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Last minute call to fill in (not the regular gig) on Kudlow & Company, CNBC today from 5:00 – 5:45 pm.
Rich Karlgaard of Forbes
Kimberley Strassel of the WSJ
We will be covering the Google decision, Congressional Oil hearings, Interest Rates, and the new Airline seating pricing.
Should be fun . . .
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UPDATE March 14, 2006 8:54pm
The remote studio is a small hot box —
essentially,
a closet — poorly lit from overhead. I looked like a have an enormously disproportional head, huge shnozz, slits for eyes (no, I wasn’t stoned) and quite puffy.
That’s TV. As previously mentioned, I am actually Waspy, thin and blond.
how are you going to explain today’s price action?
Barry went long last week. I think he’d explain it with “Look at me, I’m making money!!”.
-Mike
Goldman’s earnings drove Finance sector;
Google and Apple rally
Semis up nearly 1 3/4%
Rumor of “One and Done” from Medley Advisors
Rally in Bond market sent Yields lower
Sounds boring as watchin’ a bent fender rust.
Barry-
Our work on the Spring roll-out of The Big Picture menswear line continues. Please thank your readers for their many suggestions regarding appropriate holgraphic, dress and undress models for our web-based service. We have tested the Noah Blackstein model and, well, consumer reaction can only be described as unusually weak. We will keep you up to date on further developments.
Sincerely,
Mark McCormack, President
“The Sweater” Marketing Group LLC
S&P broke resistsance on my charts and ended up nicely.
Earlier in the year I thought the S&P would max out at about 1350. Maybe I’m right. Maybe this’ll just cheapen those SPY/DIA puts I’m always eye balling.
But then I say to myself “What Would Prechter Do?”.
Todays action is great. The higher it goes, the more
upside on the downside.
Whenever a bear feels like throwing in the towel, they have to say to themselves “What would Prechter Do?”.
-Mike
If today’s bond market and stock market rallies were a waltz, somebody is out of step.
Eclectic-
Bad news is good news unless we want it to be bad news in which case it is. And over here but maybe not over there. It’s all spelled out by Lewis Carroll.
Mark, I predict you will go far.
Am I looking at the right data? Is the yield curve no longer inverted?
Barry, Never saw or heard you in person and i have to say you are a bright and knowledgable fellow since seeing you on Kudlow. Keep up the good work.
i think the medley report was a big driver of today’s price action. the bond rally was in gear before the retail sales data which could have been interpreted either way. interesting that the curve continued to widen in today’s bullish trade as they piled into the front end on that report. the flatteners continue to unwind. 2s/10s at +6bps has widened over 25pbs in last couple of weeks (since all the talk of BOJ removing easy policy) bullish/bearish for stocks? last time curve widened out stocks did well as the Fed, ECB and BOJ were pumping liquidity in the system and the long end attempted to offset the easy money, but even at a historically high 300bps 2s/10s, the 10YR note was still at 4%. If the curve continues to widen with the Fed at the end of a tightening cycle instead of at the beginning because of ECB and BOJ are tightening it could push 10YR yields substantially higher and the mbs duration unwinds will really snowball the long end.. this is the biggest risk to the markets and no one is predicting a substantial rise of 10YR yields when the Fed is done, but if it happens, it won’t be pretty given our leveraged economy.
very short term trend is up as of yesterday. i sure as hell wouldn’t bet the farm. if there was every an area to be cautious, it is now. a very sneaky little action here. the bond market loves to fill gaps just like the equity market does. there were two hugemongous gaps left open on the rally in interest rates last week. ten year rates stopped exactly at the first gap filling and started back up just a tad. that is why the equity markets showed a little hesitation late in the day. not much but a little. likely fill that second gap too. another rally day soon. maybe tomorrow. maybe not. but, how much further could rates go down before the psychos start worrying about inverstion again. the market is in a serious pinch. rates go up, kill cyclicals. rates go down, yield becomes inversted. the party is coming to an end because the fed has backed the bulls into a corner.
volume today sucked and it was all program trading. ie, buy anything that moves. even bulls have to concede housing will slow and earnings will likely shrink. housing led the market higher by 3.5% today. that kind of program trading rally is a sucker’s rally most often. or to put it more nicely, an oversold or short term rally most often.
if you are a micro trader, it is a play. Otherwise it is noise IMO.
“What would Prechter Do?”
Write another book.
I was really taken aback by the appallingly grotesque framing Kudlows people came up with on the Google issue with the DOJ. “It’s ok to stonewall the US on kiddie porn, but it’s great to cooperate with the Chinese on censorship. . .” My god, is this show always as shallow?
Kimberly Strassel was dead on with her comment that the government is “basically asking Google to help them out in a suit that Google isn’t even a party to.” Since when is a private entity forced to do the governments homework?
Nice try with your comment, but when you tried to point out that the federal government should be using their own technology to go after terrorists I couldn’t help but think of recent reports about how the controversial Total Information Awareness Program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness) which was supposed to have been dismantled 3 years ago is still in place.
The TIA program is exactly what you were talking about and maybe a bit more.
Kudlow is a member of Opus Dei. He doesn’t believe
in conservatism and needs authority figures to guide
his mush filled head.
anyone else see Barry’s face fall when Kudlow mentioned that other dudes blog? We’re here for you bro… one day you’ll get some blog respect too! LOL
Interesting comments about the current Middle East stock market crashes. I don’t think anyone else is paying attention to this… certainly the first I had heard of it. What are the implications here?
It’s called the oil pig is going to get butchered. We are at a five year high in excess oil. Exxon’s new CEO say oil is going to crater last week. Funny, because Lee Raymond said it would happen before stepping down. These dipshit new players in oil who are feeding at the trough of gluttony are likely going to find out what committing one of the seven deadly sins really means.
Wanna see something that will make you puke. Or, in my case, I’d jump out a window. Read the first link. Can you say bubble? Maybe this will finally shut up the blathering Ayatollah and his puppet in Iran. When, oh when, will oil crater? The risk premium is too high and unsustainable.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=22852
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aWxW2KLu.hAI&refer=home
Barry or anyone else,
have any comments on the upside in GS numbers yesterday being driven by trading revenues and a yoy 41.5% jump in their VAR? seems like an ominous sign when wall street firms have to take on so much more risk exposure to generate earnings growth. i realize goldman has always had a sophisticated prop desk but i wonder if all the firms are taking on more exposure what would happen if we see a big jump in volatility… this is all fine with the vix at 10 but what happens if it jumps to 20?
B, not sure I follow your thinking but if you are depending on Exxon’s brass to guide you on oil prices you are barking up the wrong tree unless you use it as a contrary indicator, they’ve been wrong for the last $40 per barrel!!!
And I’m not sure why the Saudi Arabia markets falling mean oil is coming down in price, I read it the exact opposite. As for the risk premium, I say it’s too low.
Call me the Anti-B I guess, as I wait for when Al Qaida takes out the Saudi’ oil infrastructure. When, not if.
Well, I can type really fast but not so fast to post all of the facts. Just a few as opposed to the BS the TV turds are feeding you. Did you notice oil inventories are well beyond any time in the last five years? Do you remember what oil was five years ago when inventories were this high? Do you also know there is a direct correlation to new “traders” in the oil futures markets that have nothing to do with buyers and sellers taking inventory and that their participation has increased in direct correlation to the price of oil?
First it was Hubberts Peak. Then it was risk premium. Then it was refinery capacity. Then it was hurricanes. Then it was China and India. What the hell is the answer? They are all total bullsh*t. It is global liquidity at negative real interest rates looking for a home when the equity markets won’t give it to them. Just like housing GLOBALLY and every other commodity with an active futures market where prices have exploded versus those that don’t have an active futures markets where hedge funds can’t push the price up.
A risk premium is one thing. Is it $50 dollars? And, oh by the way, show me where Lee Raymond said oil was overvalued $40 ago? You can’t because he didn’t because it wasn’t. I’ve invested in and followed XOM for a long time. Lee Raymond is one smart SOB. Maybe the best CEO in America. They knew oil prices were going up because of the cycle low and external factors that drive inflationary commodity environments.
This is not an environment where I would ever want to be exposed to energy. The doomsayers who say we are running out of oil have no facts. It’s based on a hypothesis that is no different than me making something up. I read Hubbert’s Peak. Or what I could grind my way through because it is not meant for casual reading. The supply/demand curve has not changed in thirty years. I have a copy of it and oil supply is just fine.
Obviously, it’s just my opinion. But, there is one more thing to take into consideration. Energy related mutual funds are at an astronomically disproportionate high in inflows. Can you say gluttony? The herd? Ever see any commodity price stay high forever in the past? Nary a time. Wanna see how high inventories can go in a global syncronized slow down if and when it happens? Ten year inventory highs? All time highs? I don’t know when, how far and how fast but oil will go down.
“I don’t know when, how far and how fast but oil will go down.”
If that is the CYA statement of all time, I don’t know what is. Of course it will go down sometime, and then it will go up some other time, and then down again. No one is arguing the cyclicality here, however I AM arguing that this cycle has much further to go.
As far as Lee Raymond goes, he’s done a great job at running XOM, and a poor job of forecasting oil prices. Look back at what he said when it hit $40, he said it was going to go back down. Same at $50, same at $60, same at $70. And he’s had plenty of company in that thinking but he (XOM) did say it. As long as he and his brethren think that way, along with all the Wall Street analysts (who have also been way out of whack) this run has much further to go.
CYA? Are you kidding? I laid out a handful of facts and have many more but I won’t waste them because you’ve presented nothing but white space type with nothing to support your argument…………I guess you are used to debating with stances based on how you feel as opposed to facts. Hope those methods serve your investments well.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ lol