Matt Blackman

http://TradeSystemGuru.com
Total Rating:
+2 / 0

172 Comments

    • Tue Sep 9th 12:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is McCain's Tax Plan Really Any Different From Current Policy?
      This is clearly a strongly biased pro-Democrat piece. Here are some notes from her bio, "Diane served as Chief Economist for the House Ways and Means Committee Democrats, and Principal Economist for the Joint Economic Committee Democrats. She was a Senior Economist on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers during the last year of the Clinton Administration and first 100 days of the Bush Administration, and in President Clinton’s final Economic Report of the President (2001) drafted the sections extolling the merits of fiscal discipline."

      Gee, I wonder who she's working to have elected?

      So in addressing her initial question, "Is McCain's Tax Plan Really Any Different From Current Policy?" The biggest and most important change is that McCain is proposing to lower US corporate taxes from the current 32% rate (as a result of the Job Creations Act 2004) to 25%. Obama would see it return to 35% making US corporations among the most highly taxed in the industrialized world. Obama will also raise capital gains, dividend and income taxes for the top 5% of earners who now pay 70% of the tax burden.

      Obama has claimed that he would lower taxes for 95% of Americans but is that reality? More than half of American households have investments and earn capital gains, dividends or both and taxes on this income would increase substantially under Obama.

      I don't care what your political affiliation is, raising taxes on corporations, dividends and capital gains cannot be good for a stocks in a struggling economy.
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 8th 12:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Dollar's Fortunes Should Boost U.S. Economy
      The only hole in your theory is that US exports contributed 3.1 percentage points to the 3.3% GDP growth number recently released. A strengthening dollar makes these exports more expensive countered by a positive effect on consumers as the costs of energy and food fall. Will be interesting to see how they two forces balance out.

      The other challenge is the GDP growth, CPI figures and just about every other government stat is manipulated, the first fudged higher and the second lower with the end result that real GDP growth (before hedonics, substitutions, imputations) - minus CPI (before the same statistically smoke and mirror tricks of the trade) is negative not positive.

      The question is, how will forex trader react to the real numbers once they figure out what they are?
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 8th 12:44 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      GSE Bailout Likely Marks a Bottom in Financials
      Don't know why fundamental value investors have such a compelling need to continually call a bottom. They've been doing it since the market topped in October and even though these calls have been way wrong, still continue to do it. Granted, sooner or later they will get it right but by then anyone who listened to them will be broke.

      Here is what I think of the practice... seekingalpha.com/artic...
      View article »
    • Sun Sep 7th 13:37 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How Should Policymakers Respond to the Employment Report?
      What the heck, let's get the government to spend, spend, spend our way back to prosperity. Who cares how big deficits and debt gets. We'll just inflate our way out of it... NOT!

      As we learned from the 1930s, increasing trade barriers and taxes is not the answer, see sfomag.com/Article.asp...
      View article »
    • Sun Sep 7th 13:14 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Two-Ton Wall Street Conflict of Interest Few Dare To Talk About
      As SeekingAlpha is not a political forum my comments about Obama being the leftist most candidate was not intended as an endorsement for one candidate over another. My leftist-most candidate comment was based on a rating by the left-of-center group Americans for Democratic Action of a perfect 100. McCain garnered a rating of 14 from the group. Obama's perfect score is the highest this group has awarded to any candidate running in any recent election. John Kerry scored 95 when he was running in 2004.

      My comments were not intended to start a political debate only to point out that policies to increase taxes including income taxes, dividend taxes, capital gains taxes and corporate taxes have a negative impact on Wall Street. The same can be said for policies to increase trade tariffs and re-write free trade agreements, which Obama has advocated. History tells us that increasing taxes and trade barriers during a weak and deteriorating economy has the potential to further negatively impact growth.

      From a business, corporate (Wall Street) point of view, McCain's plan to lower the corporate tax rate to 25% and maintain capital gains, dividend and other tax rates essentially where they are should be good for Wall Street and stock prices. Obama has discussed many positive policies that have the potential to be good for America. However, he has never advocated policies that favor business, so from a perspective of being good for stock prices going forward, will mean a more challenging environment for if he follows through on these promises.

      If you are interested in a discussion of these policies from a corporate, stock market perspective, my recent article in SFO magazine discusses them at length. It can be read free at
      sfomag.com/Article.asp...

      Matt Blackman
      View article »
    • Sun Sep 7th 01:34 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Desperate Times Bring Redesign to NY Times
      Don't know why the folks at the New York Times bother. Its best use is in lining the bottoms of bird's cages and the birds haven't even noticed...
      View article »
    • Sat Sep 6th 13:30 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Bear Markets Uncover Value
      Yes, I think we all know we are in a bear market and that stocks get cheaper (value increases). The challenge with a pure value approach is stocks get increasingly more attractive as their price drops and simply buying for this reason could cost you plenty as long as the market continues lower.

      I think the question on many minds right now is are we in a cyclical or secular bear market? If this is a cyclical downturn, it should have a relatively short duration and buying the correction will ultimately pay off. But in reality, no one knows and secular bears often last decades not years. Simply buying and holding stocks based on value in this environment will turn out to be a very painful strategy indeed.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 5th 12:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Rent vs. Buy Datapoint of the Day
      The first major hitch in your argument is you rely on NAR data even though you allude to the risks of doing so in your article. The second is that you quote Mark Thoma who is well-known for his socialist views, a strong Obama promoter/supporter with his pro-tax anti-trade policies. In case you haven't notices, Thoma has a clear agenda and it has little to do with trading or investing.

      Third, as mentioned above, relative rents are only part of the story (see the charts at seekingalpha.com/artic... )

      It may be true (and I stress may) that mortgage rates do not accurately reflect the true cost of ownership today in this environment of low interest rates (they were close to 10% in 1983) and interest rates are quite volatile. As the charts in my article show, using any metric you want whether it be price/incomes or price/rents, home prices remain very high on a relative basis. And then there are the other challenges facing the market today.... not the least of which is that more than 10 million households are now locked into mortgages that are worth more than their homes.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 5th 12:27 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Making Sense of the GDP Deflator and the Inflation Rate
      Like your left-winged analyzes, the PCE deflator, CPI, GDP and the majority (if not all) statistics produced by government agencies are grossly distorted to make them effectively useless to any trader, investor or businessperson (for more see Perfecting the Art of Mass Deception - tradesystemguru.com/co... )

      It is obvious from this theoretic proselytizing that you are none of the above. So what is the point of this article? I certainly don't see it...

      You're criticism of Barry Ritholtz is laughable and clearly demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of how markets really work.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 5th 02:40 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Looming Valuation Adjustment Process
      I have never understood the valuation approach that says a stock gets more attractive the cheaper it gets. That's all fine and dandy if we are in a bull market and experiencing a temporary correction but this approach has a number of major pitfalls. The most obvious becomes very painful in a bear market... or just before a company goes bankrupt.

      Take Enron for example. After having been at $80, it seemed like a really good deal when it dropped to $6.00, a better deal at $3.00 and a screaming deal at $0.60, that is just before it disappeared for ever.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 5th 02:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      John Hussman: Economic Conditions and the Market
      "This is fine example of double talk wrapped up obfuscation." A great quote if I ever heard one whidbey...

      Hello McFly... We are in a bear market and it's September! We are also in the final innings of an election year that marks the end of the best two years (26 months actually) of the 4 year election cycle to be in the market. The first two years of a new term are hell on stocks. And baby boomers begin to retire on mass in 2009..

      So what exactly does John mean when he says, "these risks should not be expected to translate into immediate or persistent difficulty for the markets"...? That's a whole bunch of risk from where I sit and anyone who discounts that is playing ostrich.
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 4th 22:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Taking Aim at 'Inflation Nutters'
      A new bull market in gold? Makes sense considering how useless and manipulated the majority of government economic stats have become which means inflation is worse than anyone at the Fed will admit and GDP growth is substantially weaker.

      So what does that mean? Slowing economic growth amid inflationary pressure with a government in denial is lousy for an economy but can be very good for gold since in usually motivates the mass production of more fiat money or at the very least artificially low interest rates which amounts to essentially the same thing.
      ....I think is what Jim Grant is saying....
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 4th 17:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Global Property Bubbles: Not Bursting
      Anyone who thinks the housing market in the US is approaching a sustainable bottom, may be sadly mistaken based on the charts and info in this recent report (see tradesystemguru.com/co.../ )
      View article »
    • Thu Sep 4th 17:47 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Global Property Bubbles: Not Bursting
      The problem with home prices indices is the variety of ways in which they are measured. Compare the S&P Case-Shilller Home Price Index and the National Association of Realtors existing home median prices for example. The first shows year-over-year home price declines north of 15% while the latter index shows prices down around 7% y-o-y. Then there is the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) home price index and ...., each index with its own take on what is happening with prices.

      In other words, even in a well tracked market like the US, data varies wildly. I personally have found the NAR and OFHEO numbers to be sadly lagging and way too volatile to offer any real benefit in understanding what is happening with prices but that is the topic of another article.

      Now... take that situation globally and you have a real can of worms. For example, housing prices in Canada have stopped going up at double digits and just begun to experience y-o-y declines. But one report (Douglas Porter of BMO Capital Markets) shows a very convincing chart indicating the Canadian prices perform almost identically to those in the US with a 2-year lag.

      Globally, home prices may be rising but given the fact that median home price data is a poor indicator of real price dynamics and that most market are measured by this lagging indicator, I consider this global number suspect, especially considering how recently some markets (like those in Canada) have begun to correct.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 3rd 12:37 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Another Week of No Money Supply Growth
      According to a third party estimate of M3 thanks to the myopic decision by the Fed to reduce transparency and discontinue the series, it was growing at 16% the last time I checked.

      Inflation may be moderating but it has nothing to do with Fed restrictions. Good to his promise, Bernanke continues to throw money out of helicopters and the macro picture remains a concern (see tradesystemguru.com/co.../ ) Week to week changes are of little consequence. And besides, its an election year. Any government or Fed sponsored report must be considered highly suspect.
      View article »
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