CoverIsBetter

Cramer Grilled on Jon Stewart

One more take on this, not yet said : Cramer thrives on a dry sense of dark humor. That whole thing about Selling Short and spreading rumors.. he is playing a role, acting. And Stewart just throws more logs on the fire, by his line of questioning.
He may as well have been asking "So you really really are the tooth fairy?" This whole thing looked like a pretend inquisition, not a real one. I switched over to the UCONN v. Syracuse game.

Rating Fifth Third Bancorp: A Zombie of a Different Kind

And that diva Jennifer Openshaw recommended this one as a "Deep in the Money" Call, somewhere around 40 bucks a share.
Anything would have been better.. a buy write, a vertical spread, collar.. Those calls promptly went to zero :-(

Thoughts on Last Night's Speech by the President

Here is your immigrant you love so much :

www.dallasnews.com/sha...

I could post thousands of other cases of this kind of thing here.

We don't need more imported production functions in this country. We need what Obama suggests, a higher rate of socio-economic success with the children we are already bearing. We are not some global marketplace for labor that is to be trampled over by those who only want a paycheck and make no contribution to their communities (other than buying expensive cars).

American Express Buying Out Cardholders: Bad for the Economy?

It's total reverse psychology. Tell the customer, you are so sure they can't pay, that you will pay them to leave. The customer sees it as a challenge and stays and pays?

This is totally insane. At a minimum, the customer must feel insulted to be let go with such compassion. At a maximum, this is some kind of martyrdom for Amex to plea for government help. It was said GM should pay its workers to not produce and it would be cheaper than trying to turn a profit. Maybe AXP is following that model.

In Praise of Suze Orman

I would like to add that you are not giving Suze credit for her recommendations on 401K. In this market, most people would have done better to max out 401K contributions and allocate it all to cash. You get your company match(50-100%), and what more return do you need ?
Suze deserves credit for her message, while simple. Careful spending and borrowing is contagious. People are nothing but crabs in a barrel. You try to climb up and they want to pull you down. You try to save, and they direct you to spend, make you a carbon-copy wage slave. You try to diet, and you are urged to eat. Anybody with a voice for positive outcomes, like Suze, should be applauded. That said, practical people are SO boring! Vrrrooooom!

$35 Oil: Steve Forbes Was Off by Two Years

farignewton - You mean USO, right?

I have some nice 85 dollar Calls in that one.
Can I invest in a broken clock?

Putting vanity on hold: As the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?

Are you suggesting we could care even less about our health and looks?
Most people don't even appear in public anymore. They live behind Facebook pictures from their skinny years and video games.

Please say the answer is NO! Bring back Jamie Lee Curtis from 1980-something. In fact.. bring back the 1980-somethings. We have better hair now, but horrible bodies. I know which trade I would make ;-)

12 CNBC Pet Peeves

Mark Haynes, when they put him in the Octobox, telling them how he couldn't handle it. That was money.

I could look at Melissa Francis, Burnett, Boorstin and forget all about investing, the economy, whatever, forever.

"do they all have overbites or speech impediments?" .. I think Carmen Wong Erlich has an Underbite.. but it's kind of cute.

Dividends - The Ultimate Bird in the Hand

With all due respect to your expertise.. TD?

That company has lost over 50% of its value in the past 2 years and yields Under 6%. Could you use a better example?

I don't even want to talk about Rule of 72 or any other reason why 6% yield sucks. Taxes, maybe?

Why not a Tax Free Muni fund like EVN yielding 10%?

Unemployment Numbers Drop to '74 Lows - Will 2009 Be Like 1975?

I agree with Wrixon. We have an entirely different set of problems now. We have a fast food culture, where nobody wants to work. We outsource the fast food order takers to India where we can. Our consumption function country has also turned into a "buy and hold" culture. But all that people have been holding has turned to dust. Corporate America is unable to prop up a nation of McMansion buyers.

Obama has a tough job now. How do you keep the crony capitalism running? People have gotten so spoiled, they need $50 an hour personal trainers just to hold their hands during ab crunchers.

I can't wait to watch this globalization and buck passing to un-wind.
1975 - people actually worked for a living. We didn't have a real estate agent living in 1/3 of the households, and we didn't have the obesity we have now.

Get back to work America! Yes, it is "Hip to be Square" again! :-)

Profiting from the $700 Billion Bailout

So your friend's house appreciated a half million Canadian dollars.So what? What does that say about our current financial crisis? Nothing. If he wants another similar Canadian home, guess what. He will have to spend a bunch of millions of Canadian dollars. (And then lose them all when their asset bubble pops)

So the exchange rate changed. That is completely a separate issue which you poorly explain by mentioning a home that nearly doubled in value in its home currency. Exchange rate arbitrage is totally overrated. Try moving just 100 miles within the US and see what I mean.

Options Trader: Monday Outlook

GE Trade not working out well yet, with the stock dropping 2 points since this December call recommendation.

Tried to follow the USO recommendation and screwed it up. Now I just have a vertical spread instead of this calendar/bearish-verti... thing you have described here. What is the movement in USO that would make that trade work? Down-lateral near term, upward long term?

2 Good Stocks I'm Considering Buying on This Plunge

Let's see, we are heading into recession and you recommend 2 products that are more addictive than crack :-)
Talk about vertical demand curve.
"What do you want for that, a junior g-man badge?" -Vincent Hanna

What else you got?

Is Sirius XM Headed the Way of Old Radio?

I know this thread is so long now, I may get no readers. But it helps me to vent that THERE IS ADVERTISING on the XM. All morning, I am trying to get the financials from CNBC, and commercials play. On Bloomberg channel, what do you get? Damn commercials about Bloomberg channel. Hey idiots! I am already a paying listener, you don't need to advertise yourself on your own channel!

Also, I would like to complain about what happened to the ESPN channel. I used to get 'Around the Horn' and PTI on my way home from work, and now they are gone. Hanks Place turned into WIllies Place and now that sucks.

All this makes me want to move closer to work, just to stay off the road.
The only saving grace, maybe, is hearing Public Enemy on that sunny Sunday afternoon that I just can't stand another freakin' minute of the
stupid-burbs where I live.

Conclusion : The service is not worth the fees, and does not live up to the mammoth effort spent to provide it.

Options Trader: Tough-Decisions Tuesday

"emergency claptrap" I love that.

But seriously, who signs up for a 100 year loan? That is WAY overestimating the morality and virtue of the typical problem borrower. If people were willing to retrench that far to hold on, we would not be in this mess. Heck, I saw a perfectly healthy educated white couple getting foreclosed out of a tiny Florida ranch house on CNBC. And I am thinking, why are you not at a second job somewhere? Go steal from the register, atleast then we know you aren't lazy.
"If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin"

I love the persistence with which you suggest the government get closer to the problem and not just bail out banks, Phil. I only have to wonder just what we do in those "90 days of stopped foreclosure"?Freeze their ARM? You can do that last of those w/o spending any money or hiring anybody. You have a point, that we could evaluate who should get saved or not, but that leads into a real market-skewer of government corruption.

OT: What is going to happen to WaMu? Did you continue to accumulate using the covered call/put strategy?