Good Rhetorical Point

Dealing with the emotional Stalinism over the past few weeks:

"Gasp, you support Obama, don't you? and want him to suceed?"

Rush Limbaugh flat out and basically said "No, I'm a conservative."

Mitt Romney puts a finer point on it.

It's still early in the administration of [editor's note] President Grand Mufti Obama. Like everyone who loves this country, I want him to adopt correct principles and then to succeed. He still has a chance to step in and insist on spending discipline among the members of his own party. It's his job to set priorities. I hope for America's sake that he knows that a Chief Executive can't vote "present." He can't let others run the show. He has to say yes to some things and no to a lot of others.

We need to stimulate the economy, not the government. A true stimulus package, one that respects the productivity and genius of the American people, could lift this country out of recession. And experience shows us what it should look like.

Oh, It is Coming

At a certain point, maybe it will be 9% unemployment, 10% or 12%. This whole idea of letting 20 million illegals and 2 million more import workers into the USA to "do the jobs that Americans won't do." Isn't going to go over so well.

Looks like the jig is up in the UK. Better clamp down on the illegals and optionals before something really nasty springs up like extremists suggesting that even legal immigration should be halted (bad news for your truly.)

In this week news, one of those stellar hi-techies from India in country on a H1B (work) visa(god knows, computer programmer are just impossible to find these days) almost blew up THE mortgager of the USA. It didn't say, a mortgager, I said THE mortgager. The one that US Government owns as surely as they own AmTrak and the USPS.

Stmulus Explained

from quipster:

Stimulus Payment Info.

This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers and loans from China.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

==================

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China .
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.
If you purchase a computer it will go to India .
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy U.S. organic).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan .
If you purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan .

And none of it will help the American economy.

We need to keep that money here in America . You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer and wine (domestic ONLY), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US.

The Path to World Depression is Paved with Protectionism

Guess Who Is Leading Us There?

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- [Grand Mufti Hussein] Obama’s administration will examine a “buy American” requirement in economic stimulus legislation that has raised concern among U.S. trading partners, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The administration “will review that particular provision,” Gibbs said today at his regular briefing. The president’s advisers understand “all of the concerns that have been heard, not only in this room, but in newspapers produced both up north and down south.”

He refused to say whether the administration supported or opposed keeping that part of the legislation intact. Nor did he say what the president would do if the provision remains once the bill clears the House and the Senate.

The issue may cloud Obama’s trip to Canada on Feb. 19, his first journey outside U.S. borders as president. Officials in Canada, the top U.S. trade partner, are criticizing a part of legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 28 that requires the use of U.S.-made iron and steel in infrastructure projects.

“U.S. protectionism is about to make Canada’s recession a lot worse,” Ralph Goodale, house leader for the opposition Liberal Party, said today in Parliament.

But then again, maybe Canada shouldn't worry. Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsby confirmed to the Canadian consulate that all that protectionism talk was just a ruse to gin up votes.

Now lets talk about opening those Canadian markets (including that Canadian oil not tied to OPEC prices.)

How it All Started

from the old Grey Lady Herself, 1999:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Before Trading

There's a ton of free resources out there and the boys in the thinkorswim (ToS) chat pointed out something for my consideration before starting out.

SHADOWTRADER.NET has a 10 part audio series on trading and particularly day trading. I'm just at part 5 but this series of talks are crucial.

Main Lesson of the Day: Learn from your losers, it stings a little but learn from them. Investools has drilled into my head: Keep losers small, stay in the game. Peter, the shadowtrader teacher, claims that the professionals know how to lose and that's what makes them professionals with very long trading careers. Inversely, it is the amateurs who focus on their winners and subsequently blow up their account.

Peter goes even a step further and basically says you're whole job is to lose the first year. Heaven forbid that experience great success in trading right out of the chute. I knew this instinctively and have traded an old IRA for almost two years ... it was money I could afford to lose ... I set my limit ... lost my limit ... got my head straight and now things are headed in the right direction. The point is: I'm still in the game.

Day Trading the E-mini S&P 500 Index Futures

For some reason, this new year hit me like a ton of bricks. Maybe it's that whole turning 40 thing. I'll publicly proclaim that my goal is to quit working for a corporation (even though I like it, it has been good to me and I'm good at it) and just trade all day long (the only thing that could possibly beat getting good pay for doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Daytrading is a little more in tune with the things that interested me when I was 11 and used to finish my paper route on summer mornings, spread open the Business section of the Boston Globe and track my favorite stocks. Not that everything in there was understandable but the stock market always had a magical lure for me.

Just wanted to display the set-up for a paper trading exercise with real live data before showing any particular trades. (And the trading has been going well.)

It's a little intimidating, but the focus will be on the losers. I may even develop a trend coding system like Screw-Up A, Screw-up B.

I've been focusing on 4 elements to trading the day's action.

#1 Price Action - looking for candle set ups, knowing where the market is, MAJOR (multi week) support resistance. Been trading the 5 minute but monitoring the 15 minute candles.

#2 Volume, where is the volume? Is the move backed by volume? What was the volume the last time support/resistance held? What is the volume now? Is the volume to the hupside or downside? I get my volume analysis methodology from the guy over here: www.tfnn.com . Tom OBrien is a big ToS fan and Tom Sosnoff of www.thinkorswim.com does a show on his network on Tuesday's at 11 am.

#3 Linear Regression 50 Channel. Not sure where I picked up this little ditty, but I have been SHOCKED at how good it is at showing overbought/over sold, resistance areas. I will also use Fibonacci Retracement levels and when they coincide with the linear regression that, to me, is a powerful confluence of support/resistance.

#4 CCI (-14, 100, 100) I use this is a "Trigger". I learned about this in the Advanced Technical Analysis coursework at Investools where they talk about a CCI 6-14 Sling Shot Method of trading. I tried to use that system on straight puts/calls but that was a disaster. (I did notice, however, that it worked great for my spread trades when combined with the 30 Moving Average)

note: screen shot is from thinkorswim desktop application showing 3 days of /ES mini trading with 15 minute candles, overlapped volume in light blue, the Linear Regression Channel in yellow and the CCI at the bottom. Looking around at other trading blogs, it has shocked me how great thinkorswim is and how everyone else sucks.

Rosa for Senate 2012

From Iowahawk, Rosa Speaks Out. Very funny.

What's even funnier is that she looks exactly like my mother in law, Soledad, who is a filipina.



NY Daily News:

She lost him at "hello."

Gov. Paterson was completely underwhelmed with Caroline Kennedy from their first conversation about Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, a source close to the governor said.

Paterson's thinking has become clearer in the two days since Kennedy withdrew her name for the Senate seat that Friday went to upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-Hudson).

Friends said Paterson was adamant that she was never going to be appointed, even though she was considered the front-runner.

Paterson was turned off when Kennedy first called him and asked if she "could" be considered for the seat.

By asking if she could, rather than saying she wanted to be considered, Paterson immediately felt she wasn't really interested, the source said.

In meetings, the governor and his aides decided she had no political depth, the source said.

She had no firmly held views and little idea about why she wanted the job, the source said.

Her abysmal public rollout cemented the governor's fears that she had no political instincts.

The governor felt the sheltered Kennedy had no communication skills and absolutely no empathy with the voters, the source said.

He was amazed that she went upstate for a day to meet with political leaders but didn't walk around to chat up regular people.

"She just lived in a bubble," the source said.

Failing Up

Well, it's not like NY Fed Bank chief Geithner is an expert in finance or anything. Nor could he be expected to hire an accountant.

Rep. Ron Paul's assessment.



This is just too rich. If you're conservative and advocate for lower taxes you're selfish and evil (and unpatriotic according to Vice President Hair Plug)

If you're a liberal and refuse to pay your mandatory FICA and Medicare taxes, you're either made Treasury Secretary or the Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee.

Oh The Horror

Hussein Junta Goes Ahead with Bush-era Plan for Offshore Oil Drilling

From the Daily Grind:

Editorial: President Obama Right Not to Block Off-Shore Drilling
In allowing the Department of Interior to proceed with its “Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2010–2015,” the Obama Administration has moved a step in the right direction for American energy independence.

Risks remain, however, that the Congressional majority will once again reinstate the bans on off-shore drilling and oil shale exploration—as did the House that just last year when it voted to seal off 80 percent of the outer-continental shelf. Already this year, in its just-passed lands bill, the Senate has voted to take more than 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in Wyoming. President Barack Obama will surely be tested on the issue of increased energy production. And whether he signs the $10 billion pork-laden Senate lands bill may be a good indicator as to whether he will, indeed, fight for energy independence. Or whether he will supinely accept serfdom to foreign powers determined to hold the nation hostage over a barrel of oil.

This is an easy one. If there is an oil spil, its Bush's fault. If we achieve oil independence, all Hail the One.

Bank of America .. Literally

I'm an old time customer of Bay Bank, then Bank of Boston, then Fleet Bank and then Bank of America. Each entity successively bought the other. In the end, I wonder if old Bay Bank will come back .. they were a great outfit in Boston, I swear they had an ATM just about everywhere.

In the end I wound up with Bank of America and just quit them in disgust. I had first run into them in Albuquerque, NM and was mightily turned off by them. "Bank of America" what am obnoxious name, I thought to myself. They would continue to haunt me for another decade ... swallowing bank after bank to include the venerable Bank of Boston founded in 1794.

These days I'm banking locally though I am flirting with mega-bank ING as a preparation for my future international exploits.

Finally, I must say I love this panel. Joe Battapaglia, Jerry Bowyer, Jon Najarian and Vince Farrell, the greatest line up ever.

Dropping Like Flies, Madoff Jr.

CNBC is reporting that a Florida fund manager has gone missing. Now, is he off in Israel with some bikini hottie or is he swimming with the fishes (sans SCUBA gear) ?


Either way, I'm taking this is a "go long indicator" on the S&P 500.

This is not America

India's Satyam faces lawsuits, issues action plan

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Top executives at Satyam Computer Services Ltd. vowed Thursday to restore confidence among investors and customers, as two class-action lawsuits were filed against the Indian software giant after its founder admitted to inflating its balance sheet by more than $1 billion.

Founder Arrested,

Board Out at Satyam

I mean in the USA, that gets you a double dose of TARP money.

This funny little stock kept on showing up on my lists in my Investools searches for good stocks but I never bit. I hate to say this .. but here's what cross ed my mind, "Whoa, a high tech high flyer..in this crappy market..what? They are from India ... FORGET IT.

I mean doesn't the chart look a little smooth (except) the January "correction" compared to their direct competitor or any other stock on the planet?

There was another one ... Mindray Medical from China ..... no thanks they probably repackage nuclear waste and sell it as a pharmaceuticals.

Whew

My employer has altered the 401K plan. They have removed one plan that earned -41% and replaced it with one that earned -21% . Whew .. and I was starting to worry that I would have enough money for retirement.

Last year they removed the one plan that performed all others in all other classes: the Alger Mid Cap Growth Fund which earned something like 20% in 2007 and replaced it with a fund that was in the single digits for that year.

Alger had its problems this year with a -50% return (the replacement scored -41%.) Maybe Alger's problem started with 2.41% holding in this little gem: SAY Saytam Computers

Salient Quotes

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov] (1870 - 1924), First Leader of the Soviet Union

New at TFNN - Option Hour w/Tom Sosnoff

TFNN, the Tiger Financial News Network is featuring a new show apparently dedicated to options featuring Tom Sosnoff of thinkorswim fame.

I had blogged some time ago what a great combo thinkorswim and TFNN would make. Tom O'Brien is the King of Swing Trading and Tom Sosnoff is the King of Option trading.

thinkorswim seems to be making a media push between this show and and upcoming venture on CNBC Friday Night 11pm Eastern, and then re-aired Sunday and Saturday morning at 6 am or something. Listen to the special chat from Friday by clicking on the link in the right lower column on www.thinkorswim.com.

Traders vs. Value Investors

I have to admit, this had me going till the very end.

Schiff: USA Economy is a Madoff Ponzi Scheme

I'm a big Schiff fan and cudos for www.truthfn.com (whatever that is) for airing this.

I suppose if one wanted invest along this thesis then one could trade the TLT though the options on that seem only marginally liquid for my tastes.

What You Subsidize You Get MOre Of

Porn industry seeks $5 billion federal bailout

By KEVIN MODESTI

LA DAILY NEWS

Thursday, January 08, 2009

LOS ANGELES — In an announcement that launched a thousand unprintable puns, adult-entertainment moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis said Wednesday that they are asking Washington for a $5 billion federal bailout, claiming that the porn business is suffering from the soft economy.

Francis insisted in a phone interview that this is no joke or publicity stunt, though his tone suggested otherwise.

“The government’s handing out money to the auto industry,” Francis, producer of the “Girls Gone Wild” video series, said on the phone from his Santa Monica office. “Why shouldn’t it hand some to an industry the nation could not live without?”

The request, Francis said, was being made in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The $5 billion figure, he said, reflects the decline in U.S. adult-entertainment- industry revenue from $18 billion three years ago.

If porn producers are feeling the effects of what one wire service called “the sagging economy,” the pain might be felt most acutely in the San Fernando Valley. In 2007, revenue from more than 200 Valley-based adult-content companies was estimated at $1 billion.

One adult-film star from the Los Angeles area said she is feeling the pinch.

The actress who performs as Jenna Presley said her Web site has seen a 20 percent decline in customers, about 1,000 of whom pay $19.99 a month to watch the 22-year-old perform online.

Somewhat smartly, Mr. Larry Flynt mave have ushered in the the end of bailout nation or may have led it into a shining new era. Either way, I'm going to apply for a bailout for my brokerage account. $10,000 will do, thank you.

On Trading

I don't know to whom to attribute this too. It was on a .txt file on my computer but it sums things up nicely.

Trading is an obsession, passion, the best entertainment, a challenge, the most fascinating game humans ever invented, a science, an art, the way of living and thinking, the strongest desire you ever had, an intellectual and physical fitness exercise and much more ? Look inside your soul. If you don't feel this way about trading then you should not be trading at all! However if some of that resonates with you then don't give up! Work hard, sweat, get frustrated, create, test, enjoy the triumphs and suffer losses, become a great trader and make as much money as you want!

Kernan Gets Stumped

Leon Metzger, Columbia University & NYU hedge fund professor gives and explanation of how Bernoe Madoff could have offered remarkably consistent returns for years and years and then all of a sudden blow up: sell uncovered calls.

Anyone with a beginners knowledge of options and how they work will understand the risk profile that the professor is attempting to explain to the typically obtuse CNBC host. Again and again the CNBC hosts try to whip up this sexy idea of "fraud" or "blame" while the professor tries to offer a reasonable explanation.

Maybe Maddoff was selling puts given that this market was tanking or he was sell calls on inverse ETFs like the SMN, QID or SDS.

On a side note, what is up with Becky Quick's hair? it's in really bad shape.

Good Bye, Dennis the Menace

Dennis Kneale exceeded his usual level of stupidity with a comment of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' condition. The funniest thing was the follow on comments of Jim Goldman and another co-host. Seems to me that CNBC has plenty of talent already on board and could well do without him.

Link: