Saturday Linkfest
“Wall Street is the only place where people who own Rolls Royce seek advice of the ones who travel to work by subway/local trains” -Warren Buffet
So says Sir Warren, who if he knew who we were, would be enjoying this weekend reading right now via the local Dairy Queen’s WiFi:
• Stocks, Oil Hit New 2009 Highs Stocks and oil rallied to the highest levels this year as a report showing strong sales of existing homes boosted investors’ hopes for a U.S. economic rebound on Friday.
• What the Stress Tests Didn’t Predict (NYT)
• World Economy Emerging From Worst Recession Since World War II (Bloomberg) — The global economy may be coming out of the worst recession since World War II as record-low interest rates and trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus spur demand.
• America May Need to Find Another Financier (NYT) AS the United States rolls up record budget deficits, Asian countries are showing a reduced willingness to finance the debt.
• Credit Crisis Is a Big Draw for Finance Museum (NYT)
• Financial Historian on The Dow as ‘Cultural Icon (Marketbeat) ’Wall Street without the Dow? It seems to be a possibility. We know Dow Jones & Co Inc. has been sounding out potential buyers for the company’s stock-market indexing business. See also The Dow’s Ins and Outs
• Surprising sentiment (MarketWatch) Contrarians are no longer sure that the stock market’s very short-term trend is down. And that represents a big shift from what contrarians were saying as recently as just one week ago, when almost all of the sentiment indicators seemed to be saying that the rally was entering into dangerous territory.
• Why Is Obama’s Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google? (Wired) Recently, Google’s size and ambitions have begun to obscure its halo. Advertisers have watched nervously as the company’s share of the search-advertising market has jumped to 75 percent from 50 percent over the past three years.
• The 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get (Newsless)
• Max Damage, a compulsively addictive game
What else is worth reading ?
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Real Homes of Genius: The South Bay of Los Angeles. Today we Salute Redondo Beach. 668 Square Feet 1 Bedroom Home for $539,000
The latest from Dr. Housing Bubble.
quote: “This home has a housing bubble history like you wouldn’t believe. Let us look at what a 668 square foot home can do during a bubble:
Sales History
3/31/2000: $273,000
7/20/2006: $680,000
12/23/2008: $431,000
And the current list price is get this…$539,000! Bwahahahahaha! Someone is trying to flip in California even with an unemployment rate of approximately 12 percent and housing imploding! “
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Look Before You Leap
Barron’s – Alan Abelson
quote: “We’re in one of those stock markets, in short, where good news is magnified and bad news ignored, and that’s swell as long as it lasts. There’s an incredible amount of liquidity sloshing about global markets, thanks to the exertions of Mr. Bernanke and his foreign counterparts. For the nonce, it’s the dominant investment current carrying equities and commodities far beyond the levels warranted by the fundamentals.
Which to our jaundiced eye shapes up as the perfect central-banker trap. At some point, those worthies will have no choice but to turn the spigot off. Hard to pinpoint when that it’ll happen. But when it does, the enthralling movie we’ve been watching since early March will be run backwards. Guaranteed.”
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Oops. Try this link instead for the full Barron’s article:
<a href=”http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.barrons.com%2Farticle%2FSB125089392957850457.html&ei=Th2QSpi4GdPktgLook Before You Leap
It’s the Google link
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
The Warren Buffet quote is a bit louche. I’ve commuted by car, and I’ve commuted by subway: I’ll take subway/local train any day.
The day I got rid of my car was one of the best in my life. One less thing to waste my time on (and yes, you eventually reach a point expensive toys are not status signifiers.)
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Damn. Screwed that up. Once Again.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.barrons.com%2Farticle%2FSB125089392957850457.html&ei=Th2QSpi4GdPktgfE3_3OBA&rct=j&q=Look+Before+You+Leap+barrons&usg=AFQjCNG2P-uiixVGa2b6_rI0_6ynXt9FEw
Look Before You Leap
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Troy – read drhousingbubble last night – highly recommend him, especially to those of us living in Southern California. Funny thing about the house he shows, Redondo Beach may be on the coast but I wouldn’t say it’s one of the nicer coastal cities – certainly not like Malibu or Laguna Beach.
Great article above on Asian countries not being as inclined to finance our debt – it’s about time, I wonder how that’s going to work out with both China and Japan and their currencies/trade balances. I wonder, is it possible that the government has a long term plan to destroy the stock market (one bubble burst, another inflating now) so that Americans will start moving their savings and 401K’s out of equities and into government debt? Would certainly wean us off our reliance to foreign debt . . . .
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-08-22/
Dilbert!
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I’m surprised (and disappointed) no one wants to talk about Google’s foray into censorship and how dependent we are becoming on them.
http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/google-decides-to-be-evil-afterall/
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Spam sales up
quote: “Most U.S. food companies have benefited over the past year from consumers trying to cut costs by eating more at home during the recession rather than at restaurants.”
People are stupid. Spam is more expensive than a lot of meats you can get at the grocery store. It’s generally about $3.30/lb (last time I looked to see what these stupid people were spending on it) which is more than buying chicken, some ground beef, etc, etc. And it tastes like cr@p too. But math is beyond most people these days so they buy Spam because they think it’s cheaper. Did I mention that people are stupid?
Sure it’s cheaper than going out to eat, but… Did I mention that people are stupid?
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:24 pm
A “Culture Icon?” The idea that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is even useful is ridiculous. It’s composition, it’s weighting?
hardly art
hardly starving
hardly art
hardly garbage
no self reference
no getting psyched on
no culture icons
— The Thermals – “No Culture Icons”
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I don’t wanna stir up any coastal trouble, but … how is it that the west coast tycoons seem to view the $1 salary as a symbol of strength, while the easterners see strength in taxpayer bailouts?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10315648-92.html
“The compensation committee recognizes that Mr. Ellison has a significant equity interest in Oracle, but believes he should still receive annual compensation because Mr. Ellison plays an active and vital role in our operations, strategy and growth. Nevertheless, during fiscal 2010, Mr. Ellison agreed to decrease his annual salary to $1,”
I guess it’s not a symbol of strength so much as an approach to dealing with trouble …
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Oddly enough, the top dogs at Google (the target of the anti-trusters these days, apparently it just doesn’t pay to pose a threat to AT&T and Microsoft, those poor little dainty companies that seem to be unable to “compete” without help from Uncle Sam) also collect the $1 nominal salary, along with Steve Jobs at poor impoverished Apple.
Now all of these guys also get significant stock-related compensation, but that’s a far cry from getting several billion dollars in bailout money as your “performance bonus”.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
@mark mchugh 6:58 pm
… reality catches up to fiction …
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/17/scroogled-cclicensed.html
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
@mark — the above link seems to lead to a truncated copy of the story … looking for a better one …
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
@mark — here’s a better link …
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
In my estimation, the following article just burns me. The program probably did sacrifice some future buying, but it still got some increased sales and maybe some jobs back, when the manufacturers are trying to work through bankruptcies. Also, there is an air of whining because auto buyers are purchasing more cars from manufacturers who did not make the same stupid strategic decisions the U.S. auto industry did. With this kind of thinking, even though it is written by the auto industry media, it doesn’t seem like anything has been learned by the industry. This program wasn’t put together to turn around bad management decisions for the U.S. industry and ought to be at least recognized for some of the positives.
‘Clunkers’ Program Benefits Foreign Automakers More, Data Shows
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/22/clunkers-program-benefits-foreign-automakers-data-shows/?test=latestnews
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Just one more reason that CFC is a bad idea. The list is long. And the more govt tinkers around with the markets, the more distorted and imbalanced they get. Just stay out. Hard to do, I know. Politicians just love to throw around money, looking like they’re doing something useful. And it’s all that much worse when we’re already broke. Stealing from our grandchildren. So honorable. God forbid we buckle down, make sacrifices and stop our profligate ways.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Why “Recovery” Calls Are Doomed: The Bezzle
Latest from Karl Denninger. It’s a good illustration of just part of the consequence of going with the Zombie Bank solution that our govt has chosen to go with. Most people really don’t understand what Zombie Bank means. They just know that we “bailed out the banks.” But the consequence of them keeping all that bad debt on their books and not realizing the debts (and possibly going under as a result, costing bondholders and stock holders) is that they now have to suck every bit of money they can out of the economy to stay solvent (and pay out bonuses, of course). Higher fees, low deposit interest, ZIRP policy that hurts savers, etc. On and on for years.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
This is a must see for any Lord of the Rings fans. It is a fan made production that only cost 3,000 pounds to make with all the production crew donating their time to the project. The movie is called The Hunt For Gollum and, if you have seen the movies and read the books, this works as a prequel to fill in some story between the book the Hobbit and the LOTR. It is done in Jackson style and does not look like a low budget production at all. It is getting rave reviews at IMDB and it comes highly recommended from this LOTR fan
http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Thanks for that link CN, I really liked that story.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
We know Dow Jones & Co Inc. has been sounding out potential buyers for the company’s stock-market indexing business.
Are they going to sell off the naming rights like with football stadiums?
Could we see the Ty-D-Bol Toilet Cleaner Index?
The Hair Club For Men Industrials?
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
A picture is worth a thousand words. this fits in quite nicely with Warren’s quote
http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=9538
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com/2009/08/saturday-august-23-1930-dow-23263-136.html
+ + +
Bulls encouraged by $27M reduction in brokers’ loans in spite of rising market (considered good technical indication of stocks passing to strong hands),
Some desperation observed in bear camp: “The bulls in their most excited moments did not bring forth such absurd ideas as some of the bears are talking about.”
Market considered technically strong; bears unable to prompt widespread liquidation as in past breaks due to low margin positions, short interest still large.
Conservative observers still advise staying out of market until “next important move has been demonstrated by the action of leading stocks.” Also counsel against taking short positions due to range-bound market.
Savings banks deposits have been increasing in the depression (reverse of usual seasonal pattern) due to consumers cutting spending and saving more; also some investors have transferred balances from brokers to get higher interest. This does increase the potential call on the banks’ resources that may happen on short notice.
+ + +
I know this site has been mentioned here (hap tip: Mike in Nola?) but it is a fascinated little addition to iGoogle.
Helps promote patience while eying $SCO, $DUG, etc.
“News from Japan’s Lost Decade”? …c’mon internet…
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Consumer spending probably decelerated:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aNWcnzCn6IUo
Don’t worry though–after all, Consumer Spending only accounts for 70% of the US GDP! Q3 earnings results catalyst for The Fall in the Fall? Likely. As LB likes to say, the Hunt for Red October Part Deux. Get out of longs while you can during this bear market rally gift from the lemmings.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:20 am
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXbZZWXPR5mw
always the latecomer, disregard and ignore per your perogative.