fxtrader07

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    • Wed Jul 30th 03:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Legg Mason: Quintessential Bear Market Value Play
      Hidden in the financials' bear market is that the business model of mutual fund companies is severely under pressure - even if the stock bull returned tomorrow. Chances are, that you buy into a sinking ship that is beyond repair. reputation is the most valuable asset for an asset manager. Bill Miller earned a lot of it and that was a major reason for LM's rise. Now that everybody has discovered that Miler was just plain lucky and otherwise is as bnad a fund manager and money manager and risk manager as it gets, that reputation works in reverse. LM will for years be associated with the most breathtaking negative reversal of a fund manager's firunes of the past 5 decades. As najdorf correctly püointed out: why should anyone buy a LM- fund?
      They will not go completely out of business anytime soon, granted. But profits will not rise to their prior levels anytime soon. chances are, they never will again. buyers beware
      View article »
    • Wed Jul 30th 03:49 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sell Boardwalk, Buy Waterworks
      'Sell Boardwalk, Buy Waterworks' - that's the title.
      But no mentioning of either stock in the whole article. But then again, I might not have read carefully enough between the lines?
      useless article and a waste of time
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 12:13 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Mechel Should Bounce on Russian Deputy P.M.'s Comments
      you must be long that you interpret the deputy pm that way. read again:
      'I consider this a most unlikely scenario. Under probability theory we can't exclude anything, but if I had the option, I would rule it out. The most likely scenario is that the company will co-operate with the state authorities'

      In short, the guy said that Mechel either does what Putin wants or it goes the yukos way. he made it clear that he cannot rule out a yukos-like scenario, because he is not the one deciding about it, ultimately.
      now, what does putin want? hard to say but to me the most likely scenario is that he will strip mechel off its coal assets and give those to gazprom. the timing of the move was superb - right before the planned private placement of preferred shares. imho, mechel will be forced to give away the coal assets essentially for nothing. or else, they will get yukosed.
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 11:59 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Failure of John Thain
      Great article. Spot on. And Thain got 10 million ro so just for signing the employment contract - in addition to wages and bonuses. WTF
      never ever be a shareholder of a wallstreet house. you may have some good years but ultimately you will pay heavily for it.
      these deals by meríll look so desperate you cannot but aks yourself whether this was the last desperate effort to keep the ship from sinking further. to me, mer looks more likely to be the next bear stearns than any other wallstreet house
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 03:57 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Bulls Grazing in the Corn Field
      'Since June, many ethanol plants have been profitable and the recent decline in corn prices has enhanced the profitability of the plants.'
      you mean, with the hude subsidies paid for by the ordinary citizen?
      T Boone Pickens may have made a ton of money, but even billionaires can say pretty stupid things. and the quote you cited from him is such a very stupid thing. ethanol from corn only transforms energy and needs vast resources (corn, fertilizer, acreage, water, money(subsidies)). net-net you get no more energy out than you put into the process - a giant scheme of wasting money and resources. Ethanol is not an ugly baby - it is a dead-born child. it needs to be buried and put to rest asap.
      and trhen, btw. will you be able to observe how much of the corn price increase was really attributablöe to the ethanol nonsense. my take is, it was more than 40%.
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 03:41 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Yes, Financial Companies Can Be Analyzed
      valid points, tom, and yet: when graham wrote his book and when buffet bought wfc there was not that huge amount of derivatives, many of which are so complex, they are almost impossible to understand, analyze and value. There were not the 'financial innovation' of off-balance-sheet items. there were not these many incentives for bank managers to take on stupidly high risks and to hide the truth from investors' eyes. I agree, it is still possible to analyze and to value banks. But i think, the room for error has become so large, that a very high margin of safety would be required to suifficiently compensate for it. I don't think that this margin is there-yet.
      View article »
    • Tue Jul 29th 02:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How to Buy Alternative Energy for Free
      Looking at the history of this etf it has a negative return excluding distríbutions since 1993 and only a slightly positive (about 2-3% p.a.) including them.
      What disturbs me here - and most likely is the major reason for this mediocre performance is the HUGE annual management fee of an outright obscene 5.48%. yes you read that right. management of the fund pays itself a hefty 5.48% every year. (That even makes the ridiculous 2/20 fee structure of many hedgefunds look like a bargain.)
      As I see it, it's a vehicle purely designed to enrich the fund management company. Buyers beware.
      View article »
    • Mon Jul 28th 03:42 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Equus Total Return: A Solar Inverter Play for Free!
      interesting idea.
      However, looking at the history of this etf it has a negative return excluding distríbutions since 1993 and only a slightly positive (about 2-3% p.a.) including them.
      What disturbs me here - and most likely is the major reason for this mediocre performance is the HUGE annual management fee of a whopping , if not outright obscene 5.48%. yes you read that right. management of the fund pays itself a hefty 5.48% every year.
      As I see it, it's a vehicle purely designed to enrich the fund management company. Buyers beware.
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 20:14 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Vacation-Proofing Your Portfolio
      i don't get it. if you are to go on vacation you simply examine your portfolio. are there stocks that could be hurt by an earnins release during that time? any stocks very vulnerable to pending, long awaited announcements? if so, sell them. dow puts won't protect you from company specific risk.
      now, for the other stocks: if you picked them wisely, you need not time overall market swings. you could still use djia puts as some sort of alpha-trade (best of tow) but this would hjave nothing to do with going on vacation or not. otherwise, your portfolio is fine and it may take a hit, yes? so what? when you bought the stuff you had figured that possibility in, no? if not, then you didn't know what you were doing in the first place.
      imho, if you have conviction regarding your stock portfolio, you NEVER need index puts. chances are, you will be throwing money away for nothing.
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 09:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Van Eck's New Gulf States Index ETF
      thanks topax for the advice. it actually was the author's job. but anyway, thanks also to him for putting topgether some facts on the GULF etf
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 08:53 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Scotia Capital: Gold Uptrend Will Continue into 2009
      these 10 and 12.5 year average price targets are pretty confusing and frankly look pretty weird. if they believed in them, i cannot understand how they raised the targets for silver and gold miners. 12 year average silver price target at $12?? wtf? do they expect silver to fall back to that level for the next years or what?
      this stuff from scotia capital is less than useless.
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 08:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      What's Behind the Slide in Oil and Commodities?
      'Goldman Sachs has taken over the US government, and it's no bad thing...'
      @Sean maher: It#s probably the worst thing. You can be sure Goldman made sure to have gotten heavily short commodities before the administration took its steps. As sure can you be that goldman had a large hand in the oil-price bubble. these guys now drive markets up and down however they want and they make a ton of money. The interests of people, of the nation count exactly zero when it comes to the crooked investment bankers who created this whole mess and try to make a bundel of money even from the last drop of blood of any american or any human being. goldman sucks - and that is a really bad thing, that they run the govt. and the fed by now
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 05:49 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      American Express Calls Investment Banks' Bluff
      remember what WFC said, did boost their earnings? a huge increase in their credit card business. Give me a break! it seems they generated lots of fees and profits there which will come home to roost over the coming quarters and years.
      and to all the V and MA-lovers who immediately react if their darlings are mentioned with axp: the author didn't state that V or MA were in trouble. he simply wanted to illustrate the point that axp has a higher net-worth and higher turnover-clientele than the two. and that therefore, a deterioration here is extremelx significant for the financial sector. so sit back and relax. nobody slapped your two darlings.
      funny. really.
      View article »
    • Fri Jul 25th 05:37 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Prepare To Profit from the U.S. $1 Trillion Budget Deficit
      ah, you think the asians are too dumb to have long recognized that the dollar is just ever depreciating green paper? But what about this: All paper currencies are - those of the Asians' included. Central banks allover the world have one common agenda: keep the system alive and running, no matter how and no matter what. They might use different rhetoric, emphasize gdp-growth, employment or inflation. but at the end of the day they share a common goal. whiochj is why they all keep hoarding dollars. if they stopped - the world economy would grind to a halt within a few quarters. the often touted u.s. current account deficit is in fact the great liquidity pump for the world. If you look at the growth in foreign central banks' dollar reserves they FAR outpaced their trade surpluses. How can that be? well, simple: they bought dollars and sold (borrowed) their local currencies. In other words: their dollar reserves are borrowe dmoney to quite an extent that they recycled into their own economies. guess what happens when the u.s. current account deficit shrinks (whioch it does considerably, already): that global liquidity pump goes slow and as a result, liquidity in Asia dries up fast.all of a sudden interest rates climb and the economic boom comes down - which in turn brings the asian currencies under pressure. just wait and watch. it will happen.
      to come back to your suggestion: shorting us-treasuries seems like a no-brainer at this point - but it is far from that. time is not ripe yet. people who short the T-bonds will get burnt heavily over the coming 2-3 years.
      View article »
    • Thu Jul 24th 05:42 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Financials Have Bottomed? Readers Say We're Nuts
      Hi Tom, appreciate your follow-up on the surely controversial piece. However, if JPM's Dimmon said that pain froma recession will be far worse than the pain suffered so far from subprime and CDOs, SIVs etc- i wonder how the market could have really figured this coming pain out? And how can you be so certain? 70 percent book may sound like a decent margin of safety. but given the high leverage and the L3-assets and lots of loans that have not been written down but may well start to default i wonder whether books will not be further impaired soon. and that current 70% may soon turn into 150%?
      I also disagree on your L3-notion and accountants , regulators and (new) CEOs. I think regulators and ceos have every incentiv NOT to tell the truth if it is too devastating. rather hide it as long as possible, adjust those valuations step by step over many years. if they did otherwise, they might well be required to raise billions of fresh capital instantly - which may be next to impossible or extremely dilutive right now.
      for me, these banks are way too high risk because i have no way to find out if they tell or told me the truth until after the bomb exploded. i will gladly skip a reward of 300% or 400% if the downside is that i could easily lose 80-100% pretty much overnight (remember bear stearns? it sure was a high reward-high risk play at $30-$40 - only to get killed over a weekend)
      View article »
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