Voice of Reason

Jim Cramer's 10 Predictions for 2008

How many successful hedge funds any of you losers run?

How many of you have your own tv show on CNBC?

That's what I thought.

Pain in the Heartland: National City Bank

While this is a well written and balanced piece it seems like just another one too many watch out, watch out the sky is falling critque of the banking sector. I find more positive outlooks on transcripts of suicide prevention lines and that from the people calling in saying they are going to end it all.

It seems some think things by Labor Day will see bread lines and soup kitchens of the 1930's return, unemployment up to 40%, and 90% of the nation's banks boared up and the DOW hoving near 5000.

All the gloom and doom seems more like bears trying to shake out small investors so they can pounce.

Comparative Price Shopping: Selected Banking, Mortgage and Brokerage Stocks

I can't stand TD Ameritrade commericals. That over the hill actor from Law & Order is a BIG negative and makes me avoid anything he pitches. In contrast E-Trade commericals have just the right touch of humor. A merger would be interesting but doubt it is in the cards.

Comparative Price Shopping: Selected Banking, Mortgage and Brokerage Stocks

User 181148 doesn't even know how to pick a posting name. LOL!
Accordingly I don't take anything he says seriously. This guy/gal could give the Grim Reaper and run for is money on being constantly negative about everything in every thread he shows up.

www.fastfancydress.co....

Comparative Price Shopping: Selected Banking, Mortgage and Brokerage Stocks

So-called analysts like Prashat Bhatia apparently out to make a name for themselves by irresponsible comments should be fired and banded for life from ever working in the industry again for gross misconduct.

Someone tell me how an analyst can on one hand scream sell, sell, sell to the public while he's in the loop at City which bought, bought, bought during the same period. I thought the regulators frowned on this double speak. If on the other hand this guy wasn't in the loop on City's own security purchasing, what does that say about this guy's creditability? I smell a rat.

What Is Citi Stock Worth?

"Meridth Whitney has a proven track record" Indeed she does. She's dead wrong about half the time like all the other analysts.

What Is Citi Stock Worth?

I'm overweighted on the financial sector BECAUSE it has been beated down so hard. I even have positions in what some would call "dogs". Is that a gamble? Damn right it is. For those that didn't know, playing the stock market, the biggest game on the planet is a gamble. Always was and always will be. Some forget that. Others never learn.

Frankly I've had a belly full of the "what if" crowd and their always negative outlook and constant over caculating. If you don't have the stomach to take a position when a sector is out of favor you'll never make any money. Not serious money. For those that want to play it safe buy a FDIC insured CD and grap at fat 1.5% or whatever they're paying these days. <snicker>

What Is Citi Stock Worth?

Too many things effect a stock's price, often things that have little to do with how well or poorly the company is actually doing. Way too many analysts, and people on Seeking Alpha that like to mimic them get carried away with trying to play various number games.

How much is any stock REALLY worth? Whatever at the moment someone is willing to bid for it. That's what it is worth.

Citigroup's Flush

Just because some over paid "analyst" said blah, blah, blah, doesn't mean it will happen. Anyone with a online account should do a simple exercise. For example I have a E-Trade account. Click on the Analyst Research tab and you'll see 26 firms tracking C. If this was a "science" then that would infer everyone would come to the same conclusion crunching the same numbers. Lets see. Right now 4 are a strong sell, 9 sell, 8 hold, 2 buy, 3 strong buy. In other words these "analysts" are all over the map which tells me they're doing little more than guessing. Repeat for the fortune 500 and you'll see the same kind of wide differing opinions in many stocks.

I have as much use for analysts "opinions" as I do used toilet paper. I flush both.

Citigroup's Flush

Above comments can best be summed up as the Meredith Whitney fan club. Pathetic leemers. If so many foolishly think C is a sell, I got to take a look at it as a buy.

Shorting Citi on Today's Jump

Wall Street "professional" = some guy that shorted his butt off and is desperately trying to cover his position before his broker notifies him of a margin call.

Wall Street "heavy hitter" = some guy that bought 1,000 Put contracts and watched in horor as the stock gapped up 5 dollars.

A "smart" trader knows tips are only for waiters.

What's the difference between a trader and an investor?

The former tends to lose money while the investor makes money.

Citigroup: Hoping for a Thaw

The BS here (entire site) always seems to run deep. Don't wade in without hip boots. I see little serious or factual anything. Just one self appointed "expert" after another grinding his ax and doing a bad job of faking he knows what he/she is talking about. Damn funny but useful, no freaking way.

UBS Plan Could Be the Road Map for Financials

As a past AUDITOR (I'm now retired) I have one word for all you wannabe accountants. Enron.

For years Kenny Boy and a few other guys with sharp pencils at Enron pulled the wool over the eyes of almost everybody... including regulators and the auditors from Aurthur Andersen that signed off on the financial statements and NEVER followed through where all the money was suppose to be coming from. It was just a shell game.

Either they knew what was going on and looking the other way or they bought the flim flam meaning they were just plain stupid, lazy or both (my choice).

Right now too many are writing down perfectly good paper just because a small portion is bad. Its the old throw the baby out with the wash water panic.

While I don't have figures handy I think I read the total subprime loan balance is multiple trillion. To suggest most of that is bad is a fairy tale and would make the 1929 stock market crash look like a picnic.

The feds did what they did with Bears exactly to avoid panic and start a run on all the banks. The big sharks on swimming around because they smell blood in the water. As usual Joe know nothing plays right into their hands and helps them drive down the stock prices so the big fish can grab it at fire sales prices. THAT is what the Feds should look into. Its just another varation on insider trading. I thought that was suppose to illegal. Don't even get me started on short selling or hedge funds.

Meredith Whitney Threatens Severe Deflation For Your Portfolio

Ben Stein should stick to doing what he's good at... hosting moronic seedy tv game shows on Comedy Central and making a horse's a** of himself. Oh wait... they canceled that show years ago so the doofus mad some really bad tv commericals when not giving useless financial advice. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Meredith Whitney Threatens Severe Deflation For Your Portfolio

Simple question... WHY does or should anyone take anything any so-called analyst says about anything seriously? I have more faith in some fortune teller reading tea leaves or just rolling the dice.

The FACT is most "analyists" are all over the map and wrong just as often as they're right. Its a never ending snow job. In other words; BS. Nothing but pure BS and the rubes eat it up.

Where were all the "experts" nine months ago forcasting the serriousness of the subprime mess? What "analyst" back then foretold of Countrywide, National City, Thornburg or Bears? None of them, that's who.

Here's my free forcast for financial stocks:

We are already at or near a bottom and will bump along the bottom for a few more months, maybe to Labor Day or so. Then with little warning some event will trigger a major bull run where many of the financial stocks will gain back at least 20% in the ensuing six weeks or so, some as much as 50% by year end or no later than 1 QT of 09.

Since it is an election year the feds will "buy" a big chunk of the subprime paper or do something similar to reverse course. As usual most people will miss the early stages of the rally and get caught with their pants around their ankles. As ususal several fat cats will make a killing, Joe Average won't. Always happens. This cycle has repeated for over 200 years in every kind of market condition. Dumb people panic and sell low. Smart people know when to BUY low. The concept its so damn simple and often repeated yet few actaully follow it. How dumb is that?