Zapf

Wednesday FX View: Dollar Bows to Carry Trade Pressure

Thanks for article-informative and explains a lot about what the US dollar is going through

UBS Halts Inverse and Leveraged ETF Trading

If this is true, then the ETFs are just derivative chips for investment banks only now. WHICH is fine except the Treasury,SEC and FED seem to feel obligated to SAVE these "hedge fund banks" when the blow it. I suspect ETFs will be banned by the Fall to prevent sale volume from being too overwhelming. Pretty much everyone knwos the market crash 2.0 is coming. It's a self-fulfilling crash as we know Goldman and Co. will pull out by Sept. Oct and take their winnings-and there goes volume liquidity.

UBS Halts Inverse and Leveraged ETF Trading

So if I still own a position in SDS(double short S&P) will this position be more adversely affected due to less volume?

Did the ECB Save COMEX from Gold Default?

Being outraged by government manipulation is pointless-they own most of the liquidity anyway. They can sell whatever they want because it's not a "recognized" currency and a dumb rock in the ground. They "own it" and can "sell it."The outrage is that the government can sell US taxpayer assets at depressed prices and there is no recourse or regulation. In the end this will all come and bite them in the tushska-like Britain selling gold at 200 an ounce. You can always trust the government to sell low and buy high. When Russia and China go on some sort of gold-based commodity standard, the USG and the banks will have to buy their previously owned property back at higher price because they need gold as a reserve against dollar revulsion. The benefactors-anyone who is buying gold now. The first country to get to a reasonable gold standard or basket of commodities standard will be the world reserve currency because its backed by a real object. Heck, if the currency was backed by Weber BBQ's it would be better than the "backed by confidence" game the Euro and the Dollar play.

The MacroShares Anomaly

I hate this ETF-it tracks oil prices down but doesn't track it up at all. I suspect it's a huge scam and waste of time-as are most ETFs.

The Mystery of the Underperforming Gold Stocks

Great article and observations. I think the comment about GLD(which just compounds the issue of paper vs. physical price differences) is very interesting. I know a handful of people that chose that route instead of GDX or the miners.
I have been following the market as an outsider for 2 years, and what I found to be the issues in my mind so far are:
-People think of gold in nominal terms, not it's buying power. Gold has excellent buying power as currencies across the globe deflate. The dollar nominal value aside, you can buy more euros,equities,commodi... and so on with gold. The "Real"price of gold is skyrocketing. Once people divorce themselves from a dollar to ounce ratio, they will realize that gold is easily a reserve currency-not the Euro,Franc or Yen.
-With the above in mind, people are viewing gold nominally in dollars and choose to stay in dollars or treasuries at the moment. We know what will happen to bonds later...
-GOLD MINERS, because of the massive deleveraging in October, have given some investors 3rd degree burns that are hard to forget
-MINERS are very much removed from the commodity via exposure to costs and other metal prices
-MINERS are equities, and investors are in the process of capitulating on equities
-Investors don't understand that gold does well in a deflationary environment just as well as inflationary
-I saw an earnings chart of Barrick versus some orthodox equities on the S&P500.
Barrick was making a lot of MONEY.More money than all these loser companies combined! Miners are going to become the premier equity investment. Unlike the others, Miners are in growth mode,have dividends and make a profit(the seniors and midcaps.)
-Gold price is manipulated by all sorts of large entities-including the Central Banks. It's just something one has to deal with since they OWN the gold anyway. They can jerk the market around all they want-it's their loss in the end.
-The Miners are too associated with gold price, which is part of a "risk" investment. Once the investing crowd gets a lookey-loo at the earnings of the companies, gold price will not matter unless there's a huge fallback to 600 an ounce or so.
-The last run up of miners was associated with gold price-but that run up was in the biggest commodity run up ever in the 2007-2008 timespan. BUT, their margins and profits were not outstanding because labor was expensive, fuel was at an all time high,land was pricey and so on.
-Banks have lost tons of liquidity due to the loss of credit-as-money. They have to recapitalize by stealing taxpayer money via Treasury injection PLUS they need to store cash assets(which was taken back by the Fed and swapped with Treasury Credit) with something. That something will partially be gold as it's highly liquid and universally accepted. The miners are gearing up for a huge request by banks to make money for them that has no claims on it.

People are just really, really confused about the benefits of owning a mining company because of the GOLD PRICE, which I have said already is sort of moot until a massive correction hits. The margin gap is growing and growing. If gold corrects, load up on miners and play them for 2-3 years.

Apple Warns iPhone Competitors: Don't Rip Us Off

I'm sure PALM had some development with multi-touch years ago-they just couldn't make it work because they had poor engineering for years. They are sure they have prior art that will nullify Apple-but the development and research into multi-touch was all Apple. They made it work well and PALM is using their research.

Apple Warns iPhone Competitors: Don't Rip Us Off

the PRE is a total ripoff of the Apple iPhone UI-flatout.

Apple: Like Starbucks and Whole Foods, A Trend That's Past Its Prime

The answer is:
1) Yes the iPhone is a lot better than the Blackberry. Look at the sales as proof. It's clearly the mobile leader that RIMM may have been in the 90's
2) Yes, the MAC desktops and laptops are much better perfomers than the DELLs and LENOVOs. Also, a more secure OS. Macs are good out of the Box. Windows is painful, swiss cheese secure and need a lot more fussing with to run at optimal performance.
3) Yes, Apple will have earnings and innovation problems in this economy, with the "head" cut off.