Archive - May 19, 2011 - Blog entry

The QE 3 debate has been raging ever since the Fed announced QE 2 in November 2010. However, this debate is moot. The reason is because the Fed HAS to perform QE 3 in some form or another.

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Fund ended its fiscal year on March 31, 2011 with net assets of $148.2 billion, a gain of 12% in FY 2011. The Fund's private markets led the charge as they more than tripled their investment in Skype and made other successful strategic investments...

Bottom-up saw equity underperform credit but the S&P seemed to have a mind of its own into the last hour (as credit closed near its wides and stocks at their highs). Low beta outperformed in stocks and credit. Most notable was the huge jump in USA protection costs in the last two days!

This essay does not question whether Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11, 2001, or whether Iran, Saudi Arabia or another nation-state had a hand in the attacks. It focuses solely on a peripheral issue regarding the third building which fell on that terrible day

Utilizing The Applied Finance Group’s backtest system, we ran a strategy of investing only in companies with a market capitalization of greater than US$ 1 Billion and a dividend yield above 3%. The strategy has worked fairly well with the annualized returns over the last 12 years beating the overall universe. While the dividend paying strategy worked well, a strategy based on AFG’s valuation metric performed better.

Here is DSK's never before seen Linkedin Profile...HaPPY IP dOpes!

This situation is too far gone, the energy industry has it's hooks too deeply in our politicians and they have WAY too much control over our daily lives. That means the logical thing to do, when faced with an out-of-control vital service that is gouging consumers and damaging our economy, our environment, and working against our national interests - is to NATIONALIZE THEM.

The similarities between the US today and Weimar pre-hyperinflation are striking. As in Weimar, US fiscal authorities are not taking any steps to rein in their loose money policies. Similarly, the US Fed, like Germany’s financial elites believes that currency depreciation is a good thing.

It may be a great momentum trade as web 2.0 hype (finally, eventually?) climaxes, but longer-term its a total dog of a company.

I'm calling their bluff. If Treasury answers this, I will publish their response.

Hey, on the positive side, LinkedIn is better off that Facebook. You see, Facebook will have to register the whole computer capable populace of the world to justify the Au plated, Goldman Goldilocks fairytale other wise known as marketing materials. LinkedIn will just have to grow revenues 300% or so for about about a decade to make this JPM/MS fairytale have a happy ending. No matter what, I betcha there will be a moral to these stories for investors, though!

The head of America’s largest newspaper is terrified of blogs. The battle of bytes versus trees, and the bytes are winning. Running a picture of the dead Lady Diana, or not?

While ultimately its own entity, the Federal Reserve IS a political institution. True, they pretty much do whatever they want… but only to a certain degree. The Fed can’t just unleash $500 Oil in six months without causing full-scale rioting. And money printing and interest rates don’t do much as defense against angry mobs. So with political heat turning up due to price increases, not to mention we’re approaching an election year, the Fed needed to step back for a bit. This is why they didn’t announced QE 3 yet.

S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Russell 2000, Nymex Crude Oil, Comex Gold, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says things are stabilizing ...