Christmas along "party" lines .........

For Our Democrat Friends:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."


For Our Republican Friends:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

For Christmas we all need a tree like this..................

I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job: a flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric drill quit and his ancient one ton truck refused to start.
While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.
When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.
Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.
"Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't help having troubles on the job, but one thing's for sure, those troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again. Funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning to pick 'em up, there aren't nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."

Indeed............

This one’s worth passing on.

"The reason most people fail instead of succeed, is that they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment." Author Unknown

Mr. Broker..is your BOM getting bombed?

According to the "bible" for retail stockbrokers, Registered Rep magazine, this is the life of the "BOM", the Branch Office Manager.

"In 1998, the average non-producing (for you investors out there who hate paying huge fees and commissions to brokers, non producing means non-selling or non-commission producing) BOM earned $515,860, thanks in part to hefty bonuses of around $100,000, according to the Securities Industry Association.

In 2003, the figure dropped 24 percent to $391,618, then rose slightly to $410,560 in 2004. Producing managers are also feeling the pinch as they saw their average compensation fall from $318,433 in 1998 to $273,202 in 2003 -- and only rose to $293,808 in 2004.

Watch your money all ye clients of Wall Street brokerage firms.

And ask your stockbroker where your yacht is.

On turning 52.................

May it only get better. I am thankful to have had such a great run over these short 52 years. My birthday was spent with great friends, my beautiful family (and my Dad who turns 83 next week) and great food. Peppermint cheesecake was a wonderful dessert. Birthdays should be celebrations of life. I have always said that birthdays should be celebrations for ones Mother, the one who ultimately brought us life. I wish my own Mother could have been with us to share the day. In some ways I miss her more every year.

Another sick joke from Wall Street........

Perhaps 20,000 investors will be getting checks for the 1999-2001 Global Settlement that Wall Street firms were required to pay investors they scammed with their conflicted research analysis.

Can anyone say, "far too few, far too little and far too late"?

Over the past couple of months I have altered my stance on reported "insider" buying. Many investors put so much "faith" in the fact that those "insiders" who know so much about their companies ( am thinking of GM/Tracinda today and Kerkorians's age and how quickly he lost so much) are salting away stock for the long term.

Insider selling to me was always a non-event. Diversification of your companies assets is smart estate planning.

These days the Wall Street broker crowd knows well how to massage the numbers of insider buying, especially on an IPO. The brokers/bankers get the insiders to buy shares in the aftermarket so that the number will be reported. It is a farce. They sell the same shares soon after. It is all done to show how the insiders are grabbing shares and to let the public know how much confidence they have in the prospects for the company. More of the same. It is sham reporting. Believe it.

Hedge fund side-pockets have been "outed"

Finally. The mainstream media finally figured it out. How so many hedge fund players invest in private placements, private deals, illiquid warrants, etc and are not subject to daily valuation concerns should make every consultant worth his pay check shudder. The cat is out of the bag. Transparency is slowly coming to the trillion dollar universe............and the Wall Street Journal is again full of miscreant hedge fund nonsense today. Pick up a copy and scare yourself.

No wonder they were sold off......................

An Open Letter to the CEO of Prudential Financial:

I read with great interest your effort to increase the commission run of every Prudential broker to the annualized mark of $600,000 or an average of $50,000 per month. What a laugh! Apparently Mr. Ryan you have a very short memory. A decade ago your firm pushed the sales force to dump the toxic waste of limited partnerships on your client base to increase revenues. Look what happened. Several billion in awards later you pulled out of the limited partnership business.

As CEO, your worry about losing a million dollars a day is justified. When we were losing money in the early years of our investment management firm, we didn’t push for more charges, fees and commissions. We tried to do a better job of taking care of our clients and making them more money. But that is the difference between the buy-side and sell-side is it not? Isn’t it true you would have dumped the brokerage arm years ago if you didn’t need those men and women to keep the assets on the books for your mutual fund division? Money would fly out the door if you didn’t have the handholding needed to keep the business on the books. I wonder if it would have anything to do with the performance of those funds?

I was a broker at Prudential more than a decade ago by default. I cringe when I recall the days of George Ball and friends. I doubt if a more worthless management team ever walked the streets of Newark. I became a broker at Prudential simply because they had purchased the bankrupt firm of Thomson McKinnon. One of my fond memories working there was the time the sales desk had come out with an accelerated pay-out, (read much higher commissions) to have brokers purchase for clients shares in some company. What did I do? I looked at the chart of the company, grabbed a sales ticket and immediately shorted hundreds of shares in my personal account. No, I didn’t get the accelerated pay-out on my commission run but what I did get was thousands of dollars in profits in my personal account. Funny how that works isn’t it Mr. Ryan? Coincidence or standard modus operandi? I think the latter.

This has been a tough market. The largest hedge funds in the world shut down last year. I am sorry for the legions of Prudential clients who will bear the brunt of the efforts of your sales force to keep their seats. Down the road, the arbitration’s will come and the cycle will repeat itself long after you are retired. For now, your stock options dangle like gold in front of you. Maybe you should lay off your sales force and concentrate on your brokers clients. In the long run, it just might make you more money.

Best regards,


Dean T. Parisian

Time's "PERSON of the YEAR" Award

Should probably be given to thousands of selfless individuals who gave so much to help so many in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Or our men and women serving freedom around the world and especially those in the hotspots who can't "see" the enemy but put themselves in harms way every day.

The world is a better place for all your efforts.

Iraq Elections...........

May the Creator shine on those who made it to the polling places.

XING today...............

9:40AM Qiao Xing expected increase in net sales, gross profit and income from operations of 23%, 66.7% and 243.9%, respectively, from those for 2004: Co expects 2005 rev to be over $300.0 mln vs $323.6 mln single analyst estimate. This would represent a growth of 23.0% from last year's $244.0 mln. The last quarter of a year is usually better than the other quarters. From Jan to Sept 2005, XING have achieved rev of $210.8 mln, with a quarterly average of $70.3 mln. They expect to make about $90 mln for the final quarter (Q4 single analyst estimate of $100 mln), which means an increase of about 27% from the quarterly average of the first nine months. They anticipate gross profit margin of 15.0% for the whole year of 2005, compared with 11.1% for 2004. This would mean a forecast gross profit of $45.0 mln for 2005 compared with $27.0 mln for last year. They expect income from operations (before other income/expenses, interest, tax, minority interests and extraordinary items) to reach over $28.2 mln for 2005.

Honest question.......

For all of the Leonard Peltier lovers out there as well as the "Tookie" Williams crowd I have a question.

When you hold candlelight vigils, why don't you ever hold them at the homes of the victims who were murdered?

Why do you honor only those who murder?

I am heartened that Arnold really is a "terminator".

NYSE Regulation.....

Whether it is Spitzer, the SEC, the NASD or the, god-forbid, the NYSE there has to be the lead or CHIEF COP out there to regulate the existing rule of law in the financial markets. There is none now.

With new competion, global reach and now the ultimate perveyor of greed, a publicly run company, the NYSE needs to get their house in order. Rid the Exchange of their regulatory function. You can't have it both ways boys.

The regulatory/enforcement function is flawed with a self-regulatory organization. Mr. Cox you better fix it now.

Scandal is not far away. And trust is all you really have.

ANWR

Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

19,000,000 acres.

Drilling will be done on 2,000 acres.

Pristine will remain pristine. Pump prices will push lower.

Just do it.

Filth..............

Let me see if I have this figured out.

Howard Stern contracts for a $500,000,000 pay-off over 5 years to espouse his brand of obscenity on satellite radio?

Mel Karmazin could make it work. Maybe.

But not without the filth.

The best................

In my life's journey I happen on many people who inquire what I do.

My standard answer is, "We manage money for friends across the globe".

They then relate to me on their big losses in the 2000-2000 bear market or tell me about the next Google or Microsoft or why the stock market can never make them money or how their C.D.'s are the highest in the land.

Once in a while they ask what web sites I explore to further my modest level of intellectual capital.

There is only one to feed the mind for a lifetime.

www.dailyspeculations.com

ADVEST and Merrill Lynch

This merger may go down as one of the biggest busts in history.

Talk about rats fleeing a ship!!

It must be time for consolidation.

Who will own A.G. Edwards?

on DELTA pilots............

Taking a 14% pay cut two weeks prior to Christmas is not my idea of holiday cheer.

I thank them every time I fly on a DELTA jet.

Almost like nurses for the responsibility they have. My life.

And almost the same pay scale.

Who would have thought...............

The DOW JONES averages would be negative year-to-date on this December day?

Ann Coulter and U of Conn...............

Even when dealing with the likes of terrorists, convicted murderers, lobbyists, interns and cigars, the liberal philosophy is to preach "we need too understand their problem and plight in life, they are victims of society and need help".

Yet put a conservative speaker in a College of Liberals and it's, "die, die, get out, commie", such compassion and concern for open minded and understanding liberal students. Their teachers are doing a fine job. One would expect nothing less. That is some expensive tuition for such easy lessons.

Their actual philosophy is "do as I say, not as I do!.

Liberals are famous for flip flopping on a dime.

And never with a remedy, vision, future plan, or even hope for America.

New York Stock Exchange

The media frenzy surrounding the merger of the Archipelago Exchange and the NYSE is rather humorous. Where is Elliot Spitzer these days? The move in seat prices over the last 11 months from around the $970,000 mark to $4,000,000 is one of the best moves in the stock market this year. Has anyone figured out the "self-dealing" to run prices higher. There are entities who own 5, 10, 25, over 40 seats who have been buying more to run the price up going into the merger. Anyone figure out who was doing the selling?

Uninformed seat-holders maybe? Nawwwwww. Not a chance

Inside the Beltway............

There will be no Nativity Scene in Washington DC this year! The Supreme Court has ruled there cannot be a Nativity Scene in Washington DC this Christmas season.

This isn't for any religious reason, they simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the Nation's capitol.

There was no problem however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.