Month: November 2008

How the holiday shopping will turn out is certainly a subject of a little more interest this year. A bad start would confirm some of the worst fears of preparatory planning by consumers who are expecting a significant downturn given stock performances to date and the daily serving of economic death march data given out…

The concern over the fairness of distributing bailout funds to various financial entities is being argued daily. Many believe a great blunder was committed when Paulson, Bernancke and Geithner, decided to let Lehman fail. What they really have to be worried about however is not early mistakes, but rather their ability to convince people they…

Markets strong this AM with CITI bailout news and ahead of Obama’s announcements regarding his economic team at mid day today. Last week’s action saw a confluence of potentially unprecedented governmental future funding dilemmas as the realization of Japan like economic conditions of the 80’s and 90’s were becoming evident. Realization that overnight rates will…

Interest rate futures had there single biggest range day since 1987 yesterday as another component on the capitulation check list was marked off. Big 3 negotiations have been kicked down the road but some sort of re-balancing with design performance mandates will be put into place before or shortly after the new administration takes office.…

The bulls are bailing. The bears who rode the market down and starting buying in October are bailing. Down as the absurd has finally reached a thunderous capitulation where even the elderly would be run down if they were standing in the exits. The play by play business talk personalities have scripted themselves into a…

Bond traders are having a time figuring out the plays these days as typical benchmark indicators have become meaningless. Excess reserves held by banks at the Fed are now bigger than the Fed Fund Market. The Fed’s own one percent target rate now exceeds the overnight rate, which is less than half of one percent.…

Detroit finds itself in a bit of bad timing. Given Paulson’s poor strategic performance with TARP, the Big 3 find themselves at a place in line while Congress is hearing a growing noise of dissatisfaction from constituents as to the progress on the war against economic disaster. It is essential to provide relief to the…

The weekend tv programs are dominated by the 24 hour news/talk cycle and the presentation of a continuum of evidence pointing to economic disaster. Job cuts, Big 3 survival, and whackage reports from 401K statements across the US are cutting confidence in asset values of all kinds. Nothing will work talk is increasingly being presented…

So far, at mid session, the indexes today have the same look they have had for what is going on months now. The steady beat of liquidation adjustments continue and even with yesterday’s rally, the return of a selling configuration is evident. As mentioned in an early post, stocks such as GE are not exciting,…