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Is That a Pyramid in Your Portfolio or Are You Just Happy to See a United Egypt?
The market rallied on Friday as Hosni Mubarak abdicated his
manipulatedly elected throne, walked out of the country like, well, like
an Egyptian (yeah Money McBags fucking went there, shit, not every joke
can end with a Harry Baals reference),
and turned the keys to his Cairo over to the military (and nothing like
a junta in the Middle East to make everyone feel better, and yes that
was the sound of Money McBags punching himself in the nuts).
But it wasn't just Egypt that rallied the market because investors
also reacted positively to macro news even though macro news was more
mixed than Andy Dick's sexuality (but in Bernanke's Ponzeconomy™ we know
the only news that matters is the health of Brian P. Sack's trigger
finger, and as always, Money McBags said Pee-sack, hhuhuhuh), and to
earnings even though earnings continued to more confusing and less
helpful than the voynich manuscript or the word "no" to Ben
Roethlisberger. That said, with the market not trading on news,
fundamentals, or common sense, it is all more irrelevant than a syphilis test.
In macro news, consumer confidence reached an 8 month high as consumers finally got some hits on their diapermates
profiles which made them feel much more confident about their life
choices. The index of consumer sentiment climbed to 75.1 from 74.2 in
January and sentiment data showed households’ perceptions of the economy
and job market turned positive this month for the first time in seven
years as everyone BUYS THE FUCKING RIP!!! Interestingly Olivia Wilde
is hot, but slightly more interestingly, the index of consumer
expectations six months from now decreased to 67.6 from 69.3, so hooray
for buying the rip but oh shit for when the rip becomes a dip.
Even more interestingly though, the Bloomberg article to which Money
McBags linked above contains this awesome quote from Credit Suisse witch
doctors led by Chief Wiccan Neal Soss: “The sharp 0.8 percent drop
in the unemployment rate the past two months is resonating across
consumers’ current view and future prospects for the labor market." Oh Money McBags' fucking god,
did an economist really just say that? Umm, has he not heard of
something called the labor force particpiation rate which has
artifically pulled down the made up unemployment numbers? Perhaps they
didn't teach that in his coven.
Money McBags can only suggest no one listen to anything this assclown
says and that Mr. Soss and the rest of the Credit Suisse team read Money
McBags' soon to be Pulitzer prize winning analysis of the jobs report to understand its irrelevance. And note to Wall Street recruiters, how the fuck does this guy have a job?
Elsewhere, the Obama administration wants the government to have a smaller role in mortgages
and gradually abolish Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac within 10 years, so
only about 20 years too late. The report gave Congress three options
for reducing the government’s role in supporting home ownership with
those options being shrinking the government’s role in insuring or
guaranteeing mortgages by limiting it to only creditworthy borrowers
with low and moderate incomes, having the government as an insurer of
mortgages only in times of financial turmoil, or simply telling Barney
Frank to eat a fat dick (and Money McBags means that in the most
figurative, non-offensive way).
Also, the trade deficit widened almost as much as the income gap or that Coco chick's ass
and hit its highest level in four months as imports from China hit
record levels (who knew pee pee flavored coke would be such a big
hit?). The US imported more than it exported by $40B which was inline
with guesses, up 6% from last month's $38B, and included mostly products
produced cheaper than in the US such as electronics, clothes, medical
devices, and anything else that isn't just picked up off the ground and
requires labor. The good news is that for the year, exports actually
rose 17% (though below the 20% rise in imports) as the demand for the
US's biggest products (anger, despair, lost hope, and Brianna Banks films)
hit record highs. In all though, these numbers can be interpreted a
number of ways (and as always, Money McBags prefers to interpret them
using modern dance)
as rising imports mean that consumer spend is going up (and likely
inflation, though the numbers were driven by oil, so make like Peter
North and drill baby drill), while rising exports mean that the global
economy is picking back up (except for you Ireland, Greece, Spain,
Portugal, and anyone else tied to the Euro).
The only other interesting bit of news was that Alan Greenspan talked to the Brookings Institute
which is a think tank that apparently likes to think about things that
suck (because if Money McBags were running a think tank, all he would
think about is Nell McAndrew and how to get free HBO) and said housing prices need to rise 10%,
so it's good to see the classics never go out of style. Lord Greenspan
also said the rise in equities has created a “wealth effect” that is
prompting consumers to boost spending and then added “In the last four or five months, these markets are beginning to look very much like they used to prior to the crisis”
which would be great if the markets prior to the crisis hadn't also
been artificially fucking inflated and led to the collapse of the
ponzeconomy™.
In the market, earnings were mixed as Expedia crashed
after reporting a 30% drop in net income related to a nearly 20%
increase in costs, a ginormous jump in their tax rate, and something
about an undifferentiated business model with barriers to entry lower
than Hugh Hefner's balls. Elsewhere, Tata motors showed the market its
tatas and apparently the market really liked them as the stock jumped 9%
on a 22% increase in revenue driven by strong sales of their Jaguar and Land Rover brands. Finally, Nokia fell ~15% after announcing a deal to use MSFT software in their smart phones.
In a related note, Hardees announced that RC Cola will be their drink
of choice, MySpace said they will be teaming up with Napster, and M
Night Shyamalan said his movies will only feature Dolph Lundgren.
As always, Money McBags has a fuckload more as yesterday he broke down the quarterly earnings from one of his favorite small cap shorts in a way that would make Warren Buffett's taint hurt. So check Money McBags out at the award winning When Genius Prevailed or even follow him on the twitter (where he put today's headline up for a vote with “Egypt Causes Market to Rise as if It Had Flashed its (Nefer)Titis” losing out by a nut hair).
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Ahhh moneymcbaggs you had me at the first line...
Yep; definitely some black swans are a-circling.
nyet-you never see the bitches.
- Ned
This shows we have no hope of having intelligent politicians. If one of the options is having the government act as an insurer only in times of financial turmoil then we have an implicit backstop, a government guarantee of the mortgage market. As the Chinese say "same bed, different dreams." we will end Fannie and Freddie as we know it just to return them in a disguised form.
"Even more interestingly though, the Bloomberg article to which Money McBags linked above contains this awesome quote from Credit Suisse witch doctors led by Chief Wiccan Neal Soss: “The sharp 0.8 percent drop in the unemployment rate the past two months is resonating across consumers’ current view and future prospects for the labor market."
Just think...when there are 12 million unemployed instead of 8m and the "unemployment rate" is at 6% with young liberal arts majors flipping burgers part time, we will have complete ledger book harmony in "jobs saved or created"...fantastic.
In a related hypothetical note from Soss, he stated there is "positive evidence" that the dual mandate of the Fed chunking government bonds into the burn pit in it's backyard while at the same time it issues brand new currency with which to buy them with, has the same affect as acting on Bernie Madoff investment advice...now that was some news we could really have used back in the early 1900's...ahhh well, better late than never.
"Elsewhere, the Obama administration wants the government to have a smaller role in mortgages and gradually abolish Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac within 10 years, so only about 20 years too late. The report gave Congress three options for reducing the government’s role in supporting home ownership with those options being shrinking the government’s role in insuring or guaranteeing mortgages by limiting it to only creditworthy borrowerswith low and moderate incomes, having the government as an insurer of mortgages only in times of financial turmoil, or simply telling Barney Frank to eat a fat dick (and Money McBags means that in the most figurative, non-offensive way)."
I'm goin with the drooling Fwank option here, a creditworthy borrower (low or moderate) needs this "half cocked" measure as much as Bwaney needs access to new, starry eyed, impressionable male pages...figuratively & non-offensively speaking of course ;-)
"MySpace said they will be teaming up with Napster..."
What could possibly go wrong with this?
Dude:
get it right ;-) "a cwedit wothy <<spittle>> bowwawa..."
"half-cocked" ewwww
And no, Bawney has graduated to a pot-growing Maina' But he's declared that he'll run in '12. That makes the Gerrymandering contest so interesting. Maybe we'll get another House Speaker for Felony charges
- Ned
Sometimes I really can't help myself ;-)
Seriously who was stupid enough to get a liberal arts degree and expect someone to employ them? The fact that liberal arts majors used to get decent jobs was an artifact of a distorted economy running on excess credit. Liberal arts are extremely important for our education, even to nerdy engineers who complain about taking those courses, but traditionally a liberal arts major or a masters degree in something fluffy has never paid that well.
tct:
... er ... all of those degree recipients who, well, got a degree?
who can't understand 'net present value'? Who thought that college is partay' time? Who didn't know they were spending their folks' future?
And, yep, I'm one of those engineers who was 'technically trained'. Understood this at the time, been working on improving that ever since. Some excursions along the way.
- Ned
Why is Hosni Mubarak suddenly such a boogyman and the most evil man in the world? What about the leaders in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela? When will there be an international media frenzy demanding that they resign?
start with tonight's 60 Minutes and the GOOG 'do-gooder' article. Go from there.
- Ned
Hosni Mubarak is no boogyman, nor are the leaders in Iran, Cuba or Venezuela.
...Now the San Diego Chicken, he is one very mean dude....
http://goodthoughtsgoodwordsgooddeeds.blogspot.com/2011/02/san-diego-chickenpurple-dinasour.html
I think the US President (repub or demo) is far more evil.
How many wars of aggression has Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela waged lately?
How many military bases do they have strewn throughout the world?
Who has the largest per capita prison population (lots of non-violent offenders too)?
Who is the largest seller of weapons to all those bastard thugs and dictators?
We're number one! USA USA USA
I love these lefty posts, because it means...oh yeah..time to whip it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-FoXbjVI
F*ck Yeaaaaaah! Never gets old.
Shhh!.... Listen up TBT.
Nice to see you back again... we are going to be doing a shitload of dancing and educating here you and I. You are a complete fucking idiot of course... but then again so am I! :)
Welcome to the party my friend!
Fuck you. I am no lefty.
Miseian and Rothbardian.
There are more than 2 sides.
Lately Cuba has been too poor, but they kept angola tied up in civil war for years, as well as a bunch of other places in Africa and Latin America
I will give Iran a pass. Even their Mullahs don't like Al Queda, and if Israel and Pakistan can have an A Bomb then Iran has every right to have one too. They merely have to withdraw from the treaties which is their option. However they are supporting Shiites in Lebanon and some Palestinian groups.
Venezuela has been arming the columbian terrorists, or freedom fighters depending on your viewpoint. They also have allowed safe haven on Venezuelan territory. so yeah they don't have clean hands.
However we do outpace them in all of the above.
That whole "the stock market is up so everything is getting better" schtick is going to turn around and bite these clowns really hard at some point. Markets are cyclical and even though they can be manipulated for a long time, they can't be manipulated forever. If/when this market turns down these idiots are going to get their heads handed to them on a platter. Having tied market direction to economic health, these guys aren't going to be able to get out from under "the market is down so the economy is going bad" response that is the natural flip side to what they are preaching now. They are either so stupid/arrogant that they actually believe they can manipulate the markets forever, or they are pure evil and using this opportunity to steal the last dime they can get before it all falls apart. There ARE NO GOOD OUTCOMES from this market=economy mindset.
It is not just the stock market as real estate has a huge impact on the "wealth effect."
I don't think anyone with a working brain bought the market=economy bullshit.
If the whole system implodes its actually a good thing,unless you have no skills,work for government,or work in the Financial industry ,then you are fucked.
i was just going to go l O_O k Ing for you, babe. guess you have been busy this weekend† me too.
gona go read your read†
Velobabe has a crush on Money!
it is funny that you say that, bags is the only email address that i have out of this bunch†
awareness, men keyboarding again, rampant.