Modern Resources for the Wall Street Trader
By Barry Ritholtz - January 23rd, 2009, 5:47PM
Adam Zyglis via The Buffalo News
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Don’t forget “expert” Larry Kudlow for your market outlook!
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
In those iffy yes/no situations a coin beats a mind-numbing focus group (or any meeting) hands-down. Of course I have a two-headed quarter just in case.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I thought they used quigi boards.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Shouldn’t there be a picture of lines going in all direction, labeled “trend-lines”?
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
When in doubt, cut taxes for the solution to every problem.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Since the WSJ darts vs analysts was settle to the tossers, Wall Street management bought so much bad paper that they’re causing a global depression, and index funds consistently beat the majority of analysts. .. The cartoonist’s joke isn’t funny, it’s preferable.
Much more useful to a Wall Street trader is a legless commode.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I LOVE this cartoon, especially after the last few days…..
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Exactly!
I would add a happy face mask.
These guys should have “will work for food” signs around their necks.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
karen! I-Man! what have you done to Andy Tabbo?
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 pm
When in doubt, raise taxes for the solution to every problem.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I love how it’s somehow trumpeted as big news when corporate execs of failing/taxpayer subsidized companies “take no bonuses”. Like they’re doing something noble. Welcome to real world, fellas/ladies.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 pm
@hr: I agree! Taxes should be raised on the corporate criminals who continue to rape and plunder this country.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
constantnormal…
love the “handle”….
These whipsaw days are simply not very much fun…didn’t really lose any money…didn’t make any money…just general irritation…as someone who relies on trading for livelihood this sort of ‘action’ blows….
Also, the whole pattern down from the early jan highs has so many possibilities my head sort of hurts….
The bottom line…we fell pretty fast from from 940s to 800…and now it just looks like we’ve been congesting and could continue to congest with an upwards or sideways bias…..
Gold had nice day…but no breakout in my book (Fast Money guys think differently)….
Ten year note been weak…but has not broken down in my book, yet. (Everyone thinks differently on that ‘bubble’)
Oil…looked like some kickass shortcovering on a Friday…..
Euro so down in the dumps that a little bounce on Friday looks encouraging…
Yen…I hate the Yen so much and some of the days this week looked really bad…but no follow through breakdown…so I can’t hate it that much, yet.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
@AT: That’s why I spent most of the day doing other things (e.g. grocery shopping, meeting a friend for lunch, etc.). Came back and nothing really happened. Gotta get out of my office bunker from time to time or else I risk becoming Boo Radley or Una-Bomber Deux.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:41 pm
@AT — while I am not a TA person, I appreciate that it can occasionally be quite useful, and whether it is so due to the number of people who follow the discipline or not does not really matter, just as a placebo works by shear internalized belief, and not any biochemical effect — in the end, if it works, the patient appreciates it.
I kinda expect this back-and-forth whipsaw action to carry on for a while yet, just for the blessed perversity of it, and to mess with asa many TA folks’ minds as possible. I do not expect to see any large movements up OR down for a while yet, frustrating all those expecting them.
Now watch me be completely bamboozled by the market’s next move. (as I have been repeatedly over the course of this … this … this unspeakable horror, as I wrote and ranted about the total ineptitude of the handling of the economy and destruction of our society)
BTW — the handle, it’s an anagram, with an obvious anagram password corresponding to it and matching in a perfect semantic manner on both sides of each anagram. I am confident in its uncrackability. Interested parties may take it as a challenge.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
From the Internet Anagram Server:
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=constant+normal&t=1000
Cannot Snarl Tom
Is your name Tom?
Narc Man Lost Ton
Maybe he’s a narc, watch what you say around this guy.
I really should have left the house today, sheesh..
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
yeah I just realized your “both sides” rule, I still like my guesses, I’ll take the loss with a fun sense of dignity.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
I know this is off topic and I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do.
Does anyone have a link to the real details of the stimulus plan?
My estimate is less than 20% goes to real stimulus, 80% goes into someone’s pocket, or to delay the state and muni accounting. Can someone explain how billions to Medicaid and states is going to kick-start the economy? Why do I feel like we’re getting steamrolled without details? Yeah, I know, I’m moving around so I can enjoy it too.
I am really, really tired of being a sheeple.
This blog has the best collection of good minds I’ve ever seen. There’s real power here.
I once felt like I made a contribution against Clinton claims about population shifts to suck the air out of Social Security so the fed had more money to spend on Republican enterprises.
My view of Obama is sinking daily. I know he’s a pragmatist, and knows the limits, but … he needs some ammunition. He says his administration is open and receptive.
This might be our last chance to pierce that veil. And a critical opportunity to help him get it right.
Nancy Pelosi should not need any more tax incentives and handouts to fund StarKist tuna operations in some Pacific Island for her husband’s business interests.
As BR has frequently said, are we going to kick the can down the road or are we going to let things sort out. States and munis are way, way over budget. Lots of public servants that are excited about post-Bush are going to be wondering what happened to their pension fund.
Is Obama who he says he is? He was mum about Social Security until he got elected and then he lit a fire.
How are we supposed to judge him? Or wait?
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Constant? I think I got it. How should I proceed? Are you an older gentleman?
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Constant, what a devil you are, not even checking back… do you want the key 4 letter word?
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
karen — go ahead and give the correct anagram to constantnormal, the logical word associated with that, and the anagrammatic version of that, which would be my password (to other things, not this wordpress account — I use the randomly -assigned password for that).
And it takes only a little searching to find out that I am 58, just from posts here (I think). No points for you thus far.
:-)
If you manage to get it, I will be VERY impressed.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
well, it’s too embarrassing. i’ll give you one word, so if i’m off base i’ll go back to work… slam
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I’d tell you how many characters are in the password, but if I did that I believe it might be possible to work it backwards and unravel things. But it’s more than 4 characters and shorter than constantnormal.
I think that preserves the mystery, as the set of words matching that is too large to permit any kind of semantic association ranking that a rational individual could apply.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
well, this is too confusing. i thot the password had the same letters as constantnormal. basically, i thot it was constantnormal= constantnormal. just moving the letters…. sh*t, back to the drawing board, but we are getting close to my bedtime (8:30 Pacific Time.)
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 pm
@usphoenix – 9:09
Don’t make Obama out to be more than he is — he’s only the smartest president we’ve ever had, but he has no practical experience running an economy, let alone resurrecting one from the dead.
All he can reasonably do, within the framework of his role as a politician, is to try and figure out a set of things that he CAN get accomplished, and try not to screw things up any worse than they already are, and hope like hell that the economy restarts on its own before 2012.
There is no magic that he can deploy, nothing that will provide millions of jobs in any sort of useful time frame.
What he CAN do is to implement some plan to stop the mortgage implosions, any of a number of schemes would work — restructuring the mortgage failure process, so that failed mortgages fall back to an initial restructuring to a ridiculously low fixed rate, extending the term such that the lender eventually collects all the interest they would have under the original mortgage (and when THAT mortgage fails, THEN they foreclose) — or simply nationalize all the mortgage lenders, so that the government is the mortgagee, and free to make whatever arrangements are needed — or any of a bazillion other schemes.
He can also deal with the dead-and-rotting banks, whether by nationalizing them or simply allowing them to undergo gradual bankruptcies, as is happening with Citi.
Beyond those items, he’s really powerless to change the course of things. We are too far down the path to hell to follow our footsteps back out.
I think that an excellent move would be to replace Bernanke and dump Geithner — but it’s apparent that he’s not going to do either right away, if ever. I think that eventually, Bernanke will opt to resign when he finally realizes that all his academic work was not up to the task of dealing with a real economy, full of people working in ways that his efficient markets and rational man theories do not include (John Thain is a case in point, as is Bernie Madoff).
There will be plans and programs, green-spending, infrastructure, and a steady stream of aid to businesses that represent large numbers of employees (auto companies). None of these things will help or hurt in significant ways, they are mostly just noise and distractions. Same thing with his plan to push electronic medical records and massive automation through the health care system, so he can say he has helped us toward a National Health Care system. Actually, that has some real potential to blow up in his face, if Britain experience with automating their National Health System is any guide. To properly implement an automated system of that size and scope will take several decades, and multiple phased implementations, each building on the previous systems and moving closer to the intended integrated system. Trying to eat the elephant in one bite is almost guaranteed to be a debacle of biblical proportions.
But in the end, he’s only a relatively young, very bright politician who finds himself in the White House, undoubtedly saying to himself, “now what?”
I’m not discounting his determination and ability, but in the end he’s only human, and if he manages to improve things even a little I will be highly impressed. Things are in such a shaky state that it wouldn’t take much to bring everything crashing down. But if he can stabilize things, and stop the major calamities-in-progress, after a few months all these hundreds of billions of dollars that have already been pumped into the system will begin to have some effect. The trick is to buy time, and deal with the banks and mortgages.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Kinda reminds me of that great thingie in Terry Giiliam’s movie “Brazil”, with the little crank dropping a weight on either side of a yes-no divider….may as well be a buy-sell divider.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
@ karen 10:52
Nothing so simple, rest assured. I prolly never should have mentioned it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
not Ron, calm Stan.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:06 am
@constantnormal Thanks. Agree with most of what you said. But until Washington comes to terms with federal waste, which is a huge component of the stimulus as I understand it, we are still f^^^^^.
Case in point, Obama went after Social Security and not the farm plan and subsidies. Even W wanted to fix that one, but caved. So is Obama just as weak as W? Are the Dems going to torture everyone and keep the farm subsidies going? Not likely to show up in an Obama press conference or royal edict.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Farm subsidies are unstoppable, with every farm state senator & congressman backing them, and the non-farm state legislators bought off by lobbyists from agribusiness. The sheeple don’t care enough to make it an issue.
Social Security is beyond permanent help, all they will eventually do there is to reduce benefits and restrict access to benefits, kicking the can down the road a bit, into the next election cycle.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:16 am
@constantnormal Thanks.
Maybe. Possibilities. I haven’t given up yet, but remain rationally cynical.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Flying “under the radar”, Citigroup got another $12B bailout. (More specifically, the taxpayers, via the FDIC, are guaranteeing $12B in Citi-issued bonds).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=autqFMJezyUU
January 24th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Cool! I see the tools have been upgraded Barry.
@Mannwich Says:January 23rd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I love how it’s somehow trumpeted as big news when corporate execs of failing/taxpayer subsidized companies “take no bonuses”. Like they’re doing something noble. Welcome to real world, fellas/ladies.
next we’re going to be calling them employees.
January 24th, 2009 at 6:29 am
THE NEXT BUBBLE is low interest rates. A wide-angle glance reveals that so much money is in MMFs because most investors expect rates to rise and rightly so.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
conman rant lots
January 24th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
@constantnormal,
Here’s my guess. Angram of Constant Normal = Lamont Cranston. Google em. If that’s right, the logically following word would be “Blues” or “Band.” Band has no real anagrams. Blues doesn’t have many either, but I’ll go with “Selbu”! If not that, maybe Belus or Lebus. Oh well, that’s my guess!