sundrenched

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19 Comments

    • Fri Nov 21st 23:43 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      5-1/2 Ways to Make the Market Rally
      "we have bubble in real estate prices. they have over run the buyers ability to pay, and streaked ahead of the cost to rent. "

      I agree with that, but was anyone pointing a gun at their head when they signed on the dotted line? As a matter of fact, I walked away from a 160k a year job in DC in 2004 because I felt the real estate market had escaped beyond my reach, and I didn't want to become an endentured mortgage slave. At the time I was wondering how everyone else was making that kind of money and what I had done wrong. Turns out most were biting off more than they could chew. So well, let them chew it anyhow. If they really can't make the payment on their 20-year mortgage, make them take a 30 or 40-year mortgage. They agreed to buy, and now they shouldn't be able to walk away.
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    • Fri Nov 21st 20:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      5-1/2 Ways to Make the Market Rally
      In this environment, I prefer pragmatism over ideological purity. At the present time, short-selling is part of several negative feedback loops the economy is in (via effect on consumer confidence and companies' ability to raise funds). The government should pull all the stops so we have merely a severe recession rather than Japan's 2 (and counting) lost decades.

      Short-sellers like to defend themselves that they aid price discovery, but lately that's just self-serving nonsense. For every fundamentally driven short-seller, there's 99 who blindly pile on. Just look at the dramatic swings the last half hour of every session. Then throw in a ratings downgrade, and the death spiral begins. Rinse and repeat.
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    • Fri Nov 21st 20:00 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      5-1/2 Ways to Make the Market Rally
      Make it harder for people to walk away from mortgages they no longer care to pay off. There are a lot of people who mail their keys back out of buyer's remorse -- not because they really can't afford it anymore. I'm not saying we should bring back debtor's jail, but as of now it's too easy, and many don't feel qualms about it either.
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    • Fri Nov 21st 07:30 AM | Rating: +2 0
      Commented on:
      Six Myths about the Big Three
      In normal times, I'd say, throw them to the wolves, but in this economy... 25 billion would be ridiculously cheap compared to the negative knock-on effects. If for 25 billion you can postpone their bankruptcy by a couple of years, then that's money very well spent. But I suspect many here are ultrashort and would only be too happy for a new Great Depression.
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    • Thu Nov 20th 22:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Friday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets
      I was in SKF mid July. Do note you can find yourself in the mother of all short-squeezes with these ultrashorts. At some point in the collapse I put in a market sell order and I just couldn't get it to go through. By the time it got executed the price dropped more than 20 dollars.
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    • Thu Nov 20th 18:15 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Berkshire Hathaway Down Nine Days in a Row
      What's the point of this "article"? Where's the analysis?
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    • Mon Nov 17th 04:59 AM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      New Russian Ruble ETF Offers Several Interesting Trading Possibilities
      I'm surprised you don't mention the most obvious alternative of all, which is to short the sucker! The Russian central bank has been running down its currency reserves propping up the Ruble. The odds are high that the Ruble will drop by a double-digit percentage in a matter of weeks.
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    • Sat Nov 15th 21:07 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Iceland: What It's Like to Live in a World Without Money
      The biggest mistake was for the Icelandic government to take over the banks and their liabilities. That put the whole nation on the hook, to the tune of a quarter million USD per inhabitant. Criminal stupidity! Instead of "merely" those banks and their greedy depositors losing everything, the whole nation is now bankrupted.

      A word to explain why I call them "greedy depositors" (and not victims). In my home country of Belgium, Kaupthing was until recently offering 6% on savings accounts, when no other bank went over 4%. People who moved their money to new-kid-on-the-block Kaupthing should have been aware that they were taking on a greater risk.
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    • Thu Nov 13th 04:02 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Jim Rogers Still Bullish on Commodities, Bearish on the Fed
      With all due respect, does anyone know of Jim Rogers' record the past 20 years? At least with the other experts, you can judge them by their track record. I do know that he was plugging Taiwan, China, and all kinds of commodities earlier this year, and that the dollar was going to collapse. I'm glad I didn't follow that advice slavishly. That said, he's definitely worth a listen, and he admits himself to being a terrible trader (i.e., market timer).
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    • Sun Sep 28th 12:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Starbucks Gets Re-Caffeinated - Barron's
      I'm not convinced. This stock is a textbook example of people overpaying for growth. With a PE over 24, it's not exactly cheap. And it looks like Americans and the British (large market for SBUX) are going to have to get used to living more frugally than they've done in the past 20 years.
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    • Tue Sep 16th 21:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Lehman/AIG To Push Manhattan Residential Prices Down [Housing Tracker]
      I guess these bankers will all have to move to Hoboken, NJ now.
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    • Sun Sep 14th 04:55 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Lehman is Toxic at Any Price
      Good article. Just let them go bankrupt. And if taxpayers are going to be on the hook for BSC and Fannie and Freddie, let's introduce a special tax to the financial industry, so they can pay for their own mess in the future.
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    • Wed Sep 10th 11:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Mechel: The Strength of Russian Steel
      I bought in at 21. The stock is ridiculously cheap now. In a few years the world economy will have recovered and commodities will be in a new upward leg. Also, Russia and the West need each other, and the current troubles will blow over. One last thing, this is no new Yukos. The latter had a CEO with political ambitions, and that's what did him in.
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    • Mon Aug 25th 11:52 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      China and Starbucks' Late Stage Growth Obesity
      Good article but you're way off base about Singapore. Singapore's not a low-wage country at all anymore. GDP per capita is just short of $50,000.
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    • Tue Aug 5th 15:08 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Starbucks on Sale (Part I)
      Actually, DD has a corporate policy to throw out any unsold brew after 18 minutes. The number one thing that makes a difference to coffee flavor is that it has to be fresh. Fresh-brewed Folgers will taste infinitely better than Illy that's been sitting on a boilerplate for 3 hours. Anyone every tried ordering the decaf brew at Starbucks outside peak times? It's downright awful, and shame on them for pretending to be about premium coffee. So now Howard Schultz announced with a lot of noise that from now on unsold Starbucks brew will be thrown out every 30 minutes. Better late than never I guess. It's still inexcusable that they had the gall to sell 3-hour old swill with all the aroma boiled out before.

      As for McDonald's coffee, I'm talking about the premium McCafe coffee, not the regular stuff that's sitting on the boilerplate (there, it will be the luck of the draw, if it's fresh-brewed or not). Just try it one day, the premium coffee. It is actually quite good, better than Starbucks, and market research shows that most people prefer the taste over Starbucks coffee. And why wouldn't that be so? MacDonald's is not stupid. If they decide to go after the premium segment, they can hire some people who know about coffee to get the product right. This isn't rocket science.
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