The bluff is not that nothing will happen to the economy if the bailout doesn’t pass, but that the bailout will do nothing to stop the depression (but lots to deepen it).
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Scare tactics.
All of a sudden, the economy is in dire danger of unknown horrors, we are hearing from Bernanke, Paulson, Bush, and the US [...]
Better brush up on your Sun Tzu and Machiavelli if you want to survive in this investment climate, because now we know what rules they are playing by.
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Jeez. I wrote the following this morning, but I thought I was months ahead, not hours, and who knew they would use US tax dollars to bail out [...]
The market is a force of nature, like gravity. To use it is prosperity. To fight it is misery.
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By bankers, for bankers.
This is a bailout of bankers. The Fed was created by bankers, and the Treasury is run by a banker, so there are no surprises here.
The plan is to have the government take banks’ [...]
As Jim Grant remarked yesterday, we should all observe a moment of silence for the passing of capitalism. This morning’s Journal, on the other hand, would have us believe that capitalism was too much trouble and always needed help from the government anyway.
The paper today contains a sly push for public support of the socialization [...]
Volume was downright anemic today after shorts were done covering at the open. Few were touching the market on the high plateau that formed. Look at DIA (Dow Diamonds Trust) volume:
Click image for sharper view. Source: Bigcharts.com
Isn’t that creepy? I heard a Bloomberg reporter say that the NYSE floor had an atmosphere of exhaustion this [...]
Bottom line: Paulson brings a bazooka to an H-bomb fight.
Bond update first:
As usual of late, today’s action in Treasuries was the exact opposite of the stock market: a massive sell-off. High bond prices reflect fear, which hit a new high earlier this week. Today’s action was not just a short-squeeze. It was collective relief, a [...]
ProShares Announcement
Friday September 19, 11:25 am ET
BETHESDA, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Due to the emergency action announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 18, 2008, temporarily prohibiting short sales of shares of certain financial companies, Short Financials ProShares (SEF) [...]
My understanding is that these ETFs do not actually engage in plain-vanilla short selling, but use options, futures, forward contracts and swap agreements in order to perfectly track their respective indexes. The ProShares ETFs that I have been watching lately have been doing a good job of operating exactly as advertised, providing twice the inverse [...]
Hedge fund managers said to pack dirt under fingernails, roughen hands on bricks to avoid suspicion and possible shipment to North Dakota re-education camps.
These days it seems like we are living in an Onion article (1 , 2). It would be funny if it were not the end of the world as we know it.
I’ve [...]
From Bloomberg:
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, responding to a market rout this week, may require hedge funds to disclose their short-sale positions and plans to subpoena the funds for their communication records.
Hedge funds and investors managing more than $100 million in securities would be “required to promptly begin public reporting [...]