The Supreme Court healthcare opinion "is a classic example of why Prediction markets have minimal value," writes Barry Ritholtz as Intrade gets it wrong again by predicting that the court would invalidate the act. "Futures markets are really a focus group unto themselves: When the group is something less representative of the target market, they get it wrong with alarming frequency." [View news story]
Yippee! Let's all celebrate the new TAX on the middle class and the poor.
The Supreme Court healthcare opinion "is a classic example of why Prediction markets have minimal value," writes Barry Ritholtz as Intrade gets it wrong again by predicting that the court would invalidate the act. "Futures markets are really a focus group unto themselves: When the group is something less representative of the target market, they get it wrong with alarming frequency." [View news story]
Intrade had John Kerry winning the election by 95% the day of the election - not sure why anybody thinks these things are anything other than a financial opinion polls with the same level of accuracy.
Understanding Confidence Surveys Can Help Your Investing [View article]
Jeff,
"My purpose is to inform about investments, not to help people in their assessment of leaders"
Sadly in today's environment, I think it is next to impossible to separate the political from the financial. The governments of the world have so bound themselves to the fate of the markets that political ramifications can far overshadow basic underlying fundamentals. Deficit spending either expansion or austerity will ultimately bite into corporate profits if you accept James Montier's argument on the subject.
"It's far better to reply on corporate and industry data to aascertain where things are headed."
Trust the NAR over the regional FED reports?
December 2011: "Sales of existing homes since 2007 were 14% lower than previously reported, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. The downward revision offered statistical evidence that the U.S. housing slump that followed the collapse of the subprime mortgage market was even more severe than previously thought. According to the NAR, in 2010 there were 4,190,000 existing-home sales, down 14.6% from the earlier reported 4,908,000 figure. For the four-year period from 2007 to 2010, sales and inventory were revised downward by 14.3%."
Understanding Confidence Surveys Can Help Your Investing [View article]
"The failure of leadership is creating a negative climate. Some of this failure can be laid at the doorstep of specific leaders,"
If you don't name names then how can we assess who is failing?
Really the fact that we don't want to hold leaders accountable with specific examples of their failures rather than the usual ad hominem attacks means we will have a difficult time conveying to leaders what we want them to do to overcome their failures. If we don't create a vision for the people then we cannot expect meaningful change to happen.
The CEO is usually the person most accountable for the ultimate success or failure of the company (sometimes unjustly) and when confidence in the leader is lost the right prescription is to find a new leader in an effort to restore confidence and shareholder value.
Market fears may be reaching a crescendo, which, to contrarians at least, may wind up being good for stocks over the long run. In the most recent consumer confidence survey, the percentage of those who believe stock prices are going to fall shot up from 32.4% to 42.6%. This surge of pessimism is just what's needed, says Bespoke's Nadav Baum. "We're stuck in a trading range ... You need to get that pessimism on the retail side to get the market to break out." [View news story]
Van,
A "fat tail" event is not the same as a Black Swan event. All a fat tail means is that the projected impact in terms of market losses is far greater than suggested by all the Value At Risk (VAR) models that the financial institutions use. VAR models assume a normal distribution which unfortunately only exists until it doesn't.
So an actual implosion of the EURO currency although known would very likely exceed the losses projected by these mathematical models - the same models that said subprime was contained and a national decline in housing prices was impossible.
The major reason no one has a clue as to the impact is the derivative market - Buffett's weapons of mass destruction.
*The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing."
Measures intention not completion which given the high cancellation rate for mortgage underwriting explains why the follow through to actual sales has been tepid.
Basically flat with March's reading.
Truthfully although this is important, new home sales are where the economic activity is most important as you undoubtedly know.
This is not unimportant but the regional FED reports are more meaningful - Chicago FED was negative this morning continuing a string of disappointing reports so there's some doom and gloom for you.
Market fears may be reaching a crescendo, which, to contrarians at least, may wind up being good for stocks over the long run. In the most recent consumer confidence survey, the percentage of those who believe stock prices are going to fall shot up from 32.4% to 42.6%. This surge of pessimism is just what's needed, says Bespoke's Nadav Baum. "We're stuck in a trading range ... You need to get that pessimism on the retail side to get the market to break out." [View news story]
When the professional investors stop being bullish then we will have a bottom. The fact that the "pros" are still so bullish is the true contrarian signal.
When the perma-bulls on this website (you know who you are) become distraught we'll probably be close to a bottom otherwise there is no contrarian call you can make from this shoddy excuse for data.
The heatwave hitting the Midwest could wreak havoc on our corn crop, says Dennis Gartman. Without a good storm we may lose it, which could, in turn, ripple across a wide range of other industries as well. Corn is used in a variety of products from candy to renewable fuels. The key date to watch for is Independence Day. The Midwest needs a good soaker by July 4th to keep the corn crop stable. If not, Gartman warns, we're looking at a potential game changer for the markets. [View news story]
Option,
I have no idea what argument you are trying to refute with this comment. Burning food for fuel is a misguided side effect of the fraud of man-made global warming. Ethanol mandates were put in place to "save the planet" and when you build a policy on a foundation of lies it crumbles under the weight of its own lies.
This policy hurts the poor worldwide who live on few bucks a day even if we in the US don't notice it as much.
From Scientific American (first link I could find):
The U.S. Now Uses More Corn For Fuel Than For Feed http://bit.ly/MlrmM9 "And, for the 12 months from August 2011 to 2012, the U.S. biofuels industry used more corn for fuel than domestic farmers did for livestock feed – a first for the industry. This significant milestone in the shifting balance between crops for food versus fuel shows the impact of government subsidies for the biofuels industry. And, it could represent a tipping point in the conflict between food and fuel demand in the future." Over the past year, U.S. farmers used 5 billion bushels of corn for animal feed and residual demand. During the time timeframe, the nation used more than 5.05 billion bushels of corn to fill its gas tanks. "
The heatwave hitting the Midwest could wreak havoc on our corn crop, says Dennis Gartman. Without a good storm we may lose it, which could, in turn, ripple across a wide range of other industries as well. Corn is used in a variety of products from candy to renewable fuels. The key date to watch for is Independence Day. The Midwest needs a good soaker by July 4th to keep the corn crop stable. If not, Gartman warns, we're looking at a potential game changer for the markets. [View news story]
Hmmmm building an energy policy on corn (ethanol) rather than drilling we get: less energy, less national security, less food, and higher food prices worldwide. Typical government results.
Another unintended consequence of the man-made global warming fraud.
A recent comScore survey drives home the devastating impact the showroom phenomenon, in which consumers check out items in physical stores before buying them online, is having on Best Buy (BBY). A full 63% of survey respondents claim they bought a consumer electronics item online after viewing it in a store. This compares with 43% for apparel, 29% for books, and 22% for both appliances and toys. [View news story]
They are Amazon.com showrooms. No way around it. If they can't compete on price they will eventually die just like Circuit City.
Cheap or value trap? The market cap of the entire European financial sector ($360B) drops below that of Canada ($377B). Total EU GDP is about 8.5X greater than Canada's. [View news story]
winning,
I guess it is the lesser of two evils since both alternatives are horrible but one is less bad. It's going to happen eventually anyway so prolonging the inevitable just makes the ultimate resolution that much more painful.
Wiping out shareholders or socializing losses? Should the public foot the debt bill or let the banks and their enablers suffer?
No good answers but I suspect that we would be better off in the nationalization scenario because it would be more acceptable to the people once they understood the alternatives. No banking panic, depositors are protected, and most bondholders are kept whole while the commons are wiped out.
John Mauldin has nailed this EndGame scenario years ago and it is now that the rot is revealing itself. One way or another there will be pain in Spain that does not remain on the plain.
Jun Texas Fed Manufacturing Outlook: Business Activity Index +5.8 vs. 0.0 estimated, -5.1 prior in May. Manufacturing production 15.5 vs. 5.5. New orders 7.9 vs. 0. Capacity utilization 13.3 vs. 5. Shipments 9.6 vs. 0. Employment 13.7 vs. 8.5. [View news story]
ID,
Actually it wasn't an ad-hominem, it was a statement of fact assuming your profile is truthful. You are a college student which means you pay little or no tax like the 50% or so of Americans who currently pay no Federal taxes.
I guess the kind of thinking above is what passes for an advanced education these days.
You should have saved your money and gone to work because it will take you a lifetime to rid yourself of this brainwashing and by that time it will very likely be too late!
Read the Constitution and the enumerated powers and you will get an idea of what government should and shoudn't be doing. National security yes! Studying the mating habits of sea otters, no!
Jun Texas Fed Manufacturing Outlook: Business Activity Index +5.8 vs. 0.0 estimated, -5.1 prior in May. Manufacturing production 15.5 vs. 5.5. New orders 7.9 vs. 0. Capacity utilization 13.3 vs. 5. Shipments 9.6 vs. 0. Employment 13.7 vs. 8.5. [View news story]
Tack,
ID is a college student according to his profile so I am not sure he has actually paid any taxes yet.
I was a socialist in my younger pre-revenue days as well. On my first real-job I became an instant conservative when I saw how misleading the term "gross paycheck" was once the government took its cut. That event was what we call an old-fashioned epiphany.
Cheap or value trap? The market cap of the entire European financial sector ($360B) drops below that of Canada ($377B). Total EU GDP is about 8.5X greater than Canada's. [View news story]
These banks were far more levered up (40 to 1 and up) with "zero risk" sovereign bonds (Greek, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc) than anything that happened on this side of the ocean so is it any wonder that people don't have a clue as to what they are really worth?
What should happen is that the common shareholders get wiped out and perhaps less senior bondholders get a haircut but the depositors get protected when these things are nationalized, but what will happen is anybody's guess.
I believe this is what the Swedes did with their banking crisis in the 90's.
http://bit.ly/KXIrwy "During 1991 and 1992, a housing bubble in Sweden deflated, resulting in a severe credit crunch and widespread bank insolvency. The causes were similar to those of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008. In response, the government took the following actions:[1]
The government announced the state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks. Sweden's government assumed bad bank debts, but banks had to write down losses and issue an ownership interest (common stock) to the government. Shareholders at the remaining large banks were diluted by private recapitalizations (meaning that they sold equity to new investors). Bondholders at all banks were protected. Nordbanken and Götabanken were granted financial support and nationalized at a cost of 64 billion kronor.[2] The firms' bad debts were transferred to the asset-management companies Securum and Retriva which sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral for these debts. When distressed assets were later sold, the proceeds flowed to the state, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the nationalized banks in public offerings. Sweden formed the Bank Support Authority[3] to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization. This bailout initially cost about 4% of Sweden's GDP, later lowered to between 0-2% of GDP depending on various assumptions due to the value of stock later sold when the nationalized banks were privatized.
The economists Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman have proposed the Swedish experiment as a model for what should be done to solve the economic crisis currently affecting the United States.[4] Swedish leaders who played a role in devising the Swedish solution and have spoken about the implications for other countries include Urban Bäckström and Bo Lundgren."
The Supreme Court healthcare opinion "is a classic example of why Prediction markets have minimal value," writes Barry Ritholtz as Intrade gets it wrong again by predicting that the court would invalidate the act. "Futures markets are really a focus group unto themselves: When the group is something less representative of the target market, they get it wrong with alarming frequency." [View news story]
The Supreme Court healthcare opinion "is a classic example of why Prediction markets have minimal value," writes Barry Ritholtz as Intrade gets it wrong again by predicting that the court would invalidate the act. "Futures markets are really a focus group unto themselves: When the group is something less representative of the target market, they get it wrong with alarming frequency." [View news story]
Understanding Confidence Surveys Can Help Your Investing [View article]
"My purpose is to inform about investments, not to help people in their assessment of leaders"
Sadly in today's environment, I think it is next to impossible to separate the political from the financial. The governments of the world have so bound themselves to the fate of the markets that political ramifications can far overshadow basic underlying fundamentals. Deficit spending either expansion or austerity will ultimately bite into corporate profits if you accept James Montier's argument on the subject.
Of course that is my view of the matter.
May Pending Home Sales:+5.9% to 101 vs. +1.2% expected; -5.5% prior. [View news story]
"It's far better to reply on corporate and industry data to aascertain where things are headed."
Trust the NAR over the regional FED reports?
December 2011:
"Sales of existing homes since 2007 were 14% lower than previously reported, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
The downward revision offered statistical evidence that the U.S. housing slump that followed the collapse of the subprime mortgage market was even more severe than previously thought.
According to the NAR, in 2010 there were 4,190,000 existing-home sales, down 14.6% from the earlier reported 4,908,000 figure. For the four-year period from 2007 to 2010, sales and inventory were revised downward by 14.3%."
Read more: http://fxn.ws/MU1k0T
FED reports have a very high correlation to payrolls.
Understanding Confidence Surveys Can Help Your Investing [View article]
If you don't name names then how can we assess who is failing?
Really the fact that we don't want to hold leaders accountable with specific examples of their failures rather than the usual ad hominem attacks means we will have a difficult time conveying to leaders what we want them to do to overcome their failures. If we don't create a vision for the people then we cannot expect meaningful change to happen.
The CEO is usually the person most accountable for the ultimate success or failure of the company (sometimes unjustly) and when confidence in the leader is lost the right prescription is to find a new leader in an effort to restore confidence and shareholder value.
Does the same analogy apply to government?
Market fears may be reaching a crescendo, which, to contrarians at least, may wind up being good for stocks over the long run. In the most recent consumer confidence survey, the percentage of those who believe stock prices are going to fall shot up from 32.4% to 42.6%. This surge of pessimism is just what's needed, says Bespoke's Nadav Baum. "We're stuck in a trading range ... You need to get that pessimism on the retail side to get the market to break out." [View news story]
A "fat tail" event is not the same as a Black Swan event. All a fat tail means is that the projected impact in terms of market losses is far greater than suggested by all the Value At Risk (VAR) models that the financial institutions use. VAR models assume a normal distribution which unfortunately only exists until it doesn't.
So an actual implosion of the EURO currency although known would very likely exceed the losses projected by these mathematical models - the same models that said subprime was contained and a national decline in housing prices was impossible.
The major reason no one has a clue as to the impact is the derivative market - Buffett's weapons of mass destruction.
May Pending Home Sales:+5.9% to 101 vs. +1.2% expected; -5.5% prior. [View news story]
Measures intention not completion which given the high cancellation rate for mortgage underwriting explains why the follow through to actual sales has been tepid.
Basically flat with March's reading.
Truthfully although this is important, new home sales are where the economic activity is most important as you undoubtedly know.
This is not unimportant but the regional FED reports are more meaningful - Chicago FED was negative this morning continuing a string of disappointing reports so there's some doom and gloom for you.
Market fears may be reaching a crescendo, which, to contrarians at least, may wind up being good for stocks over the long run. In the most recent consumer confidence survey, the percentage of those who believe stock prices are going to fall shot up from 32.4% to 42.6%. This surge of pessimism is just what's needed, says Bespoke's Nadav Baum. "We're stuck in a trading range ... You need to get that pessimism on the retail side to get the market to break out." [View news story]
When the perma-bulls on this website (you know who you are) become distraught we'll probably be close to a bottom otherwise there is no contrarian call you can make from this shoddy excuse for data.
The heatwave hitting the Midwest could wreak havoc on our corn crop, says Dennis Gartman. Without a good storm we may lose it, which could, in turn, ripple across a wide range of other industries as well. Corn is used in a variety of products from candy to renewable fuels. The key date to watch for is Independence Day. The Midwest needs a good soaker by July 4th to keep the corn crop stable. If not, Gartman warns, we're looking at a potential game changer for the markets. [View news story]
I have no idea what argument you are trying to refute with this comment. Burning food for fuel is a misguided side effect of the fraud of man-made global warming. Ethanol mandates were put in place to "save the planet" and when you build a policy on a foundation of lies it crumbles under the weight of its own lies.
This policy hurts the poor worldwide who live on few bucks a day even if we in the US don't notice it as much.
From Scientific American (first link I could find):
The U.S. Now Uses More Corn For Fuel Than For Feed
http://bit.ly/MlrmM9
"And, for the 12 months from August 2011 to 2012, the U.S. biofuels industry used more corn for fuel than domestic farmers did for livestock feed – a first for the industry. This significant milestone in the shifting balance between crops for food versus fuel shows the impact of government subsidies for the biofuels industry. And, it could represent a tipping point in the conflict between food and fuel demand in the future."
Over the past year, U.S. farmers used 5 billion bushels of corn for animal feed and residual demand. During the time timeframe, the nation used more than 5.05 billion bushels of corn to fill its gas tanks. "
This is an insane policy.
The heatwave hitting the Midwest could wreak havoc on our corn crop, says Dennis Gartman. Without a good storm we may lose it, which could, in turn, ripple across a wide range of other industries as well. Corn is used in a variety of products from candy to renewable fuels. The key date to watch for is Independence Day. The Midwest needs a good soaker by July 4th to keep the corn crop stable. If not, Gartman warns, we're looking at a potential game changer for the markets. [View news story]
Another unintended consequence of the man-made global warming fraud.
A recent comScore survey drives home the devastating impact the showroom phenomenon, in which consumers check out items in physical stores before buying them online, is having on Best Buy (BBY). A full 63% of survey respondents claim they bought a consumer electronics item online after viewing it in a store. This compares with 43% for apparel, 29% for books, and 22% for both appliances and toys. [View news story]
Cheap or value trap? The market cap of the entire European financial sector ($360B) drops below that of Canada ($377B). Total EU GDP is about 8.5X greater than Canada's. [View news story]
I guess it is the lesser of two evils since both alternatives are horrible but one is less bad. It's going to happen eventually anyway so prolonging the inevitable just makes the ultimate resolution that much more painful.
Wiping out shareholders or socializing losses? Should the public foot the debt bill or let the banks and their enablers suffer?
No good answers but I suspect that we would be better off in the nationalization scenario because it would be more acceptable to the people once they understood the alternatives. No banking panic, depositors are protected, and most bondholders are kept whole while the commons are wiped out.
John Mauldin has nailed this EndGame scenario years ago and it is now that the rot is revealing itself. One way or another there will be pain in Spain that does not remain on the plain.
Jun Texas Fed Manufacturing Outlook: Business Activity Index +5.8 vs. 0.0 estimated, -5.1 prior in May. Manufacturing production 15.5 vs. 5.5. New orders 7.9 vs. 0. Capacity utilization 13.3 vs. 5. Shipments 9.6 vs. 0. Employment 13.7 vs. 8.5. [View news story]
Actually it wasn't an ad-hominem, it was a statement of fact assuming your profile is truthful. You are a college student which means you pay little or no tax like the 50% or so of Americans who currently pay no Federal taxes.
I guess the kind of thinking above is what passes for an advanced education these days.
You should have saved your money and gone to work because it will take you a lifetime to rid yourself of this brainwashing and by that time it will very likely be too late!
Read the Constitution and the enumerated powers and you will get an idea of what government should and shoudn't be doing. National security yes!
Studying the mating habits of sea otters, no!
Yeah. Hope and Change!
Have a nice day!
Jun Texas Fed Manufacturing Outlook: Business Activity Index +5.8 vs. 0.0 estimated, -5.1 prior in May. Manufacturing production 15.5 vs. 5.5. New orders 7.9 vs. 0. Capacity utilization 13.3 vs. 5. Shipments 9.6 vs. 0. Employment 13.7 vs. 8.5. [View news story]
ID is a college student according to his profile so I am not sure he has actually paid any taxes yet.
I was a socialist in my younger pre-revenue days as well. On my first real-job I became an instant conservative when I saw how misleading the term "gross paycheck" was once the government took its cut. That event was what we call an old-fashioned epiphany.
Cheap or value trap? The market cap of the entire European financial sector ($360B) drops below that of Canada ($377B). Total EU GDP is about 8.5X greater than Canada's. [View news story]
What should happen is that the common shareholders get wiped out and perhaps less senior bondholders get a haircut but the depositors get protected when these things are nationalized, but what will happen is anybody's guess.
I believe this is what the Swedes did with their banking crisis in the 90's.
http://bit.ly/KXIrwy
"During 1991 and 1992, a housing bubble in Sweden deflated, resulting in a severe credit crunch and widespread bank insolvency. The causes were similar to those of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008. In response, the government took the following actions:[1]
The government announced the state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks.
Sweden's government assumed bad bank debts, but banks had to write down losses and issue an ownership interest (common stock) to the government. Shareholders at the remaining large banks were diluted by private recapitalizations (meaning that they sold equity to new investors). Bondholders at all banks were protected.
Nordbanken and Götabanken were granted financial support and nationalized at a cost of 64 billion kronor.[2] The firms' bad debts were transferred to the asset-management companies Securum and Retriva which sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral for these debts.
When distressed assets were later sold, the proceeds flowed to the state, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the nationalized banks in public offerings.
Sweden formed the Bank Support Authority[3] to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization.
This bailout initially cost about 4% of Sweden's GDP, later lowered to between 0-2% of GDP depending on various assumptions due to the value of stock later sold when the nationalized banks were privatized.
The economists Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman have proposed the Swedish experiment as a model for what should be done to solve the economic crisis currently affecting the United States.[4] Swedish leaders who played a role in devising the Swedish solution and have spoken about the implications for other countries include Urban Bäckström and Bo Lundgren."