igggy

Wells Fargo's Mortgage Conversion Scheme: Delaying the Inevitable

And I thought no one could do what Countrywide could:
www.youtube.com/watch?...

Q4 Growth Likely to Be Stronger than Q3

Hm, they've been revising past GDP estimates down lately so the 3.5% growth might turn out to be less than 3.2% after it's revised.
Also, if AMZN increases its earnings at the cost of its rivals, that's not going to improve overall earnings at all.

Getting Growth Back on Track Could Be Very Rewarding

The second graph is very informative but I don't believe the trend will continue. For the last 30 years GDP growth has been boosted thru borrowing. Not only will it be harder to borrow in the future but the US will also have to pay more in interest every year.
How about adding Japan to the graph? As I understand their real growth has been around 0% for the last 20 years. That seems like a more likely scenario for the US as well. Slightly better perhaps (1%?) since the US demographics is not as bad.

The Housing Shell Game Moves to Autos

Mark,
At least in this case the benefits are visible. Someone is going to buy a car, or a house, or whatever. Somebody else might keep keep their job.

When AIG got 100+ billion, nobody knows where the money went - at least the number of people who benefited was much smaller, those people already had plenty of money, and they live (or could live if they wanted to) in Switzerland.

How to Value Amazon?

I actually worked for Amazon as a software developer. Their website platform is not perfect but it's years ahead of many competitors. Another company might be able to replicate their platform and site features with one billion dollars but that would be the price tag every year for 10 years or so and by then Amazon's website will have improved too.
I imagine it's nice for Amazon's customers to have a single place to track their purchases (books, CDs, etc). That adds to Amazon's moat too.
Having said that, Amazon has too big a market cap to deserve such a high PE multiple.

TriQuint Semiconductor Savaged After Hours: Another Reason Not to Game Earnings

Good call. There is not much demand for value in a bull market.

David Einhorn's Speech at the Value Investing Congress

Einhorn's book (Fooling some people all of the time) is pretty interesting too. Highly recommend.

All of Tim Geithner's (Wall Street) Men

In other news, the state of Colorado just reduced its minimum wage from $7.28 to $7.24 per hour due to deflation:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20...

Soros' Latest Energy and Healthcare Plays

I find it disturbing that HW's management seems to have written a bunch of puts against its own stock last year so now they are 'buying' their stock at elevated prices. They couldn't just buy stock last year, they had to leverage by shorting puts. Very odd.

Airlines Hit Hard by Bevy of Factors

At some point I looked at monthly performance of airline stocks and CAL on average goes up some 7% in October. Could be data mining but other airlines perform well in October too.
To the author: who said 'investors' own airline stocks? Maybe as a bet against oil. I'd rather own refiners for that.

Robert Prechter of Elliot Wave Sticking by His Bearish Bets

I don't see much optimism about stocks. Everyone is talking about an upcoming market crash and retail investors are buying munis. My guess he is early (a few months or years) again.

Goldman Sachs: Overview on the Markets

You can click on the Scribd icon to get a more readable version.

Myriad Genetics: Horrendous Chart but Still Interesting

I actually like the chart. The gap has been closed and there is significant support at 24.50. Buying some tomorrow. Thanks for the tip. Now we just need a catalyst to close the July gap.

Interesting Times: From 40% Below the 200 Day Moving Average to 20% Above

I think with so much money on the sidelines the market will just keep drifting up. I will be buying the dips.

PIMCO Fund Is Profiting from Investor Skittishness

I guess that answers the question who is buying all those treasuries. And yes, I am one of them. Still seems like a low risk play. And treasuries are way underpriced compared to money market/CDs (I am only half joking).