural gas, nuclear power, wind, coal, etc... are about to be implemented in a major way by the next US President.

Michael Page International (MPGPF.PK), the U.K.'s second-largest recruitment company, dropped the most in three weeks today, after saying third-quarter profit in its home market declined and weakness in the financial sector has spread to other industries. The company gives its third-quarter update today. This is the first reporting bid since the company turned down a tentative £1.3bn bid from Adecco (AHEXF.PK) which was eventually pulled on September 16. Operating profit grew 11%, but MPI's share price has tumbled by 37% since August.

Short interest in MPI peaked on July 21 2008, when the company had 19.29% of its Market Cap out on loan (%MCOL). Since then there has been a significant amount of short covering - down to 12% on August 19, and eventually to 6.8% as of close of business on Thursday, the latest available data. Adecco has 7.7% MCOL, down from 11% in May, and Hays (HAYPF.PK) has 2%, down from 4% in August.

Conventional logic says 'sin stocks' often do well in a depressed economy as people increasing look to drown-out their woes. Still, Barron's remains unconvinced gambling stocks are a good bet - due largely to their 70%+ debt-to-capital loads.

The downward spiral of de-leveraging appears to be gathering pace. Now shares in insurance companies are tumbling. Mutual funds experienced a record exodus in September. And tremors are rippling through the hedge fund world, most visibly in the rising wave of lockdowns, redemptions, and predatory behavior (hedge funds shorting the positions of their weaker brethren).

While the credit storm batters the worldwide markets, M/I Homes' common shares (MHO) have been a floating fortress.  An island of strength in a sea of uncertainty.  What makes this situation more bizarre is their sinking cash position.  As of their June filing, their cash on hand was $2M while long term debt stood at $274M. 

Year to date, the common is up 115%; while the preferred (MHO-A) is essentially flat and trading at about one-half its redemption value.  Their bonds (55305BAC5) are also trading at a 20% discount to par and 13% lower than their first print in January.  

Well, no one can say the market isn't exciting these days. And I'm not just referring to the US market; the action is global.

The Euro fell 2.5% against the US dollar on Tuesday, marking the largest single day decline against the dollar the currency had since its inception. A great day for those who shorted ERO, the ETF that tracks the EURUSD exchange rate.

Will someone please talk me down off the ledge with respect to Wells Fargo (WFC)? I don't understand why the bank is being treated with kid gloves through the current credit crisis. Yes, it is better capitalized than its failed mortgage drug-dealers, and yes, it didn't have as much exposure to some of the more deranged crap, like Option ARMs. And that's good.

But consider the issues. I have been spending an inordinate amount of time examining Wells' origination geographies, the $24-billion in mortgage-related Level 3 assets, the historically low loan loss provisions, the construction loan portfolio, the exposure to a weakening consumer economy, etc. I just don't understand why so many people are seemingly so sanguine about WFC. Granted, issues there will happen in a different way and at a different speed, but that's not the same thing as saying that the company is adequately provisioned for problems ahead.

The ProShares UltraShort Financial ETF (SKF) had a big day Monday as the market plunged. The ETF didn't do a bad job of tracking the double inverse of its underlying index, the Dow Jones U.S. Financials Index.

It is appropriate to contrast the performance of SKF with the performance of IYF, the iShares Financial ETF, which also uses the DJ Financials index as its underlying. Monday IYF fell more than 9% and SKF gained less than 19%. The two ETFs seemed to track each other pretty well.

DST Systems (DST) provides information processing and computer software services and products to the financial services industry. DST also operates two healthcare processing businesses collectively under the name DST Health Solutions ("DSTHS").The company was founded in 1968 and is based in Kansas City, MO.

DST maintains a substantial investment portfolio constituting over 50% of total assets and is almost 3 times total stockholders equity. As of June 30, 2008 this protfolio was valued at $1,740,900,000. Approximately $1,016,900,000 was accounted for by 3 companies that are publicly traded, State Street Corporation (STT), Computershare (CMSQY.PK) and Euronet Worldwide (EEFT). Based on this past week's prices, and with only a few days to go until the end of the company's third quarter, it looks as if DST will face further writedowns in this portfolio to a carrying value of $889,000,000. Taken alone and not accounting for the other $726,000,000 of investments in its portfolio, this could result in a hit to stockholders equity of $127,900,000.

Fortis (FORSY) was thrown an 11bn EURO (£8.8bn) lifeline last night as the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments combined to inject capital into the embattled banking and insurance group in a last-ditch effort to shore up confidence among savers (Source: FT). The group, a giant of the Belgian and Dutch financial landscape, had become the latest focus of investor fears about the stability of the industry after ructions on Wall Street.

From the graph below, documenting Fortis' Market Cap out on loan (%MCOL) to short investors, you can see that short interest has risen in the bank, but is still extremely low at 2.5%. However, Utilisation is at 49.5%, which means it is fairly difficult to borrow the stock.

This discussion will suggest that KBH is significantly overvalued considering the housing market has yet to trough and KBH will likely suffer meaningful, additional deterioration in tangible book value over the coming few quarters.

Shares of International Game Technology (IGT) have rallied 9% from their 52-week low struck on the 23^rd of September and present a good opportunity to short the stock. The stock again rallied 10.2% on Friday on a Goldman Sachs analyst opinion of increased sales in the next quarter.

Fundamentals