Consumer confidence soars!

"Look, at business school we had a pretty simple rule when looking over all of the case studies that our professors would throw at us. This rule honestly saved me from jumping off a bridge during exam time: if it is too complicated, then you're over-analyzing it."

Ever heard of this guy William Ockham?

"the market conditions resemble the pause in the slide seen in 1930" ... yes, that's the year I wanted Enrica to identify, but true to type he wouldn't even *look* at the Depression analogy. I'm picturing that total head-turn-away when an infant is done with his spoon-feeding session.

ericho: you said, "The yields for 10 year bond market is about to bust a move. The biggest debt market (bond) is screaming out and clear. Things are not as bad as it seems."

Did you happen to catch PIMCOs El-Erian on CNBC 5 min ago? He specifically said, "the 10YR move has been huge, going from 2.9 to 3.5 in a matter of weeks and that is NOT for good reasons, it is for bad reasons. The market is starting to price in concerns over issuance, over ratings of soverign debt, over the worries of inflation..."

Exactly. You mis-interpret the bond move that it is a signal of looming recovery, when that is NOT what is moving the treasury markets right now.

When the CNBC video is up, I suggest you watch it and see what he is talking about.

Then explain why are lower grade bonds also rallying? Investors are rotating from safer debt to riskier debt. Tell me the smartest folks in the house are all complete idiots.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=SHIAX#chart2:symbol=shiax;range=6m;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

ummm, have you checked in on what the fed has done in the past 18 months? And did you wonder WHY they did what they did? Of course HY and IG bonds are rallying, as credit tightens from big time distressed levels.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1134277581&play=1

Watch it

Hey Noah, hope you've been holding those TBT shares.

They've now outperformed my OIL shares.

=D

Alanhart,
Jezzz.....give me a break.
"the market conditions resemble the pause in the slide seen in 1930"

Do i really need to answer this question? Unemployment rate was north of 20% during the great depression, we're not even in double digits today. We're no where near there now.

ericho, they measure unemployment differently today. the U6 is at 15%.

"Then explain why are lower grade bonds also rallying? Investors are rotating from safer debt to riskier debt. Tell me the smartest folks in the house are all complete idiots."

Weren't those smartest folks in the house the same ones who owned high yield at 8% yields and leveraged loans at par / L+200-ish spreads in 2007, then rode them down to 20% yields for HY and 65 cents on the dollar for loans? And now the argument is that they are still the smartest folks in the house because the Fed opened the spigot and the world doesn't seem to be ending anymore and levels have come back to the point where the smart guys made back half their losses? That seems to be a new definition of "smart."

Ur,
If fundamentals and market internals are as weak as you mention then these distressed debt should be worst off. Did you see that rallying!!!

methodology was completely changed! U6 is at what 15% now? Man, ericho, you need to study up more.

MMAfia - no I sold my TBT at 52.50, doh..took loss on first trade in it, then bought back on selloff and took gains..thought fed purchases would depress it a bit. Doh..Got my gold though

did you see the pace of decline? Of course it cant go on like that forever. Its not worth the time to sit here and argue with you.

Eunich - Hmm, maybe it's because several large pensions gave several billion $s to a couple of the larger distressed HF to invest in lower quality credits with no performance fees, only mgmt fees - since there was virtually no bid over the last 4-6 months, that amount of money has moved the lev loan and HY mkts up significantly as they chase offers - and since they're only getting mgmt fees, they're incentivized to put the money to work, not maximize returns. But since you obviously have no clue about what's really going on I wouldn't expect you to know about simple things like this.

I've mentioned that the comparison is not valid because commodity prices are rallying today; some are even at prices never seen before in the prior 100 years! Commodity prices didn't rally until the late 1930s which was almost 1 decade after the start of great depression hit.

Based on what you are saying, we should crash and burn by year's end. Is that correct? The market lost close to 80 after the secondary top in the 1930.

ericho, you are dense. the government is funneling large amounts of money and credit to the financials. the money is still in the system and has nowhere legitimate to go. MORE BUBBLES. If they keep this afloat they are just kicking the issue down the road, where it will become even harder and more painful to deal with.

THINK. Where is the current demand for commodities, other than a few areas of shortage that might have occurred due to the credit crunch? Where did the demand for dollars come from? Where is there any legitimate demand? Excess money.

i'm stealing this from Riversider, from the links to important economic new thread. this is from the Financial Times (which you might want to start reading, ericho, if you'd truly like to understand the economic world we live in):

By John Dizard

Published: May 27 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 27 2009 03:00

With all this reflationary work by the central banks and governments, don't you wonder what the new cash is buying?

Know anyone who's getting a new Porsche? Suezmax tanker? Damien Hirst pickled shark? Semiconductor test equipment?

Didn't think so. Neither do I. But the cash is going somewhere, such as into credit and credit derivative speculation.

A few months ago, you might not have expected to see those words again, outside congressional or parliamentary hearing transcripts. But that's what's been going on since March.

The credit specs are back. After all, if the dictates of style and tax auditors say you have to go easy on conspicuous consumption, and if there's no demand for the products of real capital spending, then you might as well take your cash to the track, or the corner credit default swap dealer.

Credit hedge fund managers, and even the banks' own desks, have uncoiled themselves from their foetal positions, and are back taking advantage of what are either risk-free arbitrages or value traps, depending on how the next few months go.

If I were them, I might be taking the money made in the past two and a half months off the table. But then I don't have to be reaching to get past a high-water mark.

"I am totally mystified by this rally," says one friend of mine in the credit fund trade.

He's made money on both the downside and the upside during the past year, and generally isn't at a loss to describe the parallelogram of forces, as they say in classical mechanics.

"Look, the system has taken out some of its financial leverage, but the economy still has too much excess capacity that will have to be dealt with. If we sit in the muck for five years [low growth], then there will be a tremendous number of defaults." That isn't being priced in to credit spreads.

Even after they've been reviled by talking heads and politicians from here to Ulan Bator, credit default swaps are still a very low-cost way of putting on speculative positions, as long as they still trade. And so, thanks to the Geithner Treasury's policy of reform, rather than dissolution, CDS trading has regained a vampiric strength the real economy still lacks.

Some specific credit sectors have done particularly well, such as retailers and chemicals. "They are just too expensive," says a German volatility trader. "JC Penney has gone from 800 or 900 over [the swaps curve] in the five year down to 190 to 200. That shows not [only] short covering, but [also] people jumping in after that." The consumer-dependent retailers and cyclicals such as the chemical companies still have issues with real-world demand, but the credit market people only see them as sources of cheap beta. For now.

The intrinsic leverage of CDS trades makes it possible to hope the portfolio manager might actually get paid a bonus some day.

For five-year CDS on credits such as those back-from-the-dead names every basis point on a $10m position can be worth $3,500 to $4,000.

Apart from going outright long "cheap" credit, there are, once again, fun games such as the "negative basis trades". That is, you can own a corporate bond, or emerging market sovereign bond, buy default protection on the paper with CDS, and collect interest payments for taking no risk. That's right: because CDS prices are depressed, relative to the comparable bonds, you can collect money for taking no risk.

A couple of years ago, someone might have said there was a risk that a CDS counterparty, such as, hypothetically, AIG, might get into trouble, and you would be unable to count on that leg of the trade. Then a risk-free arbitrage could turn into a money trap.

But thanks to Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, and the rest of Team USA, that risk is no longer seen to be a problem. So you can now collect a couple of hundred basis points of risk-free money, as long as you have a line of credit with a dealer.

You may not be able to use credit markets to make reliably secured loans to auto companies, but the system can be used to collect more than 100 basis points of fully credit risk-hedged income from 10-year Turkish state bonds.

To be sure, not everyone has the nerve for this sort of game, risk free or not. The big problem is that while you don't have credit risk, or, thanks to the taxpayers, counterparty risk, you do fatten up the balance sheet in the process. As a recent Barclays Capital publication put it: "Some banks are still holding back on bond financing in order to shrink their balance sheets in advance of Q2 reporting, but interestingly, some hedge funds that still have cash are taking their places, seduced by rates of nearly 2 per cent over Libor and the ability to manage counterparty risk through tri-party repo arrangements." In a perfect - or even a functional - world, the Law of One Price would prevent such fat arbitrages from opening up. Until that day arrives we have to make do with what's at hand: Steve Rattner to run the auto industry, and negative basis trades for credit portfolios.

"THINK. Where is the current demand for commodities, other than a few areas of shortage that might have occurred due to the credit crunch? Where did the demand for dollars come from? Where is there any legitimate demand? Excess money."

You really need to get out of StreetEasy and do some reading. There are billions of people in Asia that will eventually join the working class. Where are the shortages? Everywhere. Agricultural goods coming out of 8 month consolidation. Who's consuming all this food?

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=DBA#chart1:symbol=dba;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

And the lifeblood (oil) of all economies, why is it still trading in the high 50s? Wasn't it just a few years back that the 40+ number will sent us into an economic shock?

OMG, i need to do some reading? you ignorant twit.

"Eunich - Hmm, maybe it's because several large pensions gave several billion $s to a couple of the larger distressed HF to invest in lower quality credits with no performance fees, only mgmt fees - since there was virtually no bid over the last 4-6 months, that amount of money has moved the lev loan and HY mkts up significantly as they chase offers - and since they're only getting mgmt fees, they're incentivized to put the money to work, not maximize returns. But since you obviously have no clue about what's really going on I wouldn't expect you to know about simple things like this."

The bond market dwarfs the stock market. It makes me laugh to even think a few large pensions can move this market.

pimco

You guys are all calling for a total destruction of this country (great depression). I'm just saying, i'm not seeing it. As of today, i know of only 1 person that got laid off working in NYC. ONE! It's not like this person can't find work, he just doesn't want to go back into the corporate world.

My friend...most pension funds and funds managed by Pimco are not allowed to play 'junk' debt.

ericho has a point on commodities (first time for everything as he seems otherwise quite clueless). not every commodity at this exact moment, but in many key commodities over time. He's right that Asia is the game-changer; perhaps this is hard to appreciate when the US is in the dumps and everyone thinks there will never be any demand for anything anywhere ever again.

"OMG, i need to do some reading? you ignorant twit."
There you bears go again...more name calling. Do all you groom and doomers do that?

sidelinesitter, long-term yes. maybe even medium term. but today? to say that there is greater demand for commodities currently than there was a year or two ago? there's no way. electrical consumption is down across most of Asia. Korea is coming out of it, but the rest still seems to be in decline, albeit at a slower rate. China's a wild card but their growth isn't internal consumption thus far, it's primarily export-driven. this current commodities run up is just that.

"As of today, i know of only 1 person that got laid off working in NYC. ONE! "

do you want to be taken seriously? If so, i would avoid these kinds of statements.

sidelinesitter,

"....(first time for everything as he seems otherwise quite clueless)"
Thanks for the support. Look, i'm not saying housing prices are going to rocket back up. I actually think prices will stay soft for a number of years. I also think there's nothing wrong with owning as long as your fiance says it's okay.
In regards to the economy, we just witnessed a biggest debt collapse of our time and this economy has fared pretty well. Don't believe me...look at the retail stocks. It's only 25% from the all time highs.
It has outperformed the major averages in every way.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=RTH#chart2:symbol=rth;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Why is that? How we be in the meat of this so call 'great depression II' if the retailers are all holding up so well.

ericho, a retail ETF is holding up. far cry from all retail holding up. and once again, you ignore the fact that in recessions competition dies, the remaining take market share. do you think Best Buy isn't doing better because Circuit City tanked? will Barnes & Noble benefit from Borders woes, both now and as Borders comes closer to bankruptcy? is BB&B doing better after Linens & Things went under? many small to medium-sized retailers are gone. which is why many big box retailers aren't feeling as much pain, which is why Goldman/Redbook (although not Redbook this week) numbers are frequently up even though retail as a total number is down.

AR,

"you ignore the fact that in recessions competition dies, the remaining take market share."
Recession? B I N G O!

Yes, we are in a recession...not a DEPRESSION!!!

find one instance in which i said we were in a depression. i still don't think it's an impossibility going forward a year or two from now if we don't treat the disease and just bandage the symptoms.

but we are in a recession, a severe and protracted one. and the fact that the powers that be have convinced a few thousand consumers that things aren't so bad, and some think that's good news because then they may go out and spend some more money that they ought not to and they don't really have and they may need in the future more, just to keep the bloated gasseous machine running a bit longer so some people can reap ill-gotten gains, doesn't really do it for me in the positive column.

AR,
I apologize, it was urbandigs made the comparison to the great depression. This recession have lasted over 2 years now. What solutions do you recommend? How else can we treat these problems? Let all these failed business (auto, banks and financial companies) die? Let's be true to ourselves, no one got the answer to solving these problems. Our governments are doing their best to avoid total catastrophe. And the bandages are helping. I've showed you charts and data from all segments of our markets (stocks, bonds & commodities) to indicate that. You can ignore the indicators, but they are trending up. You have to take it as what it is NOW...sure it can be a bear market rally, but until the prior lows get taken out, the road to recovery have officially started.

thats the thing. Everyone keeps accusing us of calling and wishing for a depression. Its just so off base. If anything, we are being realists here and acknowledging the situation we faced, what we face now, and what unintended consequences may be ahead. I just cant believe those that get all giddy and call for a recovery because we are losing 450,000 jobs a month instead of 600,000 jobs.

Take out the B/D model, and its way way way worse than what we are being told! Do you know that the B/D model assumed in 2008 that new businesses added 904,000 jobs! YES ADDED! As in hired! As in that is what was calculated into non farm payrolls data that was dished out to us. ITS MADNESS if you believe this!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/SWdrh8BTkmI/AAAAAAAAFK8/cwmQYSCqtgI/s1600-h/BirthDeath2008-12.png

PLUS, how many times has the data been revised DOWNWARD now for past reporting? Like 7 months in a row or something. How does anyone keep believing and worse, keep building hope, on this? People dont learn and choose to ignore reality.

August 2008: Initially 84,000, revised to 175,000
September 2008: Initially 159,000, revised to 321,000
October 2008: Initially 240,000, revised to 380,000
November 2008: Initially 533,000, revised to 597,000
December 2008: Initially 524,000, revised to 681,000
January 2009: Initially 598,000, revised to 655,000
February 2009: Initially 651,000, as released today.

On average, from August through January, the first estimate was too optimistic by 112,000 jobs.

when did I call this a depression? The farthest I ever went was to discuss the similarities of Fishers Debt-Deflation Theory, which was formulated after studying the depression.

And it is exactly what we are seeing today. debt-deflation! deleveraging..credit contraction. If you dont agree with this, I dont know if you will ever get it

Actually, there are quite a few good ideas out there. Our government doesn't have the desire or the guts to implement them. Instead they keep propping up the insolvent, or near insolvent, hoping that time will prove their friend, when huge waves of negatives are just waiting to roll down upon us (and are rolling as we speak, did you see that Class A Manhattan commercial rents are now going for two-thirds off peak pricing?).

bandaids on a cancer.

ericho, stocks, bonds and commodities are NOT the economy, just a few pieces. excess money chasing insufficient real assets. that's all it is, don't confuse it for more. i really do want to crawl out of my cave. i'm a realist by nature, but generally a very positive one, and this is getting more than a bit tiresome.

Urbandigs,
You did make the comparison between this credit contraction with the great depression. Did you not?

AR,
I heard of some of these ideas, but they are just not feasible. One of them was to let these insolvent companies die off. We all know how that went with Lehman. I won't use the term bandaids, more like chemo on the cancer. There are signs that it's working. For instance, look at the Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America and a number of other financial service companies. Recent news is they were able to raise new capital to pay back the TARF. Earnings for Wells Fargo and Citibank came in well above expectations. Now, if these are terminal patients how can they raise the new capital to pay off the loans? How are these banks able to do better than expected in this environment?

Could you at least acknowledge that it could be possible that things be be easing up a bit?

ericho, you see we bears have a problem (some, unfortunately, don't see it as a problem but they probably have issues we don't want to discuss here). many of us firmly believe that any improvement now without fixing certain fundamental issues will only cause greater future pain. kind of like that '30s scenario.

they were able to raise capital in a falsely inflated stock market. they still will have huge capital shortfalls. and regional banks are cratering. they are alive because the government is selecting them for life, at the potential expense of the taxpayer.

i'm not saying let them die off. take them over.

do i think that due to central banks' frantic reinflationary efforts that disaster has been avoided, at least for now? yes. do i think that at some point manufacturing will increase, if only somewhat, to restock shelves because they will run down eventually? yes.

do i think the consumer is healthier than last month? absolutely not. do i think the consumer will become weaker over the next year, at least? absolutely.

Why does ericho keep confusing NYC with the rest of the country.

Bulls said Manhattan was SO different for years. Now, suddenly, its supposed to follow the national movement?

Sorry, but if you didn't notice, we're about 2 years behind that... (and can you think of a bigger loss in incomes than Wall Street)?

one page up on this thread, columbiacounty and I got into it a little bit about the state of the economy, and specifically auto sales as evidence of same. It seems that the Times sides with him/her on this one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/business/31car.html?hp

thanks for pointing this out...if gm successfully gets out from under its debt and pension obligations (which no doubt sucks for those people) i don't understand why it cannot be resized to make money at a much lower rate of car sales. i still don't understand how the gov't is going to handle their ownership of gm and chrysler and how we as taxpayers and ultimate ownes want them to. on the one hand, it would seem to me that the government should only buy from chrysler and gm but, of course, if i were ford i would go crazy at that thought. ah---what a world.

"You did make the comparison between this credit contraction with the great depression. Did you not?"

The last time we experienced DEBT DEFLATION like this was the Depression. I did NOT call or predict for a depression. Get it straight.

I am curious about a view that the economy won't start the recovery process until the fundamental problems are fixed (or addressed). I lived through the past two economic downturns after I had moved to NYC, and the economy (particularly the NYC economy) started recovery and expanded without all major problems being fixed or despite the continuing existence of some of those problems. I am not in the finance business. Why is this time so different from the past downturns that the fundamental problems need to be largely addressed before there is any true recovery?

Ericho and other posers can chew on the Barron's article below. As for consumer confidence, the reason it was higher was because the throngs were (temporarily) feeling good about their 401k. That doesn't mean it will translate into consumer spending.

From last weekends Barron's.

The Housing Hurricane Will Howl Again
By MIKE MORGAN
This is only a lull in the housing hurricane.

WE'RE OUT OF THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE, but here comes the back half of the storm. A lot of people think that we've seen the worst of the housing crisis. They're talking about green shoots and glimmers of hope, when they should be back in the storm shelter, preparing for a flood of inventory that will overwhelm the markets and produce another round of falling prices

For the past few months there has been a semi-moratorium on foreclosures. Most institutions with delinquent mortgages didn't foreclose. The signs that blanket many neighborhoods have been posted by a fraction of the lenders. Now the rest of the banks are rushing to get their properties on the market.
[ov]
Christoph Hitz for Barron's
We're still supporting misguided programs that only add to inventory woes. They encourage builders to put up more homes and penalize anyone else trying to sell a home.

As a Florida real-estate broker who works with bank asset managers to dispose of foreclosed properties, I get a good view of this market. From December 2008 through mid-March 2009, the number of asset managers calling to discuss REO (real estate owned) properties on their client banks' books dropped by more than 80% from the level at which it previously had been running. In the past two months, however, asset managers have been busy, with most interested in how many properties we could handle at once.

Law firms for banks are once again lining up to file foreclosures and to process evictions. The asset managers we work with have warned us to expect a flood of properties, beginning in early June. This will hit as the number of potential buyers continues to dwindle. Builders, traditional sellers and investors who entered too early are already loaded with REO properties.

ALL OF THE OBAMA administration's attempts to revive, resuscitate and shock the housing markets into recovery have failed. Potential buyers can't purchase homes when they are losing their jobs, regardless of how attractive the credits and mortgages are. The price of homes will continue to fall until the properties are affordable for potential buyers.

If an investor could purchase a home and rent it out for close to breakeven, we might be getting close to a bottom. But we are nowhere close to that level in most critical markets. Until it is approached, prices will continue to fall. In fact, the negative cash flow now evident, along with the flood of properties coming into the inventory pool, warn of lower prices.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet. We're still supporting builders through misguided programs that are only adding to the inventory woes. California decided to offer a $10,000 credit to buyers of new homes, on top of the $8,000 federal credit. But California made the $10,000 available only for new homes purchased directly from builders. That shows the power of the builders' lobby, but it only adds to California's housing-industry problem. It encourages builders to construct dwellings we don't need, and it penalizes anyone else trying to sell a home.

Housing inventory soon will flood a market in which more than 500,000 homes are being built each year, even though the annual sales pace for new homes is closer to 300,000. We must also deal with a system clogged with impossible short sales, a surge of second and vacation homes being dumped, and third-wave flippers realizing that they entered the market too soon.

FOR THE BANKS, the back half of the hurricane will destroy balance sheets, unless the Obama administration comes up with another plan to mythically mark these assets on the books. Or we might see some chimerical plan to write down mortgage payments, or move toxic mortgages into a dark pool, or create some new illusion that glosses over the problem.

Our experience with banks' selling REOs is they realize about 50%-75% of what they initially think they will get. Moreover, their expenses to bring these properties to market and manage them are growing. Court systems bogged down with foreclosures are raising fees so that they can hire additional staff. More and more homeowners being evicted are stripping homes to the bone, removing appliances, fixtures, carpet, cabinets, air handlers, motorized garage-door openers and anything else that they can carry off or sell.

Unemployment presents a two-pronged problem. If homeowners lose their jobs, they have difficulty meeting mortgage payments. And a high jobless rate forces more people to put their homes on the market.

During the housing bubble, many second homes were purchased with the mythical equity from primary residences. These second homes are coming onto the market at an alarming rate, as many middle- and upper-class sellers need to raise cash. In some very exclusive private communities in Florida, where home prices are in the seven figures, more than 50% of the homes are on the market. (For more on the vacation-home market, see Cover Story.)

Unfortunately, there are no signs of recovery, despite the hype and the twisting of numbers in many media reports. The end of the unofficial moratorium on foreclosures, combined with rising unemployment, signals that the back half of this housing hurricane is only just beginning.

MIKE MORGAN is a real-estate broker in Stuart, Fla., He owns Morgan Florida, which offers residential, commercial and investment real-estate services and research.

AH, what use would erico have for facts and logic?

Yes, whenever a bear post data and news article it's a fact.
When my links are posted, they're fakes. Dow isn't at 8,700...fake...every positive economic article that's been written is fabricated...Prof Roubini was tied up by the bulls and forced to make the 'light at the end of the tunnel' speech..fake....not real...it's all a dream.

So, I guess the leaving was a lie.

No one disputes where the dow is, they simply dispute the ridiculous illogical conclusions (which aren't supported by facts or logic).

ericho75 - I know you're a busy guy and you don't always have time to update your old threads, and since you're also so objective and would surely want the record to be complete, I thought I'd lend a hand getting out the news on the latest consumer confidence numbers.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aZ0abDG6JQ4w

"Confidence among U.S. consumers fell more than forecast this month, reflecting unemployment approaching 10 percent and higher gasoline prices.

The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment decreased to 64.6, the lowest since March, from 70.8 in June. During the expansion that began in late 2001 and ended in December 2007, the index averaged 89.2.

Unemployment last month rose to the highest level since 1983 while lower home values and rising gasoline costs are eroding Americans’ wealth. The report signals that consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of growth, may remain subdued even as the economy starts to recover."

...and so on

"aboutready
about 20 months ago
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i am so f'ng tired of people putting up numbers out of context. ericho gives us the numbers from the Richmond Fed for manufacturing. are those numbers meaningless, of course not. but to not indicate that, and to just present it as proof manufacturing is doing better, is a pile of shit."

THIS IS HILARIOUS!!!
HAHAHAHAHAA!!!

I've said it 20 months ago, and i'll say it again. Listening to folks like AR and W67thstreet will make you go broke.

Read this thread again and get a good laugh.

You'll see who saw this turn in the economy and who had their heads in a barrel.

"aboutready
about 20 months ago
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ericho, stocks, bonds and commodities are NOT the economy, just a few pieces. "

The chairman of the FED could argue that.
QE1 and QE2...

"urbandigs
about 20 months ago
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Im short stocks right now, and I rent. I think there will be a great time to buy stocks for long term investing, but Im not buying now after a 38% rise."

Noah,
I hope you covered. Yikes!

Noah,

20 months ago i wrote this...

"ericho75
about 20 months ago
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Inflation/hyperinflation is not the direct cause of 'wage' increase. It never was and will never be.
It's simply the velocity of money creation gone haywire."

With unemployment still high and QE1 completed and we are more than half way done with QE2 can we agree that inflation is not a direct cause of 'wage' increase.

http://finviz.com/futures_performance.ashx?v=16

:)

> Read this thread again and get a good laugh.

Yes, ME!

> You'll see who saw this turn in the economy and who had their heads in a barrel.

Correct, me again! Thanks for noticing!

"nyc10022
about 2 years ago
SSO... double long S&P.

We're talking about buying opportunity of the decade. And, hey, if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter... money won't be worth anything anyway."

Once again... I told you so... stocks, not RE!

Everyone likes a know it all.