Financial topics

[aedens]

Reggy is all over it also and worth every minute also. http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... -larger-eu

This is a desease called hubris they caused not us. Not a miscalucation its POLICY

I like Jim Sinclair, thanks for the link

[Higgenbotham]

More troubles at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart’s inability to keep its shelves stocked coincides with slowing sales growth. Same-store sales in the U.S. for the 13 weeks ending April 26 will be little changed, Simon said in the company’s Feb. 21 earnings call.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-2 ... tay-s.html

[Higgenbotham]

before you start gloating, this applies to 99% of what I read on this site....

We seen it and used solar, lunar, warts on toads just as accurate to the lies, theft and Scientific fun like the FED just as Newton did to chide the Powers that be with humor to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the so called modern world. Also we made the call. It's there....

We cover it all from Harry Browne to the moon.

Readership on this site is at a record low and that's good.

PS I'm basing that on the fact that, more and more, when I hit the index page the only users present over the past 5 minutes are listed as a, me and Google Bot. And a has been the odd man out on this forum, being the only one who said consistently over the past 4 years that the stock market bubble would grow again. Also, many long time posters like OLD1953 have recently dropped off (it's a long list, but OLD is most conspicuously absent).

PPS The reason that is good is because it means the masses are totally disenchanted with the notion that the GD forecasts can work, which is what is probably necessary for them to work.

[Marc]

Thanks for the insights, Higgs and aedens. To be another odd-man-out on this forum who is quietly still here [smile], it's my inclination that the "people's haircut" that was tried in Cyprus may not be impossible to try in PIIGS countries such as Italy and Spain, but that it would be very difficult to pull this off in these latter countries, due to the worry of revolutions in the streets if this were tried in those places. However, as everyone has been saying here, there is the immediate threat of people in places such as Italy and Spain being worried about the safety of their money, and thus massively pulling it out of local bank accounts. If this happens, this will, of course, be a very serious further destabilizing element to the EU and world financial systems.

I still respectfully remain contrarian in regards to a massive collapse of the global economy in the very near future, due to what I think are still some formidable tricks/tactics which can still be tried by the central banks, especially the Fed. To quote a popular Boomer saying, I feel that "you ain't seen nothin' yet, baby" in regards to some creative financial tricks to be tried which will be amazing in their magnitude as well as stealthiness and complexity. There may even be state-sanctioned alternative currencies which are designed to appear as mainstream as possible and be as politically palatable as possible. The financial future will be most interesting. But, I could always be wrong about that; we'll see what happens.... —Regards/Peace, Marc

[at99sy]

Readership on this site is at a record low and that's good.

PS I'm basing that on the fact that, more and more, when I hit the index page the only users present over the past 5 minutes are listed as a, me and Google Bot. And a has been the odd man out on this forum, being the only one who said consistently over the past 4 years that the stock market bubble would grow again. Also, many long time posters like OLD1953 have recently dropped off (it's a long list, but OLD is most conspicuously absent).

PPS The reason that is good is because it means the masses are totally disenchanted with the notion that the GD forecasts can work, which is what is probably necessary for them to work.

Still read daily just often do not log in. I feel that many have lost hope of a magic turn around as O has promised and the masses are simply waiting for the final boot. I was in BA, Argentina in January of 2002 right after they got their hair cut following a "bank holiday." The AR gov't reset the peso-$ ratio to nearly 3-1. Anyone with money in the banks lost about 2/3 of their deposit yet the loans they had maintained the $ valuation so they got hit on both sides. Rioting in the streets and the Army was surrounding the Capital to keep them from burning it to the ground. Withdrawls were very limited after this and you could only get pesos from the banks. I had $ and they went a LONG way down there. People started their own co-op markets and were even printing their own script to use. Way to many precedents to say this can't happen in a major European country or right here at home. Cyprus is the canary and the ability to create more road to kick the can down is impressive in scale and scope. I think the can will fall apart before the road ends.

Cheers

SY

[Higgenbotham]

Occasionally something gets posted here that apparently makes the rounds - this graphic called "ANALOG" on the previous page got 159 views:
http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... 920#p18484

But looking back further at some of the previous graphics on other pages: 18 views, 33, views, 38 views, etc. Which I take it to mean only low double digits of readers hit the entire page.

There was a time when each page here got high hundreds of views - I used to watch the page counter.

[Higgenbotham]

More recent samplings of sentiment from around the web, besides what is being observed here.

1. Margin accounts
"Leverage, as measured by NYSE Margin Debt, rose a huge 31.6% year-on-year (YOY) and 10.2% month-over-month (MOM) to $364bn in January, compared to the July 2007 peak of $381bn. Net Free Credits at -$77.2mm (essentially cash balances in margin accounts) have plunged to levels (and at a rate) that BofAML believes generates a sell signal and typically result in market correction. The last time a (2-standard-deviation) sell signal like this was generated was on April 2010 and the S&P 500 subsequently corrected by 16% in two months. While the US equity market has not responded to at or near overbought or contrarian bearish sentiment levels very recently (remaining overbought for weeks) BofAML also notes a tactical sell signal was just triggered that is similar to those from September 14 and April 27, 2012 – both preceded market pullbacks."

2. Hulbert's Nasdaq Advisors
"There has only been one other time that we've met or exceeded these exposure levels. This was in the last weeks of July of 2000."

3. NAAIM
"National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) Sentiment Survey reported that the mean exposure rose...dramatically to 104.25% from 86.38%. This implies major capitulation. The minimum exposure rose from 125% short to 60% LONG."

4. Consecutive up days on DJIA - 10, highest in nearly 20 years, approaching record of 13 set in 1987 ahead of the 40% melt down on October.

[Higgenbotham]

"In total there are 6 users online :: 3 registered, 0 hidden and 3 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 117 on Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:29 am

Registered users: Bing [Bot], Google [Bot], Higgenbotham"

This is the last snapshot of activity. Typical until even very recently was 6-10 guests. Since the Dow record highs, it's dropped off to under 5 consistently.

[John]

Traffic to the web site hasn't changed much, although a lot of people
get the World View column in e-mail or read it on other sites where
it's cross-posted. There are over 250 e-mail readers now, and it's
possible that they're less likely to visit the forum.

Traffic to the forum has decreased though, as Sy points out, some
people just stop in once a day or so to read what's posted without
logging in. I checked a few minutes ago, and there were 9 guests on
the forum, which is typical of what it's generally been for a while.
I don't know what happened to OLD. I hope he's ok. I think he works
in a war zone.

People come and go, and I have a very personal point of view as I've
described in the past. There are a lot of people who simply shun me
when they become aware of my web site. Even people who have been
friends in college have changed. When I first started out, about ten
years ago, they would still be friends because they considered me as
some sort of amusing kook. But as time has gone on, and everything
I've written about has been coming true, they and a lot of other
people no longer want to talk to me. There are a lot of people who
simply can't handle what's going on, so they call my site "ideology"
or "astrology" or "politics" or they simply put their heads in the
sand. However, there are many regulars who read the site first thing
every day because they want to face up to what's going on in the
world, and many of them have written to me to thank me.

If we go back to the example of Chamberlain and Churchill, then we can
try to infer what's happening. Chamberlain, like Obama, had no clue
what was going on, and Churchill, like Obama's opposition, was
reviled. When Hitler proved Chamberlain disastrously wrong, Churchill
became PM, and is viewed by history as one of the great heroes of the
20th century. However, the moment the war ended, Churchill was still
so reviled that he couldn't even win an election in his own district.

As I've mentioned many times before, I identify very closely with the
mythical Cassandra. Zeus fell in love with her, and gave her a gift:
The ability to accurately foretell the future. When she spurned him,
he cursed her by allowing her to keep her gift of accurately
foretelling the future, but no one would believe anything she said.
She was disbelieved and ridiculed when she warned about the Trojan
Horse, but she was ignored, and the people were massacred. After the
war was over she was assaulted and raped, similar to what happened to
Churchill, though more violent. Later, Cassandra became King
Agamemnon's mistress, and she told him that his wife, Clytemnestra,
would kill them both. He didn't believe her, and Clytemnestra killed
them both.

I am the living embodiment of Cassandra, but not good looking like
her, and I do this because it's an obsession and because I want to
offer a public service.

Most people join an online forum because they want to have some fun,
and this is not a fun forum.

There are many things unraveling in the world today -- the eurozone,
Syria, Egypt, China, Pakistan, and others -- all along the lines
predicted for years on this web site. People are much more nasty and
unpleasant. Getting back to the forum, a lot of people simply can't
handle thinking about it, or they revile me the way Cassandra was
reviled, and I believe that's why forum traffic has been going down.

[Higgenbotham]

At some point, I realized the fact that I post anonymously is a vastly different experience than putting your name on something for all the world to view and be aware of.

I don't offer my opinions freely in real life and, when asked by acquaintances, it's normally with qualifiers like, "Don't listen to me" and "Nobody really knows". When talking to close friends who really do know what I think, when asked, I offer my opinion more freely, and there may be half a dozen of those people. But even they don't know as much about what I think as anyone who reads all my posts on this forum.

In real life I have been wrong about things for a few years, but in the end I've always been right. Like I've said before here, there will be no glory for me if the world goes into a dark age as I predict because there will be nobody left who has time to read about it.

But for me this is not so much about being right, right now, or even next year. From an investment standpoint, it's about being the last man standing when this pile of shit goes down. From a personal standpoint, people can decide whether they want to try to survive it or not because it isn't going to be pretty.