The-Stock-Market-Crash.com

U.S. Median Income from 1999-2009: No Gain, Much Pain

Statistics apart, the end game would be that things would become more affordable again. As incomes rise, so does inflation, beating the effect of the rising wages. For example: I was glad to buy a $750 GPS (price as of last august) for $300 recently. My income didn't rise but affordability certainly rose.

Cramer's Mad Money - How to Trade Earnings (9/11/09)

This week will be really interesting - being the anniversary week for the stock market crash precipitated by bankruptcies like those of Lehman Brothers. Let's see if the market will hold itself together.

Look Who's Betting on Inflation

gold is hitting $1000-mark mainly because of the falling dollar. The greenback is not going to stay low forever, and it will bring down gold and other commodities when it eventually rises. Till then enjoy the glitter! Paulson wouldn't be investing in gold at these prices, so shouldn't you. jmho. In fact, when gold returns to the 900 level or below in a few months, we'll see news articles that Paulson was selling loads of Au investments around the 1000-mark...

Gretchen Morgenson with a novel thought on how to prevent the next crisis: "Instead of creating more regulations to try to prevent this kind of mess from recurring, why not figure out how to hold regulators accountable when they perform as poorly as they did in recent years?"

what good will it bring if we punish the regulators? first of all, when we hold those regulators at fault to trial, they will come up with some excuse or the other in their self-defense, after all, they are smart, aren't they? Then the lengthy and wasteful trial process, which will be funded by the taxpayer once again. I think it's going to be a wasteful exercise. Of course, there will be some media sensationalism that can be extracted from it, but that's about it...

Options Trader Friday Outlook: Up, Up and Away

I would also like to believe that recession is over, but the stock market has probably reached levels that it should've reached only when the economy was growing on a year-over-year basis, as measured by metric like GDP. GDP is still negative. Some day this fall, the market would realize this and undergo a correction, otherwise, I think it is not healthy for long term prospects of the market.

Overbought Stocks

AIG's story is that of a short squeeze that no one expected, and to be of this magnitude. I think it would be worthwhile to buy some put options which are 3 or more months out in expiration. The squeeze will stop one day and shorting will resume on AIG.

A Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Would Be Justified

As other comments have said, such a merger will very likely not pass regulatory scrutiny. Comcast already charges customers an arm and a leg. They ate up smaller cable companies that served apartment complexes in CA. Then jacked up the prices 3 fold and are serving junk channels for a hefty price. Not much competition especially since lots of apartments and condo-rentals don't allow satellite dish installation or charge hefty deposits for the same. Comcast knows this and milks its subscribers to the max. Imagine if they hold hands with another giant...

Ride Gold with a Miner: Northgate Minerals

I think the yellow metal is simply being cyclical - it seems to rise mainly when the dollar falls. Other factors just seem to not affect gold prices much, based on observation over the past year, at least. Dollar will become stronger when US gov announces an end to its stimulus plans and plans to print money, gold will then fall to its earlier range of around $400. Till then I guess we will see some cyclical behavior tied to dollar gyrations.

Under Armour: Avoid the Stock for Now

Interestingly, everyone's predicting that the recession is over. If that's true, premium sports apparel should be back in vogue. If you observed, after the talk about recession ending became popular these days, Walmart stock is kind of stagnating around 50, but other retailers - Macy's, Kohl's, Target, JCPenney etc - are going higher in stock prices. UA would be in the non-walmart crowd, hence should do very well in a non-recession economic setup. Agree that playing with some put options wouldn't hurt, as you would lose just the premium in the worst case.

Gone Nowhere in 8 Years

Since there has been so many changes to the DJ Index over the 8 years, the comparison of index value then and now is like comparing apples and peaches... The data is relevant only for an index investor in DJ. I would recommend against such an index investment as its an index of a very small number of not so diversified set of stocks. If you are keen on index investing, you should be investing in one like the S&P 500 which has a larger basket of stocks. That index is constantly changing too, but just because of the sheer number and diversity of the stocks in S&P500, it is a safer bet than the DJIA for index investment sake...

Rough Times Ahead for Natural Gas

Not trying to pat on my own back here, but I wrote last weekend about this expected price action in UNG:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

I compared prices with that of oil near its lows, and urged folks to accumulate shares at these prices, and my predictions came true in the same week, UNG rebounded, and rebounded big! The pros are always working overtime to catch the small-time traders by surprise. My humble advise to the small-money traders, play only with options, so that at least you lose only the premium and not your entire trading principal...

Lawrence McDonald's Book on the Fall of Lehman: A Colossal Failure of Common Sense

Maybe I'm being a bit cynical here, but just wondering if we really need a book to describe the collapse of each and every company? The fall of the financials in 2008 could be summarized in a few words - over leverage, didn't know what they were doing, too much risk-taking, not enough downside-protection (for example, in the form of put-options). Need a book to describe these phrases in detail? Maybe, maybe not!

Higher Interest Rates: Not a Question of 'If' but 'When'

I think Fed is going to keep interest rates near zero for some time to come. I think they will look at at least two quarters of positive GDP, before even considering raising interest rates. Once burnt twice shy, or will they be?

10 Leading Global Utility Stocks

I've heard that utilities are one of the best plays in a recession, as folks can't do without it. Utility stocks have also benefited due to lower energy acquisition costs, hence they should do even better during this recession, I think.

Rex Stores: Second Quarter Results Should Improve from First Quarter

Legacy retailers are doing very well now. Last weeks reports are an example. Costco up over 10% in a single day. Rex is probably closing stores at the wrong time... But hey, those retailers that have the staying power will win...