mplaut

John Hussman: A Tale of Two Data Sets

OK. So it is clear that either the market may go up more although on the other hand it may go down.

Thanks a lot.

Dave's Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Last Forever

A lot of the comments are not pure economics but that does not mean that they are not relevant to economic issues.

The points are well-taken, but they may only mean that there will be a "new normal" of slow growth - more like Europe than the US in recent times. So what? Why is that a problem?

A lot of Europeans are happy with their lives. Why do we have to have 5% growth to be happy? With the kind of wealth that we already have, it should not be too hard to learn to live and be happy with 1-2% growth.

High Yield Securities Need to Refresh

Even at $20 LINE is yielding over 12%.

It is impossible to know what will happen in the next few months, but over the long run LINE looks as good as ever. The next distribution payment is in August, so you might want to wait and hope for a pullback, but then again it may go higher by then.

LINE is good value at $20 and that is the best way to look at it, but if you want to check the prices daily, then, as tc1 says, it may be a bit overbought.

Schrodinger's Mark-to-Market Law of Dead Cats

I think you got the idea and the title for this article from the comments on the last one. It is unfortunate since there is a lot of clarity in your remarks and it is obscured by the screwy title.

Thanks for a good article.

A Low, Dishonest Decade Marches On

The Simon Johnson article is probably going to be a very influential article. The Atlantic editor already blogged about it and wrote that it is scheduled for the May issue but they put it up already because they thought it is "so timely."

Here is the link:

www.theatlantic.com/do...

The editor's comments are here:

meganmcardle.theatlant...

A Simple Method for Market Timing

Trying again (breaking it all up - you have to put everything together without spaces or line breaks):

finance.yahoo.com

/echarts?s=^DJI#chart2...

indicator=sma(50,200)+...

ohlcvalues=0;logscale=...

A Simple Method for Market Timing

This link will get you the DJI with the 50 and 200 day moving averages:

finance.yahoo.com/echa...=^DJI#chart2:symbol=^d...

FAS 157 and Other Regulatory Actions: Good Intentions, Unintended Consequences

A good article that raises important points. It seems, however, a little uncertain about what its main thesis actually is.

"the fundamental problem in 2008 was dangerous levels of debt carried by Wall Street banks and brokerages (along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and Main Street homeowners."

Yes, and FAS 157 and the repeal of the uptick rule were catalysts that triggered the meltdown, but not true causes. FAS 157 seems to be a fundamentally good policy but bad timing in its implementation. If it had been in place for several years, it may have helped avoid many of the problems.

I cannot see how the repeal of the uptick rule helps anyone but the shorts, and it helps them go beyond their basic contribution of providing liquidity and a check on excesses and thereby damages many others.

Siegel vs. Standard & Poor's

One point that I think is not considered strongly enough is that by standard criteria some of the financials should really be dropped from the indexes. They are in penny stock areas and not in S&P areas. If they were dropped, of course, their earnings - and losses - would no longer count.

Welcome to a New World of Investing

Petrobank is not a pink sheet company. It is a billion dollar company that is listed on the Toronto Stock exchange. It is only available in the US through the pink sheets, but look for it in Toronto and you will see.

I am not recommending it, but it is growing production, and it has a new method of producing heavy oil that could revolutionize the production of heavy oil. Of course, this is not exactly the time when such a method is attractive but that could change in a year or so.

Credit Crisis Watch: Gaining Positive Traction?

I think that rates is the key. If they are normal, it shows that the situation is normal.

In current circumstances, which decent business would be leveraging up? Almost everyone is trying to live within cash flow because of the tremendous uncertainty that is all over.

We do not want banks to lend again to unworthy customers, do we?

What Corporate Yield Spreads Are Telling Us About Equities

IMO what is being mispriced in the yield spread is not the high corporate yields but the low Treasury yields.

If that is correct, then it turns the whole article upside down, doesn't it?

Stocks: A Bear Case

MLPs are yielding 12-15% - much higher than they have traditionally yielded, even in a world oriented towards capital gains, and much higher than I think they will yield once more people realize what Salmon is writing.