jasonjim

Consensus Forecast: Economic Recovery

I love your chart. Shows a bottom in early 2009, and a slow upward crawl throughout 2009 and getting even stronger into 2010. My stock holdings which I bought near the bottom will bless your name forever if you are right.

Contrarians: Time to Ditch Gold, Look at REITs

Gold will be the next bubble as the herd follows the latest fad. Some REITs are good buys today because all of them have been oversold, some to ridiculously low levels relative to value. Some of them still pay a healthy dividend as well. As soon as the banks recover so will the REITs. Just have to be patient.

An Obama Speech to Light Wall Street on Fire

It is refreshing to read something positive for a change, so bravo to the author. I am long BAC as well and intend to hold until the market regains some semblance of sanity instead of panic over every bit of bad news generated by the media. I blame the media for being exceedingly biased towards the negative over the past two months or so, and of course the government sitting on their thumbs didn't help either. Let us hope that the road ahead leads to better things for the people, institutions, and the country.

Bank of America Continues to Stand Strong

These negative people who advocate nationalization of BAC never seem to give up do they, nor do they analyze thoroughly the ramifications of what could happen to their institutions and their country if it were allowed to happen. It would be an unmitigated disaster, that is what it would be. Who in government, for instance, would run BAC if it was nationalized---perhaps Barney Frank? Or would the government hire Ken Lewis on contract to run it, assuming he would accept, which I don't think he would. What a farce!

Why Friday Was Such a Critical Day for Bank Stocks

These are extraordinary times where old rules like the DJIA dropping stocks which are $10 or under do not apply. Dropping BofA from the Dow during a crisis like we are having now would only add to the crisis and make it worse. The DJIA people are doing the right thing in this respect.

Give Bank Regulators a Chance

If regulators are unable or unwilling to assess the inherent risk of a bank because of its size or complexity or the number of regulators required to do so adequately, then perhaps an asterisk after the ticker symbol of the bank should be inserted stating that fact e.g. " Bank regulators are unable to assess the investment risk of this banking entity because of its size and complexity". This would warn potential investors that in essence the bank is essentially unregulated and that if they do invest their money it is at risk, thus protecting innocent investors. The threat of having this asterisk placed after their ticker symbols could force the banks to be more forthright in disclosing the true risk in their operations.

Too Big to Bail: Lehman Brothers Is the Model for Fixing the Zombie Banks

Christopher Whalen, you are a stupid and dangerous idiot. Lehman wasn't a model of what to do in a disaster of this nature. Lehman was a disaster which helped create the present crisis. If your solutions were implemented it would go a long way to destroy the American way of life. Do you think the foreign investors will sit idly by and passively accept that their investments will be wiped out? Not on your life, there will be a giant whooshing sound heard throughout America as money is withdrawn by foreigners and invested elsewhere outside the purview of American control. And who in government is qualified to run C and BAC if they are nationalized? Answer: Nobody! Unless of course the government hires Lewis on contract to run the show, if he is willing that is. Idiots like you should stop publishing your drivel. You add to the crisis and do nothing to help resolve it. You are an enemy of America, not a patriot.

36 Stocks Going Ex-Dividend in Early March

As usual in articles of this nature not all of the facts have been mentioned, which could cause an ill-informed reader to be led astray. More important than the ex-dividend date is the record date which usually follows the ex-dividend date by 2 or 3 days. If you don't own the shares on the record date you don't get the dividend, even if you bought them before the ex-dividend date. I thought that this point should have been mentioned in the article.

Starting the Geithner Resignation Pool

Cwest is at least positive in his comments, although I don't know where he got his sort of insider information. To all the doomsayers who want to slash and burn the economy and the banking system into oblivion and the eventual destruction of the United States itself, I say boo to you, all and where are your guts in standing up to a challenge when things get rough.

Nationalizing the U.S. Banking Sector: There's No Choice

I disagree with the author that the so-called toxic assets held by banks are virtually worthless. They are all backed by mortgages, the vast majority of which are good, viable investments. The problem is there is no market for the assets to establish their fair value, and nationalization is not going to solve this enigma. Nationalization would just create a bigger mess, and could at its worst ruin the United States of America.

Let us assume that the housing market prices have gone down by an average 30% during this crisis, less in some areas of the country, more in others. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that the toxic assets on the books have a fair market value of 70%. The government should buy them from the banks at this price, and establish a market for them with government guarantees backing their value. If the securities cannot be sold at the 70% valuation then the banks have to pay the government the differential over time, so that the hit is not overly onerous.

Is Big Pharma Ready for Takeoff?

I hope you are right, because I've been holding 500 shares of Pfizer(PFE) for about 5 years now hauling in the dividends while waiting for it to do something on the price side except go down, down, down. I agree though it is about time that it went up, up, up for a change. Perhaps the merger will help, perhaps not.

Nationalize U.S. Banks

Bravo, bravo, bravo! All or some of the below comments are a much better strategy in mending our economic problems than nationalizing our banking system. The question is will the big boys who are shorting everything in sight and making a fortune by doing so lobby strongly to prevent these improvements to the system from being implemented. We small investors unlike the big money boys do not have much say in how fairly the system works, even though we are being continuously screwed by the unfair rules in place. I say no to nationalization, and a resounding yes to making drastic changes to the system which favor the small investor.


On Feb 03 07:15 AM apppro wrote:

> Your tax dollars went to a few short sellers that rumorboarded and
> naked-shorted our entire financial system into the toilet. Things
> didn't have to be this way.
> 1. Get rid of mark to market. have a 10% forced write down. stops
> the insanity.
> 2. Refinance the monolines. The start of all of this. Have the stimulus
> plan give money to municiplaities that write bonds. Dollar 4 dollar.
> BIGGER BANG FOR THE BUCK, and gets the private sector back into the
> game. Force the PImco's of the world to buy muni bonds and not just
> park their cash in treasuries.
> 3. Reinstate the up-tick rule.
> 4. Get rid of ultra ETF's. Also, since it really must be impossible
> to know what short positions are available- before hand - stop shorting
> of all ETF's. stop having the tail wag the dog.
> 5. Put an end to naked shorting and require the ACTUAL stock certificate
> number to be inputed before a short position can be covered.
> 6. Get the SEC involved with prosecuting gangshorting.
> 7. Decrease and/or increase capital gains taxes so they PROMOTE investing
> and DETER this 'trader mentality' we are soooooo involved with. Short
> term sales at 50% - long term at 5%.
>
> There are many ways to fix things without trying to bail out and
> nationalize institutions that if we had the right regulations, wouldn't
> need it in the first place. Just stop the INSANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!

>
>
> and oh I forgot the most important to help pay for all of this:

>
>
> INSTITUTE A 65% WINDFALL PROFITS TAX ON ALL SHORT SALES RETROACTIVE
> TO 01/01/08.

Why Can't Bank Executives See in the Mirror?

Why don't you write something half decent that is going to help the economy recover, instead of all your damned negativity toward everything. When stocks of perfectly good companies are falling 40% in one day, why don't you write an article about reinstating the uptick rule in order to settle the market down. What is the matter with banning short sales temporarily, say for a year, to get a more orderly market? Or perhaps you like disorderly markets because you like to short stocks, along with all the rest of the greedy bastards who care more about their own pockets than they do for their own country's welfare. A pox on all your houses, I hope someday the tide reverses and you lose all of your misgotten gains.

A Primer for Trading Citi This Week

Ban short selling for a year and bring back the uptick rule. It is not rocket science for crying out loud. Cox must be an idiot not to do something to settle the markets down. Or does he want to see Citi go down the tube like Lehman. Cox should have been fired months ago for incompetence.

Short Squeeze Triggers Sharp Volatility in Stocks

One type of solution which would aid immensely in settling the stock markets of the world into a more normal state of affairs would be to ban worldwide every type of short selling of stocks in a coordinated effort by every country for perhaps six months or so, maybe longer. This would go a long way in removing the volatility in the markets and get things back to being more normal. This would eliminate in the short term attacks by short sellers with big money on perceived weak stocks while the ban remained in place----big money would have to look elsewhere to find a place for their megabucks, and hopefully that would mean they'd go long in depressed stocks that they helped depress in the first place----this would go a long way to help the market recover in an upward direction.