How much effect did yesterday's live Planet Money have - My guess is more than people give credit for..
So, what percentage of our six-week "rally" just escaped from the barn for good?
Here are the bear market rallies that occurred during the Great Depression.
November 1929 - April 1930: +48%
June 1930 - September 1930: +12%
December 1930 - February 1931: +21%
May 1931 - June 1931: +27%
October 1932 - November 1931: +35%
July 1932 - September 1932: +72%
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/p/228893/2591709.aspx
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
Where did everybody go?
i guess blog posters are the new short sellers
I think some long-term veterans who were hoping for just one more tiny little bubble (and got it with six weeks of irrational exuberance) are going to use this week as their chance to get out of the market in a big way. And it's just gonna cascade from there, as people think: (1) they missed the boat and/or (2) they need to get out before 5000.
BAC down 24%. WFC down 15%. If you want less volatility, go play craps in Vegas.
----
"no one is pricing in low, mid teens unemployment in any of their assumptions." - Meredith Whitney
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So the USG responds to disinformation on blogs but not information... t
Humm.......
from last thread:
Mr. Beach wrote on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:53pm.
This to me is the single biggest indication that there may in fact be a PPT. It is surprising that we've gone through the blowups of i-banks, fannie & freddie, runs on mm funds, etc. and not seen a single circuit breaker day.
## Well, you're straining a bit. What level was the DOW last time a circuit breaker hit? They're coming, IMNTBHO, we just have to get 'down there' low enough for it to happen.
FYI:
http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2006/10/this_date_in_deal_history_nyse_...
SOS - send the in seal team 46 into the heart of darkness - wall street
http://thebarricadeblog.com/2009/04/18/cartoon-of-the-week-when-do-the-n...
"BAC down 24%. WFC down 15%. If you want less volatility, go play craps in Vegas"
FINANCIAL BEAR 3X(NYSEArca: FAZ)
Real-Time: 11.65 2.75 (30.90%) 3:59pm ET
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
What happened to buy on the rumour sell on the news?
Hey BSR: re--your first older waitress encounter: was she bending deep into the freezer dipping you a double scoop of ice cold wonderment when her dress slipped past the tops of her stockings?
I have a post-it note on my filing cabinet.
March 24th, Jim Cramer (and dingbat sidekick Erin) called the bottom in the stock market on The Today Show. Cramer was being very jocular and even upped the ante by calling for a good spring (in 2009!) for home buying.
At the appropriate time I'm going to e-mail The Daily Show. I'm sure they would LOVE to do an update on JC's prognostication.
Yes, blaming in on a rumor sounds far better than blaming it on reality.
The US treasury non denial denial is interesting.
Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading LLC, said traders are now viewing bank earnings with more skepticism amid concerns that even the better-than-expected results are disguising problems. Income from trading and low-cost borrowing rates have boosted results but not erased more difficult problems with bad debt, he said.
"They're looking at bank numbers and are saying they are not that great," Saluzzi said.
March 31 - Time Equity news U.S. stock market report 1652 ET 31March2009 - NYSE sets Q2 circuit breaker levels -
The New York Stock Exchange said on Tuesday that it will implement new circuit-breaker collar trigger levels for the second-quarter 2009 effective April, 2009. Circuit-breaker points represent the thresholds in which trading is halted marketwide for single-day declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. They are set quarterly as 10, 20 and 30 percent of the blue-chip index average closing values of the prior month, rounded to the nearest 50 points. For the second-quarter, a level 1 halt will consist of a 700 point drop in the Dow before 2 PM, which will halt trading for one hour. If the drop occurs between 2 and 2:30 PM, trading will halt for 30 minutes. After 2:30 PM or later, the drop will have no effect unless there is a level 2 halt. A level 2 halt would comprise a 1,450 point drop in the index before 1 PM, which would halt trading for two hours. The same drop would halt trading for one hour between 1 and 2 PM and for the remainder of the day if at 2 PM or later. A level 3 halt would consist of a 2,150 point drop, which would halt trading for the remainder of the day regardless of when the decline occurs.
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/31032009/323/stocks-news-nyse-sets-q2-circuit-br...
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
volker - were you working at Van de Kamps in Pasadena then too? How'd you know? First time I'd ever smelled a woman that smoked - amazing I'd still remember THAT!
- - - - -
Black 
Ranch
I like the Mega-Bear Quartet. If you extend the range, you'll see that the Nikkei and GDI track each other pretty well over 19 years, and the post tech crash tracks them well up until now in inflation adjusted terms. We're in a period where the first 2 charts had sucker's rallies prior to going on to establish new lows, but I would have thought that we'd recover a bit more before tanking-
give me a place to blab on the intertubes and i will move the street
(attributed to archimedes jones, gs trader)
The thing with the circuit breakers is that we're not yet numb to them. .... If we'd had 1 or 2, people wouldn't make sure a big deal.
But now we're in a situation where the first circuit breaker is going to be treated like a HOLY SHIT moment by the national media, and it could lead to an even worse cascading downward. And THAT could be our final crash.
They've put themselves in a position really cannot afford a breaker day now, unless the end is truly here.
BSR: your old lady sure is taking her sweet time hauling a couple loads of dirt
volker: ## Well, you're straining a bit. What level was the DOW last time a circuit breaker hit? They're coming, IMNTBHO, we just have to get 'down there' low enough for it to happen.
Perhaps the reason we haven't seen circuit breaker days on the equity markets is that funds can hedge their bets in other markets: bonds/forex/CDS/etc. So that any shock to the equity markets is caught by the hedges which transmit it back as buying pressure on equities.
Even so, it is surprising to me that we've seen such an orderly decline.
If you look at short interest and volume, I think you'd say some IBs and other portfolio managers just had an excellent day.
" black dog wrote on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:18pm.
......Cramer was being very jocular and even upped the ante by calling for a good spring (in 2009!) for home buying."
It will be.......for REOs-
FINANCIAL BEAR 3X(NYSEArca: FAZ)
Real-Time: 11.65 2.75 (30.90%) 3:59pm ET
popeye
Those last moments were...wooo! Me thinks it portends to an weaken open tomorrow.
LMAO. ... Look who the Associated Press indicates is the SPONSOR of Bernanke's chat
==========================
BC-Bernanke, 2nd Ld-Writethru,0270
Bernanke: People need to hone financial know-how
Eds: ADDS Visa as sponsor in graf 2. Moving on general news and financial services.
By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans need to sharpen their financial know-how to help them best use their money, especially during the current economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.
"As the global economy continues to experience extraordinary turbulence ... the need has never been greater for initiatives that help consumers learn to manage their money wisely," Bernanke said in brief taped remarks kicking off a conference on financial literacy in Chicago sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank there and Visa Inc.
Improving financial knowledge also can help protect people from scam artists, he said.
On that front, the Fed last month launched an effort to warn consumers about foreclosures scams that are increasingly preying on homeowners.
The modern financial marketplace has led to an explosion of financial products for people to choose from. To make smart decisions, consumers need to shop around and make sure they understand the pros and cons of any financial choice - from taking out a mortgage or car loan to selecting a certificate of deposit or other investments.
The current financial crisis - the worst since the 1930s - has been blamed partly on lax lending standards, and in some cases people taking out mortgages that they didn't truly understand to buy homes they couldn't afford. Bernanke didn't mention that Monday, but he has in past remarks.
Bernanke said experts attending the conference would discuss "best practices" in financial literacy and how they can be applied to a rapidly changing and globally interconnected financial landscape.
It is essential that government and private companies work together. "Only by joining forces will we be successful," Bernanke said.
"A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there's no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation's largest banks are insolvent."
And I thought the article would link to Roubini's blog. Too bad. An official rebuttal to Roubini or Whitney could be an interesting read.
Thread Music for Thursday April 23rd, 2009
It'll be up 280 tomorrow. Rational Delusion is still in abundance.
Goat Herder, I think "turdulence" is an appropriate term.
"your old lady sure is taking her sweet time hauling a couple loads of dirt"
....she's a good old gal. Even helped me enlarge the chicken condo earlier today for our 12-newbies: "Palacio de Pollo"
gotta go announce a ball-game ...........Hasta, volker - keep a wrinkle in it........
- - - - -
Black Ranch
Popeye and all,
A nice graphic courtesy of Zero Hedge:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_FM71j6-VkNE/Sey8iBuz1II/AAAAAAAACB0/BrKdBC3wbJ...
And in really interesting news,
"MacroShares Housing Depositor, a subsidiary of MacroMarkets LLC, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for exchange-traded securities that will allow investors to invest in the upward or the inverse movement of U.S. home prices."
Goes on sale Apr 28. http://www.macromarkets.com/macroshares/documents/roadshow.pdf
Mr. Beach: perhaps so, we should never underestimate the creative abilities of the wizards of Wall Street. Nor should we expect them to keep the rules intact. As we approach the possibilty of one (with lower numbers needed to kick it in) expect them to change the rules, preceded by a week or so of 'discussion' by 'analysts', 'hedgies', talking heads, and appointed/elected pubic officials.
keep a wrinkle in it........
- - - - -
Black Star Ranch
## ROTFLMAO!!! You dog.
The blue line in the first graph looks an awful lot like the bony finger of the Grim Reaper...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoBTsMJ4jNk
Suckers rally ends right on schedule. Marc Faber and I concur.
---------------------
Chemical con-trails from Air Force spraying operations cause cancer and respiratory problems! Where are all the environmental wackos concerns? See; Killer Chemtrails: The Shocking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psdg3OAw_a8&fe
The Huffington Post takes a look at Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, and lays out why their first quarter numbers are better digested with a large dose of salt.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/banks-quarterly-earnings_n_1890...
Loss of credibility leads to the demise of the green shoots. glimmers, and market rally. New lows dead ahead.
Borocco Mama wrote on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 1:26pm.
It'll be up 280 tomorrow. Rational Delusion is still in abundance.
==================================
I think I'd take you up on that bet.
hey, the suckers had legitimate dreams, maybe they turned out to be delusions, but they can always double down on the prozac
When trading stops - Major stock exchange outages this decade:
List of occasions when circuit breakers were tripped on recognized markets
http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/10/30/when-trading-stops-major-stock-excha...
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
hey, the suckers had legitimate dreams, maybe they turned out to be delusions, but they can always double down on the prozac
Exactly, Elmer, and that's why today is just a hiccup. The sheep will contimue to turn over their 401K savings to the beast.. It's all they know. Prozac and TeeVee will prebvent them from looking behind the curtain. BBAD and Crooks. They go together like a horse and carriage.
Iceman,
In vegas right now for conference and the craps table were running up...so better odds...rolled a lot of snake eyes (craps roller) and envisioned Timothy staring my short picks down with those beady snake like eyes..
I have some interesting stuff to share on abs a paper for first 3 months 09 to share..will post tomorrow when I get back into town....
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I emptied my bank account so the bastards can't use it. Being in debt is like diving with great white sharks.
"MacroShares Housing Depositor, a subsidiary of MacroMarkets LLC, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for exchange-traded securities that will allow investors to invest in the upward or the inverse movement of U.S. home prices."
These ought to draw more information into the market, but given their aggregate nature, I don't see them being used by individual homeowners for hedging house prices.
I can't imagine the banks are happy to see these appear on the market.
--
The Zombie Apocalypse begins when U3 hits 15%
The nation is still in the deliberation stage of this crisis. GM and Chrysler going under or causing mass lay offs will signal the transition to decisive action. If the belief in the leadership and their plans do not have popular support then the response will be panic.
Personally, my panic meter is starting to climb.
I just thank God every day for turning down the Sun's output. Take that all you "Green" pushers.
NASA-How Low Can It Go? Sun Plunges into the Quietest Solar Minimum in a Century
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solar_minimum09.html
---------------------
Chemical con-trails from Air Force spraying operations cause cancer and respiratory problems! Where are all the environmental wackos concerns? See; Killer Chemtrails: The Shocking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psdg3OAw_a8&fe
popeye, that last G.D. rally does not count, as the market had already reached its low point (in June '32, I think it was).
Yep, I am using the G.D. experience -- big down, smaller up, big down, smaller up, etc. -- to guide my short bets (and, from here on out, to go long on the uplegs).
Creditcriminals writes:
In vegas right now for conference and the craps table were running up...so better odds...rolled a lot of snake eyes (craps roller) and envisioned Timothy staring my short picks down with those beady snake like eyes..
Envisioning Geithner as snake eyes? To quote Sonny Corleone, "You're taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very, very personal. "
----
"no one is pricing in low, mid teens unemployment in any of their assumptions." - Meredith Whitney
"turdulence"
ROFL.
Just perfect for this economy.
homedad43
Comrade Dope jg: you might want your wait for the uplegs catered because it may take awhile
haven't we all been saying for months that the Banks were insolvent??? So now a blogger sez this and it moves markets.
I know, it's all cr's fault!
That was me, lawyerliZ
Markets? I thought we were at the dog track----
On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 508 points, a 22.6% loss in a single day, the second-biggest one-day drop the exchange had experienced, prompting officials at the exchange to invoke for the first time the "circuit breaker" rule to halt all trading. This was a very controversial move and led to a quick change in the rule; trading now halts for an hour, two hours, or the rest of the day when the DJIA drops 10, 20, or 30 percent, respectively. In the afternoon, the 10% and 20% drops will halt trading for a shorter period of time, but a 30% drop will always close the exchange for the day. The rationale behind the trading halt was to give investors a chance to cool off and reevaluate their positions. Black Monday was followed by Terrible Tuesday, a day in which the Exchange's systems did not perform well and some people had difficulty completing their trades.
There was a panic similar to many with a fall of 7.2% in value (554.26 points) on October 27, 1997 prompted by falls in Asian markets, from which the NYSE recovered quickly.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw believes that the Federal Reserve should pick a random number between 0 - 9 and invalidate all U.S. bills ending in that number, essentially wiping out 10% of the money supply. This is to encourage people to spend their money instead on Treasuries with negative interest rates, where we have to PAY the government for the 'privilege' of lending them money.
This is passing ridiculous and quickly approaching absurdity.
"Deepest Solar Minimum in Nearly a Century: Goodbye Global Warming"
http://larouchepac.com/node/9916
---------------------
Chemical con-trails from Air Force spraying operations cause cancer and respiratory problems! Where are all the environmental wackos concerns? See; Killer Chemtrails: The Shocking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psdg3OAw_a8&fe
BO is going to cut 100 million dollars. Boooowaaaa.
---------------------
Chemical con-trails from Air Force spraying operations cause cancer and respiratory problems! Where are all the environmental wackos concerns? See; Killer Chemtrails: The Shocking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psdg3OAw_a8&fe
Michael,
Stock exchanges in India vs. sun outages
Stock markets in India have their own set of problems: sun outages. The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange networks rely on satellite communication for its member traders. This communication is sensitive to solar radiation, so the Indian stock exchanges therefore have to schedule their trading around these sun outages.
http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/10/30/when-trading-stops-major-stock-excha...
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
volker, FWIW, I think we go down to 525 on this downleg. I'll cover my shorts beginning at 600, and will go long at 525.
During the G.D.:
-- Average and median countertrend rally over '30-'32 was 29% (range 19-39%)
-- Average and median interim drop over '30-'32 was 39% (range 30-45%)
We troughed at 667 on Mar. 9th and peaked at 876 on Apr. 17th (peak of 876 was 31% above trough of 667; predicted peak per above G.D. history was 29%/860; close enough for me)
Predicted trough from 876 is 525 (down 39%)
We'll see!
Yeah, tho global warming is real, global cooling from a glitch in the sun is real too.
Global cooling cancelling out global warming. I never thought we were that lucky.
lawyerliz
And I thought the article would link to Roubini's blog. Too bad. An official rebuttal to Roubini or Whitney could be an interesting read.
Nobody at the Fed reads Roubini or Whitney--they get all their financial news and commentary from Hal Turner.
Yeah, tho global warming is real, global cooling from a glitch in the sun is real too.
Global cooling cancelling out global warming. I never thought we were that lucky.
lawyerliz
god is keeping us alive to torment us a bit longer. Meow.
Comrade Dope jg: good solid thinking. Doesn't mean it will be the bottom. I'm still thinking 150 before I would even think of using your money for my gambling. It's all about the price of gold. Not my thinking, just what I see as good thinking for when to roll the dice.
"This is passing ridiculous and quickly approaching absurdity"
--------------
We've already passed Peak Absurdity.
Hmm, ask Pavel about that.
lawyerliz
I dunno Broward, every time I think we've reached peak absurdity, it gets even more absurd. Like house prices always going up, sorta.
lawyerliz
Belated response to B of A threads.
Well, my guy's 78k loss for B of A is all scheduled and accounted for.
Remember 25 cents on the dollar for 2nd mtgs with firsts in foreclosure. Get the deals
while they are hot. Getcha peanuts here!!!
lawyerliz
BH: we are living in "Through the Looking Glass" times.
WASHINGTON: In his debut cabinet meeting on Monday, President Barack Obama commanded his government to cut 100 million dollars from the US federal budget within 90 days, with an eye on the ballooning deficit.
--------------------
Hmmmmm.
"I dunno Broward, every time I think we've reached peak absurdity,"
------------
There are many things I could say about the IT industry over the past few years.
Twitter is Peak Absurdity.
[Greg Mankiw believes that the Federal Reserve should pick a random number between 0 - 9 and invalidate all U.S. bills ending in that number]
Russian Roulette with US Currency. Absurd indeed. Banana Republico. When ObamaDrama gets cozy with Castro & Chavez BananaRepulbicoUSA can't be far off.
I think someone can't get their "illions" right . The one starting with T is a lot bigger than the illion that starts with a mere B.
lawyerliz
popeye, that last G.D. rally does not count, as the market had already reached its low point (in June '32, I think it was).
Comrade Dope,
July 8, 1932 Dow 41.22
.............................
If you don't take your profits, someone else will.
Anonymous2: and he pointed out that a few departments had already gotten started! Such as Homeland Security buying office supplies in bulk and another department re-working office space and Veterans changing meetings from face to face to webinars. What a leader, what a spectacular demonstration of savvy management, what a full load of used hay.
"One hundred million dollars there, a 100 million dollars here, pretty soon even in Washington it adds up to real money," Obama said, though he agreed with a reporter's question that the initial target was a 'drop in the bucket.'
The president, flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, said he was proud of his cabinet which took office at a time of rare national financial peril.
------------------------
Rare financial peril, more hmmmmmmm....!
On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 508 points, a 22.6% loss in a single day, the second-biggest one-day drop the exchange had experienced, prompting officials at the exchange to invoke for the first time the "circuit breaker" rule to halt all trading.
And yet this crash restored sanity to an overpriced market in an insane melt-up. In many ways it was the best thing that could have happened, and yet Wall Street didn't approve and politically it was unpopular.
This one event highlights a developing mentality of intervening in the markets to prop up asset prices that suggested many more such disasters were to come.
Liz:
Thanks for the update.
It makes me wish that I'd just said the hell with it and run everything up for default.
Seriously.
Eventually, there's going to be a revolt (so to speak) against predicating everything on credit scores...
sigh.
homedad43
FYI - Markit moved to price instead of spreads on CMBX. The charts don't look as pretty since they look like they're flattening out as they approach ZERO. Calm the markets since... Spreads zooming!
The sheep will contimue to turn over their 401K savings to the beast.. It's all they know.
More sadly, it's all they have. We've discredited almost every option for saving for one's own retirement other than the path through Wall Street's rotary sheers.
saw an interesting link, maybe on abnormal return blog, but it stated that market most over bought in 23 yrs as measured by % of stocks above 40 and 50 day MA's...and the % of those stocks that are more than 1 or 2 standard deviations above that MA. compelling info.
"One hundred million dollars there, a 100 million dollars here, pretty soon even in Washington it adds up to real money," Obama said, though he agreed with a reporter's question that the initial target was a 'drop in the bucket.'
More like a 'molecule in the cosmos'.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast last month the budget deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars for the whole year, based on Obama's 3.5-trillion-dollar budget plan approved by Congress.
The CBO said its budget deficit estimate for fiscal 2009, which ends on September 30, would be four times the 2008 record shortfall and amount to 13.1 percent of the country's total economic output.
The Obama budget forecasts a 1.750 trillion dollar deficit in fiscal 2009.
----------------------------
This firmly puts things in perspective. I need a drink but these days i can only afford tea.
Comrade Dope-jg,
What makes you believe this crash should mirror the GD crash? Seems crazy to think that conditions are exactly the same. Sure, I agree that we're in a debt-deflation spiral, but it doesn't have to play out exactly the same (in particular, stock market movements). Especially since the government policy response has been so vastly different.
Asset price deflation can happen in a combination of ways (real and/or nominal declines).
volker, did you say you expect an ultimate S&P value of 150?
I do. I just think it will be 'three steps down, two steps up, three steps down, two steps up' from here down to 150, and I want to make money on the short AND long side.
I'll be doing that gambling with a small chunk, something that I can afford to lose. My long-term money is all gold, silver, and gold and silver mining stocks.
I knew the market would tank soon, and I presumed gold and silver mining stocks would go down with the broad market. So, I sold my gold and silver mining stocks on Friday, in the expectation that they would go down with the broad market, and I could rebuy them in the near future at a lower price.
So, of course, they go up today!
Tonight, I will be revisiting my logic, and may just get back 100% into gold and silver mining stocks; they are too tricky for me to predict on a interim-term basis, as their correlation with the broad stock market comes and goes (as they drop and renew their correlation to gold and silver).
rich, tj, volker, homedad: will gold and silver go down with the broad market (as the Elliott Wave folks think) or are Americans and foreigners moving to 'sound money' and 'sound money producers' (i.e., gold and silver mining companies)?
Wait until Chrysler files for Chapter 7
ac - [This one event highlights a developing mentality of intervening in the markets to prop up asset prices that suggested many more such disasters were to come]
It wouldn't be troublesome if authorities would invest as much effort in suppressing wildly out of control surges in asset prices. Of course that ain't gonna happen.
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Broward, OT,
Twitter is the TXT equivalent of most cellular communication, the bulk of which is brief and of the "I'm here - where are you?" variety.
Its hidden function and greatest success, however, is as an irritant to old people - an identifier of the generational break. If you just hate it, or have any strong opinions whatever, you're no longer "of the moment". Very much like trance or death metal in their day.
"Hmm, ask Pavel about that."
What was the question?
Pavel Chichikov
Hat tip to Bearly for using this rally as my last trades in the leveraged short ETF's. While I am still convinced the direction is down ( fill in your own blank: economy, market, standard of living) the leveraged ETFs are poisonous and not to be utilized.
[Obama said, though he agreed with a reporter's question that the initial target was a 'drop in the bucket.']
Fiscal conservative! Obama is small time on the cuts/savings side and a GIANT on the bust-the-bank spending side.
Pennywise & Dollah Foolish. Hooocoodanode ?
Someone's comment above about god playing with us with global cooling/warming.
lawyerliz
Doug Short keeps a tally of inflation-adjusted bears. Nominal percentage changes are useless, as anyone around in the 1973-4 bear and the 1980-82 bears can attest. At this about 19 month mark, this bear is exactly as bad as the Great Crash bear. In real terms, it is not the second worst. In addition, dividend yields were higher then. All in all, in real total return, this is the worst crash by a small amount at least since WW I. In addition, recall that the stock market was up about 5X from 1922-29; this crash was from a high that only equalled high from about 7 years earlier, so this price action is not just corrective as the first 19 months of the Great Crash was. This crash is worse in that regard.
As Mish points out, 400 of the 2000 largest malls have closed; many others are weak. And the CRE crash is obviously not fully developed. Retail spending is down about 10% you and industrial production is down low double digits yoy. All these meet criteria for a depression, not a "recession". It's not the Great Depression, but the action of the stock market and that of many economic statistics are Depression actions.
"Its hidden function and greatest success, however, is as an irritant to old people "
You may very well be old yourself, since you write the possessive of 'it' correctly.
Yes, I am so completely out of it, so out of touch with popular culture, that I think of Joseph Hayden as a rock star.
Pavel Chichikov
S-C-, we have a larger debt overhang, relative to GDP, to unwind. So, our depression will be longer (I calculate five years; last one was 3 1/2 years), and I presume our stock market correction will be as large (89% fall) as in the Lesser Depression.
Reading the Elliott Wave stuff, it seems plausible to me that humans move from hope to fear, and the stock market reflects such, moving up then down. So, if the broader trend is down, due to the unfolding Greater Depression, then I expect that there will be small, 'hopeful' moves up, followed by larger, 'fearful' moves down in the stock market.
That is what we have seen so far since the peak of the stock market in summer/fall '07: larger moves down followed by smaller moves up.
Making money being a long-term short is very easy. Making money on the small interim up moves will require some skill and luck.
What do you think, S-C-?
Pavel, I like your seventeenth century tastes!
"Its hidden function and greatest success, however, is as an irritant to old people"
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Somewhat true. Twitter is a concrete implementation of the Culture of Context. Unless you're constantly bound into the flow and assumptions of the "conversation" (I hate calling it that), you're clueless about what's happening. Its strength is in filtering, its weakness is its high consumption of time and effort and fragility.
Does Twitter irritate me?
No, I can't say it irritates me.
I think it's sad.
"Someone's comment above about god playing with us with global cooling/warming."
Don't be churlish, Liz. God is upper cased.
I have no idea how God handles His affairs, nor does it pay to be too nosy about them either. From what I read, however, global climate change proceeds. Arctic ice thinning,etc.
If you want to read someone really gloomy read James Lovelock. He thinks we are toast, and that most of us humans will die en masse, before our time. This is not agreed by most climate scientists. But there is a tipping point at somewhere above 400 parts per million (?) of CO2 atmospheric. We're getting close. After that, we're looking at an unstoppable process - new planetary environment.
Pavel Chichikov
"Pavel, I like your seventeenth century tastes!"
Thanks. There are some advantages to being obsolete.
Pavel Chichikov
this is no opinion:
The American people are being controlled and manipulated through a dialectic process of "right" versus "left," when both sides are controlled by the same elite interests and both are selling out the U.S. for global government, aka the "New World Order".
"The Hegelian Dialectic is, in short, the critical process by which the ruling elite create a problem, anticipating in advance the reaction that the population will have to the given crisis, and thus conditioning the people that a change is needed. When the population is properly conditioned, the desired agenda of the ruling elite is presented as the solution. The solution isn't intended to solve the problem, but rather to serve as the basis for a new problem or exacerbate the existing one."
http://www.amerikanexpose.com/hegel/
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Chemical con-trails from Air Force spraying operations cause cancer and respiratory problems! Where are all the environmental wackos concerns? See; Killer Chemtrails: The Shocking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psdg3OAw_a8&fe
hegel spoke in dialect?
Am reading Dmitry Orlov's "Reinventing Collapse." An interesting companion volume to Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies."
'Its hidden function and greatest success, however, is as an irritant to old people - an identifier of the generational break. If you just hate it, or have any strong opinions whatever, you're no longer "of the moment".'
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Amusingly, I saw a PDX news broadcast that devoted five minutes -- five minutes, mind you, when the economy is falling apart, wars are raging, homes being lost, & etc. -- to a young so-called Twitter expert. That's what the text under her name said. "Twitter expert."
She babbled about how Lance Armstrong is a "great Tweeter" and said Twitter was really, really cool and the two middle aged oafs at the news desk grinned and played their "oh you kids and your darned wacky technologies! tell us how it works again?! the whatjamig?!" routine. It was five minutes that told you everything you need to know about America in 2009.
Namely, that America is a baby with a giant digital diaper.
And it's very, very full.
Comrade-Dope jg,
My main investment theme pretty much matches yours: we are in a debt-deflation spiral. I too am playinig it as a long-term declining market, with the bottom to be marked by very low valuations on stocks and real estate. I have just loaded up on more puts.
However, I see no reason why the bear market rallies should match the GD in size or duration.
Also, I am wary of the possibility of an artificial recovery by the Fed and government(
worldwide. It might be temporary, but possibly long enough to destroy bets against stocks (shorts and puts other than LEAPS). I doubt they can do it, but it is possible. Just look at the housing bubble that was manufactured to put off a debt-deflation spiral at the end of the dot-com bubble....
The emoticon in my last post was unintentional.
"Namely, that America is a baby with a giant digital diaper.
And it's very, very full. "
My god, Barton Fink, you've summed it up perfectly.....
Michael - according to the NASA link you cited, sunspot activity occurs on eleven year cycles (high to low, or low to low?), or thereabouts, and we are currently in a "low". What do you think the effect will be eleven years from now, (or five and a half years from now?) when "high" sunspot activity is added to "global warming"? And as far as your LaRouchepac link is concerned, what credence are we supposed to give to that, seeing as (presumably Lyndon) LaRouche is considered to be one of the premier wing-nuts of our era? Do us all a favor and desist from further commenting on this or any other issue. Thank you in advance.
I do not get twitter.
I'm 28, and a software engineer. I do not under stand why people need it. First off twitter would be fairly easy to write so I dont consider it some technological marvel so much. But I think twitter is not just a generational break.
Anyone can use it. If shaq can use it anyone can. Also case in point if shaq can get an mba (and he has one) anyone can. Shaq tells us a lot about society.
I think twitter just shows how the world is all about being an attention whore. I just dont get why anyone would want to have this online conversation with you constantly about every little thing you do. Theres not much substance to it. But I guess people do not like substance anymore, which is why we live ina world of reality tv to begin with.
Thanks for your thoughts, S-C-.
Yep, for me it is tricky to understand how the money printing and repatriation of Treasuries will affect asset (stock and housing) prices, in the face of credit collapsing.
That reminds me, I need to read on the German hyperinflation experience; a summary I read last week was hauntingly similar to what is going here in AmeriKa today.
"I do not get twitter."
- it's simple, really. Twitter is for twits.
notional, you can estimate the sophistication of reportage - or its lack - by the inclusion by reference to an eleven-year cycle.
When you encounter an article which details eleven-, eighty-eight-, two hundred- and eleven hundred-year cycles, you'll have run into someone who's taken more than a short time to read up an unfamiliar subject.
Intermediate and long-wave cycles are moving towards minima now, all having lately peaked and reversed. It will take a very, very long time to generate problems; I think it's safe to say the global trend going forward is cooler and cloudier with more precipitation, though there will almost certainly be noise/anomalies in short-term data.
If you're worried about polar ice, be assured you'll see it restored in your lifetime.
burnside, sir, with all due respect, my interpretation of the data suggests that the "global trend going forward" will be warmer and cloudier with more precipitation, seeing as how water vapor, itself, is orders of magnitude more abundant as a greenhouse gas than either C02 or methane. The eventual return of sunspot activity can only enhance this trend. I seriously doubt that the polar ice caps and glaciers will return to their former glory within my lifetime, but then again, I ain't no spring chicken. Good luck to you, all the same.
nb,
Michael has seen to it that climate remains a kind of leitmotif strung through these threads - result being the subject gets a pretty thorough airing, but is so dispersed as to have become nearly impossible to follow. Leaves me in the position of not wanting to bore regulars with data posted, much of it long ago.
But since this thread's essentially done for, let me say that the researchers working on the mechanisms behind solar effects don't at all discredit the effects of atmospheric loads on global temperatures - they posit a separate mechanism, have had experimental corroboration, and have got the attention (and funding and facilities) of CERN for additional work, which is ongoing. This business of looking into the effects of sunspot activity on the troposphere is quite serious, and is being pursued in addition to the work on greenhouse effects - it's not an argument, it's an addendum.
I think there's an overwhelming acceptance among the public that science and scientists of every stripe are in broad agreement with the greenhouse gas scenario, and that any contrarian voices exist at a vanishingly small margin. So far as I can tell, researchers outside the specific realm of climatology aren't nearly so unanimous but, as they weren't early and vocal on the subject, the time frame for repairing the public's perceptions has effectively come and gone. If they're concerned we don't understand the solar angle, they're even more in despair that their work has been cast as an argument against what's known of greenhouse effects.
Nonetheless, their work is sufficiently confirmed that the effects are known. They've got the "what" and are pursuing the "why".
It's of no importance what I think about any of this, of course. It does strike me that the discourse has developed here and elsewhere along lines very similar to the treatment given the credit cycle a few years ago. There are still some out there who imagine we have a housing problem. Well, we do. It's just that there's rather more to it than that.
I should add there's dissonance primarily where "good science" gets wrapped up in dogma, or politicized, which is certainly happening in discussion of global warming/cooling as much as it has in subprime (contained) v global liquidity trap.
notional billionaire wrote on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 7:48pm.
burnside, sir, with all due respect, my interpretation of the data suggests that the "global trend going forward" will be warmer and cloudier with more precipitation, seeing as how water vapor, itself, is orders of magnitude more abundant as a greenhouse gas than either C02 or methane.
I've never understood this argument about water vapor. Water vapor is so abundant that in its absorption band the atmosphere is entirely opaque. A bit more or less makes no measurable difference--sort of like thinking you can make your house darker by adding an extra layer of bricks against the wall as opposed to closing the window blinds..
It's what happens at the frequencies where the absorption length is comparable to atmospheric depth that matters.
Cloud cover and its effect on albedo is a different matter entirely and I don't think anyone's been able to model that well...it matters so much just what kind of clouds are formed.
Yalt, that's extremely interesting.
Given the research establishing positive correlation between cosmic radiation levels and cloud formation represents gross data (if it is even that), then before the research can be applied to refine modeling, or can determine types of clouds formed, they'll need to know much more at the molecular and observational levels than they do.
Which is what's happening in Switzerland now and, presumably, why.
What??? I thought that the stock market and real estate always went up!!!
"The bank earnings so far just seem to be smoke and mirrors ..." said Harry Rady, chief executive officer of Rady Asset Management.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090420-713357.html