Totffe

Taking Advantage of the January Effect

Everything has changed. If you load up expecting a "January effect" you might get burned badly. Everyone is saying there will be an Obama inauguration rally. I say baloney. BO has said everything he has to say, and the bloom is off the rose. A smart tactic might be to just get on the sidelines for a few weeks, before going short again, but to bet long is asking for trouble.

UBS Lowers Gold Expectations Again

UBS was recommending long and strong in stocks in July. They have no credibility. How can anyone believe, or trust what any "analyst" pumps anymore? These guys all have a personal interest in what they predict. Being a financial analyst is a license to steal.

Trading the Mark-to-Market Modification (Updated)

I think market to market accounting was a good idea applied in a mindless way, particularly since no one thought through how it might affect the calculation of banks' regulatory capital.
The reason that suspending it may not do any good is that all the damage has already happened. If we do suspend it, are we going to tell financial instituions that they can just write-up the value of their assets based on some other standard? That's equivalent to saying, "yesterday we said you were insolvent, let's pretend today that you aren't." Or, after all this carnage, we would be like Rosanne Rosannadanna: "Never mind".
The one way I could see it working, is that the rules specify some different standard for asset values which is used only for the purpose of calculating capital adequacy for the banks and doesn't apply to general financial statements. That might ease the pressure on banks so they could loan more, without having them write up the assets on their GAAP books--which no one would believe. The danger is that the calculation of capital adequacy would be detached from GAAP accounting and expose the banking system to more "cooking of the books". It is too late to suspend M2M with any credible good coming of it.

The Worst Is Likely Behind Us

What, is this guy 30 years old? This is the kind of advice that led to so many losing 35% of their savings in the last 12 months. The question is not when we will bottom (not for a long time), it is how long we will stay there. The crash of 1929 bottomed in the early '30's, and stayed there for 20 years. You got that long?

UBS Lowers Gold Expectations Again

Yes, and now the dollar is headed straight down again, beginning in early 2009. Then, you will really see a gold top.


On Nov 02 09:10 AM CLH wrote:

> The fact that gold is being lowered really doesnt matter for the
> goldbugs who are hell bent on losing their money in this depreciating
> asset.
>
> Gold topped in March 2008 as the dollar strengthened.

The Favorable Outlook for Gold

What a hollow article. What's his point? To get us to subscribe to his "service". And I wasted 5 minutes reading such dribble? The lower gold goes, the more I buy, to include cash flow neutral/ positive junior companies like NGUGF.

Many Investors Seem To Think the Worst Is Over

There is absolutely no reason for stocks to move higher long term. Eternal wishful thinking might push the markets higher in the short term, but a year from now we will be down 20% across the board. China is about to implode both economically and socially. Look for massive chaos there after the olympics, and the government gets down to the business of cleaning up the results of its uncontrolled growth. Most don't realize that 90% of China's businesses are insolvent. Real estate has not hit bottom, and when it does, it is going to stay there for a very long time. Buy ETF's that play the downside, and go fishing for a year or three. If you were in the market in 1929-33, and held onto your positions, it was 1954 when you became even again.