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BruceInKY

BruceInKY
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AAPL, ANR, BF.B, BTU, BUD, CHK, DE, DEO, DOG, F, GE, GLW, GM, JNJ, KNM, MCD, MU, PG, PGRX, PM, SRHGY.PK, TAP, TLT, WM
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  • A brutal sell-off in Japan (previous) weighs heavily on Asian markets as stocks fall 2.8% in Hong Kong, 3% in Shanghai, and 1% in Seoul and Sidney. [View news story]
    Banzai! Maybe DCM will go down a percent or two and present a buying opportunity.

    Mae ni magatte 4.0.
    Jun 13 01:03 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • President Obama yesterday warned Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to halt his country's hacking of U.S. businesses, saying that continuing the cyber-theft would be a very difficult problem in the nations' economic relationship. Meanwhile, China wants a "level playing field" for its companies that invest in the U.S. Despite the areas of contention, one Chinese participant called the "shirtsleeves" summit "constructive, strategic and historic." [View news story]
    Can you imagine if the IRS news had broken in March? Millions would have filed extensions in passive disobedience. More reckless and marginal individuals, as well as young, stupid and borderline taxpayers would have decided not to file for a year and see what happens. People with the means, will and attorneys/accountants able to risk more active disobedience and pushback against the State would have done so. The "consent of the governed" would have been in play like never in my lifetime.

    Well, it's only June but all the issues and the players are the same.
    Jun 11 12:26 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Bill Gates - or, more specifically, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust  - has bought about 6 million additional shares in G4S (GFSZF.PK), the giant security firm that has struggled to overcome reputational damage after its shortfalls at the London 2012 Olympics. The purchase came after the London market close on Monday but the news gave the company a 2.16% afternoon boost in the U.S. [View news story]
    Okay, so now we have the intelligentsia investing in publicly held private "security" firms. Hard to see which end of this trade or equation I fit in on, other than the losing won.

    Ignorance is Strength. Oh, for a bedsit with my Outer Party mistress and the missing stanzas to "Oranges and lemons"...
    Jun 10 11:34 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • President Obama yesterday warned Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to halt his country's hacking of U.S. businesses, saying that continuing the cyber-theft would be a very difficult problem in the nations' economic relationship. Meanwhile, China wants a "level playing field" for its companies that invest in the U.S. Despite the areas of contention, one Chinese participant called the "shirtsleeves" summit "constructive, strategic and historic." [View news story]
    By bigger issues, you obviously meant flying back for the "Fair Pay" photo opp, with the usually secretive Acting President proudly emerging from the shadows to take a front-row spot, to the left facing the camera, in a lovely pink pantsuit.
    Jun 10 11:29 PM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • President Obama yesterday warned Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to halt his country's hacking of U.S. businesses, saying that continuing the cyber-theft would be a very difficult problem in the nations' economic relationship. Meanwhile, China wants a "level playing field" for its companies that invest in the U.S. Despite the areas of contention, one Chinese participant called the "shirtsleeves" summit "constructive, strategic and historic." [View news story]
    And when it was his turn to speak, Xi congratulated Obama on the appointments of Susan Rice and Samantha Power and offered to fast track any negotiations of America's diminished influence that they would like to pursue.
    Jun 9 01:01 PM | 3 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Time To Buy Long-Term U.S. Government Bonds [View article]
    It seems to be a "feed the beast" recommendation. I hate the taste of MREs but I'm still more convinced of their utility than of MBS-leveraged bonds.
    Jun 5 01:13 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • May ISM Manufacturing Index: 49.0 vs. 51.0 consensus and 50.7 prior. [View news story]
    Thanks for bookending my opening chapter.
    Jun 3 05:43 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • May ISM Manufacturing Index: 49.0 vs. 51.0 consensus and 50.7 prior. [View news story]
    Recovery Summer 4.0...here we come!
    Jun 3 10:28 AM | 4 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Recently, the market learned that youth unemployment in Italy hit 40% in April to go along with a 36-year record high of 12% overall unemployment. Never fear though, Italy's trade union CGIL is out with its estimate of when the Italian economy will recover pre-crisis (un)employment levels: 2076, a mere 63 years from now. (original article[View news story]
    So they just don't work and let immigrants take the jobs out of spite?
    Jun 2 08:01 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Carlyle Group (CG) has agreed to sell a 27-story office and retail building on Madison Avenue near Central Park for $1.3B, the highest amount paid of a commercial property in Manhattan in over two years. Carlyle bought the tower in 2008 for a reported $680M, although it's not clear what the private-equity firm's profit on the building is, as it invested additional money in the property. The buyer is a venture of Crown Acquisitions and Highgate. [View news story]
    So is this the type of profit-taking that the monthly MBS purchases are stimulating? Any politicians have money at Carlyle or Crown/Highgate?
    Jun 2 10:10 AM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Recently, the market learned that youth unemployment in Italy hit 40% in April to go along with a 36-year record high of 12% overall unemployment. Never fear though, Italy's trade union CGIL is out with its estimate of when the Italian economy will recover pre-crisis (un)employment levels: 2076, a mere 63 years from now. (original article[View news story]
    And yet we read news reports that Italian youth find pizza making beneath them and prefer that those jobs be filled by immigrants.
    Jun 2 10:06 AM | 7 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Initial Jobless Claims: +10K to 354K vs. 340K consensus, 344K prior (revised). Continuing claims +63K to 2.99M. [View news story]
    Despite lots of new part-time openings and many retail and food service workers adding second jobs as they all transition to the under 30-hour-a-week plan.
    May 30 11:01 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • The Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher covers familiar territory, questioning the efficacy of QE and noting the Fed could soon be buying 100% of MBS issuance. The section on fiscal policy - subtitled "Oy" - is most memorable for inclusion of a classic YouTube video about the ease of spending money when it's not coming out of your wallet. [View news story]
    I love this sentence from Fisher: 'Being “zero bound,” we instructed our traders to embark on a buying spree of Treasuries and MBS, and they have done so, ballooning our balance sheet from its precrisis level of less than $900 billion to about $3.3 trillion.'

    Perhaps he should consider playing Elvis Costello's "Everything Means Less Than Zero" for even more comic relief!

    A pistol was still smoking, a man lay on the floor/
    Mister Oswald said, he had an understanding with the law/
    He said, he heard about a couple living in the USA/
    He said, they traded in their baby for a Chevrolet/
    Let's talk about the future now we've put the past away.
    May 16 11:32 AM | 1 Like Like |Link to Comment
  • The Obama Administration's Natural Gas Policy Is Tragically Misguided [View article]
    Besides, they are going to need it to keep from freezing each winter as all the nukes go off line.
    May 10 03:23 PM | 3 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Potash Economics And An Undervalued American Junior Potash Play [View article]
    Chris,

    I appreciate your pointing to a new, cheap and small entry operating in a sector defined by multigenerational and multinational giants, but this stock seems outside most risk tolerances. If I had cashed a .50 Trifecta in the Derby I might be persuaded to buy 1,000 shares and let it ride for a year, but I can't see putting money allocated for medium- to long-term alpha into this name. What are the limits on your patience for PGRX.

    I'd like to own POT and MOS but do not...yet.
    May 10 02:55 PM | Likes Like |Link to Comment
COMMENTS STATS
307 Comments
400 Likes