Seeking Alpha

AndrewBaker » Comments » AAPL

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Well the money-go-round has got itself working well on the run up to Christmas, bonus season and good will to all. Enjoy it whilst it lasts, because when the day of reckoning comes, we're the ones who'll be paying the tab whilst the fat cats and politicians will be finding new excuses for getting it wrong yet again.
    Nov 16 10:23 am |Rating: +4 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    A basic problem is that there are too many people getting paid for doing non-jobs and non-productive jobs: the list includes many politicians, State and Federal workers, bank, insurance and financial company workers and the many media commentators who are so fond of telling us what needs to be done for the economy to improve.

    Add to this the exorbitant pay that is now common in many companies for higher and highest level staff and paid on the excuse that they need to retain the best people, and it is no wonder that the greed of these non-producers has caused a downturn from which it will years to recover.

    Token gestures to restrict pay for a certain group is just not enough. Pay differentials from base to peak need to be far less than they are, and based on real productiveness and genuine capability, not just paid to someone just because they've reached a level where excessive pay is the norm regardless of the quality of the person's real personal contribution.
    Oct 23 09:15 am |Rating: +12 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    The authorities complain about a rise in financial fraud: what are they talking about? They are perpetrating the biggest financial fraud of all time with their quantitative easing and use of tax dollars to support an oligarchy and make everyone else suffer, as we will, by inflating away in due course the value of our wealth and savings, whilst ensuring they preserve their own wealth and interests..
    Oct 20 08:06 am |Rating: +12 -2 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    The high margins banks are making now on loans plus accounting sleight-of-hand to enable written-down loans to be re-rated will probably give banks the ability to boast about higher profits in the reporting season coming up, and that with continuing "good news" from the political talking heads will push stocks higher than they are already. Sadly this will simply make the fall when it comes, that much worse. There are already signs that the fake money and profits that have been proclaimed over the past few months cannot continue to be used, because they just do not exist! (The FDIC "tapping" banks, for example.)

    Enjoy the bull whilst he's roaring, but be ready for the sprint away from the market which is coming.
    Sep 29 10:50 am |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Well, some of the financial truth is starting to come out: we are now seeing that things are not as rosy as we had been lead to believe over the summer. Banks still have big problems, especially with bad debts - and now prime borrowers are in trouble too - and governments can't pull back for fear of a collapse nor continue with financial support without putting themselves in a bad financial position (and many already are).

    The markets will pull back as they are so overvalued, and jobs will continue to go as companies try to stay solvent. Housing isn't doing any better and neither is commercial property. When our supposed leaders start to admit to the reality instead of telling us how good they are, then maybe we can really get started on a recovery. Pretending there is a recovery when there patently isn't is no good to anyone.
    Sep 24 08:52 am |Rating: +6 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Weaker oil demand and continuing high foreclosures just don't add up for me as being part of any recovery, more like part of a continuing recession that's going to get worse.

    And retail sales a little higher? Even in a recession, children go back to school and new kit is needed. That alone would account for the 0.5% "increase" that we're being told about.

    When real trading gets going again, watch closely for the market's direction: and it won't be north.
    Sep 10 07:34 am |Rating: +7 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Employment down, consumer credit down (and not just because no-one wants to spend, they just can't borrow because the banks are saving themselves first and consumers are well down the list), and, not surprisingly, consumer confidence is down. Yet the banks especially and the markets generally keep on going up.

    Until the manipulation of stock prices by whatever means, stops; we will not get a true recovery. All that is being achieved is a growing potential bigger drop in stock prices that will hit people already suffering due to the losses of the past two years. Letting the patient think he's getting better then knocking him back down again is not the way to instill confidence nor to get him wanting to get back up again anytime soon.

    Apparently, Warren Buffet is buying less stocks and more bonds now. He's not stupid: take note and take appropriate action. When the Sage shuns stocks for bonds, he's not doing it to help the government. Sell stocks now whilst prices are as attractive as they are, or weep later when it's too late and the falling knife cuts you.
    Sep 09 14:34 pm |Rating: +1 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    We're going to get the same old political rubbish soundbites from the G20 meeting, telling us our great leaders have eveything sorted and recovery is there, just a few more [time periods] (enter your choice within the brackets) for the slow recovery to give way to a wonderful new start and milk and honey and roses.

    Meanwhile the same old bad debts on personal and commercial property, car loans, personal loans, credit cards etc. will get worse, especially as prime loans are now renaging along with sub-prime.

    The sub-prime minister of the UK, where this meeting is to be, will deny he had anything to do with al-Magrahi's release, and be photographed shaking hands with, and no doubt cuddling, Obama, and everyone will enjoy top quality accommodation and dining.

    We will continue to wait for the big correction that will take out all our recent stock gains, and muse about how much taxes will go up in the future to pay for the bail-out and the G20 attendees' pleasure trip.
    Sep 03 15:58 pm |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Being philosophical for a moment, I and many others, on here certainly, have been vocal in pointing out that the real situation is not as rosy as politicians, bankers and talking heads would have us believe, and some of us have been buying shorts when it looked like a reversal was coming/had arrived, and also taking short term profits on upward spikes in prices, plus holding cash rather than go long longer than the short term.

    Well, what if we had instead gone with the crowd and joined this rally back in March/April? The market would surely have jumped even more and prices would have gone far more into overbought territory than they did and are. At some point, some amongst us would have said, "enough is enough" and taken their profit, which would have caused others to join in. The result would have been a big fall from a much higher position.

    My point and conclusion? Us bears have saved the world from itself by being a valve on this pressured up-market. We should congratulate ourselves and take a bow: and also keep our money and shorts ready for later when we can then get our reward.
    Aug 28 11:06 am |Rating: +4 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Yep, and think how good it would be if we has some really good news.

    On Aug 28 08:12 AM marketman54 wrote:

    > LET SEE:
    >
    > 410 Banks in trouble
    >
    > GDP down 1%
    >
    > Unemployment up every month
    >
    > Consumers not consuming
    >
    > Foreclosures up
    >
    > $2 trillion of debt and rising
    >
    > YEP, I GUESS THINGS ARE REALLY LOOKING UP!!!!
    Aug 28 10:56 am |Rating: +3 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    So retail store sales are down as is personal income, whilst outlays are up, and saving down. No surprises here, and no surprises for guessing that the markets will be down today due to their overly enthusiastic run up recently and figures which re-state that it is not getting any better.

    No doubt we will be told that it is not getting any better more slowly, which may mean that the market will down more slowly; but go down it will, and when it has gone down, the drop of x% will still be x% no matter how slowly it happened.
    Aug 04 08:43 am |Rating: +4 -1 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    Wow! This article is being read by those on the happy bull pills that the government seems to be handing out now: my comment above put in a jocular way about the market opening higher for no sensible reasons and needing to come back down to reality has been thumbed down by most so far. Are these the same people buying this market? If so, then I won't be so sorry when it falls and they lose some of their shirt for buying because they were afraid to miss out on the so-called bull market and greedy enough to try to catch a lift up before they missed it. Truth is though that this market is coming way back down and will stay down before it gets to go back north again.

    And doubleguns very good comment about letting the banks fail is slated too. Maybe it's bankers as well as substance users on here today (and some politicans too, perhaps?)

    I want a rising market but an honest one, pleeeease.
    Jul 31 14:23 pm |Rating: +3 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    We've just opened: up! What is it the government has had put into the water or air supply? The markets' are not the only things on a high, and if we go into the weekend up, I'm gonna demand my own private supply of whatever it is, 'cos it'll be the only way I could stop myself going gaga before Monday comes around/ And if we're not down then, I'm gonna od on this stuff.
    Jul 31 10:01 am |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment
  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
    So bankers get bonuses greater than the banks' net income. This is history, not news; and a shame on bank bosses and politicans who rely on money from that source for campaign funds and more. The big banks just carry on with their profligacy, whilst the smaller banks get treated harshly to enable regulators and others to opine that they are doing their job and cleaning things up.

    Banks are raking in the cash right now with low interest on their borrowed funds and high charges on their loans; and just hoping to make a buck before the bad debts currently being hidden away, and still growing in all loan books (mortgages, cars, credit cards, personal loans, commercial mortgages et al), finally get into the path of the fans that will blow them up against not just the walls but into our faces too.

    Momentum traders are doing well now, and I hope that they are quick in getting out when the northbound momentum fails, and the southbound takes over.
    Jul 31 07:42 am |Rating: +7 0 |Link to Comment
  • Cramer's Lightning Round - BAC Is Back (7/27/09) [View article]
    If Bank of America gets ramped to $18 any time soon, then I'm packing up and going home, finding a nice Caribbean island with a few sods of fertile soil and some coconut trees with bark and leaves for making a beach hut, and taking up self sufficiency living there.
    Jul 29 11:08 am |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment
More on AAPL by AndrewBaker
Comments by Ticker
A, AA, AAI, AAP, AAPL, AAUKY.PK, AB, ABB, ABC, ABK, ABM, ABT, ABWTQ.PK, ABX, ACAS, ACE, ACF, ACH, ACI, ACL, ACM, ACN, ACV, ADBE, ADCT, ADI, ADM, ADP, ADRE, ADS, ADSK, ADVNA, ADXTF.PK, AEE, AEM, AEO, AEP, AES, AET, AFG, AFK, AFL, AG, AGCO, AGG, AGN, AGO, AGQ, AGU, AIA,
AndrewBaker's
Comments Stats
892 comments
Rating: 2347 (3216 - 869 )