Archive - Sep 2010 - Blog entry

For decades, public pension funds have bankrolled the private equity industry, investing billions of dollars with large firms like Apollo Global Management and the Blackstone Group. Is this about to change in a major way?

Heck of a job, boys ...

Unbeknownst to most investors, last week Ben Bernanke pumped an additional $11.05 BILLION into the system ON TOP of the $11.15 pumped via the POMOs. In plain terms, the Fed juiced the system by $20+ billion in a single week, bringing its liquidity pumps RIGHT BACK QE 1 LEVELS.

Not bottom fishing. Just fishing for a bottom.

Talking inspiration from the title of Fox Butterfield's book on China, we ponder the glut of dollars

War does not determine who is right, only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Most if not at all traders, be they day, swing or buy and holders have come across technical analysis. You know what I’m talking about! Those squiggly lines all the gurus seem to have on their charts! They consist of patterns like the famous ‘Head and Shoulders’, age old equations seen across nature like ‘Fibonacci’, even historic wave movements measured by ‘Elliott Wave’.

Yes, I really exist! I’m not an urban legend! Come to San Francisco for an up to date view on stocks, bonds, currencies commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I’ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $199.

Having just returned from Greece, I can vouch that Canada's pension system is among the world's strongest, but that doesn't mean that we can't improve it.

Retail Traders as a herd are wrong...most of the time (sorry guys its true).

This daily report is designed to help traders find opportunities to trade against this group. The premise is very simple we are looking for 66% of retail traders to be trading either long or short a currency pair, we then look for opportunities to fade (trade against) this group.

Ben will now buy a 100B a month. The sky is the limit. Insanity.

Apparently the reach for yield knows no bounds. The junk bond market is returning to the bad old days that we saw the last time this market topped in 2007. Inferior credits are now flooding the market with dubious conditions, lax covenants, but premium terms. Banks may not be willing to lend, but investors of every stripe are more than happy to. Investors are once again paying Rolls Royce terms for jalopy credits. (JNK), (HYG), (PHB).

This morning our favorite Banksters goosed the EU markets by upping targets on international mining operators Kazakhmys, Lonmin and BHP and that got the European markets off to a flying start out of the gate, despite the fact that UBS had just DOWNgraded the same sector on Friday.

Please (1) consider this post as touching on economics and finance because Nobel prize economist Joe Stiglitz says that the war in the Middle East is hugely affecting our economy and Mad Hedge Fund Trader recommends a portfolio heavy in defense or (2) ignore it or (3) consider it a philosophy piece a la Zero Hedge poster Cognitive Dissonance ...