joes

Another Dip in the Earnings Beat Rate

What kind of isolated and ignorant existence does one live that leads one to believe that the "game of shameless manipulation" is anything new?

The "game" has been going on for thousands of years, and its't about to change, and the people who get taken will continue to get taken now and then, while complaining about trickery when things go bad.

Earnings Season: The Car Is Shiny, But Look Under the Hood

The fact that stocks are still down about 40% from the peak reflects the problems that you mentioned. The earnings are down 15% over the last year, which was not unexpected.

Overall this looks like a typical, but very deep recession that was caused by the banking industries innovative approach to the automotive and housing markets by artificially lowering prices through financing. Now we have always inflated the housing market with the interest deduction, the leasing of cars was a fool's game as was the shift from LTV of 80-20 to 100-0.

how much of a drag that will be going forward remains to be seen but I like the chances of us getting back to top line growth around Q3-2010.

How Bloomberg Fabricates U.S. Housing Numbers

Where did you get that Nielson's info, every study that I've seen has the numbers ranging from 250-350 million, we can't know exactly because of the strange culture around guns.

I obviously don't enjoy guns as they make young kids into killers and old men into fools.

Everyone likes to search for the facts that meet our objectives, but that isn't a reflection on the field of statistics, it is a statement about the way that our brains work.

The


On Nov 02 10:35 AM Buckoux wrote:

> Yawn!
>
> After Nielson's exaggerated comment about America's "Billion Guns",
> I've become immune to most statistics, real or imagined. I just always
> assume that the MSM, Bloomberg and Neilson are ALWAYs wrong and search
> for the facts on my own.
>
> Hmm. A "Billion" guns divided by the population of the USA at 300+M
> ='s 3.33 firearms for every man, woman and child in America. Does
> the average family of four poses 13 guns? (note, I wrote, "average").
>
>
> Disclosure: I obviously enjoy firearm sports and even I don't have
> 13 firearms as an individual. I also don't invest in any of Nielson's
> hustles.

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

If this is true "China is out there producing auto and diesel fuels from cola" then we should stop sending them coke:^)


On Oct 30 02:46 PM bindlepete wrote:

> Your really don't understand this market. There are not often single
> elements driving any decision out side of a coin toss and even these
> can be subject to influence.
>
> Most decision are multifactorial from access to transport, price,
> currency fluctuations ones own perceived needs and on ad infinitum.
>
>
> As to the supply side " peak oil' is a reality and inconvenient to
> acknowledge in our political system. China recognizes it clear and
> simple but then they have a different pattern of decision making.
> As to the many bbls you see coming on line it will be more than eaten
> up by declines in world production. Yes, even at $80 a bbl. with
> our dollar going down the porcelain pot hole.
>
> Hey, it is finite and difficult to find and produce. The US does
> not control the world oil market it is a world market and the big
> locals have little interest in low prices and certainly not cheap
> as dirt alternative liquid fuels.
>
> China is out there producing auto and diesel fuels from cola in the
> form of dimethyl ether and methanol. That is not permitted here as
> it would break the oil companies monopoly on feeding our liquid fuels
> addiction. Again China has a different decision making procedure.
>
>
> Oil priceas will continue to bounce about but with a clear upward
> long term trend. Bet on it. I have and am not ashamed of my comfortable
> success.
>
> I know you want a simple explanation but sorry all questions do not
> have human answers. Richard Belman taught me this back in 1970 over
> looking the Pacific.

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

What is that site, the stats show no one goes to it, just a bunch of links?

On Oct 31 09:10 AM invest4free wrote:

>
> good weekend reading: financeopinionss.blogs...

Oil: Supply and Demand? Hardly!

Oil and Gold act like hybrid investments, we use them in the actual production of things, and if we are making more of anything oil goes up and gold goes up when countries like China and India's middle class starts expanding.

Oil and Gold also are favorites of speculators, because the the distribution of both commodities you have unusual and out sized influence from companies like Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The Saudi have an especially inflated sense of importance, but when you understand that this isn't a country as much as a family run business with a total GDP of $600B (this is also the market cap of the two, only 2, largest US companies, Exxon and Microsoft) it is clear to see that the story is more interesting than the reality.

Letting the dollar slump for a while is fine by me as it pressures state controlled currencies like the Renambi and the Real to be exposed in the free market.

Google Should Make Apple Beg for Maps Navigation

Google is being run by Eric Schmidt, Apple by Steve Jobs, these guys are both ego maniacs that would like to be the "king", since Gates left there are quite a few folks looking for that title, Ellison, Ballmer and others are trying.

But at the end of it collaboration is more critical now than in the 90's and therefore isolated platforms are not attractive, but Apple is walking the line better than most, by better I mean they are only 10% point from taking the top smart phone from RIMM.

Now phones aren't operating systems and it is certainly possible that Android will win over time but in the near term it is RIMM that is in trouble and with $30 Billion in cash Apple has some options.

George Soros: The Guru Outlook

If George Soros was an true westerner, like English or Irish he would be recognized as the leading thinker of our times, his ideas of falsification and cognitive perception and material actions has made and saved me over the years.

He is vilified by the MSM and the right, and mostly ignored by the American progressives but to us Global citizens he is a hero that has donated Billions to feed, house and educate people about democracy.

George Soros: The Guru Outlook

In general studies have shown that liberals and progressives are smarter, here is just one example - tinyurl.com/5knb

The core difference is the idea of where the answers to the hard problems are to be found, Conservatives think that it has all been figured out already and if we find the right ancient text or history book, preferably a biography of some old white guy, the answers are there to be found.

Liberal progressive believe that what history tells you is that we need to keep evolving society, in fact according to Robert Wright, a leading modern thinker the structure of our world has favored the evolution of societies based on peace, commerce, reciprocal altruism, and mutual benefit.

Therefore figuring out new answers is more difficult and draws smarter people.

It is also why the left is harder to herd than the right, creating what appears to be chaos as opposed to the clean, lock step administration of conservative and other less tolerant government forms.


On Oct 29 09:29 AM p church wrote:

> If Soros is so smart, why is he a liberal?

The Intrinsic Value of Nothing, Part 1

It looks like you are picking the lie you like to me, reintroducing Hayek's work as a modern and developed theory for today's economic landscape can only make sense to a fool or an economist with some physics training.

Austrian economics had it's day, and is coming back out of the woods along with Ayn Randians, all well and good but it is like using using a tube TV, you can but there are so many advances by people like Kahnemann, Beinhocker, Talib and Soros that explain the differences between perception and reality, biases and contextual distortions and other elements of uncertainty. Still a hard thing to understand and the mistakes that will be made in the future will prove that.

The current mistake you made in comparing the math of quantum mechanics is deciding that people are like atoms, and particles that if we could develop more complex algorithms we could predict markets and value wealth.

This is exactly the lie that got us into this mess, and several of the most recent such as LTCM and even the melt down of 1987, I love that math as much as the next guy but to apply it to economics has proven impossible as people aren't simple autonomous agents like Quarks and Gluons. They are more complicated.

People that want to deconstruct value into discrete elements are foolish in thinking that they can return wealth to something tangible when that hasn't been the case ever. The situation in the first transaction was determined by a complex set of individual understanding and contextual forces, and as the creators of Billions and Billions of SKU's alone to say nothing of services, e.g. no SKU for prostitution as an example.

Everyone likes to think that the answer is in the past when it is always in the future, we will repeat history without trying so let's move ahead and stop pretending that dead philosophers will get out of this mess, which is more about what we don't understand that anything we forgot.

The Problem with iPhone Killers

Apple is winning because they are a more creative and better run company. They changed their name from Apple Computers to Apple because rather than compete for low cost market share with $300 servers running XP they extending computing through the mobile environment, first the iPod and then the iPhone.

Windows 7 isn't UNIX, whcih in case it isn't clear is the only operating system we need, Mac proved that also.

How Apple's Market Share Will Propel Stock to $500, Part 1

The main difference is that Apple stopped being a PC focused company and became a lifestyle product's company that happens to have the best PC and OS available.

In addition they have the iPod franchise which MS attacked with Zune and the iPhone, which MS is watching with no clue how to respond.

Windows 7 is the big news from Seattle? Good luck with that.

Why Android Is Gaining Ground on Apple

Wrong way to look at this situation, the App development community that is supplying 1400 new ways to use the iPhone every week without Apple doing anything except letting them make some money.

It is very different this time around, they have the perfect balance of openness with a solid well supported platforms, something that Open Source products can't match.

Most OS projects have an erratic path of advancements and a much higher rate of bugs.


On Oct 15 12:37 PM Kanji wrote:

> You Apple people have your heads in the sand - history repeats itself.
> This is Apple MacIntosh (hot product, great features, premium price
> and demographic, etc. etc.) vs. WinTel PCs all over again! The same
> closed platform OS and sales channel strategy that killed Apple before
> (with early PC competition) and limited its market share (the premium,
> uber cool anti-ubiquity strategy) will hurt Apple again with the
> Iphone. Why are they making the same mistake twice and with new management
> (or is it same management with Jobs)?!? It will take some time but
> I would bet on anyone other than Apple, they are one mistake away
> from failure once again.

Gold Is Still the Opportunity of a Lifetime

You are a funny guy, I'll keep coming back just to read lines like the one below;

I’ll counter with the fact that stocks are merely in the middle of a countertrend rally within a bear market while Gold’s correction last year was a countertrend move within a bull market.

So why are you comparing stocks with Gold which you have declared as Money?

4 Dividend Stocks to Hedge Against Social Security Failure

Nice to see a reply to the list of BS pushed as "facts" about Social Security.

The comment that it was the largest social program included as a negative is an example of how limited the conservative mind can be, it a pension plan for the entire country! Did you expect it to be small?

And to suggest the four stock approach you mention is a substitute for one of the greatest social initiatives of all times is just silly.


On Aug 25 11:09 AM cross wrote:

> On the plus side I appreciate your comments regarding Abbot Labs
> as I have a position in this company. It's a great long-term hold.
>
> As criticism, your comments regarding the solvency of Social Security
> are so far off the mark I really don't know where to begin. First
> of all, the bonds held by the fund were not issued by the govenments
> of Kosovo or Somalia, they were issued by the United States, an
> entity that has never defaulted on either its principal or interest
> obligations. (I'll simplify this for you: Real time, banks are not
> rescuing the Federal Government; the Federal Government is rescuing
> banks. Do you own a bank stock? Where did the dividend go?? I've
> heard, over the years that BAC was a rock-solid, take-it-to-your-grave
> investment) To suggest that the Feds will default on their obligations
> is just speculation on your part. Secondly, it is not a fund that
> needs to be permanently fixed. It just needs an occasional tweaking:
> raising the cap, raising the age, adjusting the COLA. All these
> things will need to be done, and indeed, have been done. It just
> takes political will. Third, it is not a static fund, it will receive
> 10's of trillions of dollars over the next thirty years of new money
> that will be used to partially fund benefits.
> What is the solution? Raise taxes, limit benefits.
> P.s. Gold??? At $900 + an ounce? I don't think so.