nlipner

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

FLAWED NUMBERS, how could they miss that of the 200k cars that would have been traded in anyway, many had a value far above 4.5k + SCRAP COST. This program cannot be compared to standard trade-in averages to derive an incremental gain unless one has separate numbers of what the lowest tranch (under 5k & low mileage) of trade-ins equates to. Additionallly the economic benefit of removing the true clunkers (low mileage & worth less than 5k) extracts from both society (safety, road damage and productivity) and the owners (those trapped in a car with high repair costs).

Identifying the Next Bubble

1- Cina (opaque market)
2- Gold/Silver (Inflation play)
3- Base commodities (expansion play)
4- Solar/Wind (Gaia Play)
5- Oil/Nat Gas (classic underinvestment cycle)
6- Banks (if the assets move to the fed and the liabilities reach a 3% or better spread)
7- Long Bonds (Yield steepener reaches the masses)
8- BRIC
9- EEM
10- Consumer Tech
11- Healthcare services
12- Medical Tech *(my odds-on favorite, advances even more dramatic than the tech bubble are afoot)

Where's the Bursting Commodities Bubble?

I see your point, nice double top but it also looks liks a pennant with a likely breakout in a month...

Is Inverse ETF Activity a Contrarian Indicator?

so, what was the result ?

Truck Driver Wisdom Suggests Housing Stocks Are Bottoming

Rather than rehash the above excellent rebuttals of your conclusion, I can simply tell you that your assumption that the truck driver "would say that the housing market is in real trouble" is completely off the mark.

Survey after survey shows the average homeowner oblivious to the real declines and believes every bottom call. You sir, have chosen to be a contrarian to your own imaginary everyman and ended up smack in the middle of the pack.

I have an anecdotal story about your everyman: last week while getting my haircut I was told of a clever friend of the hairdresser who is taking advantage of the slump to buy more investment property because of the great paper gains on property bought last year. I didn't have the heart to spout CDO leverage statistics or mention what truely marked the ends of all the other good bubbles of the last 30 years.

Personally I have been ultra-short homebuilders, reits, lenders, etc. for a while now with no regrets.

Fed Funds Rate Has To Climb To 6%, Then Fall

Sir, did you perhaps make a typo in this statement ?

• When Fed Funds fall, so do bond yields. That is because people want to lock into the higher rates provided by bonds, so they buy high yielding bonds, driving down their prices. So up go the yields.

More demand for the bonds should increase their price and reduce the yield, not the opposite as you stated. Correct ?