Dec 15 Post Game

We ended down 65 points and that is flat. Not a shock at all. The market is waiting for the FOMC announcement tomorrow, Goldman Sachs quarterly report tomorrow and everyone wants to know what the White House is going to do with the bankrupt 3 and the TARP money. I find days like today boring and not worth reading anything into. The volume was extremely low. We did have a couple interesting stories (on the blog) but nothing that will move the market.

Goldman Sachs quarterly report will be very closely watched by the market. The analyst are expect Goldman Sachs to report their first loss ever. The question will be how bad will it be. Based on what Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO, said it could be really bad. It will take a lot to shock this market right now. If it is inline, the market will rally. If it is really bad, the market will sell off. I can't wait to see their report and hear the conference call.

The market is expecting the Fed to cut the interest rate 50 BPS. I will be surprised if that doesn't happen. The market has baked in a 50 BPS rate cut (the cut will do nothing since we are in deflation) but the market likes to get rate cuts. The real news will be in the report after the announcement. The market will be listening for clues or down right say that the Fed is going to use Quantitative easing (in other words print money out of thin air and buy Treasuries). This would be a big move and kill the dollar. Let's see what they do.

I wouldn't expect much until the Fed announcement in the middle of the day. Stay short!!

This is my last email.  Please start going to the blog for these reports.  www.moneytalktoday.com

Stock Market Recap

The Government didn't come out with another multi-billion dollar program and guess what.....the market went down. What a shock!! I wanted to see a bigger selloff then just 243 points but I will take it. I honestly can't find a reason to buy any stock in this market. The best stock in the market is Wal-Mart and they suspended their repurchase program today. If they don’t want to buy, who does? Based on the 0.00% 1 month T-Bill and the 3 month T-Bill going negative today….I would say nobody.

Every single story that comes out is shocking and down right depressing. Our great Government is changing the rules everyday and finding new and creative ways to screw up. They will not be able to fix any of these problems. All the Government can do is throw more credit at the problem. Credit is the problem. It is going to take time and a lot more pain in the economy to fix the fact that every household in America and maybe the world had way too much credit. Our Government put in programs that made it easy and cheap to get credit. They didn’t take into account human behavior and thought that giving people something without earning it would be a good idea. Now they are working really hard to come up with a way to give people that haven’t earned it a 4.5% mortgage. That will not work either. They don’t know what to do and I see true fear in their eyes.

Obama wants to create 2.5 million jobs in two years building roads and bridges. That is nothing. We will lose that in a couple months. We lost 533,000 jobs in November and I wasn’t seeing anywhere near the job loss stories that I’m seeing now. I wouldn’t be shocked to see 800,000 jobs lost in December. One day this month I counted 30,000 jobs lost. That is just the headlines I saw. I saw three stories today of companies going bankrupt. I have no idea how many jobs are lost in these companies. Plus the headlines I see are mainly from public companies that have to report.


With all these headwinds I don’t understand what the “experts” on TV are talking about when they say this is a great time to buy. They have no idea what is going to happen to millions of American households when you take away the credit drug. I don’t think the withdrawals will be pretty or the recovery quick. I think the “experts” are being reckless with other people’s money just to support their positions.




We just had a major short covering rally with some help from Government programs and talk of Government programs. I believe that is over but who knows what those jokers will come up with tomorrow. I’m short and can’t find a reason to go long.

I just want to give you guys an idea of how quick the job loss headlines are coming. All of these headlines came across as I was writing this.

Hutchinson Technology To Cut 20%-25% Of Jobs, Reduce Pay 5%

Praxair Cuts Jobs, 4Q View After Demand Falls Off In Nov >PX

Electronic Arts To Miss Expectations,Sees More Job Cuts

3 month T-Bill

I hope you guys are sitting down. The 3 month T-Bill is at a negative rate. People are paying the government to hold their money!!! Unbelievable!!

Dec 9

It’s time for the short squeeze to stop. With the terrible news from FedEx, Texas Instruments, Sony, Con-Way, Sirf and National Semi after the closing bell yesterday, I can’t see how anyone would buy a stock today. Let’s not forget that we are up 1000 points on the Dow. Only someone forced to buy (short squeeze) or someone that just doesn’t get it would buy today. Plus we are at the top of a range. I added to my shorts after the bell yesterday and I’m looking for a sharp turn. Let’s see if the Government comes out with another billion dollar program to blow my move out of the water….for a couple days.

Dec 8 Post

If you've never seen a short squeeze before, you are in luck. Take a look at the 298 point gain today. Obama talking about a big stimulus plan over the weekend really moved the market today. China and India also announced huge stimulus programs over the weekend. Australia started putting stimulus money into accounts today. This moved up stocks that would benefit from infrastructure. US Steel was up 31% at one point today. Plus the financials kept the Friday squeeze going.
This just in....
FedEx revised its fiscal 2009 earnings forecast to no more than $4.75 a share from as much as $5.25, blaming the “significantly weaker” economy. This is huge!!
Texas Instruments cut its Q4 revenue guidance by 20% and profit guidance by 60%.
Con-way Inc. reduced its work force by 8% in response to "unprecedented economic conditions" that has business volumes back down to roughly 2003 levels.
Advantage Rent A Car Files for Chapter 11
These stories just came out. Almost everytime I look at my news ticker another bad story is coming out. This is only picking up speed.
There is no way the market will blow off the FedEx news. They move markets. The futures are already showing weakness. I think the short squeeze is over and the shorts will be loading up tomorrow. Stay short!!

Dec 8

Over the weekend: laid off factory workers did a sit in to get money they were promised, another bank went under, Chris Dodd said that Rick Wanker should go and Chrysler should merge, and Obama said he doesn’t want the bankrupt 3 to go bankrupt and he wants cars to run on unicorn kisses. Obama also outlined a plan to build more bridges and roads, the Tribune may file for bankruptcy and is trying to sell the Chicago Cubs, New York Times is trying to borrow $225 million to keep going, Toyota is talking about cutting capex by 40%, 3M is cutting 1,800 jobs and is asking workers to take vacations or unpaid time off, the huge hedge fund Citadel is closing some of its Asian operations, and Anheuser-Busch InBev is cutting UK jobs. Boy I can’t wait to buy a stock with this news.

Is anyone else worried about Chris Dodd telling any company what to do? I think Rick Wanker should go but I don’t want the government to do it and especially Chris Dodd. Dodd took more money from Fannie and Freddie than anyone else in Washington. He is one of the main reasons why this subprime mess happened at all. I wouldn’t look to him for great judgment.

I think the market is going to continue the bad news is good news rally that started Friday. I don’t believe it for one second. I think the shorts are getting squeezed and will drive the market up. The low volume on Friday and the low yields on T-Bills do not make me think the market is turning up. I’m going to be very interested in seeing how the market reacts to 900 on the S&P 500. That has been the top of the range and if we blow through 900 we will have a serious short squeeze on our hands and the market will rally hard. I will look at a rally as an opportunity to sell some of my long positions and add to my shorts.

Dec 5 Post Part 2

I had a hard time sleeping last night because I was trying to figure out exactly why the Dow went up 500 points from the lows of the day to end up 259 points up. Why exactly did the financials rally? Why did oil fall off a cliff? Why did the market shrug off all the bad news this week to end flat? What am I missing and how can I make us more money? I think I figured some of it out.

First of all, the economy is falling apart at a very fast rate of speed. Every CEO is shocked and scared by what is happening. In every Q3 conference call, every interview and the actions CEOs are doing right now only points one direction…..DOWN. So why is the market starting to level off? I started thinking back to November and December 2007. At that time the market was going up on bad news. It was very interesting. Shocking news would come out and up the market went. The reason that was happening than was because the market wanted the Fed to cut the fund rate. Any news that would be interpreted by the FOMC as a reason to cut was looked at as good news for the market and especially financials. The Fed Fund Rate was at its peak Aug 17th at 5.25%. Sept. 18th they cut 50 BPS, on Oct 31st they cut 25 BPS and Hoening dissented because he wanted no change. The next meeting wasn’t until Dec 11th. During November and December leading up to the meeting the market knew that some people on the FOMC board didn’t want to cut rates. Bill Poole didn’t want to cut back in Aug. All the way up to Dec 11th, the market loved bad news. Then the FOMC only cut 25 BPS and down the market went. For the rest of December, bad news was still looked as good news but that stopped in January. We lost 1,500 points on the Dow before the FOMC had an intermeeting rate cut of 75 BPS to 3.50%. Bill Poole dissented then saying that emergency action was not required (what is this guy on?) The current Fed Fund Rate is 1.00%. The Dow went from 13,600 at the start of Dec 2007 to 7,800 last month. All the rate cuts did nothing.

I believe we are in the exact same situation. The market knows that the economy will keep falling apart without help. They want to the US Government to step in and cut rates to 0.00%, come up with a huge stimulus package, manipulate mortgage rates to 4.5% and get the banks to lend. We are back to bad news is good news. As much as the market wants all of this, the US Government can’t stop what is happening. This is a global meltdown. As I said yesterday, oil was the only thing that got it right. Oil takes the global economic temperature. Oil went down 25% this week. The S&P 500 was pretty much flat. This is also very interesting because oil for about 3 months has been going up and down with the market. This is the first week it has been completely disconnected this year. Back when oil was going up the market was reacting to it in an inverse way. When oil was going up the market would go down….then when oil went down the market would go up. This week they had no connection. I think oil is right. People are trying to say that low gas prices are a good thing and that will help the economy. It’s like a tax cut some “experts” say. I think that is true but the reason the gas prices are so low is because the economy is bad. Therefore, oil can’t lift up the economy because it will just go up with it. It stays level. If any of you guys don’t believe that, I will make another bet. When the Dow hits 14,000 again I bet oil will be higher then $40.81.

Now I want to break down the things the market wants:

Cut Fed Fund Rate to 0.00%: This will do nothing. This rate doesn’t mean anything when banks are not lending and people don’t pay. That will not save us.

Stimulus Package: Obama wants to build bridges, roads and make buildings more green. This is not the type of stimulus we need. We need new technology. We need a go to the moon project to develop technology for the future. This will not help us.

Manipulate Mortgage rates to 4.5%: This will be for new home buyers not refi. Right now in America 10% of all mortgages are either late or in foreclosure. This number is going up everyday and home prices are going down everyday. We have 10 months of home inventory on the market and builders are still building houses only at a very slow rate. I don’t think mortgage rates are keeping people from buying a house. I think it is banks going back to real lending practices of asking for down payments. When my parents purchased the Grapevine house the mortgage rate was around 10% and they had to put 20% down. I’m thinking that coming up with $40,000 on a $200,000 house will stop some buying.

Banks lending: This one drives me the craziest. People act like banks don’t want to lend and they want to hold onto the TARP money. That makes no sense whatsoever. That would be like Grubbs Infiniti not wanting to sell a car. Let’s not forget that these banks are paying for this money. Just like Grubbs Infiniti is paying for the cars on the lot. Banks make money by selling money at a higher rate then what they pay. They are not lending because banks have raised their standards and the cost of the money. Individuals and companies either don’t meet the higher standards or it costs too much for the money. The cost of money is something nobody is talking about and will hurt profits. The cost of money is going up. The days of cheap and easy credit are over. This will greatly affect a company’s bottom line.

We are in a bad news is good news world right now. This will not last long. I still believe with all my heart and a lot of my money that the market is going down. I don’t believe any of the rally Friday on low volume. I actually added more to the short side. Economic data is weak this week and it will be interesting to see how the market reacts. I’m thinking a slow downward slide. Stay short!!!

Dec 5 Post

Today has to go down as the craziest day I’ve ever seen. We had an awful jobs numbers and we rallied 259 points. The only thing in the market that got it right was oil. Oil dropped 6% to a 4 year low and ended the day at $40.81. Just to give you an example of the craziness of stocks today….I own an oil tanker company, Frontline, and it was up 5%. We got the bad news about China’s low car sales in Nov. this morning and during the day we found out that Venezuela car sales dropped 68.1% in November. Frontline shouldn’t go up on that news especially with oil down 6%.
Job loss in November was -533K. To give you an idea of how many people that is….Oklahoma City has a population of 531,324. Job losses in September and October were also revised. Sept. was -284K revised to -403K and Oct was -240K revised to -320K. That is 1.25 million jobs lost in 3 months. That is equivalent to everyone in Dallas losing their jobs in just 3 months (population is 1.21 million). The ‘experts” are doing their best to put a positive spin on the -533K loss today. One positive is this loss as a percentage is only the 40th worst (tell that to the 533K that lost their jobs). Another is that this will force the government to bailout the bankrupt 3. Another one was the government will bring out a huge stimulus plan. Lastly, this will force Obama to not raise taxes. I guess the government will save us all….but aren’t we the government?
Daily Job Loss Update:
GM cuts 2,000 jobs
Legg Mason cuts 200 jobs
Worthington Indus cut 300 jobs

Here’s more bad news that came out today. Late mortgage payments and the rate of home loans in foreclosure rose to record highs in the third quarter. Every state but Alaska had an increase in the 90 days or more delinquent category.
With the increase of job losses, growing number of people unable to pay their mortgages on time, record high loans going into foreclosures, 1 month T-Bill at .01%, 3 month T-Bill at .01% and 6 month at .18%, and all T-Notes are at record low yields….I find it hard to get interested in buying any stock. I took this as an opportunity to started scaling into SKF (double short financials).
Oh by the way….Chrysler hired Jones Day to prepare for possibility of bankruptcy

Dec 5 Part 2

Canada’s jobs report just came out. Consensus was -25,000. The actual number was almost 3 times that. -70,600. That is their biggest job losses since June 1982.

-533,000….Ouch!!! That is twice as much as Oct. Employment rate is 6.7%. I don’t know how anyone can find anything positive in this data. December will be worse then this. Dow 6000 is just around the corner and it may happen in a day or two crash.
Stay Short!!!

Dec 5 JOBS JOBS JOBS!!!

JOBS JOBS JOBS!!! The most important data from last month is the Nonfarm Payrolls number coming out at 7:30am. Consensus is -325K. Just to give you an idea of how high this is historically….-350K has only happened about 10 times since 1950. -400K-420K has not been seen since May of 1980. Only about 3 times have we seen numbers above -400K. If we are below -325K, I don’t think people will believe the number. If we are inline or just above -325K, the market has the potential of rallying. If we are above -450K, we should selloff hard. Everyone knows this number is going to be bad and we sold off at the end of the day yesterday. I can’t find a reason to buy any stock. I’m short and set up perfect to take full advantage of a big selloff. I will be holding my breath as the number comes out.

China’s Auto Sales are down 10.28% in November. This is big news because earlier this year I read reports about how fast China was growing and they were buying 20,000 new cars a day. China has been buying a lot of our T-Bills and with news like this one has to think they will slow that down. In other words, the US Government borrows money from China. With the way our Government is spending money, this does make me worry. Speaking of that…I hear people say that our Government is spending money like a drunken Sailor. I think like that is an insult to drunken Sailors. At least a drunken Sailor spends his own money.

Dec 4 Post

Dow down 215. We had an interesting day. Oil was absolutely taken out back and beaten. Oil went down 6.88% and is currently at $43.70. I see no reason for oil to go up. We could see a 2 handle on oil in no time. It’s so interesting that two months ago people were chanting “Drill Baby Drill” and now oil tankers are being used as storage and Opec’s capacity cuts can’t stop the drop. This is just amazing!!

Financials did pretty good today until the last hour. They did good because many traders are just programmed that rate cuts are good for financials so they buy financial stocks. For the most part that is true but the BOE and ECB cut from a very high base. It would be like Grubbs Infiniti marking up a $40,000 car up to $80,000 and then cut the price 40%. You’re still overpriced by $8,000. Why would someone get excited about that?

We did have a big selloff at the end of the day because people wanted to get ready for the Jobs Report tomorrow. Everyone knows it will be bad and it will have to be really bad to shock the market. If it is inline, the market will rally (yes, that is stupid but that is what the market does). I think it will be really bad. Consensus is -350K at 6.8% unemployment rate. I wouldn’t be shocked with -500K.

I said this morning….. “all day long I see stories of companies cutting thousands of jobs around the world. It is just picking up speed.” I did some homework and made a list of companies that cut jobs in just the past two days!!

AT&T cut 12,000 jobs

Telecom Italia SpA cut 4,000 jobs

Windstream cut 170 jobs

Credit Suisse Group cut 5,300 jobs

State Street Corp. cut 1,600 to 1,800 jobs

Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc. cut 1,000 jobs

Sanofi-Aventis SA cut 6,500-person U.S. sales force.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC cut 200 jobs

Vale do Rio Doce cut 1,300 jobs,

Adobe Systems Inc. cut 600 jobs

Jefferies Group Inc. cut 400 jobs

DuPont Co., cut 2,500 jobs

Viacom Inc., cut 850 jobs

NBC Universal cut 80 jobs

Steelcase Inc. cut 900 jobs

Belden Inc. cut 1,800 jobs

RealNetworks cut 130 jobs

That’s right…..this is just TWO DAYS!! Guys I hate to say it but we are in a depression. Stay short!!!

Atlanta's Fed...Lockhart's comments

Lockhart said that the U.S. is in the midst of a "very painful adjustment process," pointing to continued job market losses, a weakening manufacturing sector, sharply declining consumer spending and a still weak housing market. Deterioration in the housing market, personal consumption and employment should continue he said, with "very weak growth" likely through much of 2009. The current or next one or two quarters though may be "as bad as it gets," he said.

Wow…that sounds familiar. George are you sending my emails to Lockhart now? First Buffett…then Cramer….now Lockhart.

Dec 4th Part 2

I just got some major job cut information. AT&T is cutting 12,000 jobs immediately!! This is really bad news because people looked to AT&T as a really strong company. It will be really big news when Apple starts cutting jobs. We are going to have some really big selloffs soon. Stay Short!!!

Dec 4

Ok…the government intervention is officially out of control. The idea of the government manipulating mortgage rates down to 4.5% is going to a dangerous area. Where will this stop? Why don’t they just set the price for every stock as well? The reason we are in this position is because of government manipulation and I’m guessing doing the same thing will not get us out of it. I hope you guys realize that the Fed is printing money and buying 10 year Bills to drive down the yield and lower mortgage rates. They started this last week and it has driven down mortgage rates. At the end of the day yesterday, The Wall St Journal sent out a rumor saying that the government is going to do even more to push the mortgage rate down more. The Treasury hasn’t confirmed or denied the story.

We have some data coming out and the bankrupt 3 show in Washington. We are also going to get retail same store sales for November. This will give us some real numbers for Black Friday weekend. The numbers coming across right now are ugly. Many are down double digits. We will also get factory orders and the all important weekly jobless claims. Speaking of jobs loss….all day long I see stories of companies cutting thousands of jobs around the world. It is just picking up speed.

We also have the ECB and BOE looking to cut rates. We have already had many rate cuts around the world this week. New Zealand, Taiwan, Sweden China and many more have been cutting in a big way. This doesn’t make me feel very good about the economy if the central banks are making such aggressive cuts. They must see something really bad out there. However, I don’t think cutting rates means much in a deflationary environment and when the banks don’t lend…what difference does it make? Tichet should’ve been cutting rates all this year instead of raising them. What a moron!! I just got the rate cuts for BOE and ECB. BOE cut 100 BPS to 2% and ECB cut 75 BPS to 2.50%. This is just a show now. They will be at 0 just like we will in a few months.

I’m not even going to make a prediction with all this data and government manipulations today. This market is broken and going down. I can’t come up with one reason for this market to go up….of course besides another government program. Stay short!!

Dec 3 Post

Dow up 172. I guess if you tell someone they will have a surprise party it’s hard to surprise them. That is exactly what happened with the data. Everyone knew the data was going to be bad. The data needed to be twice as bad as it was to surprise the market. It was a tug of war all day between the people that were scared by the data and the people that felt like it was old news. The latter won at the end of the day. Now the bulls will come out on TV and say… “it is great news we went up on bad news. The bad news is priced in.” I don’t believe this for one second. The Fed Beige Book says it best….

…..economic activity has softened further across all 12 of the nation's Federal Reserve districts, which include major cities such as New York, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta and Chicago.

…"Districts generally reported decreases in retail sales, and vehicle sales were down significantly in most Districts,"

…tourism spending "was subdued"

…Nearly all districts reported weak housing markets, adding that selling prices have taken a beating and sales activity is slow, but at least, stable.

…commercial real estate markets generally declined in most districts and lending standards have tightened.

…Beige Book, released on Oct. 15, highlighted the energy and mining sectors as "positive," it appears that that bright spot has now dimmed.

…Districts also reported weak conditions in the labor markets

…several businesses in the Atlanta District reported that layoffs accelerated and hours declined. Dallas officials said the labor market weakness was most pronounced in the manufacturing sector.

….report shows that the slump has intensified.

Let’s also not forget that the ADP job loss was 50,000 more than expected and twice as much as last year. If you don’t think 50,000 is a lot start counting and see how long it takes you.

The only bright point for the economy today was another government program to bring down mortgage rates to 4.5% and mortgage applications were up 112% from last week. I guess that means people are buying the 10 months of excess inventory….right? No, this was largely driven up by refis, up 203% versus the purchase index up just 38%. Let’s also not forget that it is much harder to get a mortgage now. This will help people stay in their house which is good but I don’t think mortgage rates are keeping new buyers away. I’m thinking that twice as many job losses this Nov over Nov 2007 is kind of hurting new home sells.


Today was an opportunity to add to your shorts side but I wouldn’t go crazy. Based on the action today the market may shrug off all the bad data this week. If we do go up, I’m buying more SDS.

Update:

I neglected to mention one area of growth in the Fed’s Beige Book and I am really sorry I did that. The Minneapolis and Dallas district did show a growing demand for bankruptcy services. Unbelievable!!

Bankruptcy Update

Bally Total Fitness Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Dec 3 Part 2

ADP -250K!! 50K more then expected. Oct. was -179K. This snowball is picking up speed. How much more money will the government print to stop this snowball? I don’t think they can do anything at this point. Once people are scared it is too late. Stay short!!

Dec 3

Today is all about one thing….DATA. We are getting the Fed’s Beige Book, ISM Services, Productivity-Rev and ADP Employment. The Fed’s Beige Book can move the market. It only comes out 8 times a year. It’s a report where each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks gather anecdotal information on current economic conditions in their district interviewing key business contacts, economists, market experts and other sources. The ADP Employment report will be our first look at job loss in November. The market doesn’t get too excited about ADP because historically it will be off the all important Nonfarm payrolls numbers coming out Friday. However, a number higher than -200K will not be good for the market. Productivity-Rev and ADP come out before the opening bell, ISM Services is at 9am and the important Fed’s Beige Book is out at 1pm.

It is really hard for me to predict what the market will do without knowing the data, but that will not stop me. I think the data will be a train wreck and we will give back all the gains from yesterday and more. All the market needs is a small reason to sell/short. If we are near 820 on the S&P 500 around the announcement of the Beige Book (providing it is as bad as I think) we will push right through that resistance level and go to 800 fast. Let’s see what the data gives us.

Ok…now my rant about the bankrupt 3. They are all a disgrace to the title CEO but I want to rant about Rick Wanker. What planet is this guy on? He is saying that GM needs $4 billion today to make it to the end of the year. This didn’t just happen this year. These guys have been falling apart for a long time. I like to look at debt to see how bad a company is. GM owes creditors $45 billion. Now Wanker wants to swap their bond holders to worthless equity paper. How are they going to pay back the $45 billion plus the new $18 billion they are asking for right now? They will go bankrupt. Electric cars are not going to save them. We don’t have enough electricity output right now to handle electric cars. CA and other states already have brownouts. Plus 50% of electricity comes from coal. How green is that? Let’s not forget that tax on gas pays for our roads. Why don’t they just bring their Natural Gas cars into the US and stop this electric car crap. Ok…I’m done.

Dec 1 Post

Dow down 679…..7th worst day in history!!! I nailed that one and yes, I am patting myself on the back. We broke 820 on the S&P 500 and we went straight down. I thought I was going to get this day last Wednesday but the new government program and low volume on Wed and Friday pushed that plan to today. To give you an idea of low volume….on Black Friday it was .4 billion shares vs. 2.4 billion shares the Friday before that. Hedge funds love low volume because they can move the market.

This sell off isn’t over. This week is going to be painful for the longs. We haven’t even started getting the terrible November data. Tomorrow we will get the auto and truck sales numbers. Plus the bankrupt 3 are going to provide our government with a plan tomorrow. This will be entertaining in a sad way. They will get our money and they will not pay us back. The government will tell them to make greener cars that run on unicorn kisses and butterfly dreams and they will say ok. At the end of the day, GM, Ford and Chrysler will not make greener cars. They will put energy efficient light bulbs in all their factories and call themselves green companies. This is a joke!! The market will sell/short everything connected with these businesses….I will be with them. I predict GM down 50% days after they get our money. Anyone want to bet me on that one? Stay short!!

Dec 1

The data is coming out on Black Friday and the entire weekend. I’ve read many reports about Black Friday but I want to see the MasterCard data coming out sometime today. What I know so far is Black Friday was up 3% this year over last year, full weekend up 7.2%, and gift cards are down 10%. Black Friday sounds pretty good but we were up 8.3% in 2007 over 2006. So we just kept up with inflation and didn’t keep the growth curve. The next question is did any of the stores make money. With the 50%-70% mark downs to get people into the doors the profits had to be hurt. I think what happened is people stopped buying in September and waited for the Black Friday deals. I think the sales are going to fall off a cliff now. I did my own shopping research on Friday. Terah and I went to the mall and it looked like a busy day but nothing impressive. Then we went to Target and it was nothing. I didn’t even wait in line to pay. We also went to Costco on Sunday and it was lighter than normal.

I’m not sure if the market will look at the retail information as a good or bad thing. It’s all a matter of what is expected. I’m not impressed. We have Obama, Bernanke and Paulson talking today and the market loves to sell when these guys talk. I can’t find a good reason for the market to go up besides more short covering and people buying into automakers for the bailout play. Maybe the government will come out with another program to save us all. What a joke!! All T-Bills are going down to record lows and Libor is going back up. These are bad things for stocks. I’m short and ready for the turn.