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Bad Bets: Illiquid ETFs

Ian Salisbury of Dow Jones Newswires is one of the best fund reporters in the business. In his latest piece appearing

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To understand today's market you only needed information from 230 B.C. Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world. For investing consumers of financial media there has been a parade of posturing pundits.  All are happy to explain the same three things: Our financial system had excessive leverage; We are in the process of wringing it out of the system -- a "Great Unwind", if you will; This is going to take a lot longer and it will involve much pain. Most of the pundits want to opine about who made the mistakes that caused this problem.  The typical argument is that some politician was too stupid or too biased to act intelligently.  For ...

Trading AlgorithmsColbert on Software Trading AlgorithmsHat tip to Barry Ritholtz for first posting this video on his site.Related to Colbert on Software Trading Algorithms | Video:Geographical Hedge Fund GuidesHedge Fund Employment GuideFinancial CertificationHedge Fund ForumPrime BrokersHedge Fund Software Investment BookHedge Fund Terms and DefinitionsCommercial Real Estate Brokers Hedge Fund DatabaseTags: Software Trading, Software Trading Algorithms, Trading Algorithms, What is a trading algorithm, stock market video, stock market, stock markets, computerized trading

In his article: 10 Bullish Charts, Signals, Indicators, Barry Ritholtz gives 10 compelling technical reasons why were are close to a market bottom. I completely agree with his assessment as I stated in my prediction for the market bottom, we are close.

Notice I said CLOSE! I know today was an 11% bounce, and everyone is feeling giddy, but listen closely…

Friday, 10-10-2008 Was Not The Market Bottom!

Today’s huge gain is a great place to get short weaker markets. Look for stocks that bounced up near resistance, and then get short!

The Trend is Always Your friend

And the trend is still down. The following is a weekly chart of the S&P 500. Notice the 50 / 200 week ma cross, and the old support line becoming resistance. I’d expect the S&P to to continue through the 1000 level tomorrow before running into heavy resistance between

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Barry Ritholtz* has put pen to paper to write the following memo, spelling out in no uncertain terms the role that Uncle Sam played in enabling the current financial mess.

To: Washington, D.C. From: Wall Street Re: Credit Crisis

Dear D.C.

WOW, WE’VE MADE QUITE A MESS OF THINGS here on Wall Street: Fannie and Freddie in conservatorship, investment banks in the tank, AIG nationalized. Thanks for sending us your new trillion-dollar bailout.

We on Wall Street feel somewhat compelled to take at least some responsibility. We used excessive leverage, failed to maintain adequate capital, engaged in reckless speculation, created new complex derivatives. We focused on short-term profits at the expense of sustainability. We not

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As I am travelling in Europe at the moment (see “Another town, another train…”), this week’s edition of “Words from the Wise” does not provide the customary review of the financial markets’ movements and economic statistics. Given time constraints, today I will only share with you a number of video clips in lieu of excerpts from news items and quotes from market commentators. Quite a few of the video items include links to related articles for those who prefer the written word.

Firstly, as we are awaiting word on the bail-out plan, a very topical quote from Jim Welsh (Welsh Money Management): “We will be told that the Federal Reserve and

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My Dad used to tell me there is no accounting for standards when looking at something that seemed odd. Today, we have faulty standards for accounting that are ripping apart the fabric of the world's economy. How can a security that has a high probability of full repayment be downgraded from AA to junk levels? What we will explore today tell us a lot about why we are in the crisis state of affairs. Since I wrote you last Friday, the financial landscape of the world has changed even more. And what will happen this weekend will change it even more. And our kids will be paying for it for a long, long time. At the end I offer a few thoughts on the events, and if there is time my thoughts on the new short covering rules. All in ...

The weekend has brought us events that can only be described in large, over-the-top terms. The Fed agreeing to take equity on its balance sheet? How bad can things really be? Clearly much worse than most people thought last Friday. Moral Hazard has been re-introduced as Lehman is allowed to go down. I will admit to being surprised. I thought Paulson and Bernanke would put it in the too big too fail category. I think they did the right thing by refusing taxpayer money for a bailout, but it is clearly going to roil the credit markets for weeks and months. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts. I am in La Jolla today, working with my partners at Altegris, and looking over their shoulders while they monitor the performance of some of our managers. Interesting times. But ...

One Small Step For Housing… One Giant Leap For Socialism

The Fannie/ Freddie deal took center-stage this week, failing to kick off the expected ferocious rally. Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture blog has compiled an excellent list of news stories from multiple sources covering the deal. More notable items include Fannie and Freddie paying over $170 million to Washington lobbyists over the last ten years and a story that foreign banks pressured Hank Paulson into the deal fearing they would lose billions if the two firms went under. http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

Lehman Gets No Takers At Korea… or Anywhere Else

Lehman has become a leper on Wall Street. Not even sovereign wealth funds are interested in buying the distressed investment bank. Among those rejecting its advances: Korean Development Bank: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group: http://www.reuters.com/ Royal Bank of Canada: http://www.ft.com/ Goldman Sachs http://biz.yahoo.com/...

Yesterday the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised its 2Q08 GDP growth to an annualized rate of 3.3%, up from 2.7%. It’s a shame this data had to be revealed on August 28, a date not associated with humorous pranks; had it come out on April 1st investors would have a much better clue that the BEA is joking. There are several problems with the BEA’s data. But the most glaring of them pertains to its inflationary measures. According to the BEA, the GPD price index—its primary measure of inflation—was 1.2% for 2Q08. I’ve thought long and hard about what demographic possibly experiences inflation of 1.2%. The closest group I could come up with was the Amish—who don’t use electricity or drive cars and therefore are immune to energy prices—though their status as “food consumers” hurt even this hypothesis—food is second only ...