Jonathan Swift

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.

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.

BoA's Ken Lewis Still Doesn't Get It

When will we see enough of self-serving commentary on Blogs?
BAC has recently almost certainly hit bottom and, with probably occasional reversals, will make major gains through 2009. Anyone who claims that I am only saying this because I own BAC stock is a suspicious troublemaker!

Pequot Capital: Yet Another Hedge Fund Buying Gold

What fools these mortals be!
Yes there will be inflation sometime in the next few years.
But what glitters is not gold before 2011.
Commodities other than gold will boom way before then.

The Shadow knows!

Could Lehman's Failure Cause a Systemic Meltdown?

What a mess! It's clear that shareholders and creditors of these failing financial institutions are being punished as the stock/bond prices go to zero, but what about the executives who are largely responsible for letting this happen? Are they appropriately losing their jobs/equity/financial parachutes? Also isn't this the clearest example of the failure of rubber stamp boards of directors? Is anyone doing a study of the implications for reform in all of this so that we might not be "doomed to repeat history because we didn't learn from it" ?

Which Banks Will Survive?

Mr. "Prescient" You are one of the many small minded adolescents who regularly vent their spleens on these boards without adding much useful information. Your smug, self assured comment about the government's willingness or not to back financials in the face of bank failures is not based on any better information than any of the other ignorant prognosticators. Why don't you take a second look at what you are writing before sending insulting messages about smugness that you are most guilty of?

Time To Start Buying Some Dogs?

I also noted the miscue in the early comments about timing of buys and sells. It might be tempting to excuse that kind of error because of the urgency of these daily posts... but it's not excusable! To be a creditable advisor one should give the impression of careful consideration of what is being evaluated and said. Poor proofreading is definitely not encouraging about overall judgement.

Insider Trends in the Financial Sector

I think Rahemtulla has confused "institutional buying" with insider buying. Although there has been heavy institutional buying for these financial stocks in recent weeks, that is NOT the same as insider buying.

Insider Trends in the Financial Sector

Although I agree that heavy insider buying is very bullish for a stock, I'd like to see Rahemtulla's reply to the above comments implying that there is no evidence for such buying.