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Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Big Picture

The Big Picture


Open Thread: Apple CEO Steve Jobs Resigns

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 04:01 PM PDT

Discuss

Wednesday PM Reads

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 02:00 PM PDT

My afternoon reading material:

• Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal (Rolling Stone)
• An important lesson from Jackson Hole 2010 (FT.com)
Doug Kass: Kill the Quants Before They Kill Us (The Street)
• Food and Energy Price Shocks: What Other Prices Are Affected? (Fed of Cleveland)
• George and the giant investment problem (Deus Ex Macchiato)
• Imagining a Real Government Rescue for Banks (WSJ)
WTF headline: Cheney Says He Had Secret Resignation Letter (Bloomberg)
Yet another WTF headline:  Is the market forecasting war? (Market Watch)
Me Media: Gold ETF gain signals equities are oversold (City Wire, Aug 23, 2011 at 14:53, GMT)
• Sprint to Get iPhone 5 (WSJ)

What are you reading?

XM Satellite Radio 124: POTUS (Today 3-6pm)

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 11:32 AM PDT

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Hey you XM Satellite Radio listeners!

I will be guest hosting for Pete Dominick today, and for the next Wednesdays, from 3-6PM ET on P.O.T.U.S. SiriusXM 124

3:05 Floyd Norris, NYT (phone) Financial news
3:35 Henry Blodgett, Business Insider (phone) Bank of America
4:05
4:35 Peter Boockvar, Miller Tabak (phone) economy/markets
5:05 Daniel Gross, Yahoo Finance (In studio) economy

Should be lots of fun!

Real Estate Sales: Life in Luxury

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 11:00 AM PDT

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Source:
Life in luxury
Jennifer Collins
Marketplace Morning Report, August 24, 2011
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/24/am-life-in-luxury/

Market Capitalization as a % of GDP

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 10:35 AM PDT

From Ron Griess of The Chart Store:

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click for larger chart

More support for the August 9, selling climax-induced bullish position?

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 10:00 AM PDT

More support for the August 9, selling climax-induced bullish position?
David R. Kotok
August 24, 2011

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So far, the August 9 intraday S&P 500 Index trading low has held. It was 1100. It has been tested twice in the futures market. In each case a sharply down futures price was reversed and the market closed up. Thus, those two tests do not appear in the trading records in New York. They do appear in Asian and European market trading.

We have remained fully invested through this turmoil and continue that way. We believe that the US stock market had a peak-to-trough bear selloff that lasted from the April 29 top of 1363 to the August 9 low of 1100. Those 263 points are about 20% of the S&P 500 Index.

The selling-climax issue is important but not enough by itself to make a fully invested decision. The reason is that we do not know if the climax was an interim climax or the final one. We will not know that for another few months.

Another indicator gives us some additional comfort in our bullish position. We give specific credit to First Trust for reporting it.

This approach measures the results of the US stock market after it has experienced a down day of over 6%. Since 1950, there have been 16 episodes in which the S&P 500 sold off by more than 6%. We had episode number 16 on August 8. The S&P was off by 6.66%.

Of the 15 other episodes, only two did not result in higher stock prices after one year. One of those was the selloff after Lehman-AIG on September 29, 2008, when the market lost 7.62%. The other was the selloff on October 13, 1989, when the market fell 6.12%.

In every other case, the stock market was higher one year after a 6% down day. The average gain was 21.25%, and that is after averaging in the two loss experiences. The higher gains were in the 34%-to-45% range, and there were four such gains among the 15 episodes.

So what does this mean for 2011 and 2012? History would argue that the stock market is headed higher, and maybe much higher. Some of the valuation metrics we use suggest the same. Others compare stocks with bonds (Ned Davis) or gold (Ritholtz) and argue the valuation disparity.

Our view is that stocks are mostly washed out. This is especially true of the financial sector. My email runs 10 to 1 against banks, bankers, and other financial professionals and their enterprises. They are the target of nearly universal disdain.

At Cumberland, we think it is time to be adding weight to the financial sector. We do it with selected ETFs. We are doing that and are taking up the weights. For us it is the first time since 2007 that we are raising weights in the financial sector instead of lowering them.

Was August 9 the final selling climax? We will not know for a while. Nevertheless, every day increases the odds that it was. That said, Friday's Bernanke speech and any other event could send the market in any direction. That is how it works when uncertainty is so high.

We are fully invested in our US stock market ETF accounts. We are terrified bulls but still bulls. We think the market (S&P 500 index) has a chance to reach 1350-1400 by yearend and over 2000 by the end of the decade. It is 1165 as this is written.

We look forward to discussing this outlook with Tom Keene on Bloomberg TV tomorrow, (Thursday) between noon and one. And again on Bloomberg radio with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt between 7 and 9 AM on Friday morning. This assumes another earthquake does not derail the travel plans.

David R. Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer

Real Money Redesign

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 09:15 AM PDT

Looks like the guys at TSCM have totally cleaned up the interface for Real Money. This is a well done, needed improvement for their premium site:

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Mazda RX-8 Bites The Dust

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 08:55 AM PDT

Declining sales and new emission standards forced Mazda to finally pull the plug on the RX-8, the last of its rotary engine sports cars.

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Here’s Motorward:

The production of this car has been canceled back in July, and the remaining cars will be sold before the year end, and then the RX-8 will be gone forever. Currently there is no plan to make another rotary-engined car because, to put its simply, it's not worth the hassle.

As a true successor to the amazing RX-7, the RX-8 featured a 1.3 liter rotary engine with an output of 232 hp, which is amazing for such an small size. At $28,000, the R-8 was one of the most affordable, and one of the most desirable, sportscar. Other great feature of it was the unique rear doors, which gave it the looks of a cool coupe, but practicality of a four-door car.

I had an RX8 about 5 years ago — the car was quirky, surprisingly exotic for a $30k — it didn’t start well cold, occasionally had some problems with flooding engine, and IMO, was underpowered by 50-10HP — but overall was terrific a well balanced car, with great steering and handling, good looks, and was a very tossable sport car.

Here’s what I wrote about the car in 2004

It takes a bit of experience with the Renesis engine to wring out the full power band — once you learn how, its a sheer delight. Yes, off the line the car is no match for big V8s. The torque is light at the low end — but it comes on strong once the tach swings past 5,000. From there, it kicks you back into the seat as it revs towards the 9,000 RPM red line. 0-60 in under 6 seconds is very respectable — but I’ll bet it beats many big blocks in the 30-70mph sprint.

My only complaint about the car — accurately described as a practical sports car — is the  lack of a 2 driver memory. If you build the car for practicality, as Mazda did, they should assume there will be more than one RX8 driver per household. Adjusting the side view mirrors and seats each and everytime me or the wife gets behind the wheel is a bit of a pain. Considering that the car has nearly every imaginable electronic gizmo — Navigation, heated seats, heated sideview mirrors, Xenon headlights, auto dim rear mirror, multi garage opener — it makes little sense not to offer the memory setting as an option.

By the way, if you are not taking the car from dealer stock (we got our 2004 at a year end sale), then order the  indash multi disc CD player. You’ll have less stuff lying around the door pockets.
(prior comments here and here).

There are a few 100 units left — go see if you can buy one at a deep discount…

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Source:
Mazda RX-8 Bites The Dust
Motor Ward, August 23,2011

“Me want shiny stuff”

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 07:14 AM PDT

The urge goes back to the ancients: “me want shiny stuff”. But is there now a risk the gold price is entering bubble territory? Investment editor James Mackintosh examines the 1970s gold bubble, as well as the correlation between price and real yields.

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click for video

Aug 23 2011 4m 18sec

Durable orders up but Aug changed things

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 06:44 AM PDT

Headline Durable Goods rose 4%, twice expectations led by a 43.4% rise in nondefense aircraft orders and 11.5% gain in vehicles/parts as Japan supplies came back on line. Ex these and taking out defense aircraft saw orders rise .7%, better than expectations of down .5% and June was revised up. However, the core reading of non defense capital goods ex-aircraft fell by 1.5%, about in line with forecasts. Orders for computers/electronics and primary metals were up while electrical equipment, machinery and fab metals were lower. Shipments, which get directly plugged into GDP, rose 2.5% and because inventories rose just .8%, the inventory to shipments ratio fell to 1.79 from 1.82, the lowest since March. Bottom line, from the markets perspective, the unexpected gain in orders ex transports was enough to bring us back but the decline in the core cap ex component still points to a still very uneven economy and specifically, today’s data is from July and we know the world changed in Aug.

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