Jonathan Swift

Don't Believe Long-Term Oil Forecasts

What an amateurish article: what he's saying is really [ "I don't really know anything better (or as well) as the analysts, but I want to be heard for the nothing it's worth."]
Anyone who looks to Al Bartlett's (read nee Malthus's) prognostications for the future is about as naive as anyone can get. Bartlett as a physicist is embarrassing in his Johnny one-note enthusiasm for the Malthusian exponential catastrophes. No real accounting for human ingenuity in response to changes in economics, financials and especially human technological creativity. Very sophomoric!
Bartlett (like Malthus) is the "Boy who cries Wolf!"... And Stecyk is his megaphone.

Everybody Hates Leveraged ETFs

If we want to keep America's strengths alive we have to recognize that government paternalism is no substitute for expecting personal responsibility overall. Personal responsibility is the basis on which successful societies are dependent. That means accepting, among other things, that "fools and their money are soon parted!" If we don't let the poor decisions of individuals and institutions lead to failure (and the good decisions to lead to success), we do not have a viable, thriving free society.

Investors Fled out of Leveraged ETFs at Exactly the Wrong Time

Anyone who bought $10K of BGU (2X leveraged high cap ETF) in March is sitting on about $30K profit now about 6 months later. I did that with about $15K. Six months is just a little bit longer than 1 day.


On Sep 13 08:34 AM Brian O'Flanagan wrote:

> in the long run, the value of all leveraged ETFs will go to zero.
> They are never an appropriate investment for anybody with a holding
> period longer than 1 day.

Despite Dedicated ETFs, No Reliable Way to Play Natural Gas

Mr. Rafat wrote:

"Some people contend that a reliable tracking product must store the underlying physical commodity, and it is almost impossible to store sufficient amounts of natural gas. Yet, storage problems didn't stop Wall Street from having Gold and Silver ETFs. If Wall Street has products that hold gold and silver, why not natural gas?"

How much storage space do you suppose is necessary to store say $1000 of natural gas compared to the same value of gold (1 ounce)? Any concept of the differences in the expenses of storage coming through?

Fixed-Income: Options to Low Money Market Rates

Do you mean that there still are money managers relying on the credit ratings of those greatly discredited agencies that didn't do anything to protect investors during one of the worst credit crises in financial history? If I discovered one of my consultants still doing that... bang! bang! pop! pop! Maxwell's silver hammer would come down very quickly.

Google: How One Wedding Video Shows YouTube's Potential

I cannot believe how repressed are those who found this delightful wedding entrance video as objectionable and especially those who found fault with these friends talents as dancers! Lighten up! This was a major departure from the usually joyless church ceremony. It is a celebration of the occasion of marriage instead of a solemn and utterly predictable "Here comes the bride."

Oil Is Still the Key to U.S. Economic Future

I haven't seen any evidence that Pickens has "given up" on his plan as indicated by "longoll" above.
I get weekly emails encouraging further action and laying out actions to do so. Anyone who agrees with Fitzimmons' suggestions should become involved in supporting the Pickens plan where there is some hope of actually accomplishing something:

While the price per barrel of oil has fallen over the past nine months, the percentage of oil we import has not. Over the past 12 months we have continued to import nearly two-thirds of the oil we use.

Most of the oil we import is used as a transportation fuel - cars, trucks, aircraft, boats and trains. About one barrel out of every five is used as diesel fuel to power heavy trucks - 18-wheelers.

I am all for developing battery, fuel cell technology and nuclear power or some other technology which is still in the laboratory stage. But the latter are not ready for widespread distribution to our national fleet of approximately 250 million cars and light trucks. The only fuel which is available to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is domestic natural gas.

Due to recent advances in technology, we now have the ability to recover natural gas from the enormous deposits in Texas, Louisiana and Appalachia in the lower 48 states. A recent CERA study showed there are enough proven reserves in the Continental United States to supply our needs for the foreseeable future.

Natural gas is cheaper than diesel fuel. Natural gas is cleaner than
diesel. And it's ours.

Congressmen Boren (D-OK), Larson (D-CT) and Sullivan (R-OK) recently introduced a bipartisan bill, the NAT GAS Act of 2009, to incentivize industry to replace older diesel trucks with newer natural gas vehicles - it's a great step in the right direction. It will provide the momentum for engine manufacturers, natural gas producers and natural gas distributors to ramp up and make a real difference in our dependence on foreign oil.

I hope everyone will take a look at this plan and help us push it further.

Oil Is Still the Key to U.S. Economic Future

How are the author's energy recommendations any different from the Boone Pickens plan?

Search Engine Wars: Bing Gets More 'Eye Time' than Google

Is this a joke?
Let's see:
Who funded this study, Microsoft or some ghost company?
How were the 12 people selected in detail? Families of MSFT?
Who designed the questionnaire? Who monitored the test?
The error range for a sample of 12 is over 3.4!
Laughable.

No direct connection with either company, but I actually do own more MSFT than GOOG.

Herd Mentality Is Behind the Gains in the Markets

Anyone who claims to "see" where equities will be going over the next year is 'whistling in the dark." The only reasonable strategy for making money in the markets over the next several months is to be a short term trader with a discipline.
Over many years I never believed in technical analysis, but right now buy and hold does seem to be a dead end. It could be that the rate of change of business realities (technology, politics, financials) implies that new companies cannot expect to be successful for more than a very few decades before change makes their basic business plan irrelevant. That would imply that business strategies should be based on an expectation that the company will either fold or be sold in a couple of decades after going public. Nevertheless, with the right plan that approach could still be very profitable.

The Truth About 3x ETFs and Long Term Investing

OK. One of the first intelligent blogs I've seen on why leveraged ETFs may not perform the way investors were thinking. But it is also way too negative about the possibilities for using these ETFs as hedging opportunities. The report repeats the usual blah-blah about how they are only supposed to be used for daily trades. Not True! I've done very well with using the periodic ups and downs to put in LIMIT BUYS and LIMIT SELLS over a few weeks that have netted huge gains over short time periods. As with so much else in trading, the key is to not get too eager or too greedy so that you are tempted to jump in and make changes to a workable strategy.

Government's Handling of Economic Crisis - Einstein Would Call It Insane

Bagsnatcher!
I mostly agree with the financial/economic sentiments expressed in your comment. And there is not enough information in your note to know where you are coming from... except it's probably not from USA. Your comments, however, seem to indicate an enthusiastic and mostly unreasonable anti-American sentiment with penurious tones. I wonder why!!
With something like 350 million people, the population of America is, of course, very diverse with different and varied opinions on almost any issue. To me the major counterpoint to the sentiment expressed in your note is that, in modern history, there has never been another dominant government that (of course, imperfectly) so represents human rights, sensible approaches to human dignity, life, liberty and the pursuit of human happiness. Historically this has included well wishes and considerable support for other nations that display similar values. Yes, of course, again, not without terrible mistakes. Unfortunately that's the human condition.

Eye on Financial ETFs this Earnings Season

My guess at 2 AM EDT Sunday (8 PM Hawaii time Saturday) is that the Monday market will open with lots of buying and by mid day will sell off. Leveraged long index ETFs (BGU and FAS) will start higher at the open and then fall before the end of trading on Monday. Just the reverse for leveraged short index funds (SDS).
Why am I going out on this limb? Maybe I'm a masochist, but it's actually an attempt to discipline myself to be more cautious about my enthusiastic prognostications. If the above predictions work out to be prescient, then I invite all readers to send me lots of money to start my own hedge fund.

Cisco: Compelling at These Levels

Excellent analysis, very helpful.

Chesapeake Energy CEO in Questionable Compensation Deal

In spite of the often sarcastic and condescending tone of this blog (perhaps one of my own tendencies), it is one of the best descriptions of the weakness in the American corporate governance system I've seen. To me the main point is a question of how to improve a ubiquitous system whereby Boards of Directors do not really spend the effort/time to do fair judgement of the company's executives but instead rubber stamp company suggestions so that they can comfortably stay on the Board and collect their monetary and public rewards.
My view is that company executives should not be eligible to even be on the Board much less be Chairman. Of course, they are required to appear and report at Board meetings at the mandate of the Board, but are not present for votes on any issues or important discussions that affect their compensation.
Somehow selection of nominations for Board positions and reelection of current Board members should also be made more independent of company executives and more influenced by shareholders. Any one have any suggestions?