A four-year-old foretells the market
By Andrew Snyder, TodaysFinancialNews.com
Baltimore — (TFN): I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a four-year-old boy managed to grab a beer, walk out his front door and break into a neighboring house to steal Christmas gifts.
True story. But it gets better.
Inside of one of those gifts, was a girl’s dress. The youngster donned the new attire and continued his late-night spree. His mom tells us it was all in an attempt to get in trouble so he could spend a night in jail… with his old man.
Smart kid. He’s going to have a great career as a banker some day.
Although the names and the ages are different, it’s essentially the same story on Wall Street…
What Likely Lurks Around the Corner
Doug Casey and the editors at Casey Research are very skeptical that we are experiencing any sort of economic recovery. In our opinion, too many economic indicators are based on faulty data and optimistic assumptions. Our research suggests that a recovery isn’t sustainable yet. And with that, we lack the foundation needed to support the rapidly rising stock markets.
Forex Finds – Trendspotting in the currency exchange markets
Chuck Butler, President of EverBank® World Markets and author of The Daily Pfenning newsletter, offers his analysis of this week’s currency trends – and their implications for the global economic recovery – at The Daily Reckoning.
Chuck Butler (The Daily Reckoning):
Japanese Canaries in a U.S. Economic Coal Mine
Yesterday I told you how the overnight markets were selling dollars, and the NY traders were buying them, causing these swings in the currencies. The trading ranges aren’t huge in any sense of the imagination, but, they do cross significant levels each time… For instance, the euro (EUR) has crossed back and forth through the 1.51 level four times this week, and the Swiss franc (CHF) has crossed back and forth through parity a few…
What’s better than gold? Anything!
Baltimore — (TFN): One good thing about kids is they are predictable. Give them five bucks and say they’ve got just one hour to spend it or it goes into their savings account and can bet another five bucks the cash will be spent by minute 59.
It’s the same way for politicians. Give them some cash and they’ll have it spent in no time flat, even if they can’t find anything worth buying.
Take, for example, the infamous Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP in informal nomenclature. Passing the $700 billion program was a matter of financial and economic life and death according to Washington.
They gave us the same panicky “must-have” arguments as a six-year-old in the toy aisle.
But once they got…
Transportation Sector: powered by recovery
The Transportation Sector: The Market’s Most Important Domain
Airlines, railways, package carriers, even oil and gas pipelines are all industries that make up the transportation sector.
But why should you care about it?
Because transportation is actually the most important sector – and for good reason: growth or contraction here serves as a proxy for both U.S. and global economic growth.
What economic recovery?
By InvestorPlace’s Michael Shulman.You hear it all around you. The economic recovery this, the economic recovery that. Only problem is we’re not in an economic recovery.In fact, we are not at the end of this recession, we are in the middle of it. This …
3 Potential Mega Trades In Q4
It seems to me that we are at an inflection point in the economy. The government has blown pretty much all of its money and the economic recovery and the economy is still sputtering along. No surprise there.
So what’s going to happen? I believe that we’ll have another economic downturn which is going to push [...]
Many gurus bullish — but potential pitfalls abound
When it comes to investing, I firmly believe that reinventing the wheel can be a dangerous game. If you want to beat the market over the long haul, I think your best bet is to learn from those rare investors who have done just that — that’s why I crea…
US GDP is Irrelevant
The American economy contracted only 0.7% in the second quarter, the government finalized today. That’s down from its previous projection of 1% and practically seals the deal for a positive GDP number when Uncle Sam gives his initial third-quarter guess in late October.
Still, this is the fourth consecutive official drop in GDP — the longest U.S. economic losing streak since records began in 1947. The economy has contracted 3.8% since then, the deepest pullback since the Great Depression.
Paging through the fine print, there’s only one outlier — one segment of blockbuster growth while the rest of the economy muddles through, at best: federal government spending, up 11.4%.
“In some ways, the whole GDP discussion is irrelevant,” says Chris Mayer. “As investors,…
It’s the Best Investment in North America and It Isn’t the United States
The U.S. stock market has run up magnificently in the last six months. The U.S. economy has begun to recover, but its performance has fallen short of expectations.
And with good reason. The United States has a bigger and more-troubled financial sector than most countries. It also has a bigger overhang from the housing bubble, has a bigger balance-of-payments deficit and has a budget deficit that’s fat enough to stall the recovery.
It would be nice to have an economic recovery to invest in that didn’t have all of these problems.
Truth be told, such an investment play does exist. What’s more, the market I have in mind is advanced enough for us to invest in it without having to go through all…
Dollar bears overstaying welcome
This article is written by Minyanville’s Terry WooDollar bears overstaying their welcome?Bearish bets against the US dollar are becoming more and more crowded, so says Mark Gongloff of the Wall Street Journal. There are a number of reasons for the sent…
Double-digit unemployment until 2011?
Joblessness in developed countries will reach post-World War II highs soon and won’t improve much over the next two years, according to a recent report on global unemployment from the economic research group OECD.
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has pr…
Tavern on the Green files for bankruptcy
The operator of New York’s famous Tavern on the Green announced yesterday that it was filing for bankrutpcy, a few months before the storied restaurant changes hands.Citing losses due to the recession, the company said the city’s decision not to re…