The Big Picture

Production of Natural Gas From Shale in Local Economies: A Resource Blessing or Curse?
What’s Every Country’s Favorite Booze?
A Brief History of Sampling
Succinct Summation of Weeks Events (2/7/14)
Comparing Recoveries: Real GDP
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Howard Stern
10 Friday AM Reads
Another Meaningless Non Farms Payroll Report
Jeremy Grantham: Mistakes Made Over 47 Years
1971 Ferrari ‘Dino’ 246 GT

Production of Natural Gas From Shale in Local Economies: A Resource Blessing or Curse?

Posted: 08 Feb 2014 02:00 AM PST

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 07:00 PM PST

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 04:00 PM PST

A video remix journey through the history of sampling taking in some of the most noted breaks and riffs of the decades. A chronological journey from the Beatles' use of the Mellotron in the 60s to the sample dense hiphop and dance music of the 80s and 90s. Each break is represented by a vibrating vinyl soundwave exploding into various tracks that sampled it, each re-use another chapter in the modern narrative.

Eclectic Method:

Eclectic Method – A Brief History of Sampling from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

MP3 DOWNLOAD: soundcloud.com/eclecticmethod/a-brief-history-of-sampling

THANKS to WhoSampled.com

Succinct Summation of Weeks Events (2/7/14)

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 12:30 PM PST

Succinct Summations week ending February 7, 2014

Positives:

1. The market finished the week in the green despite getting off to the worst February start since 1983.
2. Bulls get nervous, pulling a historic $14.8B out of equity funds. That fear helped create the basis for the bounce we saw.
3. The unemployment rate fell from 6.7% to 6.6%.
4. Nissan and Chrysler (best January in 6 years) had good #'s, up 8% and 12% respectively
5. U.S. non-manufacturing ISM PMI came in at 54 v 53.7 expected, prior 53.
6. Factory orders fell 1.5% which was less than expected.
7. Initial jobless claims fell to 331k, less than expected and down from an upward-revised 351k.
8. Car sales in France & Spain rose for the fifth straight month in January.

Negatives:

1. Monday was the worst start to February since 1983.
2. U.S. only added 113k jobs in January v the 189k expected; December and January were the worst 2-month stretch of job growth in 3 years.
3. EM has been ravaged with 14 straight weeks of outflows and the biggest since 2010 (Contra: opportunity?)
4. The Dow has had 7 triple digit declines since the beginning of the year; Nasdaq had its first 100-point down day since late 2011.
5. ADP payrolls came in at 175k v 185 k expected, December numbers were revised down;
6. Two of the worst five days over the past 23 months from the Russell 2000 have come in the last 10 days.
7. Ford and GM January car sales were down 7.5% and 12% v expectations of ~2.5% decline for each; GM, the second biggest U.S. auto maker saw Q4 profits decline 13%
8. November factory orders were revised down from a 1.8% rise to a 1.5% rise.
9. ISM Manufacturing lowest since June and biggest miss v expectations since October 2008. Drop in new orders index in December was the largest since 1980
10. More than 1 in 6 men ages 25-54 don't have a job.

Comparing Recoveries: Real GDP

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 10:00 AM PST

Source: Crestmont Research

Ed Easterling, president of Crestmont Holdings LLC, created the chart above comparing various economic recoveries. He selected those that followed similar annual declines in real gross domestic product.

As the chart shows, the present economic recovery is the most sluggish we have seen.

Continues here

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Howard Stern

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 09:00 AM PST

Source: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

10 Friday AM Reads

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 08:00 AM PST

The week is coming to end. Celebrate it with these quality reads:

• Jeremy Grantham on Tesla, Fertilizer Wars (GMO letter)
• Bill Gates' Steve Jobs Moment (stratechery) see also Bill Gates Emulating Jobs's Return Carries No Guarantee (Bloomberg)
• Apple Yanks World's Most Popular Bitcoin Wallet From App Store (Wired)
• Big guns roll out to defend securities class actions (Alison Frankel)

Continues here

Another Meaningless Non Farms Payroll Report

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 05:15 AM PST

Regular readers may recall that I’m not a big fan of this Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation data series, as it is unusually noisy and subject to further revisions and modeling adjustments. (See Ignore Today’s — and Most — Jobs Reports). As we discussed not too long ago, the Employment Situation report is "the single most over-hyped, over-analyzed, over-emphasized, least-understood economic release known to mankind." It is also one of the "least useful economic data points" at least as far as investors are concerned.

Today’s report for January looks to have an inordinate number of asterisks:

Continues here

Jeremy Grantham: Mistakes Made Over 47 Years

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 04:00 AM PST

Jeremy Grantham’s quarterly GMO letter is out. It is a long rambling look at everything from Tesla to Fracking to Fertilizers to Food.

But the narrative culminates with how as a young lad, Grantham made a trade based on a neighbor — legal inside information. He explains how that worked out, via his 8 lessons learned during his tenure on Wall Street.

Investment Lessons Learned: Mistakes Made Over 47 Years

1) Inside advice, legal in those days, from friends in the company is a particularly dangerous basis for decisions; you know little how limited their knowledge really is and you are overexposed to sustained enthusiasm.

2) Always diversify, particularly for your pension fund.

3) Fraud, near-fraud, or colossal incompetence can always strike.

4) Don’t buy stocks yourself if you’re an amateur: invest with a relatively rare expert or in a low-cost index.

5) Investing when young will start your brain turning on things financial.

6) Painful errors teach you more than success does.

7) Luck helps and finally…

8) Have a convenient mother to be the fall guy.

Good stuff!

Source:
Year-End Odds and Ends
JEREMY GRANTHAM
GMO FEBRUARY, 2014
http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/GMO_QtlyLetter_ALL_4Q2013.pdf

1971 Ferrari ‘Dino’ 246 GT

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 03:00 AM PST