bynd2009

Readers Pick the Top 20 5-Year Horizon Stocks

Mr. Roadrunner, while providing valuable information about the future batteries also gets into some circular logic. Letting sprawl mart run amuck in Japan will cost a lot of jobs (as clearly mentioned in RR's comment) and all these jobless haps won't be able to buy the cheaper toothpaste and dinner sets and dress pants by "George" because they have no money!!! Japanese people will wake up one of these days and realize that their lunch is being stolen regularly via the 'Yen carry' trades because their Government QE policy of keeping interest rates near zero for almost two decades now. May be Sony or Matsushita will come up with a super-duper rechargeable battery. I would dump WMT and replace it with either IBM, HPQ, FCX or JNJ.

4 Ways to Protect Your Capital (Think Debt and Bond ETFs)

Based on its current price (around $9.30), GIM is paying 5.4% dividend, a monthly payment of 0.042/share. Before investing in it, make sure you have the risk tolerance! It lost close to 40% of share value when all the markets crashed Sept08-Mar09 but has nicely recovered since then. May be a good idea to buy etfs like FXE and CYB (it is an etf for Chinese Yuan but also an apt acronym for covering the behind!!)

Kudrin Upbeat on Oil: Good News for Russia ETF?

interesting that you mention FXI is in a bubble pattern. Simple-minded comparison of RSX and FXI shows same trend with FXI being slightly better (it is above water for the last 3 months). That said, I think your logic regarding oil prices makes sense. I don't believe any body with two braincells left is predicting 250$/barrel anytime soon. Main driver for the oil prices appears to be the systematic fall in proven reserves. No matter how much we conserve, if no new tangible discoveries (I don't count BP's Tiber as tangible given the fact that blob of oil is 7 miles below sea level and it will be a technological marvel if they produce 1/10th of that O.O.I.P any time soon) are made, at 80 million barrels/day consumption, prices will have to go up for the already producible oil.

Is American Express Still Cheap?

Good article. Excellent comparison of these giant blackholes to hotdogs (Glad to be a vegetarian so don't have to worry about the contents of a hot dog). If I remember correctly AMEX did buy a bank to qualify for the Fed monies like GS did. Another point to consider is that many companies have gone away (to either MA or V) from AMEX being their preferred card to book the travelling expenses and until AMEX addresses their fee structure, these companies are not coming back. That should put a serious dent in their future earnings.

Bond Expert: Thursday Wrap

Mr. Jansen,
I echo the sentiments of several well wishers above. Please take care of your back and continue your valued commentary.
I could not agree more with you regarding the behavior of TLT today. It acted like DIA was tanking while that indext was actually up! Let us hope logic prevails and these two will atleast be off-step if not going in opposite directions. Bonds moving up while market is down would be logical if deflation is going to dominate and the reverse would be true if inflation takes off. I think the long bond direction is implying the former scenario. I read in one of the news articles that most of the anticipated/observed green-shoots are those of crab-grass! While that appears to be an overly pessimistic outlook, keeping the powder dry appears to be a very good idea.

Bill Miller: 'The Worst Has Passed'

Readung comments on SA these days is like stumbling on to a radio station playing Limbaugh 7/24. Mr. Miller's opinions (partially posted by SA ) are just that, his opinions. I don't think he professed exceptional clairvoyance in saying financials look currently attractive. Sure, one has to taken into account all these ill-defined assets/ derivatives that are sitting on the books of a majority of financial institutions but the market will eventually figure out a way to value them. In the meantime, trade them! Most of these commentators would have looked like geniuses if they had bought GS at 73 and sold at 164 or BAC at 3 and sold it at 12 or if they prefer to play safer, buying PFF at 20 and selling at 32. Mr Miller had to eat crow for the past couple of years but he didn;t beat S&P a gazillion years in a row by being an IQ challenged average fund manager. As best as I could recall, the majority of fund managers fell on their collective faces during a good portion of last 18 months. Thus in stead of spitting venom at Mr. Miller, carefully examine if there is any good in his comments and implement them. If you can beat Mr. Miller, I am sure he will be the first one to complement you.

Bloomberg Comes Down Hard on Goldman

It is very amusing to read the accusations that are being heaped upon GS. I don't believe it was to the advantage of GS to see Bear Sterns and Lehman perish. Those two did plenty of screwy trading of the derivatives on their own that brought on their demise. Plus their demise has brought a lot of public scrutiny on how these mega firms operate which GS would very much have liked to avoid. If all these commentators really think GS has the ability to seriously manipulate the markets, they ought to bring their trucks and load up on GS stock which by the way did quite well to recover from 73 to 141 in the last 3 months!! It is helpful to remember that some senior executives at these failed firms (LEH, BSC and MER) were Goldman alumni as well. It would be very interesting to know what exactly was the reason for GS to have that infamous code (wisecrack from the proscutor who was trying to get the bail denied for Mr. S.A. on the grounds that such a code in un-trustworthy hands would result in "unfair manipulation of the markets")

Oh, So Now There Are No Green Shoots?

As much as I like R.N's thoughts on this market, I am very amused that he feels "things just happen". As any student of Physics (or a Yo Yo lover) would know, stuff bounces back when pulled to either extreme. Only difference between a coiled spring bounce and a dead-cat-bounce is that the bounce of latter dies out when the dead cat comes to rest . So let us hope this is not a "d.c.b" but a coiled spring recovery! I have been noticing more people at street corners than ever before and a fair amount of fear among people still employed. That tells me the economy is still going down albeit at a slower pace. Thus my simplistic thinking is to be careful with my spending but not to the extent of hiding what little I have saved under the mattress. As for the SP 500, as the majority of readers appear to think is heading down to 835, 775, 666 or whatever, buy a bunch of SH or SDS or SIJ and go on vacation!!! Buying Chile or Indonesia or Turkey comes with their own headaches (note the coup in Honduras). Singapore may be a good place to hide. There is no denying the strong connection between the dollar and oil so watch both closely.

Bill Gross: Dividend Stocks and Bonds Make Most Sense Now

I can not believe some one would recommend, in good faith, closed end funds that are leveraged up to their eye balls as secure shelter from this deflation/inflation sunami. NCV is 50% leveraged ( you can check on all these at etfconnect). JUst in case any of our fellow readers have forgotten, it is this kind of over-leverage that triggered this storm. Buyer be ware!

The Problems with Hedge Fund ETF QAI

I am amused that an otherwise intelligent article spends so much time/space and energy fussing about whether the investment vehicle is ETF in stead of being called ETFF. No different from the gazillion long/short funds that fell on their collective faces during the past six months. I see this fund as a good entry point for people who want to hold multiple bond ETFs but don't have as much cash and / or time to trade the individual bond funds embedded in this vehicle. May be INDEXIQ will read this critique constructively and act on the double dipping fee issue. I also do not understand the drum beat about inverse funds as horrible invenstment choices. All investments are 'choices' and as such require prudent vigilence. I made a fair amount of money last year in SKF and SDS and I am not a day trader ! One needs to keep an eye on them and shrewdly move out when needed.

A Better Bailout

very well written and should definitely be forwarded to Prof. Paulson for his serious consideration. Implementation might be problematic because the State regulatory agencies dislike Feds telling them how to take care of business (just look at the nuclear power issues) and will definitely tinker with RTC2 or whatever it is named to weaken its powers. I love the idea of taxing all the morons who gloated about the millions (some took 100s of millions) they took home by creating and marketing these CDOs, SIVs, MBSs and all the other alphabetical soups of illiquid opaque asset baskets. May be one of the presidential candidates should take this up !!

Bank on Goldman - Cramer's Stop Trading! (9/22/09)

FXP is specific short on the Chinese market, not necessarily the financials. Further, SKF appears to be hobbled by the ban on the "shorts" even though Proshares assured that its portfolio does not short individual financial issues