Archive - Apr 2012 - Blog entry

Just a little snippet. Geert Wilders has walked away from the negotiations this afternoon. It may be about a purchasing power reduction for the lowest income class of one percent. This is what the rich fumblers at the CPB have calculated and is considered quite reasonable by some. Of course, the CPB has been wrong on occasion. The SP would like to see elections as quickly as possible, while the PvdA would like to have a debate in the house. Updates posted here as I have the time to add them.

Preamble:

Oops, Hollande, likely winner in the French election, saw the 5% spread that banks get from the ECB....

Don't believe the negative housing hype.

Government Smears Journalists Who Investigate Government Corruption

Is this the company to dominate mobile computing for the next decade? Either it's drastically misunderstood and insanely underpriced, or its a massive bubble. Here's the fundamental take...

Gold rose $1.50 or 0.09% in New York and closed at $1,640.80/oz yesterday. Gold traded sideways in a narrow spread in Asia and continued this in European trading climbing up around 0.16%. 

Gold rose quickly from $1,631/oz to nearly $1,650/oz in minutes on volume with some chunky 3000 lot plus batches of orders going through on the COMEX pushing gold up. A determined seller again appeared and gains were capped at that level.

All you need to know.

And does this mean anything for the stock market?

While Germans work longer hours and retire later....

It is curious how people hang on the day to day detail of European debt auctions when logical analysis of the situation tells you quite clearly that the plight of Europe is hopeless.

Rooting for Europe is worse than being a Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubs might win the pennant.

We know that LTRO is creating a great moral hazard by tempting each peripheral euro-nation's banks to buy its own country's bills, bonds and notes. And when they do that the world seems good. But after they have done that the world seems more at risk. And when they do some more things seem fine again, and so on and so on. But step back from the day-to-day grind and ponder how it's going to end. LTRO is buying time so the crisis can get worse and banks can double up on their exposure to increasingly indebted sovereign lenders. How can this be good or end well regardless of 'how the auctions seemed to go today?'

beware and read on...

In simple terms, Spain is like Greece, only bigger and worse. According to the Bank of International Settlements worldwide exposure to Spain is north of $1 TRILLION with Great Britain on the hook for $51 billion, the US on the hook for $187 billion, France on the hook for $224 billion and Germany on the hook for a whopping $244 billion.

No win situation. 

The Apple trade works until it doesn't. The exit door may get quite crowded!

What do you get for $50 billion? Happy Talk...