Today a 20% retracement off the highs. The pundits and talking heads will have a field day with this dismal performance. Wall Street is catching up to Main Street. Finally.
I didn't sleep well last night. The liberal nut cases who sit on the Supreme Court have taken any modicum of common sense and thrown brains out with the rapists. I fell asleep praying for the abused children and families preyed upon by rapists. The horror and disgust chilled me into slumber. God help our nation with such lunatics making the Supreme Law of the land. May rightful gun owners get the job done on child rapists. The sickening stench of liberalism emanating from the Court is killing us all.
Record oil prices today. What's new? The sheiks talking up their ramping of production with higher prices. What's new there? The grand global con continues. And we pay. These Congressional inquiries into higher oil prices are just grand. Our do-nothing politicians are a disgrace.
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with someone in Seattle who works for a quasi-governmental agency. In total agreement with me that there is ZERO accountability by government. Passing the buck is status-quo. It is an affront to decency in dealing with many facets of government. And common sense in dealing with them? Forgetaboutit.........
The currents ebbing and flowing in the largest watered down casino on earth at the corner of Wall and Broad make for a fully manned life boat. Anything can happen here. Huge upside, huge downside althought a sustained "melt-up" probably isn't in the cards here.
Keep in mind that good times follow bad times.
I had a short chat today with an old friend. The topic of conviction came up. Conviction is hard to find in a Wall Street salesmen broker. They call here day after day with their games and gimmicks and deals and products to "help" us help our clients. When the questions start and the game gets serious the conviction is gone. It's over. The next time a broker calls to pitch some crap on you ask him or her if they own it themselves and listen closely to the response.
Then start the questions and listen for the conviction. The only conviction you will get is with their fees. That is their conviction. Taking money from your account to theirs.
Have a great weekend. Do something fun, get some exercise, eat something good. And look forward to the celebration of freedom and liberty we all should cherish.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday ramblings........
The world is on sale, head to any mall...........zero percent financing for cars and homes will be the rage next year.........they can't sell them any other way...............Toyota eating GM's lunch.......whattaday!!!
Some of the best humor we get here every week is when we get to listen to the lament of clients of brokerage firms tell us the stories that their brokers weave. If they wouldn't lose so much money it might be really funny. We heard a good one yesterday on some excuses as to why the customer had gotten hammered since May. He said he is coming in next month to transfer all his accounts here. If he doesn't he loves abuse.
The software salesmen who kept calling us at every inopportune hour, (the guy was in a different time zone so he never paid attention to what time he would call here) was a real hoot.
His tale of being a former futures and derivatives trader was great........... it's funny how guys who wash out of making themselves or clients any money usually gravitate to selling software to help those who do.
Yahoo is a great short here.
Imus. Don brings out the best in Al and Jesse........two reverends who have never held a real job in their lives. You got to be kidding, right?
Market volume is muted. Summer is here, enjoy your day.
Some of the best humor we get here every week is when we get to listen to the lament of clients of brokerage firms tell us the stories that their brokers weave. If they wouldn't lose so much money it might be really funny. We heard a good one yesterday on some excuses as to why the customer had gotten hammered since May. He said he is coming in next month to transfer all his accounts here. If he doesn't he loves abuse.
The software salesmen who kept calling us at every inopportune hour, (the guy was in a different time zone so he never paid attention to what time he would call here) was a real hoot.
His tale of being a former futures and derivatives trader was great........... it's funny how guys who wash out of making themselves or clients any money usually gravitate to selling software to help those who do.
Yahoo is a great short here.
Imus. Don brings out the best in Al and Jesse........two reverends who have never held a real job in their lives. You got to be kidding, right?
Market volume is muted. Summer is here, enjoy your day.
Monday, June 23, 2008
recession...........
Wall Street and the media will do their best to talk Americans out of their stocks.
Wall Street's brokers need the commissions involved in changing asset allocations and flipping their mutual funds and annuities. Unfortunately they are always late to the party.
Remember, bear markets are guaranteed. Historical fact. Stocks long term go only one way, historical fact. The wall of worry that stocks will climb is shaping up nicely.
The con game of the touts continues.
Wall Street's brokers need the commissions involved in changing asset allocations and flipping their mutual funds and annuities. Unfortunately they are always late to the party.
Remember, bear markets are guaranteed. Historical fact. Stocks long term go only one way, historical fact. The wall of worry that stocks will climb is shaping up nicely.
The con game of the touts continues.
Wall Street Kool Aid..........
Monday ramblings, today the Merrill Lynch stock price was falling faster than Bill Clinton sniffing out an intern........Trump Dubai, how does one short it?.........the WSJ article today on Mr. Cox of the SEC was terrific, asleep at the switch while Rome burns........GM hitting the same price it traded at in 1975 when I was a junior in college, run Tracinda run..............I guess the Barrons article a few weeks on GM was a sure short sale indicator...............euphoria at quarter-end may happen fast.......... volume is anemic, imagine that. I'm headed out to swim, enjoy your evening!
Ice on Mars and other political jibberish.......
The PR spin on our space program hereafter referred to as the Texas 20 year Full-Employment Program boggles the mind. As one would expect, W did a great job to keep the program alive with another moon shot down the road. That pork alone pales to what many Congressmen introduced this past budget. May that Star Wars defense system be alive and well when needed.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Photo Op moments.........
Presidents and presidential hopefuls always love photo op's...........is there such a thing as too little photo op exposure?
Watching Air Force One wheel onto the tarmac for the presidential visit to view the flood ravaged areas of Illinois and Missouri reminded me it is all about politics.
Imagine if these guys cared about holes in walls at our borders as much as they cared about holes in levees? The damage the criminal aliens cause can't be seen immediately like flood waters. There's probably 20 to 25 million of them living in this country. By law, they are criminals. The law does nothing. And the holes allowing them in go unfixed. Go figure.
It's about politics.
Watching Air Force One wheel onto the tarmac for the presidential visit to view the flood ravaged areas of Illinois and Missouri reminded me it is all about politics.
Imagine if these guys cared about holes in walls at our borders as much as they cared about holes in levees? The damage the criminal aliens cause can't be seen immediately like flood waters. There's probably 20 to 25 million of them living in this country. By law, they are criminals. The law does nothing. And the holes allowing them in go unfixed. Go figure.
It's about politics.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Too good not to repeat here...........
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top.The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.
What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States .No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.
Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.
Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of 'change' endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.
Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top.The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.
What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States .No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.
Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.
Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of 'change' endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.
Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
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