Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Market Economy

Greetings good citizen,

The Stupidity Index closed down 104 points today and markets around the globe closed lower as well. What do you suppose accounts for this ‘lockstep’ phenomenon? I don’t have a good answer, just a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with a single band of tightly knit criminals.

Markets that move in concert are easier to manage/manipulate than they are in the messy ‘real world.’

If any of you have been paying attention it will come as no surprise that the markets are falling while the Dollar is rising…the mystery, however, remains the same. There isn’t a good reason for the dollar to rise any more than there is a rational reason for ‘gold’ (a.k.a. ‘real money’) to lose $70 in two days.

If these events supposedly represent ‘rational markets’ then we’ve got serious problems because what we’re really seeing here is the opinion of a couple of empty-headed assholes. There isn’t a single ‘concrete’ reason for the US dollar to appreciate in value any more than the ‘fantasy land’ surrounding gold has any basis in reality. Both phenomena represent ‘abuses’ of the true purpose/value of money.

Anyway, let us proceed to tonight’s offering

Wall Street Slips as Dollar Picks Up Strength

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH
Published: December 8, 2009

Investors from Asia to Europe to Wall Street sent shares lower on Tuesday, confronted by an economic recovery that still has a ways to go. [What’s this? Are we seeing an admission that things aren’t 100% peachy keen? The ‘recovery’, more than six months in the making, still has farther to go! WTF…look as closely as you like, read every word twice because nowhere in this article will you find anything even resembling an apology. If you were ‘mislead’ by all of the ‘rah, rah, sis boom-ba!’ it’s not the media’s fault but your own! You ‘misinterpreted’ what the pervasive Pollyanna’s of Prosperity were telling you, you silly goose!]

The dollar continued to strengthen against the euro, which in turn was pushing down commodity prices, most notably gold and oil. [As I comment above, gold has been harder hit than oil has…but there’s a semi-obvious reason for that related to the ‘utility’ of the two substances…]

In late morning trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 76 points or 0.73 percent, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 stock-index dropped 7.23 points or 0.66 percent. [This piece was indeed culled earlier in the trading day, the markets dipped 111 points by 3:00 O’clock this afternoon but recovered a few points before the close.]

With little guidance this week, shareholders have been are trying to determine where the economy is headed while also preparing for the end of the year. Washington will report retail sales for November on Friday, which could provide another snapshot of holiday sales. [Um, while we have government bureaus for just about everything, it strikes me as a it peculiar to have the retail sector report to a Washington bureau to obtain a tabulation of monthly results.]

On Tuesday, 3M, the diversified manufacturer, forecast earnings this year, excluding items, of $4.50 t0 $4.55 a share. That was less than the forecast of $4.57 a share. And the McDonald’s Corporation, the fast-food restaurant chain, reported that sales at restaurants in the United States dipped in November for a second consecutive month. [Um, this could be a major problem good citizen because we have an entire generation that appears to be incapable of cooking for themselves…it is unknown at this point whether this bizarre phenomenon is by accident or by design.]

In Europe, credit fears related to Dubai and Greece sent markets sharply lower and pushed up the price of safe German government bonds as investors sought shelter in quality assets. [Could the ‘unraveling’ of certain unstable markets be driving investors into ‘liquid’ safe havens such as the world’s ‘reserve currency’?]

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday cut Greece’s debt rating to BBB+ with a negative outlook, the latest blow to the troubled euro-zone country, driving Greek bond prices and banking shares lower as investors started to fret about the possibility of a default.

A day earlier, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s had warned about a downgrade of Greece, whose Socialist government is struggling to cap its budget deficit. [Remember Greece had some serious civil unrest issues and that was BEFORE things went down the tubes. The Socialists aren’t the problem in Greece, it’s the ‘fuck you, pay me’ capitalists that are screwing them up!]

Meanwhile, Moody’s, another credit rating firm, further cut its ratings on six Dubai state-linked companies because it said that it cannot assume the government will stand behind their debts, The Associated Press reported. [I hope you all noticed that these same, largely criminal credit rating agencies also made the news today…for their crimes going completely unpunished.]

The downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service come as Dubai seeks to distance itself from at least $80 billion of loans — and perhaps far more — racked up by companies it created in recent years to expand Dubai’s global clout.

Lenders up until recently had assumed Dubai’s many state-linked companies had implicit government backing. Dubai officials have since made clear no such promise exists. [Fat lot of good ‘denial’ did here in the US.]

“It’s a macro story that’s making investors cautious,” said Stefan de Schutter, asset manager at Alpha Trading in Frankfurt. “They are worried that banks that hold debt from Dubai or Greece will be hit hard.”

He added that the markets did not appear to be entering a sustained decline, or bear phase, but rather investors were reacting to day-to-day developments and thin trading conditions were exacerbating moves. [Understand what this means good citizen, it means almost no one ‘trusts’ the markets and they feel investing is too dangerous because too few players hold all the cards…it’s like sitting down at a poker table knowing that you’re the mark.]

In London, the FTSE 100 shed 1.7 percent, and the DAX was off 1.8 percent in Frankfurt.

Greek stocks and government bonds tumbled on mounting concern the nation may struggle to meet its debt commitments as public finances deteriorate.

The benchmark Athens Stock Exchange General Index dropped 4.9 percent. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Greek government bond note surged and the spread — or difference in yield — with the German 10-year bond widened to 216 basis points as investors moved into safer assets like German bonds.

The spread had been as wide as 300 basis points in March, before narrowing to 108 basis point in August and then moving out again.

The Dubai financial market index closed down 6.1 percent with losses led by banks like Emirates NBD.

In Asia, the Nikkei-225 closed down 0.3 percent and the Hong Kong Hang Seng index lost 1.2 percent.

In Britain, the giant retailer Tesco retreated 2.7 percent. It said third-quarter sales at stores open at least a year in Britain gained 2.8 percent, excluding fuel and value-added tax. That compared with the advance of 3.1 percent in the second quarter.

Elsewhere, data showed that industrial production in Germany dropped 1.8 percent in October on a month earlier.


The interesting observation here is the criminals aren’t ready to ‘retreat’ and collect their ill-gotten gains. The markets are plenty high and there will be enough to go around when it’s time to sell.

Perhaps more bizarrely is the observation that Jesse shares with us about insider selling still being strong during the rally back to the 10,000 mark.

Why are these insiders selling every share they can get their hands on? Is it because they know their shares are extremely over-valued? The whole damn stock market is over-valued and the price to earnings ratio reflects that…but that was before we had taxpayer money propping up share prices.

Something that will also be revealed later as not being illegal…although it should be.

The more you scratch the surface here good citizen, the more obvious it becomes that this was neither an accident or a coincidence…it’s a criminal conspiracy and the criminals are getting away with it.

The people we elected to uphold the law have failed to do their job…what remains is if their resignation will suffice or should these people be prosecuted and ‘punished’ alongside those they failed to prosecute?

This isn’t a ‘game’ good citizen, this is survival and if we fail to get it right, we all suffer.

Time to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

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