Michael Santoli had a great one liner in his StreetWise column.THE OUTSIZED FOCUS LAST WEEK ON THE DOW'S REACHING "official" bear-market status with a 20% decline from a recent high is a bit like fixating on the moment that storm winds go from 73 to 74 miles per hour to formally become a hurricane.He also mentioned that oil was up 25% since May 1. I hadn't thought of it in those terms but anyone's perception of fundamentals notwithstanding, 25% in two months creates a meaningful headwind for further price rises in the near term.In an environment like this that headwind could be overcome to be sure but with energy now 16% of the S&P 500 an equalweight position takes on a little more risk for downside volatility than some folks may realize.

Got Gold Report Comments on Proposed SEC Short Sale Rule S7-08-08

By Gene Arensberg 30 Jun 2008 at 02:10 PM

ATLANTA (ResourceInvestor.com) — I’d like to comment on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed naked short selling antifraud rule S7-08-08 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, issued in Release No. 34-57511. The Securities and Exchange Commission needs to crack down on illegal manipulative short selling.

As Dr. Robert Shapiro pointed out in his May 8, 2008 comment, while naked short selling is presumed to be a small amount of the trading volume when compared to all volume of the exchanges as a whole, when the illegal practice is concentrated into thinly traded small and micro-cap companies it can make up a large portion of the trading activity in those issues, perhaps even a majority of all trades for those issues for extended periods of time.

Small, thinly-traded issues on

...

Lehman decided to raise some cash by issuing $3 billion in convertible preferred shares.  In an interview today: 

"We still maintain that we don't need capital, but we've realized that perception is the dominant issue in today's markets," the chief financial officer, Erin Callan, said in an interview. "This is an endorsement of our balance sheet by investors."

Lehman did not provide terms of the sale, which apparently is being priced tonight.  Price talk is for an interest rate of 7.05 to 7.5% and that the conversion premium would be approx 30% above the current stock price.  The preferred will be noncumulative, meaning the firm can skip dividends without much penalty if it runs into trouble. Lehman said it would be the "sole book-running manager" of the offering, but did not say if there was a syndicate behind it or if it was going to place the shares

...