fxtrader07

Short Sellers: Quit Whining and Follow The Rules

You are spot on, Tom. But don't expect anyone associated with hedge funds, naked short sellers and the cramer friends and media network to stop complaining about 'how bad shorts are being treated by the sec and the m,edia'. Even though the opposite is true. CNBC, Cramer and Co give the Ackmans Einhorns, Chanos, Tilsons etc etc. every time they want to talk and write stocks into the abyss. The SEC requires long positions in stoicks by funds to be reported - but incidentally, short positions need not. heck, if you own more than 10% of a stock you count as an insider and face severe reporting obligations and trading restrictions. But you could virtually be short 40 or 50% of a stock's float and need not even disclose it. And, no long holder, even a manipulator has ever destroyed the company he held . But naked shorts have killed many a fine company by artificially shutting the capital markets down for them. It's high time take on those crooks. just don't count on the SEC for it - it had all the time tio do so and never did anything about it. Even in crisis, all they do is to restrict naked shorting of select darling financial companies, which inciodentally, may be among the biggest naked shorters of other companies, actually. IT's a scam and it will go on as those whjo make fortunes on it have lots of influence at Capitol Hill, the SEC, the CFTC and the cramerized fincial entertainment media. It's just another obvious sign of decay and degeneration of the USA.

Investing in the Middle East: A New Frontier Heats Up

beware of that trap! These "markets" in the middle east are not the road to riches but to ruin. highly manipulated stock markets, nepotism, corruption and intransparency all around. tainted goods come to my mind.

Leveraging Up on Precious Metals Ahead of Fed Meeting

@User 52095: Ted Butler talks about the ishares-silver (SLV). Not a single word about Silver Wheaton (SLW)

Dividends Show Differences Between Financials

dividends have been raised at ACAS, which I consider to be superior to any of the stocks mentioned in the article.
and looking at stocks like LEH and AIG it is pretty obvious that dividends were raised contrary to the companies' fundamental shape just to keep/attract investors.
Go figure.

Is It Finally Time to Buy Moly?

'Clearly, there are a lot of high expectations built into the moly industry.'

Hm, well, the industry obviously expects the bull market to last for quite some time. But what about the stocks? Thompson creek sits at almost an 18 month low trading at a TTM p7e of 12 and a forward one in the single digits. That#s not what I would call high expectations built in - at least not into the stock price.
fact is, they have been slaughtered along with most other miners. Are they cyclical? of course. is new supply coming , you bet. But what are they priced for? well, for global recession and end of the minerals and commoddities boom.
problem is, demand will continue top outstrip supply based on the non-cyclical longer term trends that you mentioned (oil pipelines,nuclear, emerging markets infrastructure build-out).
I could understand your hesitation if the stocks were sitting on multiyear highs. But they aren't.
surprises in their stock prices will be to the upside - not to the downside, imho.

Coming Bull Market in Financials: A Few Items Portending the Turn

Tom, I like to read your contrarian view, but may I put your forecasting skills a bit into perspective? First Marblehead - you rode it down from the 30s to the low single digits to finally throwi in the towel a few weeks ago.
Indymac! Indymac? Your fund owned a ton of it 2 months ago. I can't know when you sold it - right before they went belly up or a bit earlier, but it doesn't matter muich anyway. truth is, you bought and held onto one of the worst banks out there and obviously didn't see any trouble coming. But you now post twice a week about how great a time it is to buy financial stocks now. Maybe. Or maybe it#s a great point to exit given the recent rally before the second tsunami called coonsumer recession hits in full force.
Most banks these days are digital stocks. they can triple or quadruple over the coming 3-4 years - or go to ZERO. That's a payout-structure very similar to that of a casino. Gamble on banks at your own peril!

The Real Story of Precious Metals' Returns

sorry but you don't get it. Gold is not an inflation hedge - if you define inflation as cpi-increase. price rises are NOT equal to inflation. inflation is a monetary phenomenon and its effects are often (not always) rising prices. And often such price rises can be postponed far into the future. In fact, it can be argued that gold will NOT protect you against the 'normal' everyday inflation but against once ina lifetime (or once in two generations?) events of rapid paper currency devaluation or outright currency failure. These events always occur when all other means by governments and central banks have been exhausted and a radical expropriation of currency and government bondholders is the only option left. This point cannot be accurately predicted by any means - much like a hurricane kathrina event. the only thing you can observe that at some point it will inevitably occur - but that could be next year, next decade or 100 years from now. But occur it will, and in the case of fiat currency, the damage will grow exponentially over time.
Gold is an insurance against that - not more, not less. therefore, it should be treated as an insurance - not as an investment. 5-10% of the portfolio in physical gold is fine. physiacal- not paper gold. Buying paper gold is like insuring against a hurricane with a policy from an already bankrupt insurer. you can feel safe but will get nothing when crisis hits.
people wjho bet 50% or more of their money on gold's rise are nuts and gamblers, imho, even though of course you could make a case that with every year passing, the BIG payoff day draws nearer. Still, i would not want to hold a portfolio containing to 50% an insurance contract (gold) that might reward me only 20, or 40 years from now.

Russia Looks Better on Paper Than in Real Life

Sorry, Graham, but you obviously do not have the remotest idea about Russia's ground realisties. Your article could as well have been written by a White House cold warrior or some academic sitting in his ivory tower. Truth is, a lot of Russia's oligarchs gobbled upü vast fortunes and empires under Putin's predecessor Yeltsin who basically gave away the properties of the people of Russia to those oligarchs for free. look at these guys in their 30s, 40s and 50s and you see plenty of decadent behavious but ZERO entrepreneurship. They didn't earn their empires, they stole it. Putin and Medvedev simply try to slowly reverse part of that plundering. Your case of the 'bad guys in Moscow' robbing poor innocent oligarchs simply doesn't hold water.
Your view on the war between Georgia and Russia is way off the mark and an absolute distortion of facts and reality. fact is, the NATO promised Russia (then Gorbachev) not to expand into former Soviet republics in exchange for getting Germany into the NATO. Nobody in Washingtonm seems to care for that promise anymore. Second, the USA have built up georgia against Russia and propped up a corrupt, selfish and hostile president there. This guy had nothing better to do than to attack - and now washington crties foul when Russia hits back hard and call that 'aggression' and 'unreasonable response' Go figure,. the entire historsy of the USA over the past 50 years is a history of overblown military action against everyone everywhere who seemed too weak to defend against uncle sam.
Using military and economic leverage to influence other countires, and more so neighbours and strategic regions is part and parcel of every regional or international power's policy tools. you can rant about that all day - but please, stop blaming it all on the Russians. That common U.S. mantra is as old, as dumb and as annoying as it gets.
thank you very much

Witnessing the Biggest Transfer of Wealth in History

Good ol' Charlie Marx wrote centuries ago that the stock exchange will ultimately act as a giant means to concentrate iwnership and power in the hands of a few - not spread it to enrich the many. How right he has been. But eh, Charlie Marx? That's the old commie founding fahther, right? How dare I mentioning him here...

Our Advice? Buy the Financials Now

if people picking at the author here just were doing a very small amount of research and looked up the latest 13-F Filing for secondcurve (the author's fund) they would have seen that he IS NOT TALKING ABOUT BUYING THE BIG BANKS. INSURERS, BROKERS, but selected financial companies like the monoliners. And i would bet (a dn do it with my own investment money) that MBI and abk have seen their bottoms already. The Ackmans and Tilsons can talk them down with all their funny excel-sheets (cheats?) only so much and only so long. Tom's whole point is to spot bargains NOW and buy into those NOW - and not when everybody and his dog can see that the fundamental bottom is in. Of course, if financial stocks is equal to banks and brokers - well then the bottom-call is way too early. But the author never talked about those - did he?

Hedge Fund Manager's Notebook: Blood on the Streets - Buy Russia

all those bragging about govt intervention in Russia ought to take into account two things: first, under Putins predecessor, a handful of guys accumulated vast empires essentially for free. Look at all those oligarchs, men in their 30s and 40s who NEVER were true entrepreneurs but just were lucky and smart enough. They don't even know the value of their fortunes, thoriwing money around like mad, because they never had to hard-earn it.
Second, and more important: you will be suprised how much govt intervention you will see over the coming years and decades in the supposedly law-governed U.S.A. Civil liberties already don't mean a damn to Washington. And finances, oil resources etc. will not be safe when push comes to shove in the usa - what it will in due time. And, by the way: there is hardly any country in the world violating international laws and treaties like the USA and invading any country at will - only to cry foul when others reserve the same r'rights' for themselves. Go figure.

Protect Your Portfolio: Here Comes the Squeeze

hm, the tricky part of course is, WHAT to short now to protect a portfolio. financials may sink further, but i believe shorting financials is becoming a low reward-high risk position, increasingly. the whole s&P? well, not so fast! quite a lot of energy and financials make up the index. energy and commodity-related stocks have been beaten up and some absolutely hammered over the past weeks. so enertgy and financials may put a rather solid floor under the index. retailers, on the other hand, need to be examined 1by 1. wmt has obviously profited and will continue to profit from the economic climate. at the very least, they will not see a dramatic deterioration in their profits. amzn, on the other hand might get a rude awakening, in part thanks to the diminishing gains from dollar-depereciation. so amzn would be my favourite retailer short as it will get hurt by global slowdown and carries still insane valuations. that brings me to the nasdaq and tech stocks. i think they will be the most vulnerable as most of them rely on growth to justify their p/Es - and this growth may fall apart. but here again, the sectors ought to be taken one by one. semiconductors, for instance, look rather cheap

How Much Will the Dollar 'Buck Up' from Here?

great article. thanks!

No Renewed Bull Phase for Metals Miners Just Yet

Dear Bill, the Gold and silver markets are absolutely manipulated. I know you dismiss it and don'
t wat to hear and talk about it - but they are, plain to see for evberyone who cares to really look at them. Surprisingly, for all your talk about the manipulative practices of the HB&B you go out of your way to dismiss the same manipulation in the much smaller, much tighter controled by the HB&B and hence much easier to manipulate precious metals markets. gop figure, something doesn't add up here.
@Georealist: I disagree with a couple of Mark's points but, he does some really thorough research and some of his observations are spot on. You, on the other hand, argue with bias and opinion, but very light on facts. The comes futures markets have almost ZERO relationship with real physical demand for gold, silver and palladium. Any major bullion bank can hammer and lift prices there at will - even more so if they compine theiur efforts, what they very often do.
or are you to tell me that all of a sudden, one August afternoon real demand for gold and silver fell so sharply to warrant a 30% haircut in prices? LOL!
btw, real silver dealers report very long delays in delivery, the us mint has suspended to issue silver coins(!!) the perth mint has hude tzime lags delivering silver to clients that supposedly had all been stored already - go figure.

Financials and Housing: The Outlook Remains Ugly

your abk, mbi and rdn shorts are mispülaced and will blow up in your face. you may well be correct on the housing market but that doesn't mean your bond insurance shorts will pay off. I am siding with marty whitman in this case who has a decades long proven track record and knows A LOT about insurers, distressed investing and financial stocks.
and no, i am not surprised that you are now short fannie and freddie. after all bill ackman also went short them - and he seemingly can't make ANY move without Tilson following suit, no?