Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » mainstream media

What the Fed Doesn’t Want You To Know About US Debt

Graham Summers — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:56:18 +0000

The Fed’s FOMC announcement came out… We got exactly what I expected, a kind of wishy-washy, “hedging our bets” statement from the Fed. You have to remember that Bernanke was Greenspan’s right hand man for much of the bubble days of the ‘90s and early ‘00s, so the guy is an expert at walking both [...]

Manufacturing Rebound, A Contrarian Play, Rare Earths and More!

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:00:25 +0000

pIs the recession technically over? The strongest argument for recovery we’ve seen yet#8230; Rob Parenteau shares his new macro economic forecast#8230; “Told you so!” writes Byron King #8212; “breaking news” he and The 5 scooped in March 2008#8230; Plus, a href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/chris-mayer/" class="alinks_links"Chris Mayer/a’s latest contrarian play#8230;/p p Our forecast today: The government and mainstream media will soon be calling the end of the recession. Leading this feeble cause is the latest ISM manufacturing index, probably the most powerful argument for recovery we’ve seen yet:/p p/p pThis morning, strongthe ISM said its gauge of manufacturing activity had risen to 52.9 in August /strong#8211; out of contraction for the first time since the recession began and the highest score since June 2007. Of course, things are a bit different now, but over#8230;/p

Washington Capitulates: Peak Oil Is Real

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:03:14 +0000

pEach year, generally in May, the Energy Information Administration publishes a less-than-eagerly-anticipated tome called the emInternational Energy Outlook/em, 250+ pages of mind-numbing text, charts, graphs, and tables./p pNo one reads it. The mainstream media ignore it./p pIt’s the product of the best prognosticators in the Department of Energy. Okay, that may be what puts most people off. But if you’re patient enough to dig into it, it will cough up some fascinating nuggets of information./p pThe present edition is no exception. The report refrains from spelling out the conclusion that seems most obvious from its data. However, confirming a trend begun just last year, the 2009 edition clearly reveals that the government has been forced to admit that Peak Oil is coming. Moreover,#8230;/p

Markets Set Up For Blow-Off Top?

Investment U — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:11:12 +0000

Markets Set Up For Blow-Off Top? by The Investment U Research Team With fear subsiding that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has been averted, the global markets resumed their uptrend from last week, stocks jumped this morning. And while that’s a good thing for many looking to recover some of their losses, [...]

Grigory Pasko: The Gas Emperor

Robert Amsterdam — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:58:22 +0000

A few days ago the Russian mainstream media were talking about all the agreements reached with Turkey during the most recent visit of the Prime Minister, hailing the accords as the latest Putinite achievement. Supposedly positive but vague results were...

The 10 Most Important Facts You Must Know Before You Invest

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:37:14 +0000

pWhat the heck is going on? The Dow has just had its best weekly performance since March 2000. CNBC is full of whopping and high-fiving. The Obama administration is breathing an audible sigh of relief. And mom and pop investors all across the US are no doubt considering putting more of their savings back into the market./p pYet here at emNotes/em we remain cautiously bearish. Why? Because it is our humble opinion that this remains a bear market rally, impressive as it is. Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg says the rally lacks three key ingredients:/p ol type="1" liLeadership/li liQuality/li liVolume/li /ol pHistory is littered with such bursts of euphoria. Probably the most infamous is the bear market rally of 1930. Stocks recovered strongly following the November 13, 1929 low. Wall Street#8230;/p

Understanding Earnings Surprises: What to Look For Their Meaning For Investors

Investment U — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:13:18 +0000

Understanding Earnings Surprises: What to Look For & Their Meaning For Investors by Marc Lichtenfeld, Advisory Panelist There have been many earnings announcements lately that have surprised investors and analysts. And this has resulted in some significant gains in stock prices. But don’t take these quarterly results at face value. Earnings and guidance are very conservative this year, so [...]

Deflation is Winning. Are You?

Jim Musselwhite — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:36:25 +0000

The mainstream media couldn’t predict the biggest bear market in 100 years; how do you expect them to anticipate what will unfold next? Watch this quick video clip from financial analyst and sought-after speaker Steven Hochberg about why you should challenge the consensus view for inflation. [...]

Social Security: The Biggest Ponzi Scheme You Don’t Know About

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:27:13 +0000

pYesterday, the mainstream media whooped and shrieked over the tough sentence handed down to swindler Bernie Madoff. “Madoff got what he deserved,” wrote the columnists. “Mr Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil,” said Judge Denny Chin, who also told the jury that Madoff’s pyramid scheme was “staggering” and “off the chart.”/p pNobody seemed particularly interested in the far greater scam being pulled off on a daily basis by the US government (a scam that, incidentally, pays for Judge Chin’s salary and Madoff’s stay in the “big house”)./p pBut it’s clear to us here at emNotes/em at least that the government’s $15 billion a day borrowing habit dwarfs Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme./p pAs of June 18 2009, total US federal debt was $11,342,734,351,973 - or about $36,989#8230;/p

Will Debt Eventually Bring America to Her Knees?

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:34:21 +0000

pAs California goes, so will the US. It is our strong suspicion here at strongemNotes/em/strong that California’s fiscal crisis (what is really a profligate spending crisis) is but a prelude to the coming national debt crisis./p pLast Thursday, ratings agency Fitch dropped the Golden State’s credit rating to A-minus and immediately placed that on negative credit watch. California shares three major problems with the US. It faces:/p ol type="1" liA crippling budget deficit/li liDeclining tax revenues/li liA legislature that won’t face up to critical issues./li /ol pOver the weekend, we read in wonder that by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s own estimation America’s national debt is now growing so quickly that it will exceed the size of the economy in 2023 – emseven years earlier than the projections of the last#8230;/em/p

China Is Preparing for a Massive Dollar Freefall, Are You?

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:00:43 +0000

pChina is making preparations for the ultimate demise of the dollar #8230; and so should you. Stories knocking the dollar never get much exposure in the mainstream media (many outlets wrongly consider it unpatriotic to bash the buck)./p pBut here’s the story in a nutshell. Li Lianzhong, a senior economist in the ruling Chinese Communist Party, directly attacked the dollar yesterday. Li’s message is simple: China should buy more gold because the dollar is poised for a fall. Li also said that China should use more of its $1.95 trillion in foreign reserves to buy energy resource assets./p pSpeaking at a forex and gold forum, Li asked the very valid question, #8220;Should we buy gold or U.S. Treasurys? The U.S. is printing#8230;/p

Green Shoots Optimism: The Biggest ‘Bait and Switch’ in History

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:00:05 +0000

pAll this week, we’ve been sounding the alarm of the so-called economic “green shoots.” These have now been exposed as being pure propaganda designed to lure investors back into stocks and to allow banks to recapitalize through share issuances at artificially elevated prices./p pBond investors are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief. Now that investors are waking up to the fact that a recovery is not “around the corner” after all, the yield on 10-year T-Notes is dropping and bond prices are rising again./p pAs long as investors have an appetite for low-yielding Treasurys (10-year Notes were yielding 3.53% yesterday), the government will have a tough time pushing its “green shoots” fairytale./p pWe challenge even the best paid of President Obama’s economic#8230;/p

What Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein Knows That You Don’t

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:51:16 +0000

pIt’s always a pleasant surprise to find yourself in good company. As loyal readers already know, here at strongemNotes /em/strongHQ we’re not exactly part of the “in crowd.” Whether we’re writing about the trillion dollar deficits, banks’ phony earnings, government bamboozles or the sucker’s rally in stocks, you’re unlikely to find the official spin in our daily missives./p pGenerally, we like it like that. It makes us feel special. Instead of pulling up our knee socks and getting out our pompoms along with the mainstream media hacks, we remain ever sceptical about tales of recovery#8230; of so-called “green shoots”#8230; and, above all, of Washington’s empty promises and various boondoggles./p pBut once in a while, it’s nice to know you have friends#8230; that people#8230;/p

Timing the Trade in “Obama Stocks”

Jeffrey Miller — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:31:52 +0000

The insatiable hunger for stories motivates financial media. At the first hint of a new development the process begins -- hard news, analysis, critics, and long-term effects. The cycle is so fast that we sometimes get the criticism before most...

The Bearer Bond Saga Gets Even Fishier

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:23:54 +0000

p class="MsoNormal"More news is filtering through about the bond arrests in Italy.strong /strongBritain’s emFinancial Times/em newspaper reports that Italian and US secret service agents now claim the $134 billion in seized “fake” bearer bonds on the Italian Swiss border at the beginning of the month were “the handiwork of the Italian Mafia.”/p p class="MsoNormal"Still, there remain a number of glaring inconsistencies in the story./p p class="MsoNormal" 1. Why did the mainstream media largely ignore what was either the biggest smuggling operation or the biggest counterfeit operation in history? Some (mainly European) newspapers began reporting on the story about a week ago. And Fox carried a report on the arrests. But as FT Alphaville put it last week, this is either an “odd little story – or perhaps and#8230;/p

The 3 Reasons to Dump Stocks Today

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:19:16 +0000

p“Stocks are clearly having trouble extending their gains,” reports today’s emWall Street Journal/em. And that a number of key market health indicators are flashing red right now. When were these indicators flashing green? We don’t recall./p p class="MsoNormal"Our memory of the recent rally was on kicked-off by a bogus memo from Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit about profitability, followed by a load of baloney from stress test regulators about banks’ health./p p class="MsoNormal"“People also are beginning to question whether the economic fundamentals are strong enough to justify continued gains,” continues the WSJ. This has got to be one of the most naïve sentences ever written. The 40% rise in stocks since early March never had anything to do with a 40% increase in economic fundamentals.#8230;/p

Death of the Sucker’s Rally, Spotting the Recession’s End, A Rapidly Growing Sector and More!

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:10:10 +0000

pStocks fall again… Rob Parenteau on what it will take to move markets higher#8230; Are U.S. equities turning Japanese? Two charts that might have you thinking so#8230; The ultimate indicator? One d-list data point that’s marked the end of recessions since 1970#8230; President, mainstream media wake up to debt dilemma… our executive sounds off#8230; Plus, a sector still “growing explosively,” despite the recession#8230;/p p Hmmm… strongIs this the beginning of the end for the “a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/a-suckers-rally/"sucker’s rally/a”?/strong/p pMr. Market’s suffered two rough days in a row. Since Monday, the S#38;P 500’s down 3.5%. The Dow has fallen two days in a row as well #8212; its worst two-day streak since the March bottom, in fact.br / strongBest Buy #8212; of all places #8212; currently offers the best look into the market’s#8230;/strong/p

IEA Raises 2009 Demand Estimates…More Green Shoots?

Michael E. Brisky — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:50:00 +0000

The debate for the past couple of weeks in regard to oil has been is there any real return in demand? a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE54R7NA20090611"Well, we're getting some answers/a. The IEA raised their 2009 demand estimates today in a move that helped firm bulls belief in "green shoots." br /br /ulliOil firmed to $72 a barrel on Thursday after the International Energy Agency raised its estimate for 2009 oil demand, adding to signs the fall in consumption may have bottomed out./liliWorld oil demand will contract by less than previously expected this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said as it raised its 2009 forecast for the first time since August 2008./liliOlivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix, said markets were now in a phase of identifying green shoots of economic recovery. The IEA report "will likely be taken as an additional green shoot," he said./li/ulNow as tempting as it may be to run out and buy stocks like the mainstream media is suggesting, lets look at what they are actually saying. br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;""Consumption may have bottomed." "World oil demand will contract by less than previously expected."/spanbr /br /Sure this is a positive, but it shouldn't be misinterpreted as some kind of strong resurgence of demand. Last year, when prices ran up to around $150/barrel, there was much more demand, and the economy was much stronger. Even then there was a ton of speculation, as well as the weak dollar contributing. Right now we have speculation, the weak dollar, and span style="font-weight: bold;"maybe a bottom in demand.br /br //spanYesterday, I was reading Todd Sullivan's blog, and he a href="http://valueplays.blogspot.com/2009/06/interesting-oil-discussion.html"had a link to a video/a about this same discussion. The analyst pointed out there is an "endless bid" for oil which started last year. Everyone wants oil to be a part of their portfolio, and this contributes to prices rising. If you look at the oil etfs (USO, DXO etc.) they have seen major inflows of funds. Strong economy or not, most people believe that oil prices are going higher, and want to be a part of that. Anyway, its worth a look.br /br /Disclosure: None. span style="font-weight: bold;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold;"span style="font-weight: bold;"br //span/span/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-5478022537833813332?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

How to Make 20 to 30 Times Your Money on the Coming Inflation

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:23:10 +0000

p /p pHedge fund legend Julian Robertson is betting the farm against long-dated US Treasurys. As ema href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/"strongNotes/strong/a/ema href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/"strong /strong/areaders will be aware, we have been banging the drum on the vulnerability of long-dated US debt for over a month now. But Robertson, of Tiger Management fame, has a different way to make this short long-term Treasurys play (hat tip Market Folly).br / /p pRobertson is shorting long-dated US debt using something called a steepener swap play. Although the mechanism of this trade may be unfamiliar, at heart it’s a simple bet on inflation. /p pRobertson reckons inflation could easily hit 7% and that it could even reach 18%. Again, emNotes/em readers will be familiar with this market script. This from eFinancialNews:/p pSteepeners are a type of interest rate swap, where#8230;/p

The Unstoppable Second Mortgage Crisis

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:55:18 +0000

pTuesday, October 9, 2007 started as a nice day in New York City. A lovely early fall day, with the temperature still a balmy 80° at 2:00 in the morning. By evening, though, the temperature had dropped twenty degrees, the clouds had rolled in, there was thunder and rain. As with the weather, there were some hints of trouble here and there on Wall Street. But all in all, things could not have seemed better. strongLittle did we know, the stormy end of 10/9/07 signaled a very large bubble that had just popped./strong/p pThat was the day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its historic peak. From there, it was all downhill – slowly but steadily at first, and then#8230;/p

Gold Battle Lines Drawn at $1,000 Again

The Gold Report — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:34:30 +0000

Source: James West, Midas Letter 05/26/2009 Here we go again. The forces of legitimate money versus the incumbent purveyors of the candy floss economy squared off at the $1,000 an ounce line over which yet another battle will be fought. Arrayed against either side are formidable new elements and tried and true old ones. As usual, the [...]

Are Commodities Hot Again?

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:00:28 +0000

pstrongWhile the mainstream media has been focused on the run-up in equities, one overlooked sector has turned “red hot,” /strongaccording to Justice Litle in a href="http://www.taipanpublishing.com" class="alinks_links"Taipan/a Daily. Justice is talking about the grain markets – foodstuffs like corn, wheat, soy and sugar./p p style="text-align: center;"a href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/chart-051509.png"/abr / /p p class="western" align="center" /ppThis chart shows the price movements since the beginning of the year of the Powershares DB Agriculture Fund (NYSE:a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ADBA"DBA/a). It represents a basket of futures contracts for commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans and sugar. As Justice says, “Commodity after commodity has roared back to life, thanks to a combination of renewed inflation expectations, a crashing U.S. dollar, and newly bullish fundamentals.”/p pstrongLast Thursday, we discussed at length the effects that inflationary expectations are having on the market. /strongWe said that Treasuries#8230;/p

Elliott Wave Independent Investor Book – 6 Brand New Chapters for Free!

Jim Musselwhite — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:15:44 +0000

Dear Investor, The old adage says, “you are what you eat,” and today we’re offering you a heaping portion of brain food. At long last, the mainstream media is beginning to question buy-and-hold investing – it’s a myth that EWI’s original Independent Investor eBook debunked years ago. Even the “Efficient Market Hypothesis” has come under fire from [...]

Drugs, Freedom and the Freedom to Inhale

Justice Litle — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:39:45 +0000

pemGet up, stand up#8230; stand up for your rights#8230;Get up, stand up#8230; don#8217;t give up the fight#8230;/em– Bob Marley #38; The Wailers. Thanks to you, dearly beloved reader, Jim Amrhein and I have a friendly ema href="http://www.taipanpublishing.com" class="alinks_links"Taipan/a Daily/em rivalry going. It seems Jim#8217;s time spent basking in the glory of an all-time reader response record (for #8220;a title="A Kind Word and a Gun (Part One)" href="http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/taipan-daily-042409.html" target="_blank"A Kind Word and a Gun/a#8220;) was all too short. /p pAs quickly as you, the readership, set a new feedback milestone with your outpouring of thoughtful replies on guns and Second Amendment issues, you then outdid yourselves with an even embigger/em response to Friday#8217;s missive, #8220;a title="Will California Go to Pot?" href="http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/taipan-daily-050809.html" target="_blank"Will California Go to Pot?/a#8221;/p pSo now ol#8217; Jimbo and I have an excuse to rib each other in the one-upmanship department. Who#8217;s going#8230;/p

JOLTS from the BLS

Jeffrey Miller — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:16:41 +0000

Understanding changes in employment is crucial for investors. Employment is related to consumption, to consumer confidence, and to GDP. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides many reports. In the Internet age, these are all backed up with online explanations --...

This Week’s Good News Headlines

Eldon Mast — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:15:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/cASWpuqcwGPQavcgpqoSBgTWvKU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/cASWpuqcwGPQavcgpqoSBgTWvKU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv(click on each headline for the full story)/divdivbr //divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "li dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/OUChKb3GuJI/has-your-bank-failed-probably-not.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Has Your Bank Failed? Probably Not./a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanSun, 05 Apr 2009 03:53:00 +0000/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/hi8Z-gsLX4OcFv8K3av8R6VM0uA/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/hi8Z-gsLX4OcFv8K3av8R6VM0uA/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //aThe majority of Americans are now beginning to realize that the dire predictions of their local banks failing is just not materializing. /p/div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/kkdh1k6IH-Y/bank-takes-tarp-money-saves-small.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Bank takes TARP Money; Saves Small Businesses/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanSat, 04 Apr 2009 06:10:00 +0000span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Zz9drYL12MnWfQ1t8Tlnuc4m_wg/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Zz9drYL12MnWfQ1t8Tlnuc4m_wg/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //a/span/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "In recent weeks we've been hearing a lot about a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/expert-reactions-to-geithner-plan-net.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "government plans to help banks/a stay safe, secure, liquid, and in business. But are those programs actually working? Yes they are. And here is a great story to illustrate.br //div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/zbqY21ZHK3I/factory-orders-rise-layoffs-fall.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Factory Orders Rise, Layoffs Fall/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanFri, 03 Apr 2009 05:19:00 +0000span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/CBejYjL2-7Vt90jrGaZ93Vlz0-o/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/CBejYjL2-7Vt90jrGaZ93Vlz0-o/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //a/span/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "U.S. factory orders rose in February for the first time in seven months. Layoff announcements by U.S. employers declined 19.3%./div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/6C7jsFId1yw/good-news-headlines-everywhere.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Good News Headlines Everywhere/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanThu, 02 Apr 2009 04:02:00 +0000span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/MHaK5Uojqfis3qbhQnmq0uWwlE0/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/MHaK5Uojqfis3qbhQnmq0uWwlE0/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //a/span/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "Good economic news seemed to be everywhere on Wednesday:br //div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/ly96K05Czhs/march-media-negativity-moderates.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Media Negativity Moderates in March/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanWed, 01 Apr 2009 03:48:00 +0000span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1mYiwp5j03q-QlnnKNfhwWcKK_w/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1mYiwp5j03q-QlnnKNfhwWcKK_w/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //a/span/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "The mainstream media has indeed moderated in its pursuit of only gloom and doom this month. /div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/ygiXRw5R35w/past-inflection-point.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "Past the Inflection Point/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanTue, 31 Mar 2009 05:12:00 +0000span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/4g9fgkW5lhC-XVODvnsIIrN5kF4/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/4g9fgkW5lhC-XVODvnsIIrN5kF4/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //a/span/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "We've most likely span style="font-weight: bold; "passed the inflection point/span, where the rate of decline starts becoming less and less. /div/lili dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" class="regularitem" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://www.feedburner.com/fb/feed-styles/images/itemqube2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; background-position: 0% 0%; "h4 class="itemtitle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -0.25px; font-weight: 700; "a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~3/BRCqz5ZwqTU/5-vital-signs-of-life.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "5 Vital Signs of Life/a/h4h5 class="itemposttime" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; "span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "Posted: /spanMon, 30 Mar 2009 05:04:00 +0000/h5div class="itemcontent" name="decodeable" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 130% !important; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 99%; "p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; "a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jcMMAS_qmPdhwrJBa8xme2HO9xE/a" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold; "img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/jcMMAS_qmPdhwrJBa8xme2HO9xE/i" border="0" ismap="true" style="border-width: initial; border-color: initial; text-decoration: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " //aLet's start the week with a recap of last week's good news.../pbr //div/li/span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/divimg width='1' height='1' src='http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/1227919517269937208-5339747431070665623?l=mast-economy.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:KwTdNBX3Jqk"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=xagCEf2j1h0:dFBhM-745Y4:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/xagCEf2j1h0" height="1" width="1"/

Media Negativity Moderates in March

Eldon Mast — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:48:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1mYiwp5j03q-QlnnKNfhwWcKK_w/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1mYiwp5j03q-QlnnKNfhwWcKK_w/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pThe mainstream media has indeed moderated in its pursuit of only gloom and doom this month. Earlier in March the mainstream outlets finally started a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/mainstream-media-finally-some-positives.html"span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"covering positive stories/span./a In fact radio and TV started a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/positive-news-on-radio-tuesday-120p-cdt.html"soliciting for positive stories. /abr /br /The media does play a significant role in sentiment changes in a recessionary cycle. It is now interesting to see how consumer and investor sentiment has changed -- perhaps in part to additional airtime on positive economic stories.br /br /From the a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/indexes/rasmussen_consumer_index"Rasmussen reports/a on Tuesday morning:br /blockquoteThe Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures consumer confidence on a daily basis, rose three points on Monday to 73.0. That’s up six points from a week ago, up seventeen points from a month ago and up thirteen points from the beginning of the year.br /br /The Rasmussen Investor Index rose for the fourth straight day today. At 81.6, investor confidence is up fourteen points from last week, up twenty-five points from last month and up eighteen points from its first reading of the year.br /br /There’s also a glimmer of good news in this month’s release of the Rasmussen Employment Index. After declining for five straight months, prospects for the labor market stabilized as the Employment Index inched up slightly.br //blockquoteAnd across the country the media outlets are indeed continuing to step up their reporting of good news. It looks like they will continue into April...br /br /For example a href="http://www.newsradio1310.com/"NewsRadio 1310 KLIX /a in Twin Falls, ID will set aside the normal news of the day in order to celebrate the good news happening in their communities, their state, and the country. For 24 hours starting April 2, the top rated news-talk station will update their listeners with only positive stories, interviews, and news.br /br /“With so much ‘bad news’ dominating the headlines these days, it’s easy to let the ‘good news’ slip through the cracks,” says NewsRadio 1310 KLIX general manager, Janice Degner. “By dedicating a 24-hour news cycle to this type of news, we are hoping to offer a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/friday-sunshine-foreclosures-plummet.html"a little sunshine/a and maybe help a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2008/12/dire-commentary-on-us-economy-overblown.html"put things in perspective./a”div class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/divimg width='1' height='1' src='http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/1227919517269937208-1762169263047937879?l=mast-economy.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:KwTdNBX3Jqk"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ly96K05Czhs:WFWM0uxNJLA:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/ly96K05Czhs" height="1" width="1"/

The Investment U Roving Reporter: Live at the Conference

Investment U — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:43:42 +0000

The Investment U Roving Reporter: Live at the Conference: “Manage Your Money for Good Times or Bad - To Prosper in Both” By Dr. Scott Brown, Education Director Welcome to the 11th Annual Investment U Conference from sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. In his 1989 Letter to Shareholders, Warren Buffet said, “We only want to link up with people whom [...]

When Bernanke Says All Is Well, It’s Time to Duck and Cover

Doug Casey — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:30:08 +0000

p“We’ve averted” the risk of a depression, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said this week. “Now the problem is to get the thing working properly again.”/p pAppearing on CBS network’s 60 Minutes, Bernanke told correspondent Scott Pelley that concerted efforts by the government likely averted a depression similar to the 1930s. He also stated the nation’s largest banks are solvent and that he doesn’t expect any of them to fail; and that the U.S. recession will come to an end “probably this year.”/p pIs this finally the light at the end of the tunnel for the U.S. economy?/p pWe don’t want to appear as perpetual gloom-and-doomers, but fact is, when Bernanke tries to predict the future, he’s usually wrong./p pPrediction: The subprime mess is#8230;/p

Expert Reactions to Geithner Plan: Net Positive

Eldon Mast — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:58:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/O-tZmZdhmyXoelNcUEPFbFLjCmo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/O-tZmZdhmyXoelNcUEPFbFLjCmo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pYesterday you read one scenario for a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-toxic-assets-turn-to-gold.html"toxic asset appreciation/a over time. That would spell good news for big bank liquidity in the short term and good news for private investors and taxpayer equity gains in the long run.br /br /You may have heard that not all economists agree on the efficacy of the plan. But there were surprisingly many positive comments on the the government's new roadmap:br /br /From Mark Thoma in the Economist's View's article a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/03/which-bailout-plan-is-best.html"Which Bailout Plan is Best?/a, "I am willing to get behind this plan and to try to make it work. It wasn't my first choice... but like it or not this is the plan we are going with and the important thing now is to do the best that we can to try and make it work."br /br /Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo said, "My gut reaction is that this is an excellent plan. This plan will go a long way toward getting banks in better position to lend more aggressively and break the deleveraging feedback loop that is now in place."br /br /From the a href="http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/03/some-positive-comments-on-geithner.html"Calculated Risk Blog/a (usually a quite negative read), "It is probably the best we can get in the current environment."br /br /John Burns, real estate consultant, Irvine, "This plan is very smart. It will cause an economic rebound much sooner than would otherwise have occurred."br /br /Jack Kyser, chief economist, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., "It should help get the [big] banks lending again, which is very important to our small-to-medium sized business community."br /br /Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/962778.html" target="new" class="link"wrote in the Miami Herald/a that, "This plan has a good chance of success."br /br /UC Berkeley's Brad DeLong wrote on a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/i-think-paul-krugman-is-wrong.html" target="new" class="link"his blog/a that the plan is a "positive step" that lets the government shoulder the risk. DeLong emphasizes that the US treasury is much more risk-tolerant than private firms.br /br /John Gapper from The Financial Times offers, "a href="http://blogs.ft.com/gapperblog/2009/03/two-cheers-for-tim-geithners-bad-assets-plan/"Two cheers for Tim Geithner’s bad assets plan./a"br /br /The plan to cleanse banks of toxic assets "has a good chance of succeeding," says A. a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Michael+Spenceamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" onmouseover="return escape( popwSearchNews( this ))"Michael Spence/a, co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.br /br /The plan obviously has its naysayers. And the mainstream media was parading them out yesterday. (You can read about them elsewhere). But it is quite interesting to note the overwhelming support to try to make this plan work -- even from many of the "perma gloomsters." br /br /So with a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/consumer-confidence-makes-up-huge.html"consumer confidence now spiking higher/a by the day, some additional a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-housing-market-instantly.html"good news on the housing market/a, and increased investor confidence in a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/wessel-on-fix.html"big bank future fundamentals/a, this first full week of spring just may be a positive precursor to a much a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/bull-market-move-swift-and-steep.html"warmer summer stock market/aspan style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/divimg width='1' height='1' src='http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/1227919517269937208-9090174319472455488?l=mast-economy.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:KwTdNBX3Jqk"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=p0rwJDnb62Q:gLW9Hl5Slz0:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/p0rwJDnb62Q" height="1" width="1"/

Weekly Weekend Roundup

Eldon Mast — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:50:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/eE4I6VNUhWqTA8CJP-rUdGdgsi4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/eE4I6VNUhWqTA8CJP-rUdGdgsi4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pa href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/consumer-pessimism-receding-investors.html"span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"Consumer Pessimism Receding; Investors' Confidence Up/span/abr /Consumer and investor optimism is rising again. The majority of economists were wrong as most were expecting the consumer sentiment index to fall during the month. (a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/consumer-pessimism-receding-investors.html"Full Story/a)br /br /a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-strong-recovery-signs.html"span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"More Strong Recovery Signs/span/abr /Our list of positives is growing and Thursday saw some extremely positive recovery signs. (a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-strong-recovery-signs.html"Full Story/a)br /br /a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/remember-1979-is-this-time-different.html"span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;"Remember 1979: Is This Time Different?/span/abr /In 1974 and 1975 the majority was wrong about any positive prospects for the US economy. How about 1979? (a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/remember-1979-is-this-time-different.html"Full Story/a)br / a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/tipping-point-and-good-news-matches.html"br /span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"The Tipping Point and Good News Matches/span/abr /The rally in stocks on Tuesday was significant. Have we reached a tipping point? Perhaps. And here is why. (a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/tipping-point-and-good-news-matches.html"Full Story/a)br /br /a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/positive-news-on-radio-tuesday-120p-cdt.html"span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"Positive News on the Radio -- Tuesday 1:20p CDT/span/abr /Listen to one of our very own positive economic news bloggers, Barry Lauterwasser of Positive Economic News is doing a radio spot. (a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/positive-news-on-radio-tuesday-120p-cdt.html"Full Story/a)br / a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/mainstream-media-finally-some-positives.html"br /span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;"Mainstream Media: Finally Some Positives/span/abr /The mainstream media does have a role in how quickly we recover from this recession. Up until last week they continued with all the overblown extremes of gloom pouring gasoline on the negativity firestorm. But this week was finally different. (a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/mainstream-media-finally-some-positives.html"Full Story/a)div class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/divimg width='1' height='1' src='http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/1227919517269937208-8753500782924533491?l=mast-economy.blogspot.com'//divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:KwTdNBX3Jqk"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=ls-h8emMNik:vE8c-4Gw30k:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/ls-h8emMNik" height="1" width="1"/

Mainstream Media: Finally Some Positives

Eldon Mast — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:33:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/2UgIfDQ4o-MnNSnAb5IiX0CunRk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/2UgIfDQ4o-MnNSnAb5IiX0CunRk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pThe mainstream media does have a role in how quickly we recover from this recession. Up until last week they continued with all a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2008/12/dire-commentary-on-us-economy-overblown.html"the overblown extremes/a of gloom pouring gasoline on the negativity firestorm.br /br /But we have now reached the point in this cycle that the public has had enough. How can you tell? Because the grassroots outcry in the last week has finally been heard. Where? Check out these recent headlines...br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"From NPR:/spanbr /a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101511417"Optimism Boosts Florida Housing Market/abr /"Sales are picking up and the inventory is going down."span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" /spana style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101511417"(Full Story)/abr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"From MSNBC:/spanbr /a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29556042/?GT1=43001"NBC anchor says request for positive stories has hit ‘incredible nerve’/abr /NBC's Brian Williams was "shocked at the thousands of responses he has received in less than two days after asking viewers to suggest some good news to report." a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29556042/?GT1=43001"(Full Story)/abr /a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29555727/"br /span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"Company shares $9 million with employees/span/abr /One Boulder Colorado worker: 'We're fortunate to have great bosses' a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29555727/"(Full Story)/abr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"From CNBCa href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29536974":/a/spana href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29536974"br /span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"They're Hiring: Where The Jobs Are /span/abr /"Many employers across the country are actually hiring." a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29536974"(Fully Story)/abr /br /a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29549825"Consumers Start Spending Again/abr /"Some economists say the worst may be over for consumer spending." a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29549825"(Full Story)/abr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"From Fortune:/spanbr /a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/06/news/economy/breaking_views.breakingviews/index.htm?postversion=2009030613"Jobs data speaks of a bottom/abr /"The loss rate has stopped accelerating, indicating a possible turnaround."br /a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/06/news/economy/breaking_views.breakingviews/index.htm?postversion=2009030613"(Full Story)/abr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"From CBS News:/spanbr /a href="http://positiveeconomicnews.com/2009/03/08/just-ask-ben-stein/"Ben Stein to Charles Osgood/abr /"Economic health is determined by Supply of Money and the Velocity with which it is moved."br /a href="http://positiveeconomicnews.com/2009/03/08/just-ask-ben-stein/"(Full Story)/abr /br /And in another interesting twist last week, a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79620076520"a new Facebook group/a formed and is adding members at an unheard of clip. a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79620076520"The new group/a is "10,000 to Tell the Media to Stop Inciting More Fear and Panic!" and is open to any Facebook member wishing to join.br /br /Did you stop counting at a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/101-reasons-plus-9-optimists.html"101 positives/a? Anyone else keeping score?br /Looks like Good News continues a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/good-news-is-now-on-roll.html"on a roll.../abr /span style="font-size:85%;"br /span style="font-size:78%;"span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"(Thanks to the following faithful readers who submitted several of these stories: Esther Jane, John C, and Ralphm37 of Tuesday Ramblings)/spanbr //span/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/div/divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:KwTdNBX3Jqk"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=wzgvdqmuY50:RLcRfpzf5vM:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/wzgvdqmuY50" height="1" width="1"/

“Slasher” Headlines Moderate

Eldon Mast — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:07:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/O_QHHvov6PVas6AEP2VYOE2Radc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/O_QHHvov6PVas6AEP2VYOE2Radc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pYou may recall reading the "slasher" a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/hardly-slash.html"headlines/a last week.br /br /The good news is that the mainstream media in just a few short days may be tempering the "slasher" montra. In fact on Monday, a href="http://money.cnn.com/"CNNmoney/a covered a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/23/news/economy/nabe/index.htm?postversion=2009022300"a similar story/a about forecasts of GDP growth later this year.br /br /But instead of a slasher mentality, the article clearly points to a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/evidence-points-to-recessions-end-by.html"recovery starting in summer/a and solid GDP growth in 2010.br /br /Further the a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/23/news/economy/nabe/index.htm?postversion=2009022300"CNN Money report/a quotes forecasters pointing to a bounce in stocks: "The economists are forecasting a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/bull-market-move-swift-and-steep.html"span style="font-weight: bold;"a healthy recovery in stocks/span/a from current levels, estimating the Standard amp; Poor's 500 will end the year at 975, which would be 26% above current levels and a gain of 8% from where it started the year."br /br /The report is far from a totally "good news" story. However, it is a significant mainstream media shift from the completely a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2008/12/dire-commentary-on-us-economy-overblown.html"overblown dire commentary/a of the past few months.div class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/div/divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=lrknZ2Tx"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=MaackuCG"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=42" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=2WdRPmUx"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=KRIR4VAL"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=KRIR4VAL" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=HgqFtDvi"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=uL9AzKvJ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=uL9AzKvJ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=2pkuykcn"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=PHo5stZU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=PHo5stZU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=Tp15Wkhm"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=54" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=8kPT564b"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=8kPT564b" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=yDpTx7CZ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=129" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/1g8EEWTYjfc" height="1" width="1"/

To George W. Bush, With Love

Justice Litle — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:36:19 +0000

pAmerica is in a real pickle these days – but just how did we get here? Jim Amrhein reminds us, in signature pull-no-punches style, that the man who just left the White House had an eight-year hand in this mess#8230;/p pem#8220;Farewell, fair cruelty.#8221;/embr / –br / Shakespeare, emTwelfth Night/em/p pLike the unceremonious dumping of a codependent spouse once a new lover has come of age, America#8217;s mainstream media seems to have stuffed the entire George W. Bush presidency into a shoebox and crammed it into the back of history#8217;s closet#8230;/p pI guess this should come as no surprise. For better or worse, a new era of American leadership dawns. And it does not serve the architects of an emergent ethos and by #8220;architects,#8221; I mean the mainstream#8230;/p

U.S. Debt Default, Dollar Collapse Altogether Likely

Alex Stanczyk — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:37:31 +0000

Author: James West, posted on Seeking Alpha The prospect of the United States defaulting on its debt is not just likely. It’s inevitable, and imminent. The regulatory black holes into which sanity and reason disappear on a daily basis are soon to collapse under the mass of their sheer size. The circle jerk going on among G7 [...]

The Bias in Reporting Job Losses

Jeffrey Miller — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:14:07 +0000

Each day’s news brings more stories about layoffs at major companies. The stories get a big play in mainstream media. The leading bloggers also cite the stories and encourage readers to keep a summation of job losses. This is quite misleading. Job losses occur in highly visible chunks, as we can readily see. [...]

The News Will Dominate Wall Street This Week

Andrew Snyder — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:05:12 +0000

pI should not have to tell you that this is going to be a big week, a monumental week, really – not only for the country, but for Wall Street./p pThe forces of the universe are pulling against one another. Tomorrow at noon, the nation will gain a leader that has inspired hope in millions of Americans. Economically, Obama’s stimulus plan is viewed as the last chance to keep the nation’s economy from retreating to a full-on depression./p pI will be watching closely to see if Obama’s 6-foot-1-inch body shrinks at the exact moment he places his left hand on the bible as the weight of numerous global crises is piled on his back. It will take one heck of a leadership#8230;/p

End of Nuclear Energy Bottleneck Will Power Enormous

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:15:56 +0000

pIt is important that we understand that the stock market is not the economy. Even people who are not investors tend to make this mistake. It#8217;s easier to make that mistake if you#8217;re personally invested. On the surface, however, it#8217;s obvious that economies don#8217;t change as dramatically as the market does. Paper losses can be painful, but they don#8217;t translate directly into the destruction of real assets./p pI am pointing out the obvious because I#8217;m so sick of mainstream media#8217;s economic coverage. We know, in fact, that our so-called Fourth Estate has the collective IQ of an underachieving adolescent. We know this because the mainstream media utterly failed to cover the oncoming credit crisis. They did so even as rational analysts#8230;/p

Financial ‘Armageddon’ Creates Historic Opportunity For Profits

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:07:11 +0000

p strongPuru Saxena/strong sees a historical opportunity for long-term gains amid the current financial meltdown. There is currently around $3.5 trillion sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be invested in strong sectors. Puru says natural resources and industrials still have strong fundamentals, meaning they may never again be as cheap as they are today./p pThis from The a href="http://www.dailyreckoning.com" class="alinks_links"Daily Reckoning/a:/p blockquotepGlobal financial markets are acting as though the world is about to implode. Over the past four months, the investment community has dumped all assets; regardless of their underlying economic fundamentals. We have seen unbelievable wealth destruction on a global scale and trillions of dollars have evaporated and returned to monetary heaven./p pThe rate of decline has been astonishing and in the past twelve months, the#8230;/p/blockquote

Top 3 Prime Brokerage Trends

Richard C. Wilson — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:15:06 +0000

h1 style="text-align: center;"bTop 3 Trendsbr //b/h1h2 style="text-align: center;"bTop 3 Prime Brokerage Trends/b/h2br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.mauronewmedia.com/images/ued/main-business-objectives.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 228px; height: 162px;" src="http://www.mauronewmedia.com/images/ued/main-business-objectives.jpg" alt="" border="0" //aOver the last two years the mainstream media’s and general public’s interest in prime brokerage has rapidly grown. This is due to a number of factors including the struggle and failure many investment banks offering prime brokerage services including a alt="Lehman Prime Broker" href="http://primebrokerageguide.com/2008/05/lehman-prime-broker.html" title="Lehman Prime Broker"Lehman Brothers/a, mergers within the industry and widespread failures and redemption notices of hedge funds themselves.br /br /The top three trends affecting the prime brokerage industry right now are multi-prime brokerage relationships, limiting capital introduction services, and prime brokers acting as business partners to hedge fund managers.br /br /Multi-prime brokerage relationships used to be used by $5B+ a href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hedge-funds.html"hedge funds/a whose large institutional clients demanded the practice as a risk management technique. In the past this was almost though of as unnecessary as no large investment banks offering prime services had collapsed. It was seen in the same light as a major economic superpower defaulting on their own investment notes. This year, in 2008 everything has changed, Lehman failed and many investment banks have struggled or sold off their prime brokerage services to other firms. This has lead to widespread migrations between prime brokerage service providers and a trend towards managing multi-a href="http://primebrokerageguide.com/"prime brokerage/a relationships for funds with over $500M in assets or even lower. Some firms as small as $5M are choosing to work with more than one prime brokerage firm from the very start as a few firms have reported shutting down due to assets being locked up within Lehman Brothers when they collapsed earlier this year.br /br /Another shift in the industry has been felt within the area of capital introduction services. Anyone offering these services lately has faced increased challenges of investors sitting on cash, poor market and overall industry performance along with increasingly frequent reports of hedge fund fraud. Prime brokerage firms are no effected by this, especially since they often take on and attempt to service more clients than most independent a href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/"hedge fund/a marketers which are often referred to as third party marketers would. This had led to more selective capital introduction service offerings by prime brokerage firms and more frequent partnerships between prime brokerage firms and third party marketers in the industry.br /br /The third major trend affecting the prime brokerage business is that more firms in the space are positioning themselves as business partners. This is due to the commoditized nature of the industry and high level of competition for new business. Prime brokerage firms are now publishing white papers, offering business plan and marketing plan startup tools and holding workshops and networking events to help hedge fund managers connect with additional business partners and a alt="Hedge Fund Blogger.com: Hedge Fund Investors" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/01/hedge-fund-investors.html" title="Hedge Fund Investors"investors/a.br /h4Related to Top 3 Prime Brokerage Trends:/h4ullia title="Hedge Fund Careers" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2007/10/hedge-fund-career.html" description="Hedge Fund Careers" alt="Hedge Fund Careers"span style="font-size:100%;"/span/aa title="" style="font-family: arial;" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2007/10/hedge-fund-prime-broker.html" description="Hedge fund prime broker, prime broker services for hedge funds, hedge funds prime broker, hedge fund prime brokers, prime brokerage hedge funds, fund prime brokerage, hedge fund prime broker services, prime broker, prime brokers" alt="prime brokers, prime brokerage"Hedge Fund Prime Brokers/a/lilia title="hedge fund associations" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hedge-fund-associations.html" description="hedge fund associations" alt="hedge fund associations"span style="font-size:100%;"/span/aa title="Prime Brokerage Services" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/04/prime-brokerage-services.html" description="Prime Brokerage Services" alt="Prime Brokerage Services"span style="font-size:100%;"/span/aa title="Prime Brokerage Services" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/04/prime-brokerage-services.html" description="Prime Brokerage Services" alt="Prime Brokerage Services"Prime Brokerage Services/aa title="hedge fund associations" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hedge-fund-associations.html" description="hedge fund associations" alt="hedge fund associations"/a /lilia description="Prime Brokerage, Prime Brokerage Services, Prime Brokerage Survey, FX prime brokerage, Currency Prime Brokerage, Synthetic Prime Brokerage" alt="Prime Brokerage" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/06/prime-brokerage.html" title="Prime Brokerage"Prime Brokerage/a/lilia title="Hedge Fund Work" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/06/hedge-fund-work.html" description="Hedge Fund Work, Hedge Fund Employers, Hedge Fund Employers, Work at a Hedge Fund, Hedge Funds Work" alt="Hedge Fund Work, Work at a hedge fund"Hedge Fund Work /a/lilia title="hedge fund recruiters" href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hedge-fund-recruiters-recruitment.html" description="hedge fund recruiters" alt="hedge fund recruiters"Hedge Fund Recruiters /a/li/ulTags: Prime Brokerage News, Prime Brokerage Trends, Prime Broker Trends, Prime Broker News, Prime Broker Changes, Changes to Prime Brokerage Firms, Prime Brokerage, prime brokerdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?a=6jNPo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?i=6jNPo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?a=mV6zO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?i=mV6zO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?a=vUodo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/richard-wilson-blog?i=vUodo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/richard-wilson-blog/~4/477763451" height="1" width="1"/

Cheerleading for an 0-9 Team to go 1-9

Jim Wiandt — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:13:59 +0000

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Matt is hopeful, which is either a good thing, or the latest sign of the apocalypse.

So we'll hit 10,000 before we hit 6,000? That might seem like a slam dunk prediction from Mr. Hougan. But is it really? I wouldn't be so sure. All it would take would be one more shoe to drop (say a couple more giant banks and an auto manufacture going out of business) and we'd be there in a hurry.

Matt is framing this a bit oddly, seeming to say that the mainstream media is saying the sky is falling while the smart guys are all saying we've turned the corner. The reality is that generally speaking, the mainstream media is a bunch of cheerleaders and largely have been all the way down. That said, I do agree that there's a potential whiff of real capitulation in the air.

Until YOU feel REAL scared, it's not capitulation is my rule. So do you?

Generally I agree - I mean it's screamingly obvious - that this is the buying opportunity of a lifetime. The big issue for me is how much do you lay your bets on the U.S. economy, vs. tilting toward particularly Emerging and Asian (read Chinese) markets?

Honestly, though, it does feel a bit like shooting fish in a barrel right now (except the way the market has been whipsawing around, near-term you can end up shooting yourself in the feet). So much looks so good. Even commodities - oil particularly - seems like a great potential buy. Do you think Oil is going to $25 a barrel or $100 a barrel first? And EM for those of you who missed that last train is primed for entry. The U.S. Financial sector is not going out of business. Valuations on many companies across the board seem absurdly low, and despite a worrying demographic cash-in by baby boomers, I do absolutely like the market around here.

My overwhelming thought is that you ought to be in with both feet, because this is going to look like it was a great buying area in a few years. So there, now I'm cheerleading myself.

BTW, did anyone see the study that says that 65% of U.S. high schoolers have cheated and 30%+ have stolen something within the last year? I find that to be extremely distressing. It makes me feel like I am living in an alternate reality. I don't know where the easiest most obvious lesson of life - that shortcuts are not very satisfying - and integrity and decency in the end is all you have - got lost.

Matt mentions treasuries have again dipped to practically zero yields, and I'm sure he'll come in with another devastating report on real estate soon. But hey, things are looking up!

Exposing Fraud, Registering Rage

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:45:54 +0000

pNow the government has decided not to buy the junk left behind by the giant US Banking system garage sale, and instead has decided to funnel the cash directly onto the balance sheets of the banks who were peddling them, I am convinced the American and global consumer public has been zapped with some kind of stun gun. As Bob Moriarty asked on 321gold.com recently, “Where’s the outrage?”/p pComplacency would seem to be the default reaction. Like cattle at the abattoir, we mill about munching straw while one by one our brethren receive a bolt to the head before being parceled into roasts./p pI hereby provide notice of an avenue for action. We here at MidasLetter.com are in development on a feature#8230;/p

A Chance For 20% Gains With Aastrom Biosciences (ASTM)

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:05:48 +0000

pstrongLaura Cadden /strongsays strongAastrom Biosciences, Inc. /strong(NASDAQ:a title="Open a new browser window to find out more" href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=astm" target="_blank"ASTM/a) is one of the hottest biotech stocks priced under $5. The company hopes to use its proprietary Tissue Repair Cell (TRC) technology to revolutionise treatment for heart disease. And it is making good progress through the trial phases. Laura says Aastrom is poised to make 20% gains in six months/p pThis from Today#8217;s Financial News:/p blockquotepInvestors expect President-Elect Obama to make good on his campaign promise to lift restrictions on federally funding human embryonic stem cell research. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to introduce legislation for a regulatory framework necessary to enable expanded stem cell research./p pBiotechnology experts consider both the regulatory framework (to underpin clinical trials) and the additional funding to be crucial to#8230;/p/blockquote

How Indifference Can Be A Great Buy Signal

Rick Pendergraft — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:36:06 +0000

Rick Pendergraft says the public will soon become desensitized to the ugly news that keeps coming out of the economy. That’s when individual investors will return to action. And that’s when it will be time to buy stocks again.

This from Investor’s Daily Edge:

During a CNN radio interview on Thursday, I was asked what it is going to take to get the market back on track. This was the day when we saw initial jobless claims surge to the highest level since the attacks of September 11.

What I explained to listeners was that at some point the average person, the middle class if you will, is going to become numb to the dire economic reports. Day after day we are bombarded…

Daily Roundup: What Others Are Writing About ETFs

IndexUniverse Staff — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Here is what others outside of IU.com are writing about ETFs, index funds and indexes on Monday.

Editor's Note: The following is a roundup of outside articles that might be of interest to IndexUniverse readers. It will be updated throughout the day. If you find a story relating to ETFs, index funds or indexes, please feel free to share by emailing a link and/or your comments to: mcoleman@indexuniverse.com or mhougan@indexuniverse.com.

Selling At The Bottom

Los Angeles Times personal finance columnist Kathy Kristof explains in her latest column, now available free online, how she's not crazy for selling her index mutual funds when prices are low, low, low.

Actually, Kristof is simply tax-loss harvesting. She's booking losses in her funds for year-end tax purposes with plans to climb back aboard once the 30-day wash rule is met. A prime example she gives is selling the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) for the Vanguard Large-Cap ETF (NYSE:VV).

Expect more of these tax-loss harvesting articles in coming months. But Kristof uses the personal approach a column affords to take what could be rather dry subject matter and make it quite interesting as well as informative. You can check it out here.

China's Stimulus Plan & ETFs

Oxford Publishing takes a look at what's spurring China's $586 billion economic stimulus for its domestic economy. But the article also digs into what exactly that might mean for investors interested in the various ETFs that track that particular emerging market.

A key focus of the authors is on the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (NYSE: FXI), an ETF that tracks 25 of China's largest companies.

"One point to keep in mind with FXI is the notion that a number of its holdings are government-owned entities. While some of these companies have prospered in the past, investors might be better served by investing in Chinese companies that are driven solely by sound business practices and are less prone to having national interests guide or influence the direction of the business," the story relates.

It notes differences in approaches, comparing FXI to the Claymore/AlphaShares China Small Cap ETF (NYSE: HAO) and the Claymore/AlphaShares China Real Estate ETF (NYSE: TAO). It also brings up the UltraShort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ProShares Fund (NYSE: FXP). The article, written by Billy Fisher, can be found here.

GLD Turns Age 4

On Seeking Alpha, Adam Hamilton notes that the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) this week becomes four years old.

The story, complete with charts and graphs, chronicles the often-rough going for all that glitters. Even though becoming a darling of Wall Street in rather short order, GLD, as every such fund, has plenty of ups and downs embedded in its short history.

To read the full story, check here.

Rise Of Target-Date ETFs

Ace MarketWatch reporter John Spence notes that Barclays Global Investors entering the target-date retirement market might spell big changes for ETFs, which have struggled to find mass appeal in 401(k) plans.

He notes industry data that showed through 2007, $3 trillion of total assets was held in 401(k) plans, $1.7 trillion of which was in mutual funds. Spence lists administrative and other back-office issues as part of the reason why ETFs haven't been able to garner a bigger following in retirement plans.

He talked to Noel Archard, head of BGI's U.S. iShares product research and development, who indicated that newly launched ETFs such as the iShares S&P Target Date 2020 Index Fund (NYSE: TZG) could be a big development. Archard said the firm's new target-date retirement fund series were particularly well suited to IRA rollovers or small-sized 401(k) plans.

The article also takes a look at other target-date retirement ETFs on the market and goes into more details about the various new BGI offerings. See the story here.

Carrel Tours Buffalo

Larry Carrel, the veteran ETF journalist and frequent IU.com contributor, has been on the road lately promoting his new book, "ETFs for the Long Run." His visit to a bookstore in Clarence, N.Y., sparked a local article in The Buffalo News about the virtues of ETFs.

Carrel doesn't disappoint in this fairly basic yet interesting look at how the mainstream media is starting to treat funds with the most transparency, flexibility and cost benefits for a generalized audience. Way to go, Larry! See story here.

Daily Roundup: Monday, Nov. 17

IndexUniverse Staff — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Here is what others outside of IU.com are writing about ETFs, index funds and indexes on Monday.

WSJ Reduces ETF Listings

The grande dame of business newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, has cut the number of exchange-traded funds listed in the paper. Starting on Monday, only the biggest 100 ETFs appear, which might not please a lot of investors but should save some additional trees.

In a small article, the paper pointed out that a fuller list of ETFs will be carried at WSJ.com. Even with the reduction, the WSJ notes that besides more listings online, the company's Web site includes "at least 14 criteria, including dividend yield and expense ratio," to filter data.

Not to toot our own horn, but IU.com's data section has 49 different data points to select from and 34 different ways to screen among 46 different types of asset categories. And it's all free! (Okay, sorry ... couldn't resist. The WSJ remains a wonderful paper, even if they're following the rest of the newspaper world by reducing listings.)

Sector ETFs Skew Picture

ETFs continue to gain market share against traditional funds, but those gains are not being shared equally, the Associated Press reports, citing a Morgan Stanley study.

The average market capitalization of the 114 ETFs launched this year is $25 million. That compares to the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (NYSE: SPY), which has approximately $79 billion in assets. Of the 716 ETFs that Morgan Stanley now counts in the U.S. marketplace, just over one-fifth mirror specific sectors or industries.

For the complete wire service story, check here.

More Bad News For Mutual Funds

A new study finds that ETF assets from investors with more than $100,000 increased from 7% to 9% in the past two years, according to InvestmentNews. In reporter Sue Asci's scoop (the research report isn't due to be published for another month or so), she details how investors in mutual funds have an average 40% of their assets in those funds, down from 53% in 2006.

Even among the big fund brands, the numbers are not encouraging. The study found that 9% of investors surveyed in October used funds from Franklin Templeton Investments, down from 12% in 2006.

But there are a lot more juicy tidbits in the story. You can find it here.

Selling At The Bottom

Los Angeles Times personal finance columnist Kathy Kristof explains in her latest column, now available free online, how she's not crazy for selling her index mutual funds when prices are low, low, low.

China's Stimulus Plan & ETFs

A key focus of the authors is on the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (NYSE: FXI), an ETF that tracks 25 of China's largest companies.

GLD Turns Age 4

On Seeking Alpha, Adam Hamilton notes that the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) this week becomes four years old.

To read the full story, check here.

Rise Of Target-Date ETFs

The article also takes a look at other target-date retirement ETFs on the market and goes into more details about the various new BGI offerings. See the story here.

Carrel Tours Buffalo

Guest Article: Why We Should Take a Solutions Approach to the Crisis and Look at Some Things Differently

Fred Fuld — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:55:00 +0000

Why We Should Take a Solutions Approach to the Crisis and Look at Some Things Differently
By Peter Schiff, President of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.
Author of The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets

I don't think we're going to see any light at the end of the tunnel until we have a clear, objective understanding of how we got into this mess in the first place. There is a tendency whenever major problems occur in the economy to place blame on external factors and to assume that the external factors can be prevented from causing similar problems in the future by expanding the government's regulatory powers. The problem I have with this kind of thinking is that it makes government bigger and more intrusive without ever getting at the root of the problem, which is usually the government itself. The other thing it does is reduce the sphere in which market forces move freely and would otherwise prevent the problem from recurring. Finally, as we face the challenge of rebuilding an economy, whatever lesson might have been learned from the government's role in the problem is lost on us because it was never brought to light in the first place.

The real estate meltdown provides an excellent example. Here we are about to give the Federal Reserve Board new powers to regulate mortgage lenders, appraisers, and other parties to a crisis that would never have occurred if the Fed hadn't taken upon itself the responsibility, better left to the free market, of determining what interest rates should be, particularly true with the absurdly low rates set after the bursting of the tech bubble and the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

The Fed's decision to set rates at artificially low levels to stimulate activity and growth in the real estate sector was directly responsible for the environment that naturally spawned such innovations as teaser rates, negative amortization loans, and other variations on adjustable-rate mortgages, which in turn had consequences that were extremely problematic. But the mortgage brokers and lenders weren't responsible for the root cause of the crisis, nor were the investment banks that securitized the mortgages, nor the hedge funds and institutions that purchased them. The Federal Reserve was. Yet the Fed is now being rewarded with additional powers to regulate Wall Street as well. So the fox ends up guarding the henhouse, which is bad enough, but anybody looking for the guiding lesson of the crisis probably wouldn't find it.

The real lesson is this: Interest rates represent the price of money (or more precisely, the price of credit). A government agency has no more business deciding what the price of money should be than it has deciding the price of a pair of tennis shoes. Why are we so surprised that central government planning works no better when it comes to setting the price of money than it does in setting prices for other goods?

The price of oil is being blamed on speculators, big oil companies, environmentalists, and other external factors -- but never on the Federal Reserve, which created the inflation that debased the dollars in which oil is traded and is thus principally responsible for increased oil prices. Priced in gold, which adjusts for inflation, oil has actually changed very little in price.

What worries me most, however, is the almost automatic backlash that attributes the present economic collapse to a failure of capitalism and free-market economics and turns it into an argument for expanded government. Never mind that government created a crisis that the free market would have avoided altogether; the problem with this case of mistaken identity is that it almost certainly will result in expanded government, much as the New Deal did during the Great Depression. Of course, the greater problem today is that we can barely afford the old New Deal, let alone the modern version we're about to be dealt!

The approach we need to take to our present crisis is not to expand government, but rather to understand government's role in creating the problem. The solution is to limit and control the power of government, not to create more unnecessary regulation to interfere with the free market forces that would have prevented the problem.

Thoughts on the Upcoming Presidential Election and How It Might Affect Our Economy

I think what we've learned from this historic economic breakdown is that it represents a colossal failure of government planning. When you have the government taking control of something as important as setting interest rates, this is the kind of disaster you get.

At this critical political juncture, are we going to compound the problem by giving the government even more power, making it even bigger, and putting it in a position to do even more damage? The alternative, of course, is letting the free market self-correct, which I believe in strongly but which is not, I'm afraid, the way Americans are inclined to lean in a time of economic crisis.

The impending failures of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, events I forecast in my book Crash Proof, in commentaries on my web site, and on television, and the government's intention to bail them out, is a huge step in the wrong direction. These quasi-governmental agencies, with their implied government guarantees, provided much of the air that inflated the housing bubble, and should be allowed to fail. Instead, they will be pumped up with more government money, compounding the fundamental problems in the housing market and worsening inflation.

In fact, early on in the housing crisis, most in government and on Wall Street were still so clueless that these agencies were actually touted as being the solution to the problem. In sharp contrast, I wrote in an August 2007 commentary entitled "It's a Shoo-In":

"In order to breathe life into the dying secondary market for nonconforming mortgages, some have suggested that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be allowed to buy jumbo mortgages. This overlooks the problem that many of these larger mortgages also feature adjustable rates that will likely show greater default levels when payments reset higher. Allowing Fannie and Freddie to buy larger loans now merely sets up a more expensive federal bailout down the road, as both of these entities themselves will likely need to be bailed out when the conforming ARMs they already insure go bad as well."

Bailing out Freddie and Fannie, as well as all schemes to bail out overextended homeowners and artificially prop up home prices are doomed to failure, and will only compound the problems they are attempting to solve. The recent failure of California-based IndyMac, a former leader in nontraditional mortgage lending, resulting in long lines of angry depositors, is but the tip of the iceberg. As more banks fail and the FDIC runs out of funds, the Fed's printing presses will be operating until they run out of ink.

Without getting into a contentious political discussion, I do see a parallel between the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter and the Reagan succession in 1980. Carter had taken office at a time when inflation and unemployment were issues. Voters were disenchanted by Gerald Ford and alienated by his pardon of Richard Nixon, whose abuses of power were still very much on their minds, and whose failed policies led to higher inflation and unemployment. The mood was very strong for a change from the traditional ways of Washington. The economy was so bad that Gerald Ford was even challenged in the primary by Ronald Reagan, who at the time was dismissed by the media and the party elites as too outside the mainstream to be electable. Carter ran as a Southern modernist and Washington outsider. He promised change and won. A similar situation exists today.

The Carter administration proved to be a turnoff and a disappointment for a majority of Americans, as the bad economy he inherited got even worse under his stewardship. As a result, the emergence of Ronald Reagan, an improbable candidate under normal circumstances, was actually welcomed as a timely alternative. Voters generally bought his mantra that government was the problem, not the solution, and he won the election. Reagan and Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker took on double-digit inflation with double-digit interest rates, inflation was pronounced dead, striking air controllers were simply fired in a no-nonsense way, and the Reagan years generally got high marks. The mainstream world was now finally safe for a conservative promising limited government, provided his predecessor had exhausted the public's tolerance for big government. Unfortunately, Reagan never really followed through with his promise to rein in government spending, the consequences of which we are struggling with today.

Similar to Gerald Ford, John McCain had one challenger in particular whose message of limited government and sound money resonated with a small but organized minority. I am referring to Congressman Ron Paul, who, despite being marginalized by his other opponents and the mainstream media, struck a chord unheard elsewhere in modern politics, and managed to raise more money than any of the mainstream Republican alternatives.

The 2008 election features two candidates likely to make the current problems worse. Ironically, Barack Obama, whose policies would likely prove even more disastrous than McCain's, probably represents the lesser of the two evils. This is because Obama is perceived to be the candidate of big government, while McCain has wrapped himself in the false trappings of small government.

In the unlikely event McCain wins, he will be the Herbert Hoover of the modern era, completely discrediting capitalism in the minds of the electorate and setting the stage for a disastrous ideological counterreaction in the election that follows.
If Obama wins, however, while the economy will fare even worse, it will at least be clear that big government is to blame. By the end of Obama's term, the voters will have had such a bellyful of noxious government solutions that the mere thought of any more will put them squarely at the wheel of the porcelain bus. In such an environment, a Ron Paul type of Republican, dismissed as unelectable à la Ronald Reagan in 1976, may actually be in a position to capture the White House in 2012 and finish the job Ronald Reagan started.

Ultimately, we are going to need a free-market president, who understands sound money and Austrian economics and has the toughness, courage, and leadership talent to take the bull by the horns and begin the process of shrinking government, dismantling programs we can't afford, minimizing regulation and taxation so businesses can operate without competitive disadvantages, and generally taking the steps that will put us on a path to becoming a nation of savers and producers once again. If suffering though four years of hellishly misguided big government is the price we pay for true reform, it may in the end be worth it.

The above is an excerpt from the book The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets
by Peter D. Schiff, President of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.
Published by John Wiley & Sons; October 2008;$19.95US/$21.95CAN; 978-0470383780Copyright © 2008 Peter Schiff

Congressional Hearings on Hedge Funds | Video

Richard C. Wilson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:09:28 +0000

Congressional Hearings

Congressional Hearings on Hedge Funds | Video

Here is a short video on hedge funds and potential regulation of them. For once it seems like the mainstream media is actually backing hedge funds here and the risks they have taken in the past. This is all related to the recent hearings in front of congress. I'm not sure that one of these four people knows much about hedge funds but the discussion is interesting.

If you are viewing this via our daily hedge fund newsletter please click here to view the embedded video now.

View additional videos on hedge funds by clicking here.

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Tags: Congressional Hearings, Congressional Hearings on Hedge Funds, Hedge Fund Congressional Hearings, Hedge Funds Congressional Hearings, hedge fund regulations

Look at the Dividend Tech Stocks!

Nilus Mattive — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:34:39 +0000

Last week, I told you that McDonald's is a great example of a company with strong fundamentals and continued dividend strength. Yesterday, we saw more proof: The company said global same-store sales gained 8.2%. And even as most other restaurants posted weak U.S. results, McDonald's watched ...

Unimpressed

Brian Shannon — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:48:00 +0000

The headline of Dow +195 will look good in mainstream media if it can hold, but the market is still in a longer term downtrend and stuck in the middle of the range from the last 3 days.

Hedge Funds Will be Extinct by Q1 of 2009

Richard C. Wilson — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:23:16 +0000

Hedge Funds - Extinct

Hedge Funds Extinct by Q1 2009

Hedge funds extinct by 2009, or so some bloggers and journalists would have you believe. Below is a typical article title and quote that I see in mainstream media on a daily basis. This title below is from a BloggingStocks article and is a perfect combination for what I was looking to write on today:

"Hedge Funds Headed For Extinction"

[First Line] It was an easy ticket to riches – becoming a hedge fund manager...full article here

First, hedge funds were never an easy ticket to riches - 99% of hedge fund managers don't make out like Andrew Lahde with 8 digit take downs in a single year, or a whole career for that matter. This is like saying it was an easy ticket to become an NBA player. Anyone can say they play basketball, but if you are not in the top .1% you don't play in the NBA or make "riches."
Hedge funds are not headed towards extinction, there are well over 8,000 hedge funds, 500 unique strategies being implemented in over 30 countries around the world. In the last week alone I've heard from 4 commercial real estate hedge funds which each run unique strategies. Even within this small niche of the industry there is a rapid evolution of capital deployment based on what works. During this crisis every day which traditional capital sources remain dry, private corporations grow relationships with hedge fund and private equity firms and the private corporations begin to adapt to seeking these new sources of capital for alternative sources.

Some academics and many journalists are predicting the end of hedge funds I predict the re-doubling of their strength. We can't both be right. I believe banks will be nailed to the wall with regulations and lower profit margins while hedge funds fill in the cracks of where they no longer do business.

I am not an expert on what the economy or stock market will do next. I don't try to make those types of predictions - there are enough blogs which are dedicated to that end, but I do predict that when the economy does recover hedge funds will be there first, profit the most and once again running a hedge fund will be the "easy ticket to riches."

Tags: hedge funds extinct, hedge funds will be extinct, hedge fund recovery, strength of the hedge fund industry, hedge fund manager performance, hedge fund performance

Today in Russian Business – Oct 16, 2008

Robert Amsterdam — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:10:06 +0000

The falling price of oil contributed to further huge losses on the MICEX yesterday. Mid-size Bank Globex is under scrutiny for seeking to protect itself from severe losses by taking measures that, some argued, are against the law. Amid falling prices and an unusually big harvest, the agricultural sector needs more than $34 billion in order to survive the crisis. News of the crisis is still failing to hit Russia’s mainstream media, says this report. Aviation authorities have grounded a group of Russian airlines due to their debts. The financial crisis doesn’t seem to be having an effect on the art world. ‘Good art correctly priced will always make good prices,’ says the head of Sotheby’s in Russia. An Austrian property commissioner has reportedly blocked the sale of a luxury chalet to billionaire Yelena Baturina, on the grounds that the sale was not in the public interest.

Large Hedge Funds See Assets Move | Understanding Returns

Richard C. Wilson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:40:41 +0000

Large Hedge Funds

Large Hedge Funds See Assets Move

Unfortunately with current rules against hedge fund marketing or certain types of performance related announcements many hedge funds cannot report on their performance and this sometimes leads to a misunderstanding in their overall success or failure. There have been numerous reports within mainstream media regarding the performance of large hedge funds. The most notable stories have focused on the multi-billion dollar funds ran by some of the most well known professionals in the industry. Many of these funds get tagged within articles as having -25% performance, - 40% performance, etc. While this may very well be true within a few of their funds many of these large managers run 8-10 portfolios, all with $250M+ in assets. Many are able to weather these types of storms due to this built in diversification.

Here's a short article about performance seen from some well known hedge funds:
_______________________________

Hedge fund managers, after enduring the industry's worst month in a decade, are seeking to explain to investors what went wrong and what they are doing about it.

``We clearly underestimated several things, most importantly the tsunami of redemptions that are being delivered to hedge funds as investors line up to get out of these funds as well as record outflows from equity mutual funds,'' Jeffrey Gendell, who runs Greenwich, Connecticut-based Tontine Associates LLC, wrote in an Oct. 1 letter to clients.

``I am not a nervous person by nature, but should have been under the circumstances,'' wrote Gendell, whose Tontine Partners LP fund plunged 59 percent in September, leaving it down 67 percent for the year, according to investors. Gendell, 49, had expected shares of steel, engineering, airline and chemical companies to appreciate because of falling oil prices. Instead they plummeted.

Hedge funds, which endeavor to make money whether markets rise or fall, lost an average of 4.7 percent in September, the biggest monthly decline since August 1998, according to data compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc. Funds fell 17 percent this year through Oct. 9, compared with the 38 percent decline by the MSCI World Index of stocks. It was the worst performance by the lightly regulated private pools of capital since the Chicago- based firm began collecting data. Read more...

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Tags: large hedge funds, large hedge funds in New York, Largest hedge funds, hedge fund, hedge funds, stock market, investments, investing, large hedge fund, list of large hedge funds

This Crisis Is About to Get Worse

Bill Bonner — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:36:32 +0000

“The boom years are over,” says Bill Bonner. Of course, this is what Bill has been saying all along in The Daily Reckoning. Now that's the day of financial reckoning has come to pass, however, Bill is feeling a sense of dread. That's because, as bad as things are right now, they look like they're about to get worse...

This from today's Daily Reckoning:

The boom in construction has been over for nearly two years...

The boom in the financial sector ended about 12 months ago...

The boom in the aviation industry died when oil went over $100...

The boom in commodities was killed when oil went under $100...

The boom in retail seems to have come to a halt more recently. This will be the first quarter in many years with declining consumer spending... The boom in consumer borrowing seems to have come to an end, too...

Yes, dear reader, what MUST happen, DOES happen. But it usually happens when you don’t expect it... or in a way that surprises you. The big surprise has been the violence of the correction when it finally got going.

“Day of Reckoning,” the Telegraph called it.

But we should be happy. Not only is the mainstream media picking up our themes, now both sides of our Trade of the Decade are working. Yesterday, the Dow went down another 189 points. Gold went up $29.

But instead of joy and satisfaction, we feel a sense of dread. It’s all very well to have a few kruggerands and gold louies stashed somewhere... but you can never have enough of them to brighten up a darkened world.

As an insurance policy against a financial catastrophe, gold still works – perhaps better than anything. But who wants his house to burn down so he can collect the fire insurance?

[Editor’s note: You can download your free report “Buying Gold Coins for Financial Profit & Protection” here.]

Guess how much Americans have lost so far from the stock market decline? Almost $5 trillion. Stocks are down about 33% from their ’07 peak – resulting in the destruction of wealth on an unprecedented scale.

Add to that the loss of wealth in the domestic property market, and you can’t help but wonder... how do people keep going? The Wall Street Journal reports that one in six homeowners is “under water” – with more mortgage than house.

“About 75.5 million U.S. households own the homes they live in. After a housing slump that has pushed values down 30% in some areas, roughly 12 million households, or 16%, owe more than their homes are worth, according to Moody's Economy.com.”

And house prices are still going down.

Yes, that is something that MUST happen too – house prices have to go do to the point where people can buy them. The average house must be affordable to the average homeowner. And since incomes haven’t gone up in the last 8 years, we can presume that housing prices shouldn’t have gone up either.

So, we ask... how much more do houses have to fall before they are back to where they were 8 years ago... or merely to the multiple of income that buyers can afford? The answer... according to the numbers we’ve seen...is about 20%.

That suggests that we are only about half way through this housing decline. It further suggests that when it is over one out of every three homeowners could be in serious trouble. He may not be under water, but he will definitely be up to his neck.

And now it gets worse.

Because practically every businessman in America is waking up this morning thinking about how he can cut costs. His sales are going down. What choice does he have? He has to cut his payroll. And so, he begins making a list... which employees are essential to his business... which are not. Overtime is cut. Part-time workers are scaled back. Full time workers are let go. He knows the woman in the mailroom is a waste of money, but she’s nice to look at. The fellow running the advertising is an idiot, but he can’t stop advertising, can he? And how ‘bout that driver...he seems to disappear for half the day; he’s never where he’s supposed to be... yes, he’ll be fired immediately...

And then, the world’s lights grow dimmer.

Source: The Boom Years Are Over

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Michael J. Kosares — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:46:06 +0000

You get a sense that America’s chickens have come home to roost. Instead of learning from our past mistakes though, as the idiom above is meant to suggest, the nation appears intent on compounding them. The Great American Bailout of 2008 is simply more of the same — more debt, more easy money, more moral [...]

The US Economy Is in Better Shape Then You Think

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:38:06 +0000

Yesterday, Hank Paulson's colossal plan to intervene in the free market failed. Today, there is talk of another version of the bailout being pushed through Congress.

What most people just don't get, says Chuck Butler is that the bailout "constitutes the single greatest case of ignoring the free market in modern history." And there is actually little justification for it.

"On a historical basis, many parts of the US economy are in awfully good shape," according to Chuck

This from The Sovereign Society:

We're told to believe otherwise because doom and gloom dominates what the mainstream media consistently reports.

One of the biggest fear indicators they use: Employment numbers. After all, Americans don't want to lose their jobs.

But look at the current employment situation on a historical basis: While U.S. job losses are on the upswing, they are fairly modest ... and should be expected in a self-cleansing market.

As my chart shows, taking into account only the last 40 years, today's unemployment rate sits relatively low compared to 1975, 1983, and 1993.

If we play our cards right we could see the current rise in unemployment top out around the same levels as it did roughly five years ago. That would be nothing to panic over.

Let's look at inflation - another economic boogeyman...

Current CPI in the U.S. sits just north of 5%. That's easily less than the roughly 6% to 7% back in 1991. And in 1980, for example, inflation reached almost 15%.

Countries, particularly emerging markets, would kill to have inflation as LOW as 5%!

More to the point, Americans can afford necessary food items as easily as ever. Here's a snippet from an article put together by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas last month:

Based on the average U.S. pay rate, it takes less than two hours of work to pay for 12 basic food items - tomatoes, eggs, sugar, bacon, milk, ground beef, oranges, coffee, lettuce, beans, bread, and onions.

That figure is nearly as low as it's ever been.

Consumption may finally be taking a breather, as it should, but discretionary items like computers, DVD players, cell phones, digital cameras and color TVs have become far more affordable. And that even includes those families considered "poor."

Moreover, despite my view that the U.S. government is dipping its hand way too deeply into the markets, making them increasingly less free, it's all a relative game.

Many other countries around the world are either officially in, or about to slip into, recession.

And on a relative basis, because their governments are much more entrenched in the market than Uncle Sam is in ours, their ability to recover is hampered even more.

Why is this an important part of the dollar equation? Because it means that, despite all our warts, it's quite possible the U.S. might still win the global economic beauty contest by getting judged the least ugly.

PS: There are massive changes in store for the world economic system, and currencies will be the battlefield where this change actually takes place. Join Jack as he explores one of the most profitable sub-niches of the currency world and explains how to turn those changes into triple-digit profits. Click here to find out more.

Source: What Could Have Been a $700 Billion Slap in the Face

US News and World Report: The End of the Shopaholic Nation?

Trader Mark — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Ideas we've been presenting since blog inception i.e. the Pooring of America - are starting to gain fame in the mainstream media. Again, gas dropping 50 cents is not going to fix the consumers problem. I don't care what the consumer stocks rally is "telling us" - that's just hedge funds running in [...]

When the Thundering Herd Comes up Lame

Keith Fitz-Gerald — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:01:03 +0000

By Keith Fitz-Gerald Investment Director Money Morning/The Money Map Report There’s nothing like greed and avarice to bring the entire U.S. financial system to the brink of... Money Morning is here to help investors profit handsome...

Looking for Government Help? Here is the Scorecard

Jeffrey Miller — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:31:55 +0000

If it were not so serious, it would be amusing. So many who generally believe in free markets and small government are suddenly unhappy whenever there is no government intervention. Whenever we hear a criticism like this, we try to look back at the history for that pundit. Did the criticism appear [...]

What I Tell Myself When Gold Sells Off

The Gold Report — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:24:05 +0000

Source: Jeff Clark, Casey Research 09/02/2008 Psychologists say decisions aren’t made simply on what you hear from others but also on what you hear in your own inner dialog. With investing, that can be the kiss of death if you let either fear or euphoria dominate the conversation. So what did you tell yourself this summer when gold [...]

Evaluating the Fed: Pick Your Sources!

Jeffrey Miller — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:14:37 +0000

At "A Dash" we have some strong viewpoints about the Fed. Prior articles have covered this point, including the following key points: Most of the big-time Street critics of the Fed (including plenty of those who are really smart, great traders, and offer timely advice) are overplaying their hand with Fed criticism. Wall Street [...]

Elliott Wave Theorist Video

Jim Musselwhite — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:20:06 +0000

Dear Investor, Do you have a big-picture market [...]

A Great Way to Find Great Stocks!

Nilus Mattive — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:41:17 +0000

There are thousands of stocks trading on U.S. exchanges right now. And there are thousands more trading on major foreign exchanges. So there are clearly lots of opportunities out there at any given time. The million-dollar question: How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Heck, I spend every single day following the markets and [...]

Interpreting Financial Blogs, Pt. 2

Jeffrey Miller — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:58:59 +0000

Financial blogs are expanding in significance. The number is increasing and so is the readership. This is a trend that is early in its development, so there is fluidity in the definition of the group and the role of blogs versus mainstream media. At “A Dash” we are writing a book, one page at a time. [...]

Interpreting Financial Blogs

Jeffrey Miller — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:38:24 +0000

How can investors use financial blogs to inform their decisions? At “A Dash” we seek to explore this question since we have a blog about a book — one that is aimed at the intelligent individual investor. Background We hope to describe some important roles for financial blogs. We expect to provide some criteria by which investors [...]

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Congressional Hearings on Hedge Funds | Video

Congressional Hearings

Congressional Hearings on Hedge Funds | Video

View additional videos on hedge funds by clicking here.

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Look at the Dividend Tech Stocks!

Unimpressed

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