However, while I admire Ford for its … [visit site to read more]

Never let it be said that America cannot adapt to changing circumstance.

After 18 months of recession (and three months of “growth” purchased wholly with borrowed and invented money), and with official unemployment slated to remain at roughly 10% for the foreseeable future (and unofficial unemployment somewhere closer to 20%), three iconic marketing giants have stepped up to the plate, squinted … [visit site to read more]

Sure enough, the Fed reiterated Wednesday that it’s not worried at all about the surge in asset or commodity prices. It said,
“Substantial … [visit site to read more]

Figure 1. S&P500 v. Rydex Money Market/ daily

Figure 2 is a daily chart of the S&P500 with the amount of assets in the Rydex bullish and leveraged funds versus the amount of assets in the leveraged and bearish funds.

Figure 2. Rydex Bullish and Leveraged v. Bearish and Leveraged/ daily

At first blush when looking at these two graphs, you would … [visit site to read more]

When the time comes for the US to refill its coffers there’s going to fewer workers to pass the hat around to… an unfortunate state of … [visit site to read more]

Observing the market’s muted reaction to the Unemployment Report Friday morning makes me think of a phrase not popular on Wall Street. That phrase, ‘neither a buyer nor seller be’ sends a mixed message bordering on indifference as to market activity.

Why are so many market participants not involved or less caring of the daily price action? I would put forth the following reasons:

1. Overriding concern with trying to get their own financial house in … [visit site to read more]

By L.M. SIXEL

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

As the U.S. economy stabilizes, most of the key sectors in Houston will show year-over-year job gains by next fall, a local economist predicts.

“I think we can say the worst is behind us,” said Barton Smith, director of the University of Houston’s Institute for Regional … [visit site to read more]

The continuation of the ultra-loose monetary policy confirms the Fed is willing to risk inflationary pressures for the sake of securing a stronger and sustainable economic recovery.

However, analysts did interpret the slight change in policy wording as an indication that the Fed had moved on from its ‘wait and see’ approach and is now planning to … [visit site to read more]

Recently I commented on the seemingly unfathomable transactions of /large financial services firms divesting their asset management businesses to investment management firms in such a favorable market environment. In the … [visit site to read more]

I. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
July: 9.5%
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%
October: 9.8%
- November Consensus Expectation: 9.9%
- November Actual:10.2% !!!!

>> LD’s comments: this is the shocker and will get all the play. This rate is especially damaging because the participation rate declined. That drop would help the … [visit site to read more]

Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) announced this week that it plans to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $100 a share, writes Jack Hough for SmartMoney. Buffett named rail car loadings as his favorite … [visit site to read more]

The initial reaction to the jobs number was negative.  This is the problem that won’t go away.  70% of the GDP is the consumer and 10.2% of them are not working.  This number is a bad number and it’s worse than expected.  The market sold off on the … [visit site to read more]

Cell Therapeutics (CTIC) could recover to the 1.062 range. There is, however, no sign of the completion of the downward trend that commenced in August. Hold on with a stop-loss at 0.975 . Fresh exposures may be avoided. A close above 1.065 would indicate that the earlier downward trend is complete and that the stock is headed towards higher levels of the 1.18-1.2 range. Keep the stock in your radar.

( click to enlarge )

Crocs (CROX) enjoys a strong … [visit site to read more]

Furthermore, by adding $262 billion to Treasury … [visit site to read more]

Here is the current “pure price arc” in gold’s daily chart:

From the last update, gold has bounced strongly off the arc updated from prior post.  Its angle of ascent is still climbing higher, which can be measured by drawing trendlines under each new swing low and noting the angle that each trendline - … [visit site to read more]

Whether the choice of a partial stock deal means that Buffett considers Berkshire (BRK-A) shares to be overvalued, or whether Buffett is going “all in” in American stocks and commodities, or is he just making a last hurrah of asset allocation before retiring? Maybe he is simply bearish on the entire economy.

Whatever the reason, it will be easier to just wait until Buffett says something.

In the … [visit site to read more]

JDSU - JDS Uniphase
NVDA - NVIDIA Corp
SBUX - Starbucks Corporation

MACD Bullish Cross on the daily chart

RX - IMS HEALTH INC
DTV - Directv
LMDIA - Liberty Media Corp
EEGC - Empire Energy Corp
WMT - Wal-Mart Stores Inc
PHM - PULTE
AXP - AMERICAN EXPRESS CO
EK - EASTMAN KODAK CO
GILD - Gilead Sciences, Inc
HL - HECLA MINING CO
MDT - MEDTRONIC INC
IVZ - INVESCO LTD
RFMD - RF Micro Devices, Inc.
UNP - UNION PACIFIC CORP
PAYX - … [visit site to read more]

We’re back in civilization… Wait…you call this civilization? Looks more like Bubble Land again!

Gold is headed towards $1,100…

Bonds are soft…so is the dollar…

Speaking of old friends, Marc Faber says he’s long the dollar. Faber thinks the buck is over-sold. It … [visit site to read more]

More than half of U.S. retail chains posted October sales that fell short of Wall Street’s heightened expectations in an ominous sign for the upcoming holiday season, Reuters reported. “October results are not going to give … [visit site to read more]

This is the second time in many weeks that Dr. Roubini warned of a growing dollar carry trade and threatening to cause a global implosion. The … [visit site to read more]

With continues rally in stocks the Dollar weakened as investors wait for today’s payrolls data. Weekly Jobless Claims showed the labor market has enhanced slightly, to 512K vs. 520K expected. Also, the Nonfarm Productivity came out 9.5% better than expected 6.4%. The Equity markets soared, the Dow Jones finished above 10,000 for the first time since late October. The NASDAQ jumped 2.40% and the S&P 500 rose 1.92%. Gold (XAU) ended at $1,090 an ounce and crude oil pulled … [visit site to read more]

The pure ‘originate to distribute’ model employed on Wall Street spelled the death knell for Wall Street and our economy.

I addressed how firms won under that originate to distribute model in a commentary from November 12, 2008, “The Wall Street Model Is Broken….and Won’t Soon Be Fixed!!”:
At the turn of the century, the Wall Street model was a pure “originate to distribute” model with little to no residual risk … [visit site to read more]

The purchase was hailed by the Oracle himself as a “bet on America”. We see it a little bit differently…it is a bet on Asia/China.

Burlington Northern System Map

The map above illustrates the BNSF network. The BNSF … [visit site to read more]

As someone who feels more at home in a big furry coat than wearing horns and snorting, I’ve been feeling slightly uneasy over the past couple of days. I’ve been paying a bit more attention to the slower moving weekly charts that still portray a convincing uptrend.

Scaling down to the daily chart the FTSE has withstood the first assaults on 5000 and put in … [visit site to read more]

If you took my advice and bought shares of “virtual bank” Annaly (NLY), you’re up 42% today… And we’re only halfway through the trade.

A year ago, I told you we had the opportunity for 85% capital gains, PLUS 39% in dividends - for a total return of more than 120% in two years.

While I told DailyWealth … [visit site to read more]

The Fed’s own statement, released yesterday, said, “Household spending appears to be expanding but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit.”

In other words, despite losing your job or having your salary reduced, and despite your housing nest egg falling in value, and despite your inability to get … [visit site to read more]

Australian firm BHP Billiton (BHP) is one of them.

As the largest and most diversified commodities producer in the world, BHP has leading positions in most key, low-cost, metal and mineral deposits in the world.

And as if that weren’t enough, it also has a solid position in oil, thanks to its petroleum division, which had operating profits of $4 billion last year.

Impressively, that total only … [visit site to read more]

They were valuable because they helped frame where we are in the mortgage crisis, which has been the main shark in the water over the past couple of years. You should know where that shark is and whether or not it is hungry. The chart below shows you the ferocious fish may still … [visit site to read more]

While ETFs aim to track their underlying indexes as closely as they can, it’s noted on fact sheets that they “seek to replicate, to the extent possible.” The subtext is that while they try to avoid this scenario, a host of events could prevent this from happening. And while the word “error” can have negative … [visit site to read more]

The Financial Times provides insights into the Goldman Sachs (GS) … [visit site to read more]

US Dollar Steadies before Friday’s NFPs but should we Expect Breakouts?

The combination of tepid economic event risk and the looming presence of a key event indicator yet to come worked to stabilize the dollar through Thursday’s session. In contrast to the … [visit site to read more]

As we stopped to enjoy the view, we heard the unmistakable whistle of a steam locomotive. We looked up and there it was - New York, Susquehanna and Western’s number 142 - a steam … [visit site to read more]

The Silver market is definitely playing second fiddle to its more glamorous “yellow metal ” cousin, as nearby Silver futures have not even reached yearly highs, while Gold continues to move into uncharted price territory. One of the possible reasons why Silver has not garnered the same attention as Gold may be due to its usage as an industrial metal. Despite signs that the worst of the recession may be behind us, we have only started to see improvements in industrial … [visit site to read more]

There are three reasons in particular to watch China as its economy continues to evolve into a global powerhouse:

In October, Chinese manufacturing rose at its fastest pace in 18 months.  China’s PMI was at 55.4, marking the seventh straight month that the … [visit site to read more]

Those who care

Savers. That may well be you and me. Though we hear praise about the “recovery” in the equity markets, the … [visit site to read more]