short WFC

Why Deflation Will Persist for Longer Than You Think

cogent and couragious article,

1 not only has velocity decreased but the amount printed (or even obligated) still seems small compared to money destroyed so far.

2. would be constructive to estimate that fraction (printed to destroyed money) since 1. its probly easier then estimating velocity but has the same effect and 2. no inflation can begin without the ratio making some kind of convincing headway towards 1.

Why Warren Buffett Loves Wells Fargo

important factor in evaluating WFC is how RE will fair and how much exposure WFC have to commercial/residential- very surprising there is barely a mention RE in this article. did author already forget what precipitated this crisis?

Banks Won Concessions on Stress Test

i clearly remember bernake et al talking about 'building confidence' . that was jarring enough that they would openly talk about manipulatng pubic opinion rather than fixing economic fundamentals,

right after that they come up with 'stress tests'. to understand these complex activities one must always ask what is the interests of the parties

stress tests results were negotiated between the gov whose stated interests are 'building confidence' and banks whos stated interests are ..well ..sure seems like bone headed status quo , bonuses, and continued clueless mingling of 'utilitily' banking (managing mom and pop accounts) with investment banking.

so these stress tests are to be believable? that requires stunning gullibility, its infuriating that this is what our leaders expect of us and frightening to see it happening.

still fresh destruction of financial 'services' industry and fed balance sheet dont seem to inspire our leaders to action other than shallow opinion 'fixes' . reminds you of anything? historical examples abound. nero playing the fiddle while rome burnt or the rearrangment of chairs on the titanic..where meaningful activities can fix these fundamental problems?

we need to separate the invetment banks from utility banking and we need true transparency of present banking insolvency. once the gov owned ones open up, other will have a choice to open up or risk losing customers. however bad it is, there may still be enough money and time to fix it.

not for long. one more round of these escalating bank failure cycles and its truly all over. next year there will be as many ARM defaults as they were subprime. good luck coming up with any bailout money for that

meaningful stress tests may have been obtained if the books and the crtieria were discussed openly and testers interests were clearly aligned with economic and banking priciples.

any exposed problems would have laid baseline confidence level going fwd.

pls tell me why i'm totally wrong...

Charlie Gasparino: Another Crash 'Has to Happen Again'

the idea that investment banks took on 'too much risk', misses the point. they are REQUIRED by their job description to take risks to make profits, when the gov reduces risk on some investments (FDIC, FNM etc) these 'banks' MUST take on further risk or they are not doing their job

Roubini's Case for a Double Dip Recession: Pretty Underwhelming

RE price declines triggered this crisis. RE continues to decline and impending resets will likely bring 2nd wave of defaults in 2010. this will likely precipitate another crisis and gov spending spree. but hey i guess thats 'long term' enough for few to bring up?

Strange Inconsistencies in the $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery

great work thanks!
the evidence for a tip off is compelling.
there is a BRIC meeting since jun17th where the Russian agenda is pretty much trash the US and its dollar and replace with ruble. multiple statements to that effect including cameo appearance by AhhMADinojihad soon to go nuclear and always can be counted on for the trash the usa part. He even took valuable time off from crushing his opposition to attend www.timesonline.co.uk/...


this is looking like Russias way (read xKGB) of telling the BRIC countries stick with us this is not just talk we can and will end the dominance of the USA dollar by hook or as usual by crook
ie printing fake dollars/bonds

Housing Is Bottoming

phew, good work responders, 10x better analysis than original post

Stocks vs. Bonds: An Update for the Current Market

sounds good but what about some fishy goings on? here is a verbatim copy of an article by
IndexUniverse.com:

biz.yahoo.com/indexuni...

Can You Trust Bond ETFs?
Monday October 13, 7:42 pm ET
By IndexUniverse Staff


Murray focuses on premiums and discounts in the fixed-income space, which is a huge story:Fixed-income ETFs are trading at wild variance with their underlying indexes.
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There are a variety of reasons why. The fixed-income market is so frozen right now that some bond price indexes are carrying stale data. At the same time, some ETFs are using "fair value" pricing to value their illiquid holdings, which introduces a layer of discretion into how each fund's assets are priced.

To be honest, it's hard to know exactly where these things should be trading. And that, to me, is a big problem.

The whole idea of investing in ETFs is that they give you clean access to various asset classes. You set your asset allocation—X% in stocks, Y% in bonds, Z% in commodities—and ETFs give you fair exposure to those markets.

Right now, they are not doing that.

Consider the three junk bond ETFs:the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond (AMEX:HYG - News), SPDR Lehman High Yield Bond ETF (AMEX:JNK - News) and PowerShares High Yield Corporate Bond Portfolio (AMEX:PHB - News). All three funds track high-yield corporate bonds, holding portfolios of 50, 112 and 52 high-yield bonds, respectively. You'd think their returns would be similar.

But let's say you bought shares in each fund at the close of trading on October 3. Since then, through 3:30 p.m. ET on October 13, HYG is down about 8.5%, while PHB was down 15% and JNK was down 17%. That's an 8.5% swing in 10 days from top to bottom.

It's worse if you look intraday. At one point last Friday, HYG was down about 15%, JNK was down about 20% and PHB was down nearly 30%.

A 15% difference? Intraday? Are you serious?

Of the three funds, HYG appears to be trading the best. On an intraday basis it has been trading fairly smoothly, while the other two ETFs have vacillated wildly.

But with HYG trading at a massive discount to net asset value, who's to say.

Buyer beware.

Schroedinger's Cat Revisited: Why It's Impossible to Predict the Markets

gobbledygook, a parallel between quantum mechanics (one of lthe least understood theories of all time) with investing is hardly likely to help anyone accomplish anything,

Bailouts Will Soon Drive the Currency Markets

up

Bailouts Will Soon Drive the Currency Markets

a cpl of trillion in extra money supply or not inflation will wait till commodity prices, oil,unemployment, oversupply (of auto, and just about everything else) will come down

We're in an Opacity Crisis

I agree with most of it, just want to add the dire requirement for broad, and strong accountability enforced at top level administrators of gov , GSE and private entities.

no accountability=no long term success of policy.

2nd point is that governements role in breakig up provate monopoly shold be expanded to include 'too big to fail' organizations.

these two ideas if strongly enforced will go a long way to protect stability, economic policy, and taxpayers

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

u left out ibm announced good earnings yesterday

Economic Indicators Signal a Major Collapse Ahead

i also wish to thanks thinkbig and wonder why someone would attack him so viciously without so much as alluding to even one specific notion..wow...that was kind of scary ...

if we dont quickly get accountability for this mess (theres plenty of blaim to go around is not acceptible as 'accountability')

AND we dont get instituted accountability for government actions and financial bodies such as GSE's (FNM etc) we will have more of this type of circus.

its human nature. put almost anyone in control of a lot of money and let them make nice bonuses with little or no accountability and you will get a lot of risky tinkering.

let a few of these 'leaders' lose their mansions and you'd be amazed how stable and far thinking financial policy can become

'too big to fail' institutions should have been broken up by SEC , Fed , treasury . where is their accountability. no accountability no results. democrats or republicans means nothing without accountability. i'm so disappointed we dont hear that in all the election bs.

Investment Ideas For Hard Times To Come

without tough accountability built into legislation -capitalist or (spit sideways) socialist, its very hard to prevent the legislation from being sooner or later abused and end up counterprductive. whats missing is not just the right philosophy but realism to provide strict accountability built into the laws so that whoever is charged with implementation has to make it work the way it was intended or else the blaim and severe repercussions are automatic. in other words in a good system the top management of FNM etc should have all resigned citing the impossibility of juggling subprime with safe banking