My morning reads:
• Investors Finally Shed Fears (WSJ) see also Hedging Against a Drop in the S&P (Barron’s)
• Asian Stocks Head for 18-Month High (Bloomberg)
• Yes, but how much did China REALLY grow in 2012? How about 5.5%? (FT Alphaville)
• Bull Wagers Tumble Most This Year as Gold Bets Drop (Bloomberg)
• Preet Bharara: The man who strikes fear into Wall Street (The Globe and Mail) see also Prosecutors, Shifting Strategy, Build New Wall Street Cases (DealBook)
• Requim for Investing Twitter (Interloper)
• Performance of Morningstar’s New Analyst Ratings For Mutual Funds in 2012 (Wall Street Rant)
• G20 Communiqué Translated (Macro Man)
• Google Works on Launching Retail Stores (Yahoo Finance) see also I Want To Be Like Google When I Grow Up (The Altucher Confidential)
• Scientists ‘on the threshold’ of major dark matter discovery (The Raw Story)
What are you reading?
With Stock Prices Soaring, Investors Fear Another Crash
Source: WSJ
Category: Financial Press
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
WTF.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/paulson-leads-funds-to-bermuda-tax-dodge-aiding-billionaires.html
On the “it must be true because I believe it” front
Scarborough and Friends Trying to Make ‘Debt Deniers’ Happen
And on the “truth-be-damned, we’ve got sales to make” front
Why Barron’s Went With That Preposterous Cover About Obama Turning America Into Greece
Pentagon Goes on Offensive in Cyberwar http://n.pr/XKCd2k
Maker’s Mark drinkers, Don’t Water me Down http://wapo.st/12HrVrL How to Plan Six Years Ahead
A bit dated as it’s from last week — but couldn’t help but look at this magazine cover and think of Mr. Ritholtz. I know you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in Canada lately so thought you might find it interesting.
http://www.pdfmagazines.org/uploads/posts/2013-02/1360262092_macleans-18-february-2013-1.jpg
rereading Bull by the Horns Sheila Baer
its just awesome
as a what happened and whats wrong
a gem every few pages.
bankers behaving badly citi and b of A should have been wound up
the real Basle II and III story and
Euro banks twice as levered as US –hence their bigger mess now
Form a Financial Stability Board–charge it with “resolution policy”
and dont invite Sheila or the FDIC
arguably the only ones that get it
timmy the tool Geithner gets repeatedly violated, nailed
and clearly proven he would have given more of the bailout store away without Sheila n FDIC
including FDICs own credibility
there are twenty perfect quotes for Rs who want to disappear regulation or blame it
from a kansas republican
Appropos of the Preet Bharara piece, I’m reading Errol Morris’s “A Wilderness of Error” deconstructing the Jeffrey MacDonald prosecution. Highly recommend it.
WRT Bharara, he’s put inside traders in jail. BFD. Remember the high hopes you had for Khuzami, Barry? How’d that work out for you and everybody else who believed this time it would be different in terms of prosecutions?
The Death of the Big Box Stores
http://www.businessinsider.com/scale-implosion-2013-2
http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-exposed-to-wal-mart-2013-2?op=1
Don’t know if this is going to happen but it is interesting. I recall Bezos saying years ago (maybe 10), Amazon was going to be bigger than Wal Mart. I thought the guy was crazy, maybe not.
That’s a good one Barry. Your first mornning read is that investors are shedding fears. the chart title says that investors fear another crash.
Not saying that there won’t be another crash. (I have been reading your blog for too long.) But the 2000 crash was a bubble bursting, the 2008-09 crash was a financial meltdown and recession. I am not sure what will trigger the next one. The economy’s not great, but it’s not bad. The economy and housing seems to be muddling through.
I’ve been mostly sitting in cash since early 2008. Missed the crash, but also the rally.
zep reunion?
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/robert-plant-hints-hed-be-open-to-led-zeppelin-reunion-20130218
A lot of crash talk in the media these days…both for and against with everyone on “trigger” watch. I dont think we crash and I certainly dont think we blast off here. I see an orderly, methodical walk back down to reasonable CAPE PE valuations and a return to more realistic interest rates. The boom bust thing is played out and we have all been conditioned to believe these are the only two market options. Fact…equity valuations and interest rates will both mean revert so position accordingly for that adjustment. I have faith we will eventually see a healthier market.
Not so much reading as looking. I turned 8 years-old in 1963. I lived in Alabama, but not Birmingham. There were ugly things said and ugly things done.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/02/50-years-ago-the-world-in-1963/100460/
Another CEO is frustrated with the American consumer – its odd what happens when US industry offshores manufacturing and flattens US consumers’ disposable income:
http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/consumer/articles/Tupperware-CEO-blasts-cheap-US-consumers/2/1/2013/id/47834
http://www.tupperwarebrands.com/brands/tupperware/sustainability_plant_locations.html
Tupperware still does some manufacturing in the US but clearly has a lot of overseas manufacturing. This would be in keeping with 60% of their sales outside the US, so it appears that much of their growth strategy is overseas.
BTW – we have some Tupperware products, but we do use cheap disposable containers for some food but much of it is stored in Pyrex dishes with plastic lids, especially if it will be reheated or if it contains acids (like tomatos).
The US consumer has been the work horse of the world economy for the past couple of decades. Now that the consumer is tired, it would be amusing watching CEOs and politicians trying to whip the tired horse into more spending if it wasn’t so sad.
Dark Matter, huh? You remains a bit of a Renaissance man Barry, which I like. Or maybe that’s your undergraduate science background coming out. On the Dark Matter/Dark Energy vein, I’m reading Lawrence Kraus’ “A Universe From Nothing” which covers this in some detail. It’s a good read for anyone who’s curious about the subject but not a cosmological physicist.
BR,
seems that Robert Higgs has been wrestling with a related, though tangential, Idea..
http://blog.independent.org/2013/02/14/can-the-internet-save-us/
By Robert Higgs — February 14, 2013
“Many of my freedom-loving friends have great confidence that communication via the Internet and the World Wide Web will prove to be a game-changer in the fight against the disinformation and propaganda disseminated by the state and its running dogs, and that the greater ease of spreading the truth will shift the balance in favor of those who seek to protect and extend liberty. I have always had my doubts…”
“…A second reason for my doubts is that although the Internet and the Web lower the cost of disseminating the truth, they equally lower the cost of disseminating the state’s lies. Perhaps more important, today’s technology permits users to create many forms of distortion and illusion, so that when we encounter information on the Web, we must always ask, “Is this real or fake?” We simply cannot believe everything we see with our own eyes. Some hoaxes are easily revealed; others require great expertise to expose; and few of us possess such expertise. The masses therefore remain vulnerable to what governments and their key supporters have done for millennia—namely, fool most of the people most of the time…”
~~~
that Question of ‘Balance’, may any of Us, one Day, achieve a, fleeting, semblance of it.~
what has lead to recoveries in the past?
all in a few charts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/19/janet-yellen-explains-our-crummy-recovery-in-three-charts/
and government not the cause of decline in coal usage. not environment either
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/02/coal-industry-analysis/
its economics
when can Mr Bharara start working on the banksters? or maybe he just needs more help in his office to work on them too?