Bulgaria is the last European Union newcomer together with Romania. Both joined EU last year. The country experiences huge real estate and properties boom.Bulgaria is the poorest country in EU with 37% of average GDP. Services accounts for half of GDP, industry for quarter and agriculture for 5%. Economy performs still very well. Last GDP numbers show 7.1% growth for the first half of 2008. Good numbers come also from the labor market with the lowest unemployment rate (5.8%). CPI went down from record June high (14.7%) to 11.8%.Main stock market index is called SOFIX and lost more than 60% in last 12 months. One year ago had P/E valuation 30 and now is about 10. Price/Book value (P/BV ratio) is now 2 vs. 6 year ago. Romanian market has similar direction. Main stock exchange index BET (Bucharest ...

No video this week. We have guests and other dogs with us for the holiday.The chart is YTD for the Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX) versus the S&P 500.You know the fund for its very long streak of beating the S&P 500. A look at the stale holdings on Yahoo Finance shows that it makes what I think are big bets and sometimes big bets do not work out.It has United Healthcare (UNH) which has a 4.45% weight after a 41% drop. The fund is overweight financials versus SPX and it has zero in energy. Zero?This is a good example of how actively managed funds can be problematic. A contrarian might have guessed that after a long run of outperformance the fund would lag. That makes sense. But the issue that ...

We should see Wall Street start off with a nice rally this morning, though I won't place a bet on where the day ends. Markets are terribly oversold and yesterday's action ended in a bullish reversal on high volume at support -- that's VERY bullish.And yet we seem to get more terrible news all the time ...BAD NEWS FOR THE CONSUMER ...

Auto sales plunge

June auto sales plunged, according to reports from the nation's major automakers, as Americans shunned pickups and SUVs in the face of record gas prices. General Motors reported that its U.S. sales fell 18% in June versus a year ago. Sales of GM's light trucks, which includes pickups, SUVs and so-called crossovers, tumbled 16%. GM's car sales dropped 21% in the month.

BAD NEWS ON INFLATION ...

Manufacturers struggle to overcome rising prices

NEW YORK - Each week, Ira Cooper opens

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How much did Warren Buffett bet that Wall Street pros cannot beat the S&P?

Billionaire Warren Buffett has wagered roughly $320,000 of his own money that the S&P 500 will outperform a collection of hedge funds.

My latest column is up at RealMoney.

We can all agree that the jobs report was pretty lousy. On a year-over-year basis, the growth in employment is barely staying positive.

However, as Jim Cramer likes to point out, there’s always a bull market somewhere, and regular readers probably know I like to use the economic reports as a source of stock ideas. Until they launch an “Economy ETF” (believe me, it won’t be long before somebody tries), that means sifting through the reports to find the industries and companies that are most poised to benefit from the prevailing trends. In this morning’s jobs report, that was pretty easy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, only five industries are showing statistically significant job growth:

Hospitals Ambulatory health care services Nursing and residential care facilities Oil and gas extraction Pipeline transportation

I’ll bet you noticed the same pattern in those industries that I did.Disclosure: At time of

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This rather sparse chart is of the benchmark BET index from Romania. It may not be obvious on first glance but the market is down 34% from its closing high last July 24. Romania is part of the EU but not the EMU. Today their central bank raised rates by 25 beeps, 50 was expected, to 9.75%. Inflation is pretty hot (in the eights), GDP growth is good, estimated in the fives this year but it has been on a down trend for the last couple of years and it is a deficit country. I'm not sure how keen they are about trying to join the EMU but the mix of stats says that is probably a ways off but interestingly the currency, the leu, is up about 4% against the greenback this year but the ride to 4% has been wild. I think ...

- Lehman traded lower yesterday by 8.9% to $38.71 on rumors that the firm is "short on cash".  Keep in mind this same type of rumor and corresponding sell-off happened with Bear three weeks ago.  I'm not saying the same is going to happen with Lehman but I am saying taking caution in trading this name. The shares have fallen 41% percent this year amid the $200 billion in industry-wide losses.  I wouldn't be surprised to see more weakness in this stock over the next week or so. 

- The number of bearish put options traded on Lehman's stock exceeded call options by 3-to-1 and put volume in the first three hours of the day topped the daily average of the past 20 sessions. This is a very bearish sign with respect to investor sentiment as it applies to LEH.  Puts are generally bought by people who believe

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