Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

One thing that I've heard several times on TV recently is that
"bearish sentiment" is at a historic low. Only 17.2% expect the
market to decline, down from 50% in August.

This is being interpreted as a sign that the "rally" is over, since
"optimistic investors have already purchased shares, leaving less
money to help drive prices higher."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-1 ... lysis.html

P.S.: As I'm typing this, I'm hearing a Democratic party person who
says that the Tea Party is dying because all indicators are that the
economy is improving.

If this isn't April 1930 or August 1857 all over again, then you've got me.

We may be seeing the Galbraith effect, meaning that every single investor who has a lifetime of experience in the markets (which at this time would presumably be post 1945) is bullish or afraid to short. I would suppose the 17% who are bearish are mostly under the age of 30 and the past few years constitutes their lifetime of experience.

I haven't seen much indication of economic growth. The reason unemployment's gone down is simply because people have given up on looking for a job. There's little, if not nothing, out there.

Employment at this time appears to have stabilized or perhaps mean reverted some. Employment is a lagging indicator but I'm also noticing the 4 week moving average of claims typically needs to rise a bit before a recession starts and it's now at a post 2009 low. Whether it needs to rise if this is 1857 or 1930 all over again is a good question.

http://about-monster.com/sites/default/ ... 0FINAL.pdf
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EMRATIO
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IC4WSA
http://www.adpemploymentreport.com/ner/charting.aspx
http://www.challengergray.com/press/Pre ... essUid=207

[aedens]

Vanguard weekly brief:
The economy continues its modest forward pace, without stoking higher inflation. In fact, this week's data show price increases decelerating, easing fears for the moment that the Fed's accommodative monetary policies are sowing the seeds of high inflation down the road. For the week ended January 20, the S&P 500 Index rose 2.0% to 1,315.38 (for a year-to-date total return—including price change plus dividends—of about +4.7%). The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 16 basis points to 2.05% (for a year-to-date increase of 16 basis points).

I convey this thought as in GD terms and not as bear or bull since we rely on the ratio's truly in the store as they go in and out
and the capital they choose, or can to part with. We already noted balance sheet recessions top to bottum and subsequent hope of repair.
Debt cannot be resolved with more debt but a rollover off rate effects to date. I feel the hing of recovery is the admittance
as we know it as how many are going up and not down in participation. To sharpen the point as we know I leave it to locality of repair
of observation. If money is still pooling up and not down it reflects in the minds eye for me it is still pooling upward from the base
and the extremity's are weakened and still wasting as conveyed earlier. We are not in recovery but the vortex of money as the cost of living for the largest segment are going up for those still able to participate in severly diminshed capacity. I have had the convesations with those unable to keep up and one was yesterday. A NAFTA drive by we call it. Got the mandated stripend of funding to get the education from locality of tuition to degree from that sectorial movement of production and it provided context to that ongoing reality. To drill down further mandated costs are still going up which are inflationary facts modeled structures in households. It is not a cost of living but a pace of extraction and not abated we convey. All cost are up for consumers, auto, health, house insurances and on and on.
As we touched on earlier in the forums a wasting process from any point of references we convey to date. The current updraft is not reality for more than the numbers reflect but mandated thuggery. It appears this will be pushed to a nova effect we conveyed as control burns earlier.

[Trevor]

I still see things spiraling. In the United States, things are stable, relatively speaking, even though economic growth is stagnant, unemployment is still high, and we're adding 1.5-1.6 trillion dollars of debt every year. In spite of all that, we look safe compared to what is happening in the rest of the world.

The United States is stagnant, but Europe is imploding in on itself. Growth is nonexistent, they have numerous governments that are nearly bankrupt, and the focus is just to try and contain the damage. When it comes to China, they're destabilizing and their economic growth is slowing as well.

[Higgenbotham]

I feel the hing of recovery is the admittance
as we know it as how many are going up and not down in participation. To sharpen the point as we know I leave it to locality of repair
of observation. If money is still pooling up and not down it reflects in the minds eye for me it is still pooling upward from the base
and the extremity's are weakened and still wasting as conveyed earlier. We are not in recovery but the vortex of money as the cost of living for the largest segment are going up for those still able to participate in severly diminshed capacity. I have had the conservsations with those unable to keep up and one was yesterday. A NAFTA drive by we call it. Got the mandated stripend of funding to get the education from locality of tuition to degree from that sectorial movement of production and it provided context to that ongoing reality. To drill down further mandated costs are still going up which are inflationary facts modeled structures in households. It is not a cost of living but a pace of extraction and not abated we convey. All cost are up for consumers, auto, health, house insurances and on and on.
As we touched on earlier in the forums a wasting process from any point of references we convey to date. The current updraft is not reality for more than the numbers reflect but mandated thuggery. It appears this will be pushed to a nova effect we conveyed as control burns earlier.

In my view we have bean counters counting jobs. I had mentioned some months back the concept of bean counters counting money supply whereas they are not counting effective money supply. I think reading over the Challenger Report is good from the standpoint that it conveys what jobs are being lost and where jobs may have been gained. The jobs being cut are: military, banking, retail, and aerospace. What that conveys to me is: First recall the effect of sucking out of the periphery to shore up the center. The center is government and finance. Since these areas are no longer able to suck out of the periphery, the center is starting to fall apart. This process in fact started in September as noted in the Challenger Report:
"A large portion of the 2010 job cut increase occurred in September,
when job cuts hit a 29-month high of 115,730, more than double the 2011
monthly average of 50,507. Of the September cuts, 80,000, or nearly 70
percent of the total, came from just two organizations: Bank of America and
the United States Army.".
In terms of the stock market, in this type of environment I would expect the stock market to be very nearly the last thing to reflect reality but reality will pass like a veil and have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that the herd is remotely familiar with.

[Trevor]

A lot of the jobs that are being created aren't real high-paying jobs; they're generally retail, either minimum wage or only slightly above.

[Higgenbotham]

A lot of the jobs that are being created aren't real high-paying jobs; they're generally retail, either minimum wage or only slightly above.

Even if job seekers are willing to relocate, they may not have the skills
employers are seeking. The areas hiring now and in 2012 will require
specialized knowledge. Information technology, specialty manufacturing,
nursing, and commercial construction are areas that are growing, but all of
them require specialized skills.

ANNOUNCED HIRING PLANS
Industry December YTD
Retail 8,650 292,350
Transportation 675 79,653
Entertainment/Leisure 35 52,135

[John]

And, what is more, given the unemployment numbers - and I'm going to disagree with the unemployment numbers here, because what happens is the 8.5 percent really measures people who've actively sought a job in the last four weeks. But since the average period of unemployment is about six and a half months, that just doesn't apply when the average period - that's a record, by the way.

So if you measure it by people who've applied for a job in the last six months and people who are working part-time involuntary, that is a couple days a week when they were working full-time, that number - this is a government number - is 15.1 percent. And then, if you add to that the people who've left the labor force, you have to add another 2.9 percent to that. You're talking 18 percent.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... ps.01.html

[Trevor]

Even when they try to spin the numbers and make things look easy, it paints an unpleasant picture. I wonder how high the "official' unemployment will be once the crash hits.

[aedens]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/cds-marke ... iderations
As touched on under the hood of economic history, defines to far one way and then the other.
The above article is cogent.
This raises the possibility of collusion, market manipulation, and monopolistic pricing practices. Such issues have become important in the Libor market and the market for municipal bonds. We urge regulators and the Department of Justice to apply maximum scrutiny to the credit derivatives market in the United States, as authorities in the European Union have begun to do.
In essence this is old news as already known and linked earlier in the forums to the effects over generational
contexts. New sheep, new wolves.

The article below brings balance in a Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored World.
For those who have multigenerational conversations at home we laugh and just another
hot dog - livin´it up. I enjoy the dialog and links all provided. Also the tireless work John.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... ps.01.html

http://www.challengergray.com/press/Pre ... essUid=207 I read it twice higg...
hmm... 14 percent higher than...which can be expected to result in...
paralyzed when it comes to...

On a side note I spent 2 or 3 years working to intergrate
set skills "as many others" over the mindset lucky over
ability on the other contractual segment imbedding.
Like I said some off us know the nonlinear nature of the equation.
I find it the intellectual malaise from group bias and ideological positing
to cross funtional teams skillset we have been fostering as many also.
Impossible to convey in a paragraph effective critical thinking skills
masked as latency noise. Progess is always a tough propositional fact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PrhGkgu ... re=related <reading music>

[Higgenbotham]

The article below brings balance in a Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored World. For those who have multigenerational conversations at home we laugh and just another hot dog - livin´it up. I enjoy the dialog and links all provided. Also the tireless work John.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... ps.01.html

RUBENSTEIN: We typically get 20 percent of the profits...

Third, I - I don't really set the - the rules about what income will be...

We typically get 20 percent of the profits.

Uh-huh. No shame.