BM1087

Cramer Grilled on Jon Stewart

Who really has the last laugh? Cramer gets the attention when Madoff victims are penniless and likes of Stan O'Neil have enough capital to bail out the government. We really have a f'd up society when the SEC and the rest of the Wall Street crooks are getting away Scott-free, but hey pile on poor Cramer. I have to at least give Cramer credit because a least he has the balls to admit failure and accept some heat. When is Christopher Cox going to come clean? The rating agencies? The list grows long.

We're in Danger of Being Blinded by Market Bottom Predictions

When the VIX went to 100 we had capitulation! You’re looking for something that doesn't exist due to the influence of short ETFs and the lack of an uptick rule. This isn't your father's market.

On Mar 26 10:41 AM j_remington wrote:

> we have yet to clear the bear because there has been
>
> NO BROAD CAPITULATION i.e. panic selloff
>
> Retest near the low or at the low or below the low will happen within
> 6 months.

A foreign solution: Grant resident status to immigrants who buy surplus U.S. houses. "This makes more sense than the president's $275B housing bailout plan, which Americans greeted with a Bronx cheer."

Guess the author never visited Florida where a lot of the housing that is currenlty going under was purchased by legal and illegal immigrants. How about just granting a tax abatement instead of giving away the cow? U.S. citizenship should not be for sale!

Santelli's Chicago Tea Party: The Quest for Our Nation's Soul

Martinez - Maybe he should go back to his country as I for one as an American would honor my agreement with the bank despite the fact my house may be under water. Not everyone has moral ethics like Martinez. That's what makes us different from them (other countries), and why America is the most generous and sort after country in the world. What we do current lack right now is accountability and prosecution. When the likes of Stan O'Neil are held accountable we will move on as a country.

AIG's Blackmail Note

Maybe we should pat them on the back as they are led away in handcuffs!


On Mar 16 06:00 PM betweenthenumbers wrote:

> Great info, and a surprisingly easy and interesting read. It does
> read very much like a threatening legal letter, but with much more
> accessible prose (nothing new about having to talk down to politicians).
>
>
> One interesting note: one of the most stupid things AIG did was make
> bad bets backed by its AAA rating, with special provisions to allow
> the buyer of AIG derivatives to receive immediate payment/collateral
> were a ratings downgrade to occur (it was considered an "event of
> default"), though no actual losses need be booked. This set AIG up
> for the mother of all liquidity squeezes, because suddenly these
> special provisions became due on "1.6T in notional derivative exposure".
> AIG was essentially writing CDS *ON ITSELF*, meaning if AIG had any
> credit issues, then AIG is the counterparty that would have to pay
> you. Dead on arrival by any measure, yet AIG sung it to the tune
> of hundreds of billions in losses.
>
> People keep saying that the AIGFP division doesn't deserve their
> $175MM bonuses, but I disagree. This robbery is so complex and well-executed
> that the characters from Ocean's Eleven would be looking for pointers,
> and I think we (taxpayers of USA) should reward a job well done.

E*Trade: A Bet Worth Making

E*Trade made a great bet with banking but got seduced with offering risky services such as credit cards and mortgages. I personally have a brokerage, employee stock plan, and checking/savings account with E*Trade. So for me I enjoy the convenience of the one stop shop and would be very willing to buy the stock at this price. Consider it a cheap option.

Preview from Europe: The Bears Are Back

Don't let the door hit them in the A*S! BTW: They can join Europe's best and brightest like Kerviel & Leeson.


On Mar 20 10:43 AM I weep for this country. wrote:

> Read the actual bill it is available on the House's website. Despite
> how it has been reported it: taxes any individual whose salary and
> bonus combined is more than 125k. Households combined whose salary
> and bonus amount to more than 250K are also subject to the taking.
> So if you work at one of these banks, earn 100K a year and got a
> 26 K bonus and are the sole breadwinner of your house, the gov't
> will take your entire bonus. Does that seem fair to the over 116K
> employs of AIG who had nothing to do with the London based FP unit
> who work hard to provide for the familes and were counting on the
> bonus to pay loans and mortgages? Who are working hard to ensure
> that the company remains profitable to pay back the taxpayer! Wasn't
> that the whole point of the bailout? Or was it to pay the counterparties?
> Hmmmm... Oh, by the way, this tax doesn't actually tax the London
> based employees that everyone wants to flog. And it doesn't tax Merril
> Lynch because unlike AIG they are still allowed to lobby Congress.
> Can't wait for our best and brightest to go to Zurich, Banco Sociale
> and other foreign entities and the US Economy collapes. Way to go!

Housing starts fell 16.8% in January from a month ago to 466K/year. Permits dropped 4.8% from December to 521K/year. Completions declined 24.2% to 776K/year. From a year ago, the trio are down 56.2%, 50.5% and 41.7% respectively.

How is that horrible? That's great news IMO! The sooner we stop the over-supply the sooner we can increase demand. Too bad we didn't raze some of the inventory and furlough all of the private homebuilders. Sorry homies you guys are the enemy right now. Stop building.

10 Notes on the Current Market Fracas

Only thing is we might have some wind to take this much higher. IMO Naked short rule enforced (slight government backstop) + record short percentages + very oversold conditions = one hell of a massive short covering rally coupled with a few bottom pickers. A lot of weak shorts will be taken to the cleaners as evident of the last half hour of trading today.

Top 10 Ways to Spot a Run on Your Bank

I bank at Suntrust (several branches) in South Florida and have never witnessed a shortage of withdrawal slips. The Suntrust Employees are always friendly and have been so since I opened my account(s) over a year ago. The service has been top-notch and thus I closed my Wachovia account(s) and moved over everything to Suntrust. Yes, Suntrust is gonna take some heat from the Florida real estate market but I'm confident they will survive. Now since we are talking troubled banks - take a walk to a Wachovia in South Florida - scary! I even recently purchased 600 shares of STI to back my conviction. Nice dividend yield, an acquisition target, and I bet decent earnings this week.

Short Sales: SEC Turns Back the Clock to 1931

quetzalcoatl - Agreed! Makes investing in real estate promising again. Who really wants to invest (buy and hold) when the market is tilted and played by very few hands? Very few have time or the will to trade full-time. God forbid you take your eyes of the market for an hour. Obviously the government had to step in as these power brokers were willing to collapse the entire financial system in the name of the dollar. With no regard to you and I. Those same ***** also ran commodities to the moon and only when Congress aggressively started to introduce restrictive legislation has the air start to bleed out; however, during the run up the carnage to businesses and the consumer was un-remorseful.

Mother of All Short Squeezes?

If you been around Wall Street any length of time you will come to realize there is no such animal as a "free market". Wall Street is a well-oiled machine controlled by very few players. You and I ride on those coattails for good or for bad.

Majority of Americans Support Ethanol

john s. gordon: Please don't use the "people are starving" argument. For one people have been starving in undeveloped countries for thousands of years and ethanol hasn't changed this unfortunate circumstance one way or the other. Second - Americans waste so much food it's a sin. Just look at what your local buffet throws out in the garbage. Furthermore in my state by law that wasted food must be thrown out, and can't be given to any homeless shelter or charity. Mangolfer: Yes it's that simple! Keep the money in the U.S. or continue to fund the very people that kill/maim our troops.

When Trading Stops Being Fun: Riots at the Pakistani Exchange

The major U.S. and European exchanges will continue to be the de-facto standard due to inherent stability. Imagine those empty threats of shifting commodity trading offshore due to increases in U.S. regulation. Yeah right.

Troubled VMWare's Lowest Close Ever

Yeah right, you're joking. VMWare is light years ahead. If you worked with the product you wouldn't be making those assumptions. Speaking of Redhat weren't they going to replace Microsoft in the very late 90's? All those open source office apps were going to replace office? How about Novell, Palm, and NetScape? The only chance against VMWare is Microsoft buying Citrix and coming out with a new OS based on a Linux kernel. Then they have a real chance. No one in IT management is going back to VM Mainframes. You know why? Cause they don’t have the staff to support it and IBM will bleed your IT budget dry. BTW: Not holding any positions in any company mentioned.