The futures are pointing to a nice rally on the open as Asian Markets led by a stunning 7% advance in Shanghai last night. This is following healthy gains in Europe.
The only optimism is intense negativity, as the markets have dropped to mid 90's levels. Some sort of serious snap back rally perpetuated by short covering is or should happen.
The clowns at OPEC meet on March 15 to consider another round of meaningless production cuts to try to bid up crude prices. Crude will rally when the markets stop going down and there are positive Global GDP revisions. Lot of people on the idiot box talking about what kind of recession we are in, is it a V-, U-, L- or even W-shaped recession? Does it matter at this point? Lets just get on with the recovery. But some had really valid questions like:
What does a recession really look like?
How far does output typically fall?
For how long does output contract?
How quickly does the economy regain the output level at the previous cyclical peak?
Random Thoughts-
President Obama states that he is a buyer of U.S. Equities, but that the economy will have a slow recovery. I would tend to agree with him considering the markets have now almost corrected a whopping 50%.
U.S. Auto sales dropped 40% in February. This can get much worse before it gets better as this is now a global issue.
Australia GDP shrunk for the first time in 8 years.
Chinese Manufacturing output is improving, which led to the 7% rally in Shanghai.
Prices at the pump will probably hit $2.25 to $2.50 real soon as the price of RBOB Gas has risen about 40% the last month or so.
Copper Prices have rallied the last few sessions...watch the global commodity stocks like the dry bulk shippers and agricultural stocks the next few days.
Banks still suck....but a short cover rally is in store in the financials...just reload on the short side at higher levels....that is what I have been doing..which is the only thing working n this market.
The news that Merrill Lynch gave out over $200 Million in bonuses to the Top 10 employees is a total disgrace. Both John Thain and Ken Lewis should be stoned...Mussolini style. They shouldn't even be given a proper burial for the absurd shenanigans they have overseen. The guys at Enron and Worldcom weren't this bad. At least they didn't take tax payer money.
The ADP Employment Report which precedes the Non Farm Payroll data that comes out Friday showed 697,000 private sector jobs that were lost in February. Bad report but it was expected.
Report that 8.3 million mortgages or 20% of mortgages are under water as of December. Now that's a seriously ugly figure...not as worse then people being foreclosed on but that one had me spooked.
Hey...Both PNC and US BankCorp have slashed their dividends substantially. About time....I have been talking about this over the last month. Totally unacceptable to take Tarp money and pay put common dividends.
Don't like the fact that anti semitism is on the rise again in the wake of the Madoff scandal. Hey...this is a human tragedy for everyone involved.
JOKE OF THE DAY-
Hank Greenberg suing AIG. Can I stop laughing? Isn't this like Bruce Ismay suing the White Star Line after the Titanic Sank? Greenberg was complicit in every shady trade that AIG executed. Nobody in that place went to the bathroom without his consent. He took all of the credit when they were raping the public, but as soon as things turned...he skipped town, then he tried to buy AIG's good assets on the cheap. There is a place in hell right next to Ken Lay waiting for Hank.
Have a productive day.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment