fxtrader07

36 Opportunities for the Beginning of the Bull

sentiment suggests a bottom - but the dead interbank lending market, dead credit markets, dead CP markets and the crashing carry-trade (Yen is going ballistic, especially against the Euro) suggest more pain ahead. Form a time perspective, we probably are pretty close to a bottom. But tell that to the Russians who saw their market plunge more than 20%(!!) just yesterday alone - on top of a 50%+ decline earlier. so a bottom will form between now and mid-november - but it may be right here or it may be 20 or 30 or even 40% lower. who knows for sure? on the other hand, selling has now rotated towards tech after energy and materials in summer.the energy complex is the safest imho now - rich dividends and backed by real, needed assets. technology has a further 40-50% downside risk as those items are usually discretionary stuff that you can at least postpone. and people loosing their jobs, banks starved off cash and corporations with no access to debt financing will postpone software and hardware upgrades as long as possible.
i do hope the europeans get their acts together and start lowering rates pretty soon and create a pan-european rescue fund. or else the eurozone's economy will head over the cliff and maybe taking the euro currency with it. which would be no event to cheer because it would inflict another huge round of damages across the world

Boeing Strike Seems More Like Corporate Terrorism

it continues to surprise me how people who - at least from their photography and the way they write - have never ever really experienced hard physical work over an extended period of time (not just for a few weeks in summer) still feel qualified and urged to write about this kind of subject. It's a bit like watching 22 year old analysts at brokerages who have never seen a real world job and who get nice benefits write about how management ought to cut jobs here and not give in to wage demands there. What is always conveniently overlooked (in this article as well) and certainly not by coincidence, are the HUGE benefits, options plans and salary packages that mgmts grant themselves. performance may be poor - lets grant us a few hundred thousand new stock oiptions with lower strikes. Mgmt will never have to go on strike because all it takes at a maximum, is a a brief talk to the board of directors. Managements granting themselves HUGE payouts for achieving little to nothing is the real 'corporate terrorism' going on in USA Inc. Just look at ORCL's Ellison - the guy granted himself a 43% salary increase recently - on top of the 700 million he made last year in salaries and stock options
Go figure.

Time to Buy Airline Stocks?

@BioInvestor: Buffet called his airlines investment one of his biggest mistakes later on. he stated very pronounced that he got out with a profit only because of pure luck and he has been very negative on airlines as a business and as an investment ever since.

Time to Buy Airline Stocks?

that's cigarbutt-investing as Buffet and Munger would call it.
you buy inferior companies in hope of a bounce. in fact, you hope that oil comes down before all the airlines have to file for ch11. that may happen or may not - who knows?
in any case, you wait for a bounce only, but this may come never, or it may come from a 50% lower price.
these companies are bleeding cash and lose tons of money. they are not great businesses. they may be fine for traders. but they are easy to identify no-nos for investors

Jim Rogers' Picks and Pans - Barron's Interview

@bearfund: i agree, but rogers didn't recommend cny and Etns at all. in the article is clearly stated that these were remarks inserted by the editor suggesting some ways to play roger's recommendations.
and i agree, it's tough to play china from a distance without incurring too much risk. therefore, for all the chances that are there, i would not put more than 10-15% of my funds into china. it will likely be a safer way to play european and american companioes that stand to gain from the growth in china rather than owning some fishy domestic chinese companies where you can get screwed any time.