Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
Nope, Martinius, sorry to burst your bubble. Gold was up slightly yesterday (2%?) but this morning, it was down again and should continue to creep down, since substantial support was absent yesterday (I suppose the vast drop encouraged bystanders to jump in while sell-off continues), as it will prompt nervous owners to sell off before it gets worse and it might even develop into a stampede if sustained. My heart goes out to those who are stunned and hurt by this drastic drop.
More on Bank of America (BAC) Q1 earnings: Basel Tier 1 Capital Ratio of 10.58%, up from 10.38% in Q4. Tangible book value/share of $13.46, up from $13.36 in Q4, $12.87 a year ago. Earnings call set for 8:30 ET. Shares now off 2.7% premarket. (PR) [View news story]
Initial sell-off has recovered somewhat, so it would be interesting to see how the market will react after trading opens.
More on Bank of America (BAC) Q1 earnings: Cost-cutting efforts paying off, with non-interest expense of $18.15B off nearly $1B from a year ago (total income is $2.6B) - headcount of 262.8K vs. 278.7K a year ago. Net interest income of $10.9B, down from $11.1B a year ago, thanks to lower loan balances and low rates - NIM of 2.43% vs. 2.51% a year ago. Credit loss provision of $906M, up $29M Y/Y "as improvement in portfolio trends have stabilized." $25M in mortgage loans funded - nearly all refinances - up 56% Y/Y. Shares flat. (PR) [View news story]
Despite apparently disappointing results, it does appear that BAC is on-track to clear up their dirty baggage, which should give rise to much more improvements for the next quarter. After all, one quarter doesn't make or break a bank with so much trouble as BAC was once before. Definitely enhance buying opportunities from initial sell-off, which should recover within a month.
The Brown/Vitter bill being rolled out in Congress is essentially Armageddon to the TBTF banks, says Goldman, seeing it as mandating another $1.1T in equity for the banking system. Banks would need 12 years of earnings to build this amount organically, though the bill would give just 5 - say goodbye to lending. Break up the banks? BAC, C, JPM, and WFC all have multiple divisions with more than $400M in assets - the level at which the bill gets tough on lenders. [View news story]
Renoira......as always, you seem to have an unending beef with the banks, which is OK. Then, stay clear of the banks and do something with other stocks, as you had said. But, it doesn't serve any purpose to beat up on the banks and offend those who are heavily invested in them. I presume you don't hold any bank stocks, which is fine, but others will continue making money playing with those stocks, regardless of what you and I have to say. Peace be with you and may your day be better than last Monday, when we're all depressed by the cowardly massacre at the Boston Marathon.
BTW, the Boston officials should have let the remaining runners finish the marathon, instead of cancelling it and leaving the runners unsure of what to do (thousands of bags with belongings of these lost runners remained unclaimed, as of this morning), as a gesture of defiance to the terrorists that americans will not cower and be defeated by cowardly attacks on innocent lives. This is why we fight these terrorists overseas rather than let them come to our shores to sow destruction among us. Jihadists are now celebrating all over the world, which will encourage them to do more damage to us, instead of keeping them occupied overseas. We killed thousands of them from all over the world in Afghan and Iraq. Now, they're killing us at home.....
Facebook Home - A Home Run For Facebook [View article]
gwyn....it's arguable whether the economy is stagnant but one thing is for certain, the unemployment figures are worse than it appears because the Obama admin had been quite adept at concealing the truth behind the official figures ever since before the Repub primaries. They concealed the number of those who had given up looking for jobs, which, if factored in, would make the figures look much worse.
What about the staggering increase of part-timers as compared with full-timers, despite the admin's efforts to increase the number of full-timers by reducing the weekly hours from 40hrs to 30hrs for full-time work in order to force employers to provide health-insurance to more workers under Obamacare, as most employers are either paying the penalty of $1200 (?) or reducing the weekly hours to below 30hrs and hiring more part-timers to cover the slack?
Then there's the drop in average salaries across the board, which is not mentioned at all. The actual number of unemployed or under-employed exceeds 24 million, rather than the 11 million (?) reported. It's incredible that unemployment has gotten far worse after more than 4yrs of Obama's rule, because he only pays lip-service to jobs and the economy, as he keeps on taxing the high-income earners to pay for his spending blindly to reward his supporters and special interests and flying around the country (more than $1million per hour) to campaign for his stupid ideas (remember the sequester scare tactics) and fund-raisers, instead of staying home at the White House to do his job, rather than to depend on others to get his job done for him. He has absolutely no clue what to do about the economy despite the tough rhetoric and blame everyone and everything except himself for the missteps.
Truth be told, employers across the country are itching to expand and grow their businesses by increasing their investments and hiring but they are afraid to do so, as they don't know how bad the impact of Obamacare will do to their bottomline. Don't forget that employers have to borrow against their existing business to raise the capital they need for expansion or build new businesses, so if they aren't sure of the future, they can't get going. Only those who are able to secure immediate returns would take the risk to get started now.
All these are already old news, which still hang around to haunt us until Obama is gone, because the regressive effects of Obamacare will continue until it's repealed, after he's gone. I can't wait for Hillary to get elected (assuming the GOP still can't get their act together) because she will be more hands-on than Obama can ever be. She only agreed to work for Obama to secure the experience and name-recognition that she lacked about foreign relations, as well as to create the harmony that's needed to heal the effects of the Dems divisive primary (which was stolen from her with false signatures) and to quieten her unhappy supporters. The Libyan crisis was the last straw for her because Obama's handlers gave her wrong information to tout and she wasn't allowed to correct herself, so she had a tough time defending Team Obama at Congressional hearings, although she was given a pass out of respect for her service. The only thing I'm worried about is Bill Clinton's meddling.
But, as we now know, the Boston Massacres had provided the underlying catallysts to bring down the market on Monday, as people are nervous about the usual damage to the stock market after a catastrophy before it shakes off the uneasiness and the economy can resume trudging along.
Citigroup (C) shareholders (and Mike Corbat) might want to say a thank you to departed CEO Vikram Pandit and his team as a number of costly hires of rainmakers nearly 3 years ago is paying big dividends now. Investment banking revenue rose 84% to $204M in Q1, with CFO John Gerspach noting prior decisions to rebuild the energy, healthcare, and technology teams. [View news story]
Looks like somebody may yet recognize the contributions made by Pandit to Citi's recovery. Certainly hope that Michael would take a cue from these results and stop shrinking Citi's overseas presence but instead, support and strengthen wherever possible because foreigners have more faith in Citi than its European competitors, except for Hongkong where HSBC and Stanchart are entrenched.
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
Docbest....my sentiments exactly. I used to own a hoard of gold, started to accumulate it from 1989 and it went as high as $600 or $800 (can't remember) but after that, it drifted down to around $300 and was stuck at $320 for a long time. I got so fed-up that I sold some everytime it had a bounce (never exceeded $400) and eventually, I was out from gold. Then some 11 years ago, it started moving upwards and never stopped moving, which was a reflection of the times after 911, because traditionally, gold is a haven during times of tension, weak dollar or stock market pullbacks. I don't believe that the production cost of gold is as high as $1300 as someone had suggested. My guess is that production costs shouldn't be more than $600, even at inflated prices or increased costs.
What I do know is that China and Taiwan had been accumulating gold for many decades, as that is the way the Chinese hoard their assets. The Kuomintang emptied the national treasury (more than 50,000 tons) and national museum of China when they fled to Taiwan, six months before the Reds took over, which they used to pay any military personnel who defected to Taiwan, amount depended on service, rank and skills (ceased doing that some 15 yrs ago, I believe). An Air Force colonel who defected with his plane received some $2 million worth of gold (around 1980s). The oil-producing countries in the Mid-east had also been hoarding gold but they do buy and sell all the time.
I believe the recent sell-off was an excuse to sell by institutional funds to get into the stock market, which started with reports that Cyprus was forced to sell their gold assets (around a measly 10 tons), then compounded by the Boston bombings. It should creep back above $1500 over time, unless some other countries are dumping or if our stock market continues to scale new hieghts, but selling is still prevalent today, as it resisted buying efforts somewhat today, or else there should be more than $50 bounceback, which didn't happen.
Bank Of America Seen Posting Solid Results For 1Q [View article]
mphill47....are you saying that traders had expected more from BAC's while investors are content with non-negative results? It might be possible if the traders had been buying into BAC but investors had been running away from it but the trends of the trading activity don't seem to indicate that. In fact, the opposite had been happening, i.e. traders had been dumping BAC for several weeks since it peaked mid-March but investors had been supporting the shares, simply because the price probably didn't appreciate as fast as they had hoped for. That was why there was quite a surge today in price, as everybody is coming back, in anticipation of BAC's results. I expect the price to rise to $13 within a week of results, unless there are depressing news, which would present yet another excuse for traders to short BAC again.
Motiva Enterprises' (RDS.A) Port Arthur, Tex., refinery will take several days to restart following an unexpected loss of power Sunday from its utility provider. The malfunction resulted in a plant-wide shutdown of Motiva's 600K bbl/day refinery and also of Valero's (VLO) 310K bbl/day refinery in the same area; Total's (TOT) 174K bbl/day refinery experienced operational upsets. [View news story]
Imagine this coming on top of Brent crude's sell-off yesterday. Maybe, somebody is making a play on the refiners and causing the sell-off of the refiners' stocks to be worse than it should be. But what do I know? Just an old fool musing on the wonders of the stock market that's making lots of people filthy rich at the expense of nervous people.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters: An Early Look Before Earnings [View article]
Seth.....it appeared that there was a bounceback of $2 this morning pre-market and my shares were automatically turned around, so I'm now short again by the same number of shares. It seems to be drifting back down, as the bounceback was a momentarily surge. Let's hope it doesn't turn against me but even if it does, the bounce back has given me a margin of $2 to breath a bit easier. May your day be as good as mine has begun. Alleluia!!
(P.S. Don't worrry about what your readers say, as we're all entitled to our differing opinions. You did your job by laying the facts out there, which is all that you can do.)
"Facebook Home (FB) is a play for the international market," argues AllThingsD's Mike Isaac, making the case the UI's poorly-received U.S. launch - 3 days in, Home still has a rating of 2.3/5 stars on Google Play - is less important than its reception in emerging markets where the smartphone will be the primary means of accessing the Web for many users (and where Facebook has has plenty of mobile-only users). In these places, Home's integrated messaging services (with VoIP services perhaps in the cards) could prove crucial to competing against upstarts such as WhatsApp. [View news story]
The U.S. market is what matters to advertisers because that's where the sales and the money is, not the rest of the world, where U.S. products and services may not be widely sold. FB Home is a flop where the U.S. is concerned, as users are more sensitive to privacy issues than elsewhere.
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
Today's terrible drop of almost 10% in the price of gold is unbelievable. I'm beginning to seriously think that somebody may be dumping gold onto the market because it happened when the oil price has dropped 3% suddenly. It triggered a market sell-off and bloodied the streets. No pun intended for victims of twin bombings at the Boston Marathon.
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
More on Bank of America (BAC) Q1 earnings: Basel Tier 1 Capital Ratio of 10.58%, up from 10.38% in Q4. Tangible book value/share of $13.46, up from $13.36 in Q4, $12.87 a year ago. Earnings call set for 8:30 ET. Shares now off 2.7% premarket. (PR) [View news story]
More on Bank of America (BAC) Q1 earnings: Cost-cutting efforts paying off, with non-interest expense of $18.15B off nearly $1B from a year ago (total income is $2.6B) - headcount of 262.8K vs. 278.7K a year ago. Net interest income of $10.9B, down from $11.1B a year ago, thanks to lower loan balances and low rates - NIM of 2.43% vs. 2.51% a year ago. Credit loss provision of $906M, up $29M Y/Y "as improvement in portfolio trends have stabilized." $25M in mortgage loans funded - nearly all refinances - up 56% Y/Y. Shares flat. (PR) [View news story]
The Brown/Vitter bill being rolled out in Congress is essentially Armageddon to the TBTF banks, says Goldman, seeing it as mandating another $1.1T in equity for the banking system. Banks would need 12 years of earnings to build this amount organically, though the bill would give just 5 - say goodbye to lending. Break up the banks? BAC, C, JPM, and WFC all have multiple divisions with more than $400M in assets - the level at which the bill gets tough on lenders. [View news story]
BTW, the Boston officials should have let the remaining runners finish the marathon, instead of cancelling it and leaving the runners unsure of what to do (thousands of bags with belongings of these lost runners remained unclaimed, as of this morning), as a gesture of defiance to the terrorists that americans will not cower and be defeated by cowardly attacks on innocent lives. This is why we fight these terrorists overseas rather than let them come to our shores to sow destruction among us. Jihadists are now celebrating all over the world, which will encourage them to do more damage to us, instead of keeping them occupied overseas. We killed thousands of them from all over the world in Afghan and Iraq. Now, they're killing us at home.....
Facebook Home - A Home Run For Facebook [View article]
What about the staggering increase of part-timers as compared with full-timers, despite the admin's efforts to increase the number of full-timers by reducing the weekly hours from 40hrs to 30hrs for full-time work in order to force employers to provide health-insurance to more workers under Obamacare, as most employers are either paying the penalty of $1200 (?) or reducing the weekly hours to below 30hrs and hiring more part-timers to cover the slack?
Then there's the drop in average salaries across the board, which is not mentioned at all. The actual number of unemployed or under-employed exceeds 24 million, rather than the 11 million (?) reported. It's incredible that unemployment has gotten far worse after more than 4yrs of Obama's rule, because he only pays lip-service to jobs and the economy, as he keeps on taxing the high-income earners to pay for his spending blindly to reward his supporters and special interests and flying around the country (more than $1million per hour) to campaign for his stupid ideas (remember the sequester scare tactics) and fund-raisers, instead of staying home at the White House to do his job, rather than to depend on others to get his job done for him. He has absolutely no clue what to do about the economy despite the tough rhetoric and blame everyone and everything except himself for the missteps.
Truth be told, employers across the country are itching to expand and grow their businesses by increasing their investments and hiring but they are afraid to do so, as they don't know how bad the impact of Obamacare will do to their bottomline. Don't forget that employers have to borrow against their existing business to raise the capital they need for expansion or build new businesses, so if they aren't sure of the future, they can't get going. Only those who are able to secure immediate returns would take the risk to get started now.
All these are already old news, which still hang around to haunt us until Obama is gone, because the regressive effects of Obamacare will continue until it's repealed, after he's gone. I can't wait for Hillary to get elected (assuming the GOP still can't get their act together) because she will be more hands-on than Obama can ever be. She only agreed to work for Obama to secure the experience and name-recognition that she lacked about foreign relations, as well as to create the harmony that's needed to heal the effects of the Dems divisive primary (which was stolen from her with false signatures) and to quieten her unhappy supporters. The Libyan crisis was the last straw for her because Obama's handlers gave her wrong information to tout and she wasn't allowed to correct herself, so she had a tough time defending Team Obama at Congressional hearings, although she was given a pass out of respect for her service. The only thing I'm worried about is Bill Clinton's meddling.
But, as we now know, the Boston Massacres had provided the underlying catallysts to bring down the market on Monday, as people are nervous about the usual damage to the stock market after a catastrophy before it shakes off the uneasiness and the economy can resume trudging along.
Citigroup (C) shareholders (and Mike Corbat) might want to say a thank you to departed CEO Vikram Pandit and his team as a number of costly hires of rainmakers nearly 3 years ago is paying big dividends now. Investment banking revenue rose 84% to $204M in Q1, with CFO John Gerspach noting prior decisions to rebuild the energy, healthcare, and technology teams. [View news story]
Bank Of America Seen Posting Solid Results For 1Q [View article]
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
What I do know is that China and Taiwan had been accumulating gold for many decades, as that is the way the Chinese hoard their assets. The Kuomintang emptied the national treasury (more than 50,000 tons) and national museum of China when they fled to Taiwan, six months before the Reds took over, which they used to pay any military personnel who defected to Taiwan, amount depended on service, rank and skills (ceased doing that some 15 yrs ago, I believe). An Air Force colonel who defected with his plane received some $2 million worth of gold (around 1980s). The oil-producing countries in the Mid-east had also been hoarding gold but they do buy and sell all the time.
I believe the recent sell-off was an excuse to sell by institutional funds to get into the stock market, which started with reports that Cyprus was forced to sell their gold assets (around a measly 10 tons), then compounded by the Boston bombings. It should creep back above $1500 over time, unless some other countries are dumping or if our stock market continues to scale new hieghts, but selling is still prevalent today, as it resisted buying efforts somewhat today, or else there should be more than $50 bounceback, which didn't happen.
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]
Bank Of America Seen Posting Solid Results For 1Q [View article]
Bank Of America Seen Posting Solid Results For 1Q [View article]
Motiva Enterprises' (RDS.A) Port Arthur, Tex., refinery will take several days to restart following an unexpected loss of power Sunday from its utility provider. The malfunction resulted in a plant-wide shutdown of Motiva's 600K bbl/day refinery and also of Valero's (VLO) 310K bbl/day refinery in the same area; Total's (TOT) 174K bbl/day refinery experienced operational upsets. [View news story]
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters: An Early Look Before Earnings [View article]
(P.S. Don't worrry about what your readers say, as we're all entitled to our differing opinions. You did your job by laying the facts out there, which is all that you can do.)
"Facebook Home (FB) is a play for the international market," argues AllThingsD's Mike Isaac, making the case the UI's poorly-received U.S. launch - 3 days in, Home still has a rating of 2.3/5 stars on Google Play - is less important than its reception in emerging markets where the smartphone will be the primary means of accessing the Web for many users (and where Facebook has has plenty of mobile-only users). In these places, Home's integrated messaging services (with VoIP services perhaps in the cards) could prove crucial to competing against upstarts such as WhatsApp. [View news story]
Gold: The Recent Collapse And Approaching All-Time High [View article]