Monday, September 14, 2009

BNN: Larry Berman answers your calls


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US Stocks Higher As Industrials, Materials Pace Move

Another round of buying in industrial and materials companies, including General Electric and DuPont, helped stocks close slightly higher Monday, while AES paced a move into the black for utilities.

Overall, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 21.39 points at 9626.80, marking its sixth gain in seven sessions. Leading the index, General Electric climbed 68 cents, or 4.6%, to $15.35, while DuPont rose 47 cents, or 1.5%, to 32.28.

The gains for materials and industrials continue a recent trend where both sectors have leapt higher on the backs of improving sentiment surrounding economies around the globe. This improvement in sentiment has been especially helpful for the commodities markets, with oil, gas and metals all rising along with the stock market. (more)

The Wall Street Journal - 14 September 2009 (Europe)


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Bottom In Corn and Wheat????

In both the December corn and wheat charts we can see they continue to make lower lows from mid July but on less and less weakness from the RSI (called positive divergence in tech talk), and the MACD is showing signs of turning positive or already has. This in conjunction with too much bearishness is a good sign both these commodities may have found a bottom or are near one.

Either pay the national debt with monetary reform or kiss your assets goodbye

In our current debt-based monetary system, we're never going to pay off the national debt.

This article will explain what the debt is, why we can never pay it, and the elegant and obvious solution proposed by Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman. Please read and understand this crucial information for your responsible citizenry. You literally have nothing more valuable to do.

The US national debt is approaching $12 TRILLION dollars. Of that amount, about 2/3 is owed to whomever among the public purchased US government debt securities (bills up to one year, notes from two to ten years, and bonds of 20 and 30 years) and 1/3 is intragovernmental transfers (US government agency purchases like Social Security surplus and other retirement funds). China and Japan hold about $750 and $650 billion, respectfully. (more)

Shadow Inventory Revisited: Silent Alt-A Mortgages, Southern California REO, and the Great Public Swindle.

I think you saw this coming. In the most e-mailed story on Friday, many of you sent in a link from the L.A. Times showing a confirmation of shadow inventory. One home does not make a trend. But connect that home to Bernard Madoff and you got yourself a fantastic story of absolute cronyism and corruption that we have grown accustomed to from the banking industry. Now one home is merely an example but there have been a group of people that actually deny the existence of shadow inventory all together, an argument that makes you feel as if you are talking to someone who still believes the world is flat. (more)

Goldman Sachs Tax

AMY GOODMAN: How much money did Goldman Sachs pay in taxes in 2008?
MATT TAIBBI: They paid $14 million in taxes last year, which is an effective tax rate of about one percent, which means that they paid in taxes about a third of what CEO Lloyd Blankfein actually made in compensation last year. And that sounds like an amazing number. And if you—their excuse for why that is is because they had changes in their so-called geographic earnings mix, which basically means that they moved all their revenues to foreign countries, where the tax rates were lower. And so, Goldman, which was, again, the beneficiary of massive subsidies during the bailouts, you know, paid really just a pittance in taxes last year. (more)

How Will Lease Recalls Impact Gold's Price?

Wednesday I was dismissive of the recall of Hong Kong's gold as significant, but it is another bit of evidence of a shift in central bank attitudes towards gold. Far more significant indicators include (see this MineWeb article):
  • China's announcement that it had moved 454 tonnes of gold into its reserves since 2003
  • Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) quota being reduced from 500t to 400t a year
  • Russia's Prime Minister stating that it should hold 10% of its reserve assets in gold (more)

Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession

The tropical waters that lap the jungle shores of southern Malaysia could not be described as a paradisical shimmering turquoise. They are more of a dark, soupy green. They also carry a suspicious smell. Not that this is of any concern to the lone Indian face that has just peeped anxiously down at me from the rusting deck of a towering container ship; he is more disturbed by the fact that I may be a pirate, which, right now, on top of everything else, is the last thing he needs.

His appearance, in a peaked cap and uniform, seems rather odd; an officer without a crew. But there is something slightly odder about the vast distance between my jolly boat and his lofty position, which I can't immediately put my finger on. (more)

Tecnically Precious with Merv, Sept 11, 2009

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