Archive - Apr 24, 2011
Radiation Expert: "Sr-90 and Uranium and Particulates Will Be Building Up in the USA and Europe ... For Now I Think It Prudent To Stop Drinking Milk"
Submitted by George Washington on 04/24/2011 22:58 -0500I wrote to radiation expert Dr. Chris Busby to ask him if he thought people living outside of Japan should take any actions to try to reduce their radiation exposure. Here is his response …
The Big Secret?
Submitted by Leo Kolivakis on 04/24/2011 18:15 -0500What's the big secret that renowned investor Joel Greenblatt wants to share with all small investors?
Guest Post: Debunking Anti-Gold Propaganda
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 17:06 -0500Over the weekend, Dian Chu proposed the "precious metals (and specifically silver) are a bubble" argument to a rather vociferous reaction from readers. Today, to keep the argument balanced, we present the counterpoint from Doug Casey: basically, there is no spoon...or bubble: "A meme is now circulating that gold is in a bubble and that it's time for the wise investor to sell. To me, that’s a ridiculous notion. Certainly a premature one. It pays to remain as objective as you can be when analyzing any investment. People have a tendency to fall in love with an asset class, usually because it’s treated them so well. We saw that happen, most recently, with Internet stocks in the late ‘90s and houses up to 2007. Investment bubbles are driven primarily by emotion, although there's always some rationale for the emotion to latch on to. Perversely, when it comes to investing, reason is recruited mainly to provide cover for passion and preconception. In the same way, people tend to hate certain investments unreasonably, usually at the bottom of a bear market, after they've lost a lot of money and thinking about the asset means reliving the pain and loss. Love-and-hate cycles occur for all investment classes. But there’s only one investment I can think of that many people either love or hate reflexively, almost without regard to market performance: gold. And, to a lesser degree, silver. It’s strange that these two metals provoke such powerful psychological reactions – especially among people who dislike them."
Stock World Weekly: Convergence of Trouble
Submitted by ilene on 04/24/2011 16:21 -0500About 50% of what’s going in from the Fed now is rollover money... (The Fed) is buying 85% of the Treasury notes. They can’t stop. How could they stop? Who’s going to buy?
Guest Post: Crude Oil & Gasoline Seasonal Tendencies
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 15:49 -0500As we start this new year, a number of events are likely to occur along with the normal changes in the weather. January gasoline is typically the lowest in any year and, despite the common mythology, gasoline consumption does not normally fall steeply after Labor Day and then recover miraculously after Memorial Day. We do see an element of driving disappear after Labor Day, as drivers in the 16 to 25 year-old age bracket tend to drive less, or at least more predictably. Family vacations are also over by that point, as a general rule. But, there are pockets of demand during foliage sighting season and Thanksgiving Weekend is always the best four-day driving period in any year in which July 4th does not fall on a Tuesday or Thursday. There is usually good driving through the month of December into New Year’s Eve, but it traditionally falls off a cliff right after the champagne glasses touch to ring in a new year. People park their cars and drive to work and school and to appointments. But it is not until March or April that more discretionary driving normally returns. Refineries know this and they typically plan maintenance turnarounds from January through April or early May. During this period, there is a definite tendency for gasoline inventories to be drawn down; even though demand starts the year at its lowest levels, the maintenance usually goes on long after demand has started to mount a comeback.
Japan To Censor, Take Down "Irresponsible" Fukushima Information And Reporting
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 13:55 -0500While we have yet to independently verify the following piece of news which originally appeared in the April 18 edition of the Asia Pacific Journal, we can see how this could be very true. If so, it has very disturbing implications about the "real" truth behind the Fukushima devastation, because outright censorship, Cease and Desist notices, and preemptive takedowns are always the purvey of the "last resort" crew. To wit: "The project team has begun to send “letters of request” to such organizations as telephone companies, internet providers, cable television stations, and others, demanding that they “take adequate measures based on the guidelines in response to illegal information. ”The measures include erasing any information from internet sites that the authorities deem harmful to public order and morality." Of course, if this directive had been in place from the very beginning, nobody would know any of the truth behind the dire catastrophe (which started at sub-3 Mile Island severity and is now equal if not worse than Chernobyl), which has seen enough coverup and lies to make Stalin look like Wikileaks.
Why MIT Is Not Willing To Unleash Real-Time, Dynamic-Purchasing Inventory Control Systems; Or The "Real" Reason For The Culling Of MIT's Billion Prices Project
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 13:05 -0500"We now have real time, lightning fast, pricing information. This will be the greatest thing since the invention of the world wide web. If MIT does the right thing and announces their discovery to the world, they can still make a lot of money and also be responsible for one of the greatest improvements in productivity in history. Imagine what a single graduate student can do. This is why I am always optimistic about mankind's future. However, if MIT continues to lie about why they are no longer making the data available, then this will be used to decrease competition and allow frontrunning by financiers as they alone are able to watch in real time pricing trends for specific industry, or even a specific business located in a small town near you."... And since there are two sides to every story, here is reader Dave Narby following up with an MIT teammember, and getting direct feedback in the aftermath of our post from Friday disclosing the effective culling of the MIT Billion Price Project. The response may stun some people as to why MIT canceled any relevant public disclosure from the Billion Price Project.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm.... The Ben Bernanke Flying Circus
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 11:43 -0500Today, the world has replaced Messrs.. Cleese, Chapman, Palin, Gilliam, Idle and Jones with a new ‘Flying Circus’. Their names are, for the most part, equally well-known and, sadly, becoming ever-more identified with high comedy as they try to convince the world that the dollar is, actually, in rude health. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ‘Ben Bernanke’s Flying Circus’ - starring Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Janet Yellen, Bill Dudley, Charles Plosser, Richard Fisher & featuring Barack Obama.
Regulators Doing Not Much of Anything At All to Stem Reverse-Takeover Abuses
Submitted by Stone Street Advisors on 04/24/2011 11:39 -0500Despite being in violation of Exchange and SEC requirements, shares in RTO fraudster companies like CCME STILL have not been suspended! What's it going to take to get regulators to finally take RTO abuse seriously???
China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 10:05 -0500All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week's announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where's Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country's excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urgently diversified, today we get a sense of just how big the upcoming Chinese defection from the "buy US debt" Nash equilibrium will be. Not surprisingly, China appears to be getting ready to cut its USD reserves by roughly the amount of dollars that was recently printed by the Fed, or $2 trilion or so. And to think that this comes just as news that the Japanese pension fund will soon be dumping who knows what. So, once again, how about that "end of QE" again?
As The Japanese Government Pension Fund Announces Commencement Of Asset Liquidations, Will The Japanese Bond Market Finally Crack?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 08:42 -0500In the world of bonds, few things have perplexed investors as much as the ridiculously low (and going lower) rates of Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs), at last check yielding 1.22%. Granted "deflation" in Japan has long been quoated as the key driver for the ongoing decline in real and nominal rates, but in practical market terms it was always the fact that there was a buyer of first and last resort, usually this being either Japanese citizens directly or their proxy, the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) that kept yields in check and sliding. No one has been following the story of the perpetually collapsing JGB yield better than SocGen's Dylan Grice (for the best overview of this issue we suggest: "Upcoming Government Funding Crises: Japan Edition"). And while as Dylan has pointed out before, the direct purchase of bonds by the population has slowed if not reversed entirely (and in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake we are confident many have entered run off mode - we will attempt to confirm as soon as official fund flow data is released), the GPIF has always been a buyer of last resort. Until now. Reuters reports that the Kyle Bass pain trade, which has for so long gone counterintuitively, may be about to pay off in spade.
Hawaii Average Premium Gas Hits $4.708, As Nationwide Pump Prices Jump By 30 Cents In A Month
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/24/2011 05:34 -0500
Now that the Obama approval rating has hit a plateau where it correlates only with the inverse average price of gas instead of the Russell 2000, the AAA brings some more ominous news for the man who last week launched a crusade to wipe out all oil speculators (and witches) from the face of the earth. While last week the average price at the pump was $3.81, it has since surged once again to hit a new multi year nominal high of $3.86, getting dangerously close to the all time high record price of $4.114 recorded on July 17, 2008. Incidentally premium is already above that mark,currently averaging $4.128. The number is also a nearly 10% increase from a month ago when the average price was $3.561. Seven states reported an average gas price above $4 with Hawaii once again leading the pack at a $5 rounding up $4.534. And of course, instead of focusing on the real cause of surging commodity prices, the administration's response: the creation of a "working group" to battle manipulation.







