US Weekly Economic Calendar

time (et)	report	period	Actual	forecast	previous
MONDAY, March 26
8 a.m.	Speech by Fed Chair Bernanke
10 a.m.	Pending home sales	Feb.			2%
TUESDAY, March 27
10 a.m.	Consumer confidence	March		70.0	70.8
wednesday, March 28
8:30 a.m.	Durable-goods orders	Feb.		2.9%	-3.7%
thursday, March 29
8:30 a.m.	Initial jobless claims	3-24		346,000	348,000
8:30 a.m.	Gross domestic product	Q4		3.1%	3.0%
friday, March 30
8:30 a.m.	Personal income	Feb.		0.3%	0.3%
8:30 a.m.	Consumer spending	Feb.		0.6%	0.2%
8:30 a.m.	Core PCE price index	Feb.		0.1%	0.2%
9:45 a.m.	Chicago PMI	Mar.		62.8%	64.0%
9:55 a.m.	Consumer sentiment, final	Mar.		75.0	75.3

Lindsey Williams : The Secrets of the Elite 2012

(Lindsey williams - proof Negative Show - 14 March 2012 ) is back with some more insights from his elite friends , some of the key points, are : in order to understand the elite's mind set you need to listen to the buzz words in this case the 'derivatives' which will bring the total collapse of the financial system and the death of the US Dollar by the end of 2012 , this does not mean that the dollar won't be existent, it means that it will lose most of its purchasing power (due to hyperinflation) there will be no shortages of food but the prices will be sky-high , prepare for $6 or $7 gas a gallon , Saudi Arabia is building the biggest oil refinery in world's history in china and soon it will be selling its oil to china without using the petro dollar aka the US dollar this will precipitate the death of the US Dollar

“What Does the Fed Do?” with James Grant

The HARPEX Index is superior to the Baltic Dry Index!

Like many ana­lysts and econ­o­mists I have been an avid fol­lower of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) as a so-called lead­ing indi­ca­tor of global eco­nomic activ­ity. How­ever, I have come to the con­clu­sion that the BDI as such is of no fur­ther use to me. The mas­sive growth in demand for com­modi­ties from espe­cially China from 2005 to 2008 led to a sig­nif­i­cant increase in capac­ity as the num­ber of ships built surged through until the 2010 cri­sis that resulted in a major change in sup­ply from rel­a­tively inelas­tic to highly elas­tic. Fur­ther­more, it means that changes in the Baltic Dry Index occur in what is essen­tially a down­trend or, put dif­fer­ently, in a bear market.

How­ever, I have dis­cov­ered an indi­ca­tor that is far supe­rior to the BDI. The HARPEX Index was devel­oped by Harper Petersen, a global lead­ing char­ter­ing agent. The Index is cal­cu­lated by using the actual time char­ter rates for seven classes of ships. This index there­fore mea­sures the rates of mov­ing mostly fin­ished goods glob­ally and is an excel­lent indi­ca­tor of global con­sumer activ­ity. Unfor­tu­nately the his­tor­i­cal data on the web­site only date back to 2009. (http://www.harperpetersen.com/harpex/harpexVP.do)

In the graph below I depicted the HARPEX Index against my GDP-weighted Major Economies Man­u­fac­tur­ing PMI as well as the Markit Euro­zone PMI, with both the PMIs lead­ing by two months. In the graph it is evi­dent that the HARPEX Index should be rated highly as a coin­cid­ing indi­ca­tor in any eco­nomic fore­cast­ing model. The value of man­u­fac­tur­ing PMIs as lead­ing indi­ca­tor comes to the fore as it is evi­dent that the GDP-weighted man­u­fac­tur­ing PMI of the major economies leads the HARPEX Index by two months. The bot­tom­ing and sub­se­quent rise of the PMIs in Jan­u­ary this year indi­cated that the HARPEX Index would rise through end March. It has indeed risen from $376 at the end of Feb­ru­ary to $393 cur­rently. The slight weak­en­ing of the major economies’ PMI in Feb­ru­ary indi­cates that freight rates in April are likely to go nowhere and even decline.

Sources: Harper Petersen; CFLP; Li & Fung; Markit; ISM; Plexus Asset Management.

The value of the HARPEX Index can be seen in the fol­low­ing graph. Dur­ing the great finan­cial cri­sis in 2008/2009 the HARPEX Index fell to $300 and remained rel­a­tively unchanged until Feb­ru­ary 2010. The global man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor started to expand in August 2009 when the GDP-weighted Major Economies Man­u­fac­tur­ing PMI rose above the 50 level in August 2009. It there­fore took six months of global expan­sion to take up the slack in the con­tainer ship­ping indus­try. There­after the PMI and the HARPEX Index moved in the same direc­tion, with the PMI lead­ing by approx­i­mately two months.

Sources: Harper Petersen; CFLP; Li & Fung; Markit; ISM; Plexus Asset Management.

The cur­rent level of the HARPEX Index is indica­tive of how weak the global man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor really is. This sec­tor is still in a much bet­ter shape than in 2009 as the HARPEX Index is still 30% higher than the pre­sum­ably $300 absolute min­i­mum level at which ships can oper­ate. In my opin­ion any fur­ther strength in the global man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is likely to have an imme­di­ate impact on global con­tainer­ized freight rates as the sec­tor is not recov­er­ing from a deep reces­sion as it did in 2009.

In a recent arti­cle I pre­sented you with a graph of my cal­cu­lated PMI sea­sonal fac­tors of the CFLP Man­u­fac­tur­ing for China against the Baltic Dry Index, which not only explained the weak­ness in the BDI but also the shorter-term move­ments in the BDI. I argued that January/February would also mean a sea­sonal low for the Baltic Dry Index and a major rever­sal would be evi­dent in March and April.

Sources: CFLP; Li & Fung; I-Net Bridge; Plexus Asset Management.

The BDI sub­se­quently made a low of 647 on 3 Feb­ru­ary and is cur­rently at 897. Although the BDI is up 38.6% it is still a far cry from what it should nor­mally have been in light of the usu­ally strong sea­sonal period. It is there­fore an indi­ca­tion of the under­ly­ing weak­ness of China’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sector.

Although I argue that changes in the Baltic Dry Index occur in a bear mar­ket due to the under­ly­ing fun­da­men­tal fac­tors, the BDI should not be dis­carded in total as it does give an indi­ca­tion of the under­ly­ing strength of China’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. I regard the HARPEX Index as a bet­ter coin­ci­dent indi­ca­tor of global eco­nomic activity.

Fifteen questions to ask yourself before buying any stock

In Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, legendary investor (and one of the rare people to influence Buffett’s investment style) Philip Fisher provides fifteen questions to ask yourself before investing in a company. These are aimed at identifying the qualitative factors that are associated with well managed companies with strong growth prospects. Here they are:

1. Does the company have the products or services with sufficient market potential to make possible a sizable increase in sales for at least several years?
2. Does the management have a determination to continue to develop products or processes that will further increase sales when the growth potential of current product lines has largely been exploited?
3. How effective are the company’s R&D efforts in relation to its size?
4. Does the company have an above average sales organization?
5. Does the company have a worthwhile profit margin?
6. What is the company doing to maintain or improve profit margins?
7. Does the company have outstanding labor and personnel relations?
8. Does the company have outstanding executive relations?
9. Does the company have depth to its management?
10. How good are the company’s cost analysis and accounting controls?
11. Are there other aspects of the business, somewhat peculiar to the industry, which will give the investor important clues as to how outstanding the company may be in relation to its competition?
12. Does the company have a short range or long range outlook in regards to profits?
13. In the foreseeable future, will the growth of the company require sufficient equity financing so that the larger number of shares then outstanding will largely cancel the existing stockholders’ benefit from this anticipated growth?
14. Does the management talk freely to investors about its affairs when things are going well but “clam up” when troubles and disappointments occur?
15. Does the company have a management of unquestionable integrity?

You can get a copy of Fisher’s book here. What questions do you ask yourself before investing?

John Perkins : we are close to an Economic Collapse more than ever before

Interview with John Perkins author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" ."Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" author John Perkins argues that the United states has created a modern-day empire through the use of economic blackmail and the undermining of foreign governments.John Perkins spent three decades as an Economic Hit Man, business executive, author, and lecturer. He lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Then he made a decision: he would use these experiences to make the planet a better place for his daughter's generation. Today he teaches about the importance of rising to higher levels of consciousness, to waking up - in both spiritual and physical realms - and is a champion for environmental and social causes. He has lectured at universities on four continents, including Harvard, Wharton, and Princeton.

Ellis Martin Report with David Morgan March 23 2012

from OpportunityShow:

Ellis Martin interviews David Morgan in the second of a three part discussion. Mr. Morgan recently posted a video on Youtube entitled, “Silver is the Achilles Heel to the Entire Economic System” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHc4Vp4I9_I Mr. Martin chose to ask about the reasoning for putting together such a piece as well as attempting to identify the audience for such a message as well as the purpose for it. Is trading in silver and gold usurping the system? Dr. Ron Paul weighs in before Congress and Chairman Bernanke on the subject in the referenced video.