A.S.D.

Thursday Market: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Does anyone have any comments to share re Banro (BAA)?

5 Golden Rules for the ETF Industry to Live By

One area: frontier emerging markets, Middle East/Africa, could use more exposure. Currently only one "fake" sector ETF (GAF) is operating along with one mutual fund (TRAMX).

So Much for the Decoupling...

Please read again. I never said that the average short caused this. I specifically said go a head and short Amazon if that's your style. My problem is with many professional shorts this round because some of them are the same players who were behind the issues you refer to as the root cause of this downturn and now benefit from going short. Keep in mind that if you have lost big dollars, one way to get the money back is by bringing down the value of as many asset classes as possible in order to buy back in for pennies on the dollar for the ride up.

So Much for the Decoupling...

Althought I personally don't like shorting (if I were stupid enough to leave my front door open-it doesn't give you the right to rob me), I didn't mean to say the guy who's shorting amazon for a few beans is responsible for pushing this snowball. You don't really think the US subprime lending is about to bring down, even for a day, the world economy! There is no defense against multiple, hundred-million-dollar attacks against whole sectors by some of the same players who caused the issues "alpha24seven" is refering to. For a minute I really believed GS would get in trouble for pushing defective products from one desk and shorting them from another, but I understimated the level of coruption in the government and the apathy on the part of general public who watches as 5 years worth of home equities and retirement investments are stolen while home owners get blamed for creating a bubble and more old victims turn predator each day. GS is by the way one of this industry's more respectable firms in my opinion. Yes the shorts didn't really start this, but without them the damage would be fractional. Is there any hope for a popular movement against coruption in the financial industry and a ban or limitation on professional shorting.

So Much for the Decoupling...

This is artificial. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at work on the short (for the lack of a better word) side, and pushing hard to collapse most of the world economy. There is no comparing 2000 to 2007/2008. Do you remember Nasdaq or tech stocks 1999-2000, or the market-manic general population? There was no mania and not many extreme valuations this time. Most people I know were very nervous the entire 2007 and kept 10-30 percent cash and large gold positions if going long. Any of us who lost this round have only ourselves to blame-learn your lesson and move on. This has been a fixed game for a while now and the only way to win is to get to know the heavy players who started this play in 2006. I do wish someone could organize a US based movement against shorting (not just in the cash market). I don't buy any of the arguments that it's beneficial to the markets. It's just another way to make a buck or a billion and it's usually destructive. I really hope the the US government gets interested in the "shorting game", instead of wasting time passing new mortgage laws two years too late.