Amazon is up about 135% since a year ago.
Google is up about 60% since a year ago.
But most of the tech sector is about the same as a year ago.
I think specific "giants" could start the broad market crash when they fall independently. They could be the catalyst, not any sector in general.
The bond markets are starting to factor in the dangerous combination of rising interest rates as well as profit weakness in several sectors. The U.S. distress ratio - a measure of the amount of risk the market has priced into bonds - hit 20.1% in November, which is the highest level since hitting 23.5% in September 2009, says S&P. That's an onerous indicator since September 2009 takes investors back to the last recession.
Another highest-since-2009... i am at least 6 months from moving my money from oil to equities and thats only if stocks start crashing now. I will probably want to buy stocks within a year. Im already up about 25% with my oil trade so maybe it will be closer to a 50% gain by the time i transfer it over to equities. It will be fun to swoop in and grab a bunch of cheap, post crash equities. I guess im kinda boring if that is fun to me.
So Lu coded his own solution. In 2010 he co-founded FutureAdvisor, an online investment platform that uses algorithms to direct users’ savings to diversified exchange-traded funds. Depending on your risk appetite, the software automatically rebalances your account, navigating you through the world of equities. “This company was partially created to help people like my group of friends,” Lu says.
But industry leaders know that they can’t afford to shut doors on millennials. They’re already the most populous generation in the U.S., and their potential for wealth creation is huge as they approach their peak earning years; by 2020 millennials could have $7 trillion in liquid assets. “You’ve got this extra-ordinary demographic shift [away] from baby boomers,” says Fairbairn. “That’s going to lead to an aggressive market-share game.”
What im hearing is my generation is getting more involved in throwing their money at advisors with computer programs making decisions. Bad idea, it has never worked to use algorithms to make every decision. Usually they work well at the beginning but become random soon after. It could work as an extra tool if constantly tweaked by a trader who makes good decisions but that wont happen. This is new, exciting and will be streamlined with little management. It will create more opportunity for me. It is a new idea but the same concept used since computers got popular in the 90's....algorithms. the fallacy is simple. Computers are not smart, just fast at being stupid. I learned that about calculators when i was a kid.
I am not complaining, im just confirming the ignorance of average people for the upteenth time.
But as the U.S. government fiddles while the earth heats up, an unlikely hero is emerging from the shadows that may end up saving the day—Wall Street. From green investment portfolios to ecofriendly shareholders, Wall Street is helping to divert capital away from the polluters of the world to cleaner—and, in many cases, more lucrative—alternatives.
I have heard a lot about divesting from fossil fuels lately. I think its mostly about chasing potential gains. If people were serious about the environment they would be doing this every year instead of exactly while oil shows big losses. Some green investors will switch back later and use whatever excuse they can. Making good trades is about making good bets with available opportunities, not changing the world. That is a beginners mistake.
America's biggest companies are still spending hundreds of billions of dollars devouring themselves.
Share buybacks executed by members of the S&P 500 rose 16% in the third quarter, according to data from FactSet out on Tuesday.
Information technology (specifically Apple, Microsoft, and Qualcomm), financial, and industrial firms leading the way. The number of companies buying back stock during the quarter totaled 383, up from 380 in the prior quarter.
Buying back shares raises the earnings per share. So simultaneously price goes up more and EPS looks better. Another reason to not base trades on a number unless your research is extensive and takes into account exceptions. Ignore accountants, dont trust lawyers and run when both departments work together.
Moszkowski said that the late-year sell-off is a regular occurrence:
After mid-November, the markets tend to get less liquid, and every year people think it is for a different reason. This year, it is clear something is going on in energy markets, which colors high yield, and a lot of the hedge funds become much less active, and so do the traders on the Wall Street desks.
Everybody is backing off on risk for the last six weeks of the year. It happens every year. Every year we point to something different. This time it is energy, and high yield. It is always something.
What gets blamed is what people should buy. If someone had a bad year and were pushed to sell their oil assets for a loss, they should have admitted making an error by holding into all time/expansion highs and start buying more as price drifted lower.
Its true, volume dies during the holidays but sometimes things move on low volume. I still think when the market crashes it will blame the oil glut. It is slowly tainting everything.
(Reuters) - Third Avenue Management LLC has parted ways with Chief Executive Officer David Barse after the collapse of the company's junk bond fund last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The collapse of Third Avenue's Focused Credit Fund jolted Wall Street and renewed worries about the difficulty of trading securities on the U.S. bond market. New York-based Third Avenue is a relatively small investment manager with fund assets that totaled $10 billion at the beginning of the year.
Performance was bad for awhile. People had been withdrawing money making the junk bond fund shrink by about 75%.
This makes me want to watch Wall Street and Barbarians at the Gate. Hearing about junk bonds and big losses is so 80's.
It turns out that there are at least 27 major global stock markets that have fallen by more than 10 percent from peaks that were set earlier this year. As you can see, many of these stock market declines have been quite impressive…
1. China: down more than 30 percent
2. Saudi Arabia: down 26 percent
3. Germany: down about 13 percent
4. United Kingdom: down close to 12 percent
5. Spain: down 15 percent
6. Brazil: down more than 22 percent (13,000 points overall)
7. Malaysia: down 17 percent
8. Turkey: down 16 percent
9. India: down close to 12 percent
10. Chile: down 11 percent
11. Columbia: down about 30 percent
12. Peru: down more than 40 percent
13. Bulgaria: down more than 20 percent
14. Greece: down more than 30 percent
15. Poland: down about 19 percent
16. Malaysia: down 10 percent
17. Egypt: down 32 percent
18. Indonesia: down 18 percent
19. Canada: down 12 percent
20. Ukraine: down 45 percent
21. Morocco: down 13 percent
22. Ghana: down 17 percent
23. Kenya: down 27 percent
24. Australia: down 13 percent
25. Nigeria: down more than 30 percent
26. Taiwan: down 15 percent
27. Thailand: down 20 percent
We have not seen numbers like these since 2008,
Our cheap gas is keeping our equity market in its trendless, nervous wiggle. The clock is ticking. Im still buying oil stock.
Pretty sure i would buy walmart and cvs soon. Good companies in a routine industry selloff.
I guess they will basically statt the overall market selloff i have been waiting for. Low oil prices have delayed the selloff. But now numbers are looking bad even though oil is low.
Stock dropped 20% when their q3 earnings was down.
Its only considered bad compared to what analysts expected. I would buy it if it dropped another 20%
I would buy walmart below $50
Certain Retailers are falling hard.
The overall market is down almost 3% since wed.
High-frequency trader convicted in first U.S. spoofing case
By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A jury on Tuesday convicted high-frequency trader Michael Coscia of commodities fraud and "spoofing", in the U.S. government's first criminal prosecution of the banned trading practice.
The verdict may energize prosecutors to pursue market manipulation cases and spur some high-speed traders to review their strategies, in which orders are sometimes executed or canceled within milliseconds after they are entered.
"This is the clarity that people have been looking for - what exactly is spoofing, what defines it," said Trace Schmeltz, an attorney specializing in white-collar crime at law firm Barnes & Thornburg who was not involved in the case.
Coscia, owner of New Jersey-based Panther Energy Trading, was accused of entering large orders into futures markets in 2011 that he never intended to execute. His goal, prosecutors said, was to lure other traders to markets by creating an illusion of demand so that he could make money on smaller trades, a practice known as spoofing.
Steven Peikin, a lawyer for Coscia, said he was disappointed by the verdict.
"We believe this case presents many novel and complex issues, and Mr. Coscia intends to pursue all of his legal options," Peikin said.
Coscia took the stand in his own defense to deny wrongdoing. He testified that he intended to trade every order that he entered.
Prosecutors said he illegally earned $1.4 million in fewer than three months in 2011 through spoofing.
“The defendant’s trading activities disrupted the markets in his favor and against legitimate traders and investors,” said Zachary Fardon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
The trial spanned seven days, but the jury in Chicago convicted Coscia on six counts of commodities fraud and six counts of spoofing, all of the charges he had faced, after deliberating for just about an hour.
Each count of commodities fraud carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each count of spoofing carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
A sentencing hearing was set for next year.
The verdict came as futures traders and executives from around the world gathered in Chicago for an annual industry conference.
“Investors are better off when spoofers who prey on high-frequency traders are brought to justice," said Bill Harts, chief of the Modern Markets Initiative, a group representing high-frequency and algorithmic traders.
Coscia's firm had fewer than 10 employees. However, he "entered more large orders than anyone else in the world" in nearly a dozen CME Group Inc (NASDAQ: CME) markets ranging from corn and soybeans to gold after he began using two algorithmic trading programs in August 2011, prosecutors said during the trial. [nL1N12U22X]
Coscia also traded in markets run by Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE)
CME and ICE declined to comment on the verdict.
Coscia's prosecution was the first under an anti-spoofing provision that was added to the Commodity Exchange Act by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.
In April, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought criminal and civil spoofing charges against Navinder Sarao, a London-based trader accused of market manipulation that contributed to the May 2010 "flash crash." Sarao has denied the allegations.
Coscia's case is U.S. v. Coscia, 14-cr-00551, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.
But what? Why are they acting like spoofing is a new thing. Isn’t that one of the old typical methods of market manipulation? I guess its order demand manipulation which did not really exist prior to electronic trading and not even legally referred to until 2010. I guess Coscia went overboard and ‘ruined’ it for all the other illegitimate traders. Just buy low and sell high at major S/R like everyone else….such a dummy. That’s what he gets for trading based on greed instead of fun. Maybe he can whip everyone in prison into trading-shape like that horribly cheesy 80’s movie Buy and Cell. I haven’t even seen it yet because it sounds so bad. Maybe one day.
Whole Foods - WFM
The company's financial performance is one of the envies of the grocery industry. Its sales per square foot in the last quarter were $990, which is thought to be among the highest in the industry. (Trader Joe's sales per square foot are thought to be much higher, but the privately held company does not report such data.)
Whole Foods also has strong enough cash flow to finance new store development without resorting to borrowing, and almost no debt. That, combined with its low stock price, has made it a target of takeover rumors.
Its stock was hitting $60 back in march 2015, right now its at $30. Great company at half off. Its low like the rest of the grocery store industry, but it’s a solid business. Good time to start buying it. I doubt it will drop lower than $20 but could easily slip to $25 depending on the news. A takeover would speed up the stock price recovery, even better. That’s the situation im in with CAM.
In the time it takes to feed your pet, you could find the right etf-Vanguard And there is a beagle staring at an empty food bowl
Make millions trading penny stocks. And there is a picture of a guy lighting his cigar with a cash thats on fire.
Russia is now producing a record number of barrels of oil. Saudi Arabia has been producing a high number for a while now. Both are hurting from the low oil prices they are creating. Im taking advantage of it.
Im still buying cameron, soon to be Schlumburger, stock. Im basically buying slb at a bottom, so thats nice. Slb below $80 is good considering they were $120 ish a year ago. Ill keep buying my oil company until the market crashes. People are nervous as hell but it has popped back up near all time highs. Im not sure when the stock market will be -40% or more from its peak but I know its coming. Im looking forward to getting nasdaq or sp500 emini futures and using that leverage. Maybe when oil goes back up, that will create a selloff. It could be the oil glut crash.
There is usually some kind of overvaluation that collapses and gets blamed for a stock market crash.
What will be Obama's?
He has good quotes.
We have plenty of information, but we are desperate for wisdom.
Sir John Templeton made his money during maximum pessimism.
People think good things will last forever. People think bad things will last forever.
JetBlue Airways Corp (JBLU.O) said Tuesday it will make less money per mile in October than it did a year ago, sending its stock into a tailspin as investors fretted that sales would slow after bucking industry declines.
Shares fell as much as 9 percent even as third-quarter profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $198 million, beating estimates.
More nervousness. A big crash must be coming soon. People are selling on good news!
I have no clue why anyone uses it but twitter is a big internet site.
Their q3 report was basically good but since it wasnt amazing like how the analysts predicted, the stock tanked 13%.
People are stupid, and scared.
Alibaba has a good report, they jump up 8%.
Ford has a slightly bad report, they fall 5%.
The share price movements are because of fickle demand, not changes in valuation of the companies.
Since the peoples bank of china lowered their interest rate to stimulate their stock market, a few big name stocks pushed up around 8-10%
One article said the market 'went wild', but overall its been a small up day. Excitement over nothing.
Sp500 is almost back to its all time highs, filling the 10% drop. Probably gearing up for another big drop since people have no stable confidence.
"Fund managers we’ve spoken to estimate SAMA has pulled out between $50 billion to $70 billion from global asset managers over the past six months," Nigel Sillitoe, chief executive officer of the Dubai-based firm, said by telephone Monday. "Saudi Arabia is withdrawing funds because it’s trying to cut its widening deficit and it’s financing the war in Yemen," he said, declining to name the fund managers.
Saudi Arabia is seeking to halt the erosion of its finances after oil prices halved in the past year. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority’s reserves held in foreign securities have fallen about 10 percent from a peak of $737 billion in August 2014, to $661 billion in July, according to central bank data. The government is accelerating bond sales to help sustain spending.
If the sama pulls out a lot more to keep surviving low oil prices from their desperate attempt to keep market share by overproducing oil, we might be able to blame them for a market crash. They could get themselves in so much trouble that they have to sell so many assets, starting a panic selloff.
I just realized food related stocks are getting the spotlight right now.
Mcdonald's shot up 8%, hit all time highs, from a good report.
Just more nervous volatility. People are throwing their money at anything positive. What kind of morons buy at all time highs? Mcdonalds is already everywhere....are they going to double their profit from selling mcmuffins all day? Stupidly done
KFC owner Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N) said it plans to split off its China business, which has been besieged by food scandals and marketing missteps, bowing to pressure from an activist shareholder. Yum's shares rose 4 percent on Tuesday. Yum China will operate as a publicly traded company and become a franchisee of Yum Brands in mainland China, paying the parent a percentage of its sales for exclusive rights to three of the company's brands - KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The split will allow Yum Brands to focus on reenergizing its stagnating business in the United States as well as expand in emerging markets such as India. It will also give shareholders a steady stream of income from royalties while allowing Yum to take lease obligations off its balance sheet.
"The separation of these two businesses gives shareholders the choice to own a growing annuity-like franchise cash flow stream, as well as the leading restaurant concept in a country with the fastest-growing consumer class," activist investor Keith Meister told Reuters in an email. Meister, a protege of billionaire investor Carl Icahn, had been pushing for a reorganization for many months and was appointed to Yum's board last week. His hedge fund Corvex Management owns nearly 5 percent of the company. The China business, which contributed 57 percent to Yum's total revenue, will be headquartered in Shanghai. Sales in the business have fallen in the past four of the five quarters. The company cut its full-year profit forecast on Oct. 6 due to weak sales in China, sending its shares crashing 19 percent on that day. "Yum Brands is being tainted by the China business, so Yum Brands will trade at a higher multiple because it's a better business now that it's not attached to Yum China," Hedgeye Risk Management analyst Howard Penney said. Investors will now look for details on the royalty rate Yum Brands will charge the China business, and how it will lever up its balance sheet and spend the new pot of cash. Yum said on Tuesday it was on track to open about 700 new restaurants in China this year with a target of opening over 20,000 restaurants in the future.
CHINA WOES
Yum Brands entered China in 1987 through its KFC brand, making it one of the first U.S. fast-food chains to set up operations there. For years, the China business took the lead in driving sales for the company as a growing middle class frequented the restaurants that customized menus for the Chinese palate. Sales have, however, faltered in the past several quarters as the business was hit by a scandal over expired meat from a supplier. The Pizza Hut brand has been hit particularly hard due to missteps such as promoting a premium-priced steak dish as the China economy softened and due to local businesses cutting back on parties and events. Yum is also struggling to gain ground from a growing number of food delivery apps from Chinese internet firms such as Baidu Inc's (BIDU.O) Waimai and Alibaba-linked (BABA.N) Meituan that offer cheaper meal delivery deals.
China = growth/scandal trap
China is just not worth the trouble for many companies.
Oprah bought 10% of WW plus options to buy anothet 5%.
The stock went up 85%.
This is rediculous :-D
Wal-mart dropped 10% after a bad outlook was released for next year.
Sounds like retailers will be hit hard in this selloff. No mercy.
Meanwhile im checking couch cushions for anything I can include in my next futures trade. Hopefully I can borrow 5-20k to add to my own money. That way I can get my account close to $70k within a few years, even after paying generous interest.
Italy was the most advanced of europe, far behind iraq.
The Catholic church surpressed a lot, especially by not allowing their people to charge interest on loans. Venice had jews who were forced to live in an out of sight gheto but were allowed to charge interest to the catholics. The jews at the time were only supposed to charge interest to gentiles so it worked out, but wtf? It sounds so silly today.
But then the ruthless Medici crime family created the first bank, then they got super rich trading currencies and were more legitamit from then on.
My 401k provider sent me an email about a live broadcast which will be about the status and health of the stock market. There would be a group of guys speaking. They were financial planners and market strategists, including a few CFA's. No traders. Noone who earned money directly from making accurate bets on markets. Boring. I dont care to hear more about spending less/diversifying. They make money by giving advice to people who cant count.
Current and former government officials at a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston conference agreed that US financial regulators can't be expected to prevent another financial crisis like the one that hit in 2008, because they don't know yet what they need to do.
I guess they will never know what to do. Proactivity Is still a guessing game in my age. But that might be what gives me opportunity.
At the moment there are 29 stock exchanges in Africa. 20 of them were started in the 1990's or later. only 3 have over 100 listings and several have less than 20 listings. Better extremely slow, non-lucrative and late than never.
There is financial news in africa, mostly with egypt, nigeria and south africa but noone cares.
He portends doom: “Those trend-following knuckleheads on Wall Street don’t realize it (yet), but the stock market will fall without the Fed’s help, because corporate America is starting to really struggle,” predicts Sagami.
Sagami’s evidence? Just 37% of companies have increased their revenue forecasts over the last six months, the smallest number since the 2001 dot-com bust. And just 49% of stocks have seen their earnings-per-share estimates revised up, the least amount since 2012.
What this all means is that Wall Street and its “cheering-pit traders” understand the stock market is going to drop like a stone unless more central-bank stimulus is coming, he says. “Wall Street continues to tell you and me to keep buying stocks, while behind the scenes they are becoming more bearish by the week,” he says.
It all makes sense to me. Brokers make money when people buy and sell. They might as well keep bringing in buyers until its scary. Selling is inevitable when the big drop comes. The average joe is not scared of a market down turn yet even though in other countries lives are becoming ruined.
Now the healthcare sector is taking blame for the market dropping.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said the Fed's low interest rates are creating bubbles in markets for art, property and "junk" bonds.
Sp500 index could break through its -10% support level any hour now.
Pope Francis inherited a Roman Catholic Church in a unique type of crisis, an institution that was widely perceived as out of touch with modernity and unable to live up to its own eternal values. But he was also burdened with a very different kind of problem: managing a financial institution immersed in money laundering and tax evasion charges and reluctant to change.
Francis has been widely recognized for his efforts to move the church into the modern era, but his work on financial reforms at the Vatican bank, once called the "most secret bank in the world," hasn't gotten as much attention.
The Vatican bank's shadowy dealings have been well documented over the years, particularly the 1982 death of Roberto Calvi. Calvi, known as "God's Banker," was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London, his pockets stuffed full of bricks and more than 10,000 British pounds in cash. Two weeks later, the bank where Calvi served as chairman and in which the Catholic Church was the largest shareholder, Banco Ambrosiano, collapsed. The bank was suspected of laundering money from Mafia drug trafficking. The Vatican, the Italian government said at the time, was the bank's "effective partner." The Church admitted "moral involvement" in the collapse and paid creditors $241 million.
The Vatican's financial troubles became very public again in September 2010, when Italian authorities seized a 23 million euro transfer out of the Vatican bank. An Italian bank rejected the Vatican bank's request to move the money because the Vatican bank would not provide basic information -- the reason for the transaction, and the identity of the sender and recipient -- that are required by financial regulators in order to detect money laundering and other illicit activities. The lack of transparency ended up triggering a minor banking crisis, prompting other European and international banks to refuse to do business with the Vatican bank.
Someone should make a movie about this.
Mention the Chinese Dream to anyone in China now, however, and you’ll likely receive a round of salty insults exploding like lead shot.
Ask the ant tribe. They’re educated, young professionals who live in near-poverty conditions, grinding away at soul-crushing jobs—not careers—that yield no personal satisfaction and zero financial growth. Typically from rural areas, most have settled in northwest Beijing, where their living quarters are cramped and they have no personal space. They’re smart, they work hard, yet receive no recognition and can’t shake off anonymity. So, people call them ants.
“I borrowed money from my parents and invested in the stock market, then I lost most of it in the past few months,” said Xiao Xian Zheng, an office worker originally from Hebei province who graduated from university four years ago with a degree in accounting.. “My parents have never asked me about the money, but I’m sure they know and I feel extremely guilty.”
China’s stock market has seen much better days. Despite billions of yuan thrown into the market as stimulus, investors were hit with plummeting share prices. When state-backed interventions failed, the Chinese government blamed foreign powers for manipulating the financial system, then tried to arrest its way out of embarrassment. A well-respected financial journalist, Wang Xiaolu, was placed on air to “confess” to triggering stock market chaos through his reporting. The scapegoating provided little consolation to investors whose money had vaporized.
The news is covering every detail of the pope's visit to the us while Xi Ping is also here trying to promote business in china.
Most people would rather watch someone who is promoting reasonable leniency to immigrants, not bullying gay/transgendered people but respecting heterosexual marriage which is preferred, being mature christians in life overall.
SEC moves to head off runs on mutual funds
The Securities and Exchange Commission has unanimously called for rules to prevent investors' demands for redemptions in a market crisis from putting mutual funds out of business. The proposal responds to warnings from the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve that some funds would struggle to meet commitments to redeem shares if a sharp market downturn were to trigger a run.
The s&p500 is 9% off its all time high, sitting on a month old resistance level from the aug 25 mini crash.
My dad told me europeans are unable to successfully sell affordable cars in the us.
Vw had lousy profit for a long time, then for the past 5 years they supposedly changed things up and sales jumped. Not only has their sales slowed back down, but I personally experienced various quality issues in my wife's and her family's VW's. VW also got caught cheating on emissions testing with a defeat device to make their diesel models do amazing when the car knows its being tested.
Stock is down 20%.
The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II, was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower's persistent efforts to balance the federal budget. Except for a mild recession in 1954 and a more serious one in 1958, unemployment remained low, bottoming at less than 4.5% in the middle of the decade.
The main economic goal that Eisenhower pursued through both his terms in office was to achieve a balanced federal budget. The government ran a small deficit in 1954 and 1955, then registered a surplus for each of the next two years. As the nation went into a recession in 1958 and 1959, Eisenhower allowed the federal deficit to grow in order to stimulate the economy. By 1960, he managed to return to a surplus.
What I see is a very prosperous time for the US because someone focus on being responsible with the government’s money. Really? Is that the secret? You mean only paying for what you can afford is good for a government just like for an individual? Even with the typical bad things like recessions/war and good things like cheap oil/GI Bill benefits that happen every decade, their was strong, healthy growth in the 1950’s.
Since Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008—crashing the market and helping to trigger the financial crisis and Great Recession—it has mostly been selling off what was once a staggering $639 billion in assets and trying to liquidate its massive web of investments. Yet at the offices of Lehman Brothers Holdings, on the 40th floor of the Time & Life building (just 16 floors above Fortune’s offices), someone was still buying stocks as recently as last winter. The remnants of the portfolio are a reminder of just how complex—and financially vast—an entity Lehman was, and the time and effort it has taken to wind down its assets. Seven years later, that unwinding process has no end in sight.
Lehman Brothers Holdings continues to quietly manage a stock-only portfolio—albeit a relatively puny one. According to Lehman’s latest SEC filing, as of June 30 the portfolio had just under $1.2 million in assets, the only individual equity positions that Lehman currently discloses. That portfolio now holds two stocks: Texas-based marketing firm Bazaarvoice BV (its top holding at $934,000) and insulation maker Aspen Aerogels ASPN,
But in March, Lehman owned a good deal more: It reported that the value of the stock portfolio had soared to $38 million in the first quarter of 2015, up from the $1.6 million reported at the end of 2014. Lehman had apparently received a windfall early this year, with which it bought $33 million of AlcoaAA shares and $3.6 million worth of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings NCLH, exchanging the $2000 worth of UBS UBS shares that it held in December.
Still, Lehman’s current two-stock portfolio is a sliver of what it was a year ago, when it had $48.4 million invested in seven stocks: Besides Aspen Aerogels, Bazaarvoice and UBS, it also owned Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway brk.a, General Electric GE, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt HMHC, and Synovus Financial Corp. SNV. The surprise? None of those positions appear to be leftovers from a pre-financial crisis fund: Lehman bought all of those stocks in 2013 and 2014, according to Bloomberg data.
Lehman Brothers Holdings would not comment on the trades or its ongoing restructuring efforts. But a source familiar with the liquidation process confirmed that Lehman still manages an equity portfolio “primarily to maximize value to pay back creditors”—as the bank’s ultimate mission (and reason for continued existence) is to repay its debts.
They are trading to pay debt but it sounds like its being managed pretty well. Interesting situation.
The best jewish bank ever, the fed reserve, scares the public no matter what they say.
People are scared if the interest rate goes up or down.
AB inbev announced an aquisition of SAB Miller when SAB Miller was over 20% off their stock's high. That must be why Miller was already planning on shutting down their first Genuine Draft brewery. Everything makes sense in hindsight after an aquisition is finally announced. When a company's stock price is down 20-50% and they are consolidating/terminating jobs....that hints at an upcoming aquisition which is followed by a surge in the stock of the aquired company to a certain price level.
CEOs with abundant stock options get a huge payoff when the company performs well but endure minute consequences when it doesn’t. As a result, those executives tend to be much riskier and more aggressive in their decision-making. They become less thorough, increasing the probability that there will be mistakes in the design, production, and/or distribution of products.
Adam Wowak, one of the researchers, clarifies the findings:
This isn’t to say that CEO options are always the culprit when product recalls occur, but our findings suggest that recalls can potentially be an unintended consequence of using options to motivate risk-taking in CEOs.
The correlation between stock options and product recalls was strongest among CEOs who were newer to their positions. Those with more experience in the role weren’t as “susceptible” to the potential effects of stock options, and founding CEOs were “more or less immune” likely because they would rather protect their company than attempt to get a larger payout.
Our ability to trade against fear is in large part genetic.
Several traits influence how we take investment risk including personal background, life experiences, age, and gender. Gene-environment interactions are also important. But primary among these influences is our personal genetic endowment.
Consider a polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene: 5-HTTLPR. Individuals carrying the short polymorphism of this gene are more likely to develop depression in response to negative events and are more likely to experience a long-term emotional impact from financial losses. In some studies, people carrying this polymorphism experience more financial anxiety than others.
Kuhnen and Chiao (2009) had previously reported that this polymorphism biased investment preferences among a sample of university students. Students who are homozygous for the short form of the transporter - the s/s allele - took 28% less investment risk in their study.
Building on this work, Gregory Samanez-Larkin, Camelia Kuhnen, and Brian Knutson examined the investing habits, genetics, and beliefs of a group of 60 retail investors in this excellent study. They showed that all factors have some explanatory power over investment risk-taking, but that genes appear to be the strongest contributor. Our genes - an element out of control - determine the majority of our financial risk taking (the contribution of the personality trait neuroticism to risk taking is accounted for by the 5-HTTLPR variant).
This is a dramatic conclusion, and it's important to qualify that it hasn't been replicated on other genes. It's disturbing to discount the valuable notion of free will. But it's only when we recognize that much of what we THINK is in our control actually is not, that we can we then accurately forecast and plan for our errant investing behaviors.
Meanwhile, the vast herd of investors is reading news and reacting in a knee-jerk biological manner. And the saavy (and self-controlled) investor can take advantage of the surges of market fear and relief.
I have had to condition myself a lot for several years, so I guess I dont have the trading genes.
Kkd posted 'bad' earnings numbers and people went ape shit. It lost 12% overnight. People only want krispy kreme doughnuts from their actual stores. So they will probably focus on opening stores instead of retail. I dont like them so I dont care either way. Be careful, people will sell like crazy out of nowhere and they are not taking big profits. Its nervousness. If you are buying at business cycle lows like I prefer, there is nothing to worry about.
The more you learn about Disney, the more you lose respect for them.
Their stock dropped over 30% during august. Just some panic selling after slightly negative news. Disney bought $2.5 billion of their own shares. They got their shares at 20% off the high. Im thinking either they want to prevent a hostile takeover or they think they can prevent their stock from really crashing.
I read an article posted by trader Louise Yamada which showed a nice chart of margin debt as a % of GDP. it would peak really high before each market crash, especially in 2000, 2007 and right now in 2015.
Overall it was a decent article. The margin debt chart was beautiful from an objective perspective. Like watching a thousand venemous baby spiders hatching from their egg sack. Even if it scares you, it is to be respected. I have found many other reasons for a big pending drop in equities but this adds to it. If you are planning on buying heavy in about 6 months, you are in a good position. Thanks Louise.
Profits of companies in the S&P 500 are expected to drop 4.3% this quarter from a year ago, according to market data company FactSet. That would be the biggest drop since the third quarter of 2009, when the economy was still clawing its way out of a recession. It would be the first time earnings have fallen more than 1% in a quarter since the end of the recession. And it would also be the first time since the end of the recession that profits dropped for two quarters in a row. Earnings are expected to have fallen 0.7% in the second quarter.
So its another 'first time since last recession...' and I think lower profit combined with no liquidity in the corp bond market means the song is ending. 'Its time...to sayyyy....goodbyeeeee' - andrea bocelli
Oil is still a good buy but market indices could be 40% below highs within 6 months.
Brazil has had a very sharp rally in equities. A short sellers dream.
Sri lanka will stop trying to control their currency. Then their rupee plunged. Does anyone care?
Us labor numbers show a small negative change and people sell because of it. One small change doesnt say much, it changes constantly, shows how nervous people are.
An indian guy in England, I think, has been indicted for contributing to the flash crash. He had a spoofing plan, whatever that is. Executing Fagazi.
German DAX had a death cross.
Australian dollar is at a 6 year low.
Chinese military is laying off 300k soldiers. Damn.
Italians have acquired a high number of options to hedge against a big selloff.
Why you should listen
As a mathematician who cracked codes for the National Security Agency on the side, Jim Simons had already revolutionized geometry -- and incidentally laid the foundation for string theory -- when he began to get restless. Along with a few hand-picked colleagues he started the investment firm that went on to become Renaissance, a hedge fund working with hitherto untapped algorithms, and became a billionaire in the process.
Now retired as Renaissance’s CEO, Simons devotes his time to mathematics and philanthropy. The Simons Foundation has committed more than a billion dollars to math and science education and to autism research.
“What we're seeing today is not a recovery. It's market volatility, it's nervousness, it's an inability to call the direction of the market," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Damn, didnt I just say the same thing a couple days ago?
US corporate-bond issuance stagnates
No companies have issued investment-grade bonds in the US in the past 10 days, the longest dry spell, not including Christmases, since 1995, according to Dealogic.
This is interesting to me because I have a little feeling corporate bonds might take the blame for this recession some how. Its not all over the news but its basically been in its own bubble with much more than normal volatility when compared to noncorporate/government bonds. I dunno. If people start throwing it around on tv maybe they could make a shit storm out of it and blame greedy executive boards or whoever. And it has two parts. Corporate bonds are about 3.5x larger in issuance than sovereign bonds. In 2000 corp was 5 billion, sov was 4 bilion, 2007 corp was 10 billion, sov got up to 5 billion the prior year, 2015 corp is about 35 billion, sov about 8. So governments are going by normal growth while companies are probably way too high. Gotta love all that debt money coming in though. The second part is how about 85% is in foreign currencies other than USD. the world in general is contributing and probably more vulnerable than the US. To top it off, all the bonds could easily be peaking since its in a 10 day dry spell, which hints at an upcoming stock crash.
Who to blame, who to blame…
Auto sales in the US last month soared to their highest level since July 2005, fueled by consumer demand for SUVs and pickups.
An economy at a peak and oil in a trough creates a perfect storm.
Git r dun
Australia’s dollar plummets to 6 year low. The value of the Australian dollar on foreign exchange markets dropped below 70 US cents for the first time since 2009.
thats one continent on its way down...
By Leah Schnurr
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian economy shrank again in the second quarter, putting the country in recession for the first time since the financial crisis, with a plunge in oil prices taking a toll as business investment fell and inventory accumulation slowed.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has asked 36 schools in one of the country's richest provinces to teach upper primary school students "how to manage money and trade stocks", according to the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper. This will involve about 10,000 students in a pilot programme, beginning next month. If successful, the new curriculum will expand to the rest of the province, the paper says.
Im all for this kind of thing but I can tell this will be abused. The smart chinese say kids should be taught how to behave before how to place market orders. Kids are going to make their families rich and poor, without them knowing. Crazy.
I know we are probably looking at about a 50% recession selloff and not a 10% correction because everyone is talking about stocks. The media is merose on a big down day but giddy on a big up day. That means impulse has taken over. There is no faith.
Also, a large amount of money has been withdrawn from equity funds, an amount not seen since 2007.
When a firm acquires another entity, there usually is a predictable short-term effect on the stock price of both companies. In general, the acquiring company's stock will fall while the target company's stock will rise.
The reason the target company's stock usually goes up is that the acquiring company typically has to pay a premium for the acquisition: unless the acquiring company offers more per share than the current price of the target company's stock, there is little incentive for the current owners of the target to sell their shares to the takeover company.
The acquiring company's stock usually goes down for a number of reasons. First, as we mentioned above, the acquiring company must pay more than the target company currently is worth to make the deal go through. Beyond that, there are often a number of uncertainties involved with acquisitions. Here are some of the problems the takeover company could face during an acquisition:
A turbulent integration process: problems associated with integrating different workplace cultures
Lost productivity because of management power struggles
Additional debt or expenses that must be incurred to make the purchase
Accounting issues that weaken the takeover company's financial position, including restructuring charges and goodwill
We should emphasize that what we've discussed here does not touch on the long-term value of the acquiring company's stock. If an acquisition goes smoothly, it will obviously be good for the acquiring company in the long run.
For me, I cant control what happens but it would be nice if schlumberger stock is really high when my cameron stock converts over. I think the 1 for .716 plus $14.44 is set in stone. I would wait to sell slb when oil peaks again.
"The price of entering the market has just gotten cheaper, and the world isn’t that different from what it was a week ago," Kisgen, now Boston College Carroll School of Management associate professor of finance, said.
Several months from now I'll say "the price of entering the market has gotten REALLY CHEAP, and the world isn’t that different from what it was a year ago."
Everything is going down but the snowball is just getting started.
Three factors continue to hover over the markets:
1. Concerns that China's economy is slowing faster than its government has said.
2. Uncertainty over whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise its benchmark interest rate in September.
3. The effect of cheap oil, which has dropped to its lowest point in over 6 years.
Through all of this, it's worth remembering that U.S. stock indexes had hit record highs earlier this year, after logging double-digit gains in each of the last three years.
Arguably, the U.S. stock market was heating up, and weak company earnings weren't lining up with high stock prices.
The best explanation is over heating. U cant blame china, since we are all at blame since we are all connected in the same global economy, each having our own influences. The fed reserve and cheaper oil make an economy or market vulnerable but they are not to blame either. People have bought all they could buy and some need to sell to get money back, or overheated, is the real reason for this global selloff.
The S&P Futures are re-testing that 2,060 level, which is 20 points below the 200-day moving average and, more importantly, 35 points below the 50 dma, which means, if we finish down here, we can drag the 50 dma almost a full point lower and a few days like that can bend the line down and then we're heading into our 3rd major death cross sometime around the end of September.
Meanwhile, china is at their 3500 mark which the govnmnt said they will buy at to gaurantee a floor. Oh lord.
Existing home sales are the highest they have been since 2007, the year the last recession probably started.
Makes me feel better about not getting a house yet.
Time is now rapidly running out. From China to Brazil, the central banks have lost control and at the same time the global economy is grinding to a halt. It is only a matter of time before stock markets collapse under the weight of their lofty expectations and record valuations.
The article had a picture of a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. Funny
Good article though. Coverered all major signs that the selloff already began. Our world is probably 15% through the crash already. I have a feeling the crash will be blamed on oil since nothing else happening is easy for avg people to think or talk about. Oil crisis? Energy crisis? Quien sabe.
"There's every reason to believe this bull market continues," said Troy Gayeski, senior portfolio manager at SkyBridge Capital.
Really?
We are at all time highs, been going sideways for awhile, the rest of the world has been turning down or are at obviously overheated levels, it would be normal for the business cycle to slow down right now, many major companies are reporting lower earnings and worse projections........but troy gayeski believes the expansion cant end???
He is only saying that to keep getting business and delay losing his job. If the market tanks, his income might tank as well.
Cool map merril lynch boa released.
Japan is bigger than the rest of asia combined. China is small and russia is teeny tiny.
Britain is the largest in europe.
Usa is a hair bigger than the rest of the world combined.
A rare “death cross” appeared Tuesday in the chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, suggesting the stock market may have already begun a new long-term downtrend.
A death cross is said to have occurred when the 50-day simple moving average, which many use to track the short-term trend, crosses below the 200-day moving average, which is widely used to gauge the health of the longer-term trend. For the Dow industrials, it marked the first time the 50-day moving average, currently at 17,806.97, was below the 200-day moving average, at 17,813.42, since Dec. 30, 2011, according to FactSet.
Just start selling in a panic already. Its getting boring watching the market squeak by at its all time highs. Obviously the public has lost almost all its excitement to buy anything. The equity market is like a balloon tied to a chair after a birthday party. You know its going to be on the ground soon but 3 days later its still hovering above the chair. Eventually the market and the balloon should lose enough helium to start sinking.
The seventh largest economy in the world in 2014, according to the World Bank, is spiraling down, with private sector output, as Markit put it, falling at the “sharpest pace since March 2009.”
Another "worst since 2009" statement. Brazil, that huge country thats only known for steakhouses and beaches. Their economy lost steam along with china. America is hanging on pretty well, it will be the finale to officially usher in the global recession.
Im seeing isolated, brief panic selling in major companies who announce bad forecasts. Today disney was down 6-9%. Seems like recessionitis is out there and slowly spreading.
The pictures of european politicians show smiling and happiness. Descriptions of the stock sell-off in athens are using the word bloodbath.
Its the first day their market opened. The financial stocks are down about 25%. Not a buying opportunity. It will bounce around for awhile, so no big long term investment gains but good for day trading. Greece is so small compared to the rest of europe but its done everything but create a no-holds-barred streetfight between all the overweight people in suits. People are trying to compare usa influenced puerto rico to europe's greece but puerto rico is way better. P.R. has 5 times the gdp as greece and a quarter of the debt. Plus I would bet my life that puerto rico restructuring its debt wont consume the president, the fed reserve and other high officials in endless conferences and speeches. Can greece join the usa already?
The package-delivery giant’s cautious outlook runs counter to what Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said earlier this month, when she told Congress she expects the U.S. economy to keep strengthening enough for the central bank to raise interest rates “at some point this year.” The Fed’s outlook could become clearer when it releases its latest monetary policy statement on Wednesday.
It also suggests investors should take the relative weakness in UPS stock, as well as the Dow Jones Transportation Average, more seriously, as a warning that a much bigger selloff may be on the horizon for the broader market.
Duh...
The fed reserve bank is not able to predict any better than anyone else, but still they have to say something, and still people listen. Why they listen, who knows.
Im still buying cameron stock, and recently got some below $50 a share, nice. Next year I will probably figure out a way to transfer it over to sp500 emini futures.
“Large parts of the market are closed, and those stocks that are still trading are selling off regardless of support measures. Clearly something very serious is happening,” said one economist.
The long-standing assumption that the Chinese authorities know what they are doing has been shattered.
The government’s heavy-handed measures include a ban on short sales and on new share issues, as well as pressure on the 300 largest companies to buy back their own stock, and forced purchases of stocks by brokerage houses.
Many investors are effectively trapped with margin debt used to buy the stocks. These liabilities cannot be covered without selling the stocks. The longer the market remains partially frozen, the more likely it will lead to extreme stress.
The chinese market is not a market. A real market is pushed up and down on its own. Its just a list of communist- companies people buy and the communists dictate the next day's gain or loss. Stupid, a fake market.
The russians jumped into capitalism to quick and it shocked them real bad. They basically had a 20 year recession. I thought the chinese were being smarter by easing into capitalism. But now I see their mistake. They are taking baby steps but its all pretend. The booming capitalism they have is fake. So they are getting shocked after each expansion period.
Im dissapointed in both.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese shares slid more than 8 percent on Monday as an unprecedented government rescue plan to prop up valuations ran out of steam, throwing Beijing's efforts to stave off a deeper crash into doubt.
Major indexes suffered their largest one-day drop since 2007, shattering three weeks of relative calm in China's volatile stock markets since Beijing unleashed a barrage of support measures to arrest a slump that started in mid-June.
So I was honked by two different people today. I did not do anything crazy in either case and both involved a car from behind racing up to me before having to slow down anyways cuz of traffic or a red light.
This morning I downloaded q2 earnings from the cameron website. Cam basically had a significantly lower eps than q2 of last year. People got scared real quick because the stock price sold down almost 6% yesterday, but completely rebounded this morning. So the people who sold might be wondering if they made the right decision. But I say, wouldnt u expect eps to be lower this year compared to last year since oil prices are much lower. I mean, what idiots were surprised and sold out of fear???
Apple’s share price fell sharply after its earnings hit this afternoon. Shares dropped to an after market low of $119.96—about three minutes after the report hit—from a closing price of $130.75. A decline of that order, 8.3%, isn’t unheard of in after hours trading. But given that Apple is the world’s largest publicly traded company by market valuation, that equates to a gobsmacking $62 billion in value. (For comparison’s sake that’s more than the market value of asset management giant BlackRock or consumer products company Colgate-Palmolive.)
But don’t pity Apple, pity yourselves. Because Apple has the largest weighting of any company in the S&P 500 stock market index, pretty much everyone with an index fund has an overweighted position in the Cupertino tech giant. Today we are all Apple. And it hurts.
I see the typical. Everyone has a little apple, thats why it was so rediculously high, and many panicked together, starting a crash. The most valuable company in the world, an american company, just got punched in the throat. And now american equities will fall?...
Cameron stock has dropped a little lately since oil traded down. Oil traded down since the dollar traded up. The dollar traded up since the fed reserve might raise interest rates.
People are holding the same, high amount of cash they last did in 2008.
Bank of america's expenses are low just like in 2008.
All the us market needs is a catalyst that will spook americans. The oil crash came and went. China is crashing but noone cares since they are not the engine of the world like the U.S. is. Greece gets headlines but its so small noone cares, just like gay marriage rights. Something simple, big and negative which people like talking about still has to happen before the crash starts. It might as well happen now since indexes are stuck at a ceiling, going sideways. Something buzzworthy thats causes sell orders.
1. The government is essentially buying stock: The CSF is lending $42 billion (260 billion yuan) to 21 brokerage firms so they can purchase "blue chip" stocks. That's on top of what the $20 billion the brokerages vowed to buy over the weekend.
2. China is even buying small stocks: The CSF also pledge to buy more small and medium-sized stocks, although there was no specific amount given of how much would be spent.
3. New stimulus: A new $40 billion (250 billion yuan) plan announced Wednesday to foster growth in areas of the economy that need it most. China's economy has been slowing down.
4. More government spending: China will also speed up infrastructure spending that the government was already planning to do such as building roads and utilities.
5. Over half of China's stocks have stopped trading: China has allowed half of the companieson the stock exchange to halt trading in their shares.
Related: Over half of China's stocks have stopped trading
6. Big shareholders can't sell for 6 months: Starting Wednesday, controlling shareholders and board members are prohibited from reducing share holdings via the secondary market for six months. China Securities Regulatory Commission promised it would "deal with them seriously" if anyone violated that rule.
7. No more IPOs (for now): China stopped any new stock listings over the weekend.
8. Central Bank slashed rates: China's central bank has cut rates to a record low in an effort to pump more money into the system.
9. Investors have a lot of leeway now on collateral: Investors now have more options to back their margin trades. Many investors speculated on stocks -- they would borrow money to buy stock because they thought the stock would go up and they would make enough money to pay back the loan and make a profit. Chinese investors can even pledge their homes as collateral, according toBloomberg.
10. Devaluing the yuan: China's currency has fallen heavily in July against the dollar. There's speculation in the Asian press that it will slide even further. A weaker yuan makes Chinese exports to the U.S. and elsewhere cheaper, so it should help jumpstart growth.
So far, all the Herculean efforts have failed to calm the markets. According to Bespoke Investment Group, China's stock markets have now lost $3.25 trillion. To put that in perspective, that's more than the size of France's entire stock market and about 60% of Japan's market.
China is the biggest trade partner to many Latin countries, but the U.S. has tried to reassert its presence in recent months. Still, China's sluggish growth is pulling Latin America down with it.
"We're expecting very, very weak growth," says Eugenio Aleman, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. "Brazil is in bad shape. Argentina isn't much better. Chile has slowed down to a trickle...Peru is slowing down considerably."
That's just the beginning. Venezuela is arguably the world's worst economy with sky-high inflation. Next door, Colombia has the world's worst stock market this year. Its index is down 13% so far this year. The second worst is Peru, down 12.5%. By comparison, America's S&P 500 is flat this year. (Argentina has the world's best stock market, but that's more a reflection of politics than economics).
But perhaps there is a simpler explanation for Beijing’s extraordinary efforts to support equities: It created this bull market. Keeping it going is now seen as a test of the Communist Party’s strength, and possibly even its legitimacy.
If you created the boom, arguably that also puts you on the hook for the bust. For the government, this means the fallout will not just be economic, but could also be political and social too.
Since last year, stocks had been cajoled higher through a mixture of cheerleading from state media and accommodative policy measures. As the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the party, declared earlier: “4,000 points is just the beginning of China’s bullish market.”
The very visible hand of the state was involved in the systematic underpricing of IPOs and in steering margin financing towards equities for the first time. All this prompted the opening of 30 million new trading accounts this year by novice investors — many on margin — promised easy riches by their government.
Angry and exhausted after five years of pension cuts, falling living standards and rising taxes, Greeks now face closed banks, rationed ATM withdrawals and the prospect of the country literally running out of cash.
Pensioners besieging bank gates to claim their retirement benefits, only to leave empty-handed and in tears, have become a symbol of the nation’s dramatic fall over the past decade, from the heady days of the 2004 Athens Olympics to the ignominy of bankruptcy and bailout.
China's government, regulators and financial institutions are now waging a concerted campaign to prop up the nation's two main share markets, amid fears that a meltdown would rock the financial system and inflict heavy losses across an economy where annual growth is already running at a 24-year low.
Almost $3 trillion in market value - more than the entire economic output of Brazil - has been wiped out since markets went into reverse last month, posing a bigger headache for many global investors than even the Greek debt crisis.
What's happening in Chinese markets?
Fill in the blank: In recent weeks, China's stock markets have __________________.
A) Wiped out as much as $2 trillion of investors' wealth.
B) Swung by as much as 10% in a matter of hours.
C) Scared the living daylights out of millions of shareholders.
D) All of the above.
Yes, correct! The answer is "all of the above." China's stocks markets have been swinging wildly since the middle of last month. One minute shares are up 6%, the next they're down 5% and plunging into a bear market. The main Shanghai market lurched lower again Thursday, dropping 3.5%.
Companies with stock prices at $500, $800 or more per share are suddenly planning stock splits to squeeze even more wealth out of the public. There are less than 30 stocks that fit this description but it has meaning for the whole market. Demand is down, 95% chance because of a global recession and pending market crash, and splits are an easy temporary way to theoretically increase buying. Lower share prices mean poor/frugal investors are more likely to purchase it. But its possible for a sell off to start if enough people connect the split to lower demand and a lower price in the near future.
Jim cramer said splits are cosmetic and should not be the reason to buy. And I say that if people really want to keep buying, the split would not happen, so beware.
China's stock market got wrecked on Friday with the Shanghai Composite index crashing by 7.4%.
The red-hot market is now down 19% from its high, which it set on June 12.
Some folks may see this as a buying opportunity, but not the analysts at Morgan Stanley.
"[T]his is probably not a dip to buy," Morgan Stanley's Jonathan Garner said. "In fact, we think the balance of probabilities is that the top for the cycle of Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chinext has now taken place."
With the housing market stagnating, savings products offering no returns, and restrictions preventing investments overseas, China's investor class have poured their money into the domestic stock market. The number of new brokerage accounts boomed and the amount of margin debt borrowed to buy stocks surged. Even after Friday's crash, the Shanghai Composite is up 104% from a year ago.
Chinese stocks are expected to fall another 30%, that mean about 50% off the highs, a typical market crash.
The rest of the world will follow suit. Us equities should be at recession lows within a year from now. Thats when I would buy futures contracts.
I had entered a long trade in my playmoney account in may
Stop
Dont need one, I have balls of steel
Entry
1.09207. [ actually a bit lower but I forgot]
Target
1.4
Casino revenue in the world’s largest gambling hub fell for the 12th straight month in May, as China’s battle against graft and a slowing economy kept high rollers and vacationing gamblers away.
Gross gaming revenue dropped 37.1 percent to 20.35 billion patacas ($2.55 billion), according to data released by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Macau casinos’ yearlong losing streak has left the city’s economy vulnerable as output tumbled 24.5 percent in the first quarter, worse than Greece and Ukraine ever did.
In choppy trade, the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) was down 3.9 percent after diving nearly 7 percent on Thursday, when investors dumped stocks after more brokers tightened margin trading requirements and the central bank drained money to reduce flush liquidity in the financial system.
It looks like China will get things rolling. They are having crazy swings right now, mostly swinging down.
Gold looks great to buy right now but it moves slow so there is no reason for me to trade it. its all bottomed out. It would probably take 6 years to gain 50%, slowwww but good.
Have you heard of the saying “sell in May and go away”? Traditionally, the period from May through October has been a time of weakness for stocks. In fact, on average stocks hit their lowest point of the year on October 27th. And most people don’t remember this, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average actually began plunging right at this time of the year just prior to the financial crisis of 2008. Most people do remember the huge stock crash that happened in the fall of that year, but the market actually started to slide in May.
Throughout the first four and a half months of 2008, stocks moved up and down in a fairly narrow range, and the Dow closed at a short-term peak of 13,028.16 on May 19th. From there it was all downhill for the rest of the year. So will a similar thing happen in 2015 as we approach the next great financial crisis? Since March 20th, the Dow Jones Transportation Average has already fallen by almost 800 points. So will the Dow Jones Industrial Average soon follow? Well, only time will tell, but the Dow was down 190 points on Tuesday. Signs of trouble are popping up all over the place, and the “smart money” is getting out while the getting is good.
The cam shares I will have by august will probably be worth enough in a year to allow me to buy an sp500 e-mini futures contract, just when the stock market should be bottoming out. Should be good timing. If I dont have real money now to buy euros then the sp500 in a year is the next best thing. if i keep my cameron job or get another with a 401k then i could save up for another contract or two. So im good for one contract for next year but 3 would be better. I need to save up for next summer/fall. The stock market might be on clearance.
Traders warned that below-average volume in recent sessions suggests that not all of Wall Street may be confident in the market's gains.
"It doesn't matter if we're at an all-time high if there are just two guys trading a stock back and forth," said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago. "It's something to be aware of."
FRONT PAGE BUSINESS
China's richest man lost $15 billion in one hour
By Sophia Yan, CNN Money
Updated 07:26 AM PHT Fri, May 22, 2015
(File photo) Investors observe the stock market at a stock exchange corporation in Huaibei, Anhui, China.
Hong Kong (CNNMoney) — China's richest man, Li Hejun, is having a really bad week.
The chairman of solar panel firm Hanergy lost $15 billion on Wednesday when shares in the company plummeted 47% in Hong Kong trading -- in about an hour. The company saw $18.6 billion wiped off its market value.
Li owns just over 80% of Hanergy.
And there was another mystery crash in Hong Kong on Thursday. Goldin Financial and Goldin Properties, owned by billionaire Pan Sutong, nosedived more than 40%. Both companies said they had no idea why their shares were plunging,
Before Wednesday's plunge, Hanergy's shares had surged 625% over the past year, making it seven times bigger than First Solar, the top U.S. solar firm.
But the huge climb spurred questions over market manipulation.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission had been investigating market manipulation for weeks, citing an unidentified source. In recent months, the Financial Times has reported on Hanergy's accounting practices and unusual price movements.
Record fines for currency market fix - BBC News
Five of the world's largest banks are to pay fines totalling $5.7bn (£3.6bn) for charges including manipulating the foreign exchange market.
Four of the banks - JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup and RBS - have agreed to plead guilty to US criminal charges.
The fifth, UBS, will plead guilty to rigging benchmark interest rates.
Barclays was fined the most, $2.4bn, as it did not join other banks in November to settle investigations by UK, US and Swiss regulators.
Barclays is also sacking eight employees involved in the scheme.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that "almost every day" for five years from 2007, currency traders used a private electronic chat room to manipulate exchange rates.
Their actions harmed "countless consumers, investors and institutions around the world", she said.
Separately, the Federal Reserve fined a sixth bank, Bank of America, $205m over foreign exchange-rigging. All the other banks were fined by both the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve.
Cartel threat
Regulators said that between 2008 and 2012, several traders formed a cartel and used chat rooms to manipulate prices in their favour.
One Barclays trader who was invited to join the cartel was told: "Mess up and sleep with one eye open at night."
Several strategies were used to manipulate prices and a common scheme was to influence prices around the daily fixing of currency levels.
A daily exchange rate fix is held to help businesses and investors value their multi-currency assets and liabilities.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said traders had colluded for five years
'Building ammo'
Until February, this happened every day in the 30 seconds before and after 16:00 in London and the result is known as the 4pm fix, or just the fix.
In a scheme known as "building ammo", a single trader would amass a large position in a currency and, just before or during the fix, would exit that position.
Other members of the cartel would be aware of the plan and would be able to profit.
"They engaged in a brazen 'heads I win, tails you lose' scheme to rip off their clients," said New York State superintendent of financial services Benjamin Lawsky.
The fines break a number of records. The criminal fines of more than $2.5bn are the largest set of anti-trust fines obtained by the Department of Justice.
The £284m fine imposed on Barclays by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority was a record by the regulator.
Meanwhile, the $925m fine imposed on Citigroup by the Department of Justice was the biggest penalty for breaking the Sherman Act, which covers competition law.
The guilty pleas from the banks are seen as highly significant as banks have settled previous investigations without an admission of guilt.
Speaking to about 60 supporters at a house party in Iowa, Clinton said "the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top" like chief executives and hedge fund managers.
"In fact, I heard a statistic the other day that really made a big impact on me. The top 25 hedge fund managers together make more money than all the kindergarten teachers in America," she said.
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2016, has previously criticized hedge fund managers as examples of the income disparity she says she wants to end.
That’s the lesson of yesterday’s debacle for Avon Products AVP, the door-to-door cosmetics company that has been a regular subject of takeover talk. Shortly before noon on Thursday, an investment firm calling itself PTG Capital filed a document with the SEC, saying that it had offered to acquire Avon for $18.75 per share. It did not also issue a press release or use any other third party for distribution. Just the SEC’s EDGAR platform.
For context, Avon shares had been trading at around $6.50 prior to the news. Once the filing hit, however, the shares began to surge – climbing nearly 15% before the NYSE halted trading. Pretty soon, media outlets (including us at Fortune) were raising alarm bells over the supposed offer. No one had ever heard of PTG Capital before, nor did the firm seem to exist via Google or LinkedIn searches. Moreover, boilerplate in the filing twice referred to the acquirer as “TPG Capital” – suggesting that it had cribbed the language.
Also not seeming to exist was PTG’s Texas-based law firm. Neither the listed phone numbers nor addresses were legitimate. About an hour and a half after the filing first hit, Avon put out a press release saying that it had not received any takeover offer, and that it couldn’t verify PTG’s existence.
Most likely, this was a stock manipulation scam. Someone owned Avon stock, filed the bogus document and sold when shares spiked.
Harvard’s in-house fund managers get 70 pct pay hike
By Richard Valdmanis
By Richard Valdmanis
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, May 14 (Reuters) - Harvard, the world's richest university, said on Thursday it paid its six in-house money managers a combined $49.3 million in 2013, up more than 70 percent from the previous year, citing the team's "outperformance" in growing its endowment fund.
The team oversaw an investment return of 15.4 percent for the Ivy League school's endowment during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014, bringing it to $36.4 billion, or roughly the size of an average country's annual gross domestic product.
Bernanke said that early on during the financial crisis, he and others at the Fed were perhaps too optimistic about the severity of the damage that the housing bust and bad lending would inflict on financial markets and the economy. He said the economic recovery was on the right path, that there were no signs of deflation, and that the Fed would be able to exit the bond buying stimulus plan that he initiated, so-called quantitative easing, with no damage to the economy. Others have worried about what will happen when the Fed has to unload all of its bonds.
Along with the speech, Bernanke attended a private dinner, hosted by Scaramucci, for conference attendees. Fortune has learned that hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman, General David Patraeus, and William Daley, the former White House chief of staff, attended the dinner, which was closed to the press.
Germany’s current account surplus is out of control. The European Commission’sSpring forecasts show that it will smash all previous records this year, reaching a modern-era high of 7.9pc of GDP. It will still be 7.7pc in 2016.
Vague assurances that the surplus would fall over time have once again come to nothing. The country is now the biggest single violator of the eurozone stability rules. It would face punitive sanctions if EU treaty law was enforced.
With a few honourable exceptions - such as Mr Fratzscher – the German policy elites refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with their surplus policy, or even that there is any need to discuss the subject at all.
This refusal to view matters from anybody else’s point of view is testing patience around the world. Germany has displaced China as the arch-villain in the US Treasury’s reports to Congress on currency manipulation, and for obvious reasons.
Flat month for the world.
Jobless claims are low, at a level not seen since right before the dot com bubble.
Baidu growth rate is where it was right before the financial crisis.
Many numbers match up with pre-crash levels.
Im still buying Cameron stock as it tries to push above $55
The trade performance left China with a trade surplus of $3.1 billion last month, much smaller than forecasts for a $45.4 billion trade gap.
I guess they thought trends last forever. Thats like saying you were going to make$100 but instead made $7.
Canada’s housing bubble has been a sight to behold. Home prices only dipped 8% when the US housing market crashed. Then it re-soared. Now, across the country, home prices are 26% higher than they were at the already crazy peak in 2008. In Toronto, they’re 42% higher!
I wish I could build a huge apartment complex to get ready for a big shift away from homeownership up there.
A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.
Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.
The flash crash was essentially over in five minutes. But it took regulators nearly five months to come up with a theory about what happened. And in late September 2010, when the SEC and the CFTC—the same agency now charging Sarao with causing the crash—released a joint report on what happened, they didn't mention spoofing, let alone Sarao. Instead, they blamed a large trade by a firm out of Kansas City.
It's not even clear that the feds' new explanation is correct. As Matt Levine notes over at Bloomberg View, regulators believe that Sarao continued to place massive fake sell orders in the years after the flash crash, but somehow that activity never triggered another crisis:
If regulators think that Sarao's behavior on May 6, 2010, caused the flash crash, and if they think he continued that behavior for much of the subsequent five years, and if that behavior was screamingly obvious, maybe they should have stopped him a little earlier?
Also, I mean, if his behavior on May 6, 2010, caused the flash crash, and if he continued it for much of the subsequent five years, why didn't he cause, you know, a dozen flash crashes?
So I mean…maybe he didn't cause the flash crash?
I thought it was computer programs having a skynet-ish meltdown.....gotta blame someone I guess.
WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - The euro's depreciation has been very helpful, but it is a good level now and stability is needed now, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Saturday.
Too bad noone in europe will listen, im sure the euro will gain 50% within 5 years. occasionally a european makes an obvious statement, usually french or italian, which I guess never gains any momentum since the germans have the continent hypnotized.
If you know what to listen for, Tony Robbins could teach you how to trade. Everything he says is true. I really like how he described what I call buy low, sell high.....
What might look like a lost cause now can be acquired for a fraction of the cost that it’s ultimately worth. And at some point, that stock is bound to go back up. The general rule of thumb is that everything returns to the mean. So take advantage of stocks on the decline. Remember, no matter how cold the winter, there’s a springtime ahead.
And he also stressed that we should focus on Keeping losses small. Tony appeals to the average middle class, so the other 90% of the article was just basic stuff telling you not to invest like a moron.
Last yeat was an all time high for medical spending by americans and an all time high for foreigners applying for tech visas to work here.
The data shows that nationwide spending on medicine hit the highest level since 2001, up 13% in 2014 from the year before.
A record 233,000 foreign workers applied for visas to work in the U.S. tech, science and engineering industries in 2016, Reuters reports.
Most of those tech hopefuls will be upset with the answer they receive — just 85,000 of these H-1B visas can be approved each year, with 20,000 of those set aside for applicants with masters degrees.
At every market top, you get the dumbest of the dumb buying because they don’t want to miss out. Yes, even pros can be dumb — especially if their peers are doing better than they are.
ETF's have been attracting these geniuses. Over $1.25 trillion is currently in etf's. That's what all those tv commercials are for.
WASHINGTON — Steady hiring is supposed to fire up economic growth.
Cheap gasoline is supposed to power consumer spending.
Falling unemployment is supposed to boost wages.
Low mortgage rates are supposed to spur home buying.
America's economic might is supposed to benefit its workers.
Yet all those common assumptions about how an economy thrives appear to have broken down during the first three months of 2015.
Luxury car sales are up.
The stock market is basically trading opposite of oil, so that should lead to a rise in my cameron stock with a decline in the stock market. Exactly what I want. Maybe a year and a half rom now I will be selling cameron and buying the market, we'll see.
The median 401k account is about $18.5k. And that is right now after a 5 year bull market, so half of that could be gone in a year.
I plan on having that much after the first 2 years but most of these other people must have accounts older than that. To me, its crazy how people invest so poorly. Im putting $5k in my account each year. But thats easy for me to say. I have been really interested in trading for almost 8 years now. Most never learn more than what I learned in my first few months.
Some people may not put in as much as I do or they may put in much more. Percentage gain is best to compare, if it were possible. But if I can grow my account larger than the median within a few years, then that means my account could double every 3 years or so. My account growth would be steep.
Competition is not fierce, its scarce.
After two world wars Germany learned they should take over europe economically...is that a word? The EU is basically a half-ass version of the united states of europe. But its half-ass on purpose. Germany got everyone to buy more german goods while germany produces more goods. The overall efficiency of this has kept and or created wealth in europe but most of the benefit is felt in Deutschland. The eu is keeping countries like spain, greece and eastern europe in a stagnant recession permanently. Either the eu will fade away over time or it will become the united states of europe, an actual nation. It cant stay the same. Once eastern europeans who remember communism die, the people will more likely understand how the germans are screwing them over.
Tesla is struggling to sell their expensive luxury cars in china, where hardly anyone can afford a $100k car and almost everyone lives in apartments with no plugs outside.
A picasso painting l'femme d'alger is estimated to sell for $140 million, a record. Sounds like a market crash is coming.
Another confirmation that the economy is at a top, large companies are going public with unusually bold plans to expand.
Nintendo wants to start making cell phones.
Apple might make a car.
There are 3 different stocks that I would buy in my 401k.
A total bond market fund- rising
A total stock market fund- peak
Cameron stock (oil ind.)- valley
I will keep buying cameron until the total stock market fund drops about 40% or so. then i will buy that. I will sell CAM when it is atleast $90 since im buying it around $45.
I will try to constantly buy low and only sell high. Im not sure what I will buy if all 3 are high but maybe I could add a 4th, the stable value fund.
Wish I could buy the euro, its at 12 year lows today, dang.
The euro is almost equal to the usd. This has happened from the perfect storm of a crash in oil prices, problems with greece and ukraine, ecb will buy over a trillion in bonds, currently a strong-sounding american economy with low unemployment (also cuz of low oil prices, even with layoffs in the oil industry). Buy eur/usd like a maniac if u can. there is no fundamental change anywhere, just a big hiccup from the oil sell-off and thats almost over.
Buy at 1.10 or lower, could sell at 1.50 within within a few years if u want to wait that long.
Too many people are interested in startups, or new companies. There is excess money and time.
Im hearing about buyouts and mergers everyday. 10 yr and 30 yr bonds look great to buy. I think they are basically at their bottom, wish I had a load of cash to throw at them. Oil wants to trade up but typical 3rd world issues are slowing it down. Apple and cigna, my insurer, are both at the moon right now. Apple is putting a lot of effort to keep people talking about them, im assuming because someone wants to cash out as high as possible. The ceo of cigna already cashed out to pocket nearly $30mil. Damn. Overall equity is a little trendless. The news stories are rediculous and that is telling me selling will start soon. Llamas running loose in arizona, everyone arguing over the colors of a dress. I think the selling could start after tax season and when gas prices go back up.
Im hearing things that only happen when the economy has topped off and is ready to crash. The ceo of Disney made almost $47 mil last year which was 35% higher than the year before. Im pretty sure the crash in oil prices officially put us in a recesion, at a time when the rest of the world has been slowing down a lot. Europe's eurozone is in trouble as usual. They might lose greece but gain ukraine, which putin and the russian/ukrainian mobs are busy making plans for. India and china have slowed down. Japan is in a good position since oil is way down and when japan is doing good, you know something is wrong. All that plus it is Obama's last year, so it would make sense to me if the stock market crashed (while a lame duck democrat prez is in office) just in time for a heroic republican to get elected and save us from the recession purely caused by the evil democrats. Im thinking a stock sell off starting in 2015. 2015 is a year to plan purchases. My company, wealthy businessmen, everybody, including myself should buy things we need this year. I want to save up money for trading but at the moment I am thinking about getting into a house and a newer car. Mortgage rates will stay low from the low oil price/recession going on and maybe I can get a good deal on the cadillac I want when people stop buying cars.
Lately I have seen articles refer to 'bad numbers' being reached for the first time since 2008 or 2009, the financial crisis. I feel like we are about halfway through a recession right now even though noone is talking about it. Maybe the stock market will drop more this summer and then people will call it a crash of 2015, oil supply crisis or something. I would call it On Sale. Im putting 6% of my income to my 401k and cameron is matching another 9%, all going into cameron stock currently 40% off its high,and that will be the extent of my trading for a while until I can save up money again.
