Sep 23 2009

Another Bear Jumps Ship: James Grant

James Grant penned a commentary in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal (September 19, 2009). James is always worth reading (Grant’s Interest Rate Observer). He has been a moderately bearish commentator for as long as I have been reading his work (10 years), most often in Barron’s articles. He has bemoaned the high consumer and national debt and the very low (even negative) personal savings rate in America. For this, he has called for a weak dollar and higher interest rates for the past decade.

That he flys in the face of his brethren bears is of no small consequence to me. Normally James Grant’s perspective is closely aligned with so-called other “bond vigilantes” like Bill Gross at PIMCO and perma-bears like Bill Fleckenstein or Peter Schiff. Those other dollar sellers / interest rate watchers are still looking for a flat to declining economy and dollar and moribund economy. Grant really is making a departure from his club here, which is good because it is contrary.

He was early to call the stock market decline, as far back as 2005. But this is news: now he sees it is time to become Bullish, if for the all the wrong reasons in his view. James Grant is leaving the Bear camp (maybe six months late). Here is an excerpt from his article.

Though we can’t see into the future, we can observe how people are preparing to meet it. Depleted inventories, bloated jobless rolls and rock-bottom interest rates suggest that people are preparing for to meet it from the inside of a bomb shelter.
The Great Recession destroyed confidence as much as it did jobs and wealth. Here was a slump out of central casting. From the peak, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has fallen by 3.9%. The meek and mild downturns of 1990-91 and 2001 (each, coincidentally, just eight months long, hardly worth the bother), brought losses to the real GDP of just 1.4% and 0.3%, respectively. The recession that sunk its hooks into the U.S. economy in the fourth quarter of 2007 has set unwanted records in such vital statistical categories as manufacturing and trade inventories (the steepest decline since 1949), capacity utilization (lowest since at least 1967) and industrial production (sharpest fall since 1946)……

…..By rallying, equities and corporate bonds not only anticipate recovery, but they also help to bring it to fruition. By opening their arms wide to such previously unfinanceable businesses as AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines Inc., the newly confident credit markets are implementing their own stimulus program. “Reflexivity” is the three-dollar word coined by the speculator George Soros to describe the dual effect of market oscillations. Not only does the rise and fall of the averages reflect economic reality, but it also changes it. One year ago, the Wall Street liquidation stopped world commerce in its tracks. Today’s bull markets are helping to revive it.

I promised to be bullish , and I am (for once)—bullish on the prospects for unscripted strength in business activity. So, too, is the Economic Cycle Research Institute, New York, which was founded by the late Geoffrey Moore and can trace its intellectual heritage back to the great business-cycle theorist Wesley C. Mitchell. The institute’s long leading index of the U.S. economy, along with supporting sub-indices, are making 26-year highs and point to the strongest bounce-back since 1983. A second nonconformist, the previously cited Mr. Darda, notes that the last time a recession ravaged the labor market as badly as this one has, the years were 1957-58 —after which, payrolls climbed by a hefty 4.5% in the first year of an ensuing 24-month expansion. Which is not to say, he cautions, that growth this time will match that pace, only that growth is likely to surprise by its strength, not weakness.

And that is my case, too. The world is positioned for disappointment. But, in economic and financial matters, the world rarely gets what it expects. Pigou had humanity’s number. The “error of pessimism” is born the size of a full-grown man—the size of the average adult economist, for example.

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Sep 17 2009

Beginner Foreign Exchange Dealing – Some Tricks To Select The Greatest On-line Forex Dealing Platform

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Sep 16 2009

European Essential Bank Warns Of A Patchy Recovery

PARIS — The European Main Bank upgraded its growth outlook for the euro zone on Thursday, but sought to temper optimism by caution that the nascent economic recovery would be irregular .

In another note of caution , the central bank manager , Jean-Claude Trichet, also refused to define when the bank might begin unwinding the extraordinary steps it took over the last year to support Europe’s banking sector.

“ Today it is not the time to go out , but we are watchful , we are permanently looking at the situation ,” Mr. Trichet said at a news conference . “We have no pre-commitment in any respect.”

The bank left its criterion interest rate at 1 percent, where it has been since May, after a meeting of its governing conference in Frankfurt. Mr. Trichet told a news conference that the final word had been unanimous, that current borrowing prices were “ appropriate” and that “price developments are expected to remain subdued.”

Over all , analysts concluded that the bank was in no hurry to revote the measures it had taken — including deep interest rate cuts and efforts to inject more cash into the system — to stimulate the economy.

Still, on the same day that the Organization for Economic Interaction and Development gave a brighter attitude for the world’s major economies, the central bank lifted its own growth projections as well.

“There are increasing signs of stabilization in economic activity in the euro sphere and elsewhere,” Mr. Trichet said. He cited the inventory period , a pickup in exports and the influence of financial and monetary stimulus.

The chief bank now expects growth of 0.2 percent in the euro area next year. In June, it estimated a decline of 0.3 percent. The new figure is relatively traditional , compared with a market consensus of 0.8 percent.

Mr. Trichet did not regret the possibility that growth could turn positive before mid-2010. But he was scrupulous to say the recovery would be “very gradual ” and “rather uneven,” because some factors supporting growth were momentary and some banks and businesses were still repairing their balance sheets.

“Prudence and warning are of the entity in the present situation,” he said.

Nick Kounis, the main European economist at Fortis Bank in Amsterdam, said the day the chief bank started to raise interest taxes again still appeared “some way off.”

The slow rebound will serve to restrain price increases, Mr. Trichet said.

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Sep 15 2009

Dubai Fiscal Market

The Dubai Fiscal Stock is a stock barter placed in Dubai, Dubai finance United Arab Emirates. It was established on March 26, 2000. Almost 40 firms are listed on DFM till June 2006. Most of them are local UAE companies and a few from other Gulf countries with dual listings. Some of the companies permit strangers to own their shares.

In the period of 2004 and 2005, there were essential increases in the volume of shares traded and the share prices of many companies. But, towards the end of 2005 and through the first few months of 2006 the bubble has burst and share values dropped by around 60% on DFM, along with similar decreases in most other Gulf stock markets.

DFM is one of three markets in the UAE. Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADSM) also lists mostly UAE corporations and the recently opened Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) was set up to trade international markets.

Dubai Fiscal Market business Dubai was placed as a public settlement. It has its private independent corporate body. DFM is operating as a secondary market for selling of securities issued by public shareholding firms, bonds issued by the Federal Government or any of the Local Governments and public institutions in the country, units of investment funds and any other financial instruments, local or strange, which are accepted by the Market. The Market commenced operations on 26th March 2000.

Dubai Financial Market has two integrated systems for the daily operations of trading, clearance and settlement. These are Clearance & Settlement System and Trading System.

Clearance & Settlement (CSS) is a general automated system used to accompany the daily routine business of clearance and settlement. On the other hand, Trading System is an automated system used by the brokers for their daily businesses. It also enables both the brokers and investors to monitor spot orders of buy and sell.

The two systems are electronically connected and the completion of a deal on the trading floor simultaneously modifies securities holders’ register in the Clearance & Settlement System with immediate transfer of securities. Investors, thus enjoy integrated and secure service to conduct their buy or sell orders.

All securities of listed issuers are placed in the Clearance & Settlement System, which eliminates the need for the physical exchange of securities certificate and renders the process safer and more efficient.

Here are two basic needs for the Investors to start trading in DFM:

1) Receive Investor Number (IN) from DFM after filling in “Investor Number Form” at the Investor Services Office or with a DFM accredited agent .

2) Open an account with a DFM accredited broker using “Account Opening Form”.

There are some issues appended with “Investor Number Form” which have detached requirement for each category.

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Sep 10 2009

Save Money On Your Wall Street Journal Subscription

Save Big Money on a Subscription to the Wall Street Journal

Everyone knows the best time to buy stock has always been when the market has bottomed out. The closer that one can predict this event, the more money they will make. If you buy stock in a company, and the stock keeps dropping in value after a couple of weeks, you will lose one your investment. If you wait until it starts to rise, you won’t get the rock bottom dollar price for the stock that you could have gotten. The problem is no one really knows when a particular stock will bottom out.

The best way to guess when the best time to buy stock is to know the market. By studying trends of the past, you will be well prepared for the future. The best way to get indoctrinated into the market is to subscribe to the Wall Street journal. The Wall Street Journal has been in print for well over a hundred years, and it always contains the latest stock information and the latest trends.

Most people who read the Wall Street Journal everyday like to save money while learning to make money. This feat is accomplished by subscribing to the Wall Street Journal. Right now, the best deal for subscribing to the Wall Street Journal is a one-year subscription to both the print version and the online version. By subscribing to both versions of the award winning newspaper, you can save a whopping 80% off the cover price! For two dollars and ninety-nine cents a week, you can read the same information that the stock market experts read. It’s just pennies one the dollar.

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There is no way I would be invested in the stock market and not have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Just having a good stockbroker is not enough; you should also want to know the daily stock numbers as well as an unbiased prognostication of what your stock may do. It is on these things that the Wall Street Journal delivers, and has been doing so for over a hundred years.

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Sep 8 2009

Hunkering Down For A Big Correction / Doug Kass

Doug Kass recently predicted the S&P500 stock index will finish the year at 920. It is currently right at 1000 (on September 2, 2009). I agree with the prediction of 920 sometime in the next couple of months. I think 900 may be possible and even lower to 875 based on the bottom set in July. But unlike Kass, I think the market will rebound by year end. I will wait for signs of a possible rebound once this current drop (begun last week) is further along. The signs of the bottom to this dip will be a stall in the decline just as the recent market top was shown by a stall or resistance around 1040. The rebound will happen when the market goes up on bad news. I think that may happen during the Q3 earnings season the middle of October into early November. I am still thinking that 1200 is a possibility by year end. This would completely retrace the panic selloff starting from the Lehman collapse on September 15, 2008. So, if we wait until 900 to redeploy our cash raised the past few weeks, that could provide a nice 33% finish to the year.

Where Kass is probably wrong, along with many others on Wall Street, is that there are just too many people with a bearish market view. There is virtually no one on the financial networks (CNBC, Fox Biz, etc) today saying that the selling should be ignored and the market will go much higher. There are just no Bulls as far as I can tell. The market always confounds the consensus position. It has to in order to work. If there are a majority of bears, then by definition, there is hardly anyone left to sell. Once all of us who had our finger on the trigger, pull the trigger, there isn’t anyone left to sell. So, I think the decline will be shallow and the market will rebound in 6-8 weeks. This can’t be like the panic last year because all the retail investors that bailed out in the fall and winter are still on the sidelines. People who sold everything in January and February never got back in.

There are a lot of factors to a panic that are missing right now (as they usually are, fortunately). To get a true financial panic, first everyone must be euphoric and unaware of or discounting trouble. Then when the decline starts because the market just can’t go any higher (everyone who is going to buy has bought), investment holders must be forced to sell at any price by margin calls or other financial misfortune. Last year, there was a cascading of events that are no longer in play. Most importantly, the leveraged, collateralized securitization market, the core of the trouble, is almost completely unwound (except CMBS, which is where there is still concern). The leverage in 2007-08 was in the carry trade, which is what caused the dollar to soar and interest rates to drop when foreign currencies were sold and dollars bought to cover margin calls. The securitized loans are mostly back inside the big banks now with backing by government guarantees or in private hands where they have been de-levered which allows them to be held to maturity, if needed. So, there are no large institutions needing to dump stock or other financial instruments into an illiquid market to raise money to stay afloat. That is a big and significant change.

On the way down, I am using portfolio hedges to protect my positions. I like the SP500 Double Inverse fund by Proshares, with ticker SDS.

I like this ETF because it is a double short of the SP500, which is a pretty basic / broad index of the market and includes all the big financials, techs and energy companies. I also hold another hedge, hte Proshares product called DUG. DUG is basically the double inverse of the energy market, something like IYE but with a little Materials exposure too.

I use it to hedge all my Materials and Energy exposure, although I also use covered calls for this on stocks like Suncor that have good premiums. I also have used covered call options on the Canroys, but the premiums are not very good because of the large dividends. It is just an alternative to outright selling them.

Even though it has become popular, I don’t do those Direxion 3X ETFs. They are just too wild for my taste. Even the doubles are a little scary and I am careful to keep my exposure balanced with opposite long positions. I don’t bet naked short, even now when I am pretty convinced the market is going lower. The market always goes up in the long run, so being short should be very tactical and short term. I don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of that trade.

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Sep 8 2009

Watch Out Below

It’s amazing that stocks have held up they way they have. Ostensibly, the market’s advance has occurred in anticipation of the economy recovering, but for all the talk of “green shoots” a few months back, the evidence that the economy is indeed improving remains decidedly thin.

Yes, there may be signs of life in the economy here in the later part of the third quarter and the early going of the fourth quarter thanks to massive government spending and some inventory rebuilding, but we fear this will prove fleeting. This week’s ISM manufacturing index reading was good, for instance. I’ll remind you that this has been a credit-driven recession, however. Recoveries following such recessions tend to be slow drawn out affairs.

The credit market, which dwarfs the stock market, is unequivocally pointing to continued economic weakness. U.S. Treasury bills fell to their lowest level the other day in the 50 plus years records have been kept. Long-term yields, likewise, have failed to move higher as is normally the case coming out of recession.

Banks aren’t lending, period, which is why the money supply isn’t growing. And consumers are is such bad shape they aren’t likely to lend a meaningful hand with the recovery anytime soon. Early indications point to the back-to-school shopping season tuning into a bust. Credit card defaults ticked down ever so slightly in July, after five months of record highs, prompting some to see signs of hope. But while things appear not to be getting any worse for now, defaults typically track unemployment which is set to rise further in the coming months. The U.S. dollar continues to trade near its lows for the year. The buck appears to be marking time before heading lower. And the only thing likely to cause a temporary reversal would be a big selloff in equities which would bring about a resumption of the safety trade.

Rising commodities, and in particular oil, is another threat to the recovery. While some event is likely to be seen as the trigger for a setback in equities, keep in mind the market may simply collapse under its own weight. Valuations are quite steep, trading at an extremely high multiple of 2010 profits—profits that will require GDP growth of 5 percent or more to achieve. Keep in mind that profits have fallen short of expectations by a wide margin in five of the last eight quarters, so I see little reason for Wall Street to get things right in the coming year.

Wall Street isn’t alone in its (misguided) enthusiasm. Measures of investor sentiment have surpassed the levels that prevailed at the market’s top in October, 2007. Taken as a group, small investors are typically far too bullish at tops and overly bearish at bottoms. Corporate insiders, meanwhile, can’t sell their company stock fast enough. According to the tracking service Trim Tabs, insiders have been net sellers of a record $105.2 billion is shares during the past four months. Perhaps they know something about their companies’ prospects that the little guy has missed. I can’t pinpoint when the selloff will occur: It may get underway at any time, or stocks may hang in there for a couple of weeks before retreating. I am confident, however, in predicting that it will be a spectacular rout. So watch out below…

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