HCSKnight

U.K. market regulator FSA warns about stock spoofing (.pdf), where traders stack the order book of a stock on one side, then quickly pull those orders after their true intention (an opposite trade) is executed. FSA says spoofing could trick algorithmic trading systems into thinking there was "a host of buying and selling interest that wasn't really there."

Classic, market participants flashing orders away from the NBBO has been done since the beginning... Only bureaucrats and idiots would consider this manipulation...

Unbelievable.

Petroleum Inventories: Crude -8.4M vs. consensus of +1.2M. Gasoline -2.2M vs. -1M. Distillate -6.5M vs. +0.7M. Oct. futures +1.6% at $72.15.

"U.S. crude oil imports averaged 8.1 million barrels per day last week, down 1.4 million barrels per day from the previous week."

So imports dropped by 17%, and crude inventories fell ~2.4%......

Yea, that's a reason to rally....

Matt Taibbi's 9,966-word evisceration of Goldman Sachs (GS), The Great American Bubble Machine, wins an award for outstanding journalism: "Taibbi is the first journalist to use the right combination of history, intelligence, investigation and moral outrage to chart the remarkable depth and breadth of Goldman's role in creating America's financial meltdown."

Simply pathetic, both of them.

The Simple Math of 'Staggering' Chinese Growth

Sorry, guys it's not bad math.... it's pure and simple bad thinking. Mr. Katsenelson's failures are simply an all too common reflection of the failure of the US educational system. No definition of terms, and or improper definition of terms. Without this all else which follows is mere rumination.

Sadly, Mr. Katsenelson seems to be in a position to continue to influence such poor intellectual rigor; >> Vitaliy N. Katsenelson is ... an author of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets ... an adjunct faculty member at the University of Colorado at Denver, Graduate School of Business where he teaches Practical Equity Analysis and Portfolio Management class ... a regular contributor to the Financial Times and Forbes; wrote articles for Barron's, BusinessWeek, The Rocky Mountain News, Financial Planning Magazine and many other financial publications (TheStreet.com, The Motley Fool, Minyanville.com, MarketWatch. ....

But hey, a guys got to make a buck right?....

HCSKnight

T. Boone Pickens scuttles his plan to build the world's biggest wind farm, which doesn't fly so high with crude under $63 and nat-gas under $3.50. Like a sailboat when the wind dies, alt-energy bubbles can deflate in a hurry.

Too bad the referenced article has zero references to support any of its assertions. I say too bad because I agree with most of the assertions....

Credit scores - those pesky three-digit numbers that determine whether you get a loan and how much you'll pay for it - are taking a beating. A recent report found borrowers with good credit now make up the largest share of foreclosures. This one's top heavy.

Neither this situation, nor the surprise of the culturally based media, should not come as a surprise to one who understands the root of the issues involved.

Is this really a surprise in a society that tells individuals government exists to protect them from their own irresponsibility and errors, that institutes diversification of individual risk, as protection from individual risk, across society as a foundational element of a credit and debt system, and who incentives and teaches its people that it's "better" to walk away from one's obligations and start over than they lose "everything"?

Certainly the politicians wont have the character or strength to tell the public the truth, to hold the mirror to the face of their constituents. Nor will politicians hold the mirror to their own face and look upon their laws.

The politicians will point the finger at business and finance.

Funny how people ignore the mathematical laws created by their politicians. Maybe that is because doing so is to hold the mirror themselves.

The truly surprising thing is the one who is surprised such things happen our society. Who's the fool, the one to take on tremendous debt and then walks away or the one who is surprised such things happen in such a society where it is a right to kill an unborn child for one's desires?

From an email Richmond Fed's Jeffrey Lacker wrote to other Fed employees, Dec. 21, 2008: "Just had a long talk with Ben [Bernanke]. Says they think the MAC ["material adverse change" clause] threat is not credible. Also intends to make it even more clear that if they play that card and then need assistance, management is gone."

Is anyone really surprised? The Supremes allow taking of private property to give to mall owners under "eminent domain" and using tax payer money to put union employees ahead of a bond holder.....

What's truly telling is all these things point to how ignorant the general public is regarding the true heart and driver of captialism.... they really think the stock market is captialism...

More importantly, they show how the law has become nothing more than a fiction told to the masses who are more concerned with cake than their liberty.

Steven Pearlstein wants to see the Fed stripped of its role in supervising banks: "It saw how so much risk was being transferred from the banks to the shadow banking system... and it did nothing to stop it or the regulatory arbitrage that lay behind it. It has never acknowledged that failure, never apologized for it and continues to rationalize its behavior with all the 'perfect storm' nonsense."

The Fed, and the other politicians/regulators, "failed" the duties of their office. Unfortunately the question becomes, who is to replace them?

Sadder still than the failure of the cabal of politicians and regulators, the overwhelming ignorance of the people of the United States in regard to the institutions which govern.

Idiocracy...

Three lunchtime reads: 1) Light cars are dangerous cars 2) Bill Gross: Do you trust him? 3) Credit card reform: good for your wallet?

re: #2 Bill Gross - "But always remember, when Bill Gross talks, he is always always always talking from position."

Okay, so one would prefer that a professional talk opposite his book?.... The fact is, what is damaging, and un-ethical, is for a professional to be doing the opposite of his speculative positions.

The real problem with "talking heads" are the minds between the ears that listen to the talking heads....

Laszlo Birinyi thinks U.S. stocks are at the beginning of a bull market, and the S&P 500 could advance as much as 88% in the next 2-3 years.

Your "Crash 1" arrow points at 9/11, it should point at the preceding "crash/drop" if you are referencing the result of the Y2K liquidity pump...

Also, to bounce along the 25yr line would not factor in the world/emerging markets growth that was, during the 80s, did not nearly make up the % of world GDP as it does now. Of course, the US during those years were not laboring under a credit correction...

Jeff Macke's bizarre attack on fellow CNBC commentator Dennis Kneale is making the rounds. If anyone has the faintest idea what he's talking about, let us know in the comments.

Watched on the web, but there was too much stutter to determine how much was feed and how much was JM. Regardless, the below may help some understand through which universe JM's mind may have been traveling...

www.minyanville.com/ar...
Here’s other news I found deeply strange in a week which is on pace to be the strangest in the history of trading:

General Motors' (GM) CEO Fred Henderson was on Squawk Box to claim that his company didn’t need bankruptcy, and loved President's sped-up plan for average MPG getting to 35 miles. What he was saying was stunning in both its implausibility and delivery - and so seemingly heartfelt that I found myself grinning at his excellence in the spinning arts. This is a company with an equity value of exactly nothing. Dennis Kneale’s over/under on the countdown to zero would be exactly 2 weeks from today: June 2. GM top dogs sold 200,000 shares at a 1.50 a week ago. The company is openly trying to sell its Saturn division, which is the only real hope it has to meet the new mileage goals.

Naturally, GM is higher this week by $0.13. Why are folks buying this? My best guess is Bill Clinton nostalgia. Fred simply has to be a distant, Germanic, cousin of some sort to the former President.

Greenspan still maintains the housing bubble had nothing to do with Fed monetary easing that began in 2001. Housing is driven by long-term rates, he said, which aren't heavily impacted by the Fed's overnight peg. Also, the boom began in 2000, before rates headed lower.

Mr. Magoo... love it.


On May 12 04:00 PM Market Sniper wrote:

> HA! Mr. Magoo just keeps spinning that yarn. Fed easing, creation
> of toxic derivatives by Mr. Paulson while head of Goldman Sacks combined
> with "relaxed" underwriting guidelines and you have a witch's brew.
> Needed all three parts to the potion.

Three great reads for lunchtime: 1) A de-globalized world 2) Should the gov't subsidize mortgage mods? 3) Corporate tax rate myths

Re: Corporate tax rate myths

I stopped reading after this delusional gem...

"It’s also frequently stated that businesses don’t in fact pay the corporate tax, but their customers do. What’s striking here is how many free market types buy into this notion. The obvious problem with it is that companies only pay corporate taxes after they’ve made a profit on the goods and services they sell. The prices of both reach market-clearing levels based on what the market will bear, so while corporations would doubtless love to pass taxes paid after profits onto their customers, simple market forces make this a logical impossibility."

Great logic, goods and services sold at a loss or no profit PROVE the logical impossibility of taxes being passed onto the buyer of the good or service..... Right. And companies never factor in the consumer cost when determining price point or unit sales [which hint, greatly influence profitability] of a new product...

Nooooo the companies just look at the cost to produce and figure what the heck, the rest of the costs [distribution, distributor profit, tax, etc.] have nothing to do with the price point and ultimate sales of their product... Let's just wing it.

Yea, now we know why the author of the piece is a journalist.

What I cant figure out is why SeekingAlpha would consider this a "great read"...

Talk about a budget problem. If California rejects three budget balancing measures next week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may be forced to release 40,000 prisoners or fire 51,000 teachers.

Interesting the numbers of each are so close...

Suspending Mark-to-Market Accounting: A Tale of Two Cows

Or maybe the analogy simply shows how much cows and accountants have in common....