richard_d_lee Offline

Ceciliawxy: I dont think u have good idea right now.

richard_d_lee: You are right Cecil. It's exploratory at this stage.

The Baltic Dry Index hit a 25 year low this February. One of the major users; India has had her Rupee slip 10% over the last little bit. India imports more coal than France Germany and the UK combined. With the devaluation of the Rupee coal gets more expensive (even though the price has slipped considerably in USD) and will import less which effects the Baltic Dry Shipping even more.

China's imports and exports are also slowing (although bank reserves were lowered recently which will help internal demand and trade) which will also have a negative effect on the shipping index.

Europe is in recession now (forgetting about the future problems in Greece & Portugual) and the US is heading for recession in the last half of the year (dragging down Canada even further (66% of Canada's exports go the USA (the USA will be more inclined to buy from herself rather than import during a recession))). Canadians are also highly leveraged and never went through the process of reducing credit and recession in 2008 like the USA did (a potential double whammy?).

The politicians in Europe are currently swaying the markets the last few days (perhaps some bloggers also swayed the markets (based on premonitions)) but, there is underlying data that says markets and paper (electronic) wealth is headed for decline (bear market) even if leaders in France, Germany and Greece exchanged flowers and group hugs.

richard_d_lee: The afternoon of the last post South Korean, Chinese and Japanese energy firms announced a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell to build an LNG terminal on Canada's west coast and pipelines to land locked Natural Gas fields in Canada's prairies. So there is some new work for Canadians in the next recession. Another project to consider is the twinning of Transcanada Highway 1 to Toronto and Montreal with pipelines in the meridian for Natural Gas and Oil / Heavy Oil. Eastern Canada pays a premium for Ocean shipping of Middle East oil and Western Canada is forced to sell oil at a discount because it is land locked.

So there is hope for Canada as far as worthwhile construction projects go. Building another 63,000 "shoebox" condo's in Toronto doesn't sound worthwhile.

Greeks have 165 billion in individual and business deposits in Greek Banks. Much ado about a miniscule 1 billion withdrawal in Euro's was made yesterday. But in April 2010 8 billion Euro's were withdrawn before the first ECB bail out.

With only 8 million citizens the 165 billion in deposits amounts to 20,000 euro's per citizen in CASH. Assuming 4 million adults that amounts to 40,000 Euro's for EVERY adult. Now that is cash. Look at the assets. See those snazzy new trams going to downtown Athens? That's worth many pretty Euro's too. Ultimately it belongs to Greek Citizens. So Greece isn't broke. The plumbing is all stuffed up.

Oh yeah using the "Drachma" as a new currency doesn't sound very cool to me. If Canada uses the Looney in this new-era something like "Grecko" sounds more fitting in this new era.

Some saying Greek getting it's own currency, capital controls, import tariffs, export tariffs, military to stop professionals leaving the country, wage and price controls would be a nice little experiment to see how things might pan out in Spain and Italy. That is a dimwitted view IMHO. Spain and Italy have extensive foreign holdings in other nations. But I guess this and other facts are "all greek" to a CBC business pundit "dragon".

Speaking of dragons, this is the year of the Dragon in China which says huge financial change in the last half of 2012. Coupled with the Mayan calendar and the unseen Great Decade(s) Depression which started in 2008 a new type of triple witch or perfect storm is in play at the macro level.

Speaking of China they have the highest number of social networking users. None are using Facebook. There are 4 Facebook like websites in China. You could buy one for about 10 million dollars (or the North American rights to the software). The server space for Facebook users is probably about 1 dollar per user so 900 million users means Facebook has $900 million in server assets.

After setting up your new 1 billion dollar billion user capable Western Developed Country (Russia has her own social network software / hardware) for 1 billion dollars, you can get the $100 billion dollar Facebook users on board by letting them transfer all their photos and friends list in a couple of minutes.

Then all you need is a great advertising system that none of the MORONS at Facebook have figured out how to set up yet.

richard_d_lee: 1/2 hour ago BNN updated Facebook's IPO "offering" at 60 billion and not 100 billion.

15 minutes ago BBC updated the 700 million Euro bank withdrawals over the last few days to 75 billion Euro's in withdrawals over the last couple of years. Although some ended up under the mattress the Lion's share went into other European banks I imagine. Therefore it isn't gone; only being babysat (bank sat) in other places.

Looking at Greek's President announcing the 700 million Euro's withdrawals publicly on Tuesday; one has to see this as his ignorance of the 75 billion or some sort of squeeze play using the media to attack German leaders.

richard_d_lee: 4pm EST, Facebook announces IPO $38/share @ 421 million shares. Bloomberg TV news says that = 104 billion dollars. My calculator comes up with 15,998 plus a whole bunch of zeros.

richard_d_lee: Correction Bloomberg TV News now has ticker saying 16 billion being raised. The 104 billion must be money raised to date after you count private shares sold to Wall Street big name brokerage houses last year (or whenever).

richard_d_lee: They were listing off all the billionaires that will be created from the Facebook share sale public IPO tomorrow. However the founder Mark Black Hoodie will retain 51% ownership after the public shares are sold. Now let's see 104 billion market cap after 16 billion dollars worth of shares are sold publicly. That means 104-16 = 88 billion dollars worth of shares were sold for pennies a share to founders and 15 bucks a share or something to Wall Street insiders before the public IPO. These earlier shareholders will become billionaires by selling their old shares to the new 16 billion dollar capital in flow.

Or something like that. This whole "deal" hasn't really been explained on tv even though I've been Facebook'ed to death all day long on the business news channels.

Now if Facebook has 900 million users and Wireclub has 3 million users that means Wireclub is worth 104 billion dollars divided by 300 that equals....

richard_d_lee: Facebook is 25 times oversubscribed in Pacific/Asian markets. Legally, this fact is not supposed to be released before the stock opens, but the cat is out of the bag on Bloomberg TV.

Later this year another 277 million shares will be issued to Facebook employees I believe they showed on the ticker tape. If those 2,000 employees in the square all become millionaires at the least and only pay 15% capital gains tax versus 50% income tax then all the power to them. It's called capitalism for a reason. Besides there's tons of us treasury t-notes in the region that can be repatriated back to US soil.

For the NASDAQ as a whole I think it along with oil prices will suffer as cutbacks in the Piiigs region are put into play over the next little while. Under the Piiigs blog I SHOULD HAVE posted about a Spanish bank with 110,000 employees spending money in cloud computing from Google. The bank was already in the clouds with artificial Spanish real estate boom that went bust in 2008. The Spanish banks should have been announcing 50% headcount reductions when the mortgage underwriting went bust in 2008. They didn't. They spent more money. Other blogs say Italy also spent more money whilst they should have been cutting headcounts. Lot's of used hardware should be up for sale for 5 cents on the original purchasing dollar.

=====

IDG News Service — Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is adopting Google Apps for email and collaboration and expects to have its about 110,000 employees worldwide using the suite by the end of this year.

The rollout will start in the bank's home base, Spain, where it has 35,000 employees, and it will continue in more than 26 other countries, the companies said in a joint statement.

When completed, BBVA's implementation of Apps will be the largest ever for Google's cloud-based communication and collaboration suite, which includes applications like Gmail, Calendar, Sites, Docs and Talk, as well as a variety of IT security and management features.

richard_d_lee: JP Morgan announced headcuts of 700 coming in their Information Division with the layoffs of people that were "re-engineering" their applications.

I wonder if the new applications were used with the 3 billion dollar burn to-date JP Morgan suffered in the derivatives market. Apparently this market is still face valued at 700 trillion if you can believe that. Awww so many numbers.... numbers.... numbers... numb.

richard_d_lee: You don't have to buy ticker symbol FB if no shares are available, you can just go long on the stock until noon and then cash in.

richard_d_lee: noon = 2pm EST, 11am PST. Whoaa the markets are like the biggest global horse track to bet on.

richard_d_lee: These are the steps you have to follow to delete your Facbeook Account.

1. Go to this link www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
2. Click the "Submit" Button
3. Do not sign into facebook for 14 Days, also do not click on any "Like" buttons on any website.
4. Go out and enjoy your life, you are free now!

richard_d_lee: It's high noon.

Time to sell for the weekend and book the profits.

It's also a perfect storm because it's the 4th year of a bull market according to an analyst yesterday.

Another data point is the G-8 leaders (less Russia) are meeting today and tomorrow and will no doubt say what they are going to do to save Europe. Weekend analysts will comment on the G-8 statements and markets will shift one way or the other in one industry or another on Monday.

Go to cash and buy (or don't buy) back in on Monday, or Tuesday if Monday bond markets are closed.

richard_d_lee: There were 63 million "secret" shares given to the Underwriting brokers that they could buy at $38 dollars to prop up the price. Apparently 30 odd million shares were executed this morning when the price dipped down to the $38 IPO price. Wow the "Tiny Tim Plunge Protection Team" has many offspring.

richard_d_lee: You can't trade options on the FB IPO until May 29th. Forget about the going long I said earlier, and you can't short it if you want to yet.

richard_d_lee: BNN announced plans to build an oil pipeline from the west to Quebec which could knock 15 cents a litre off the price of gas in Ontario. "It would put smiles on peoples' faces" is a quote from a minute ago.

richard_d_lee: About 4 weeks ago I said in public to sell Apple and buy Natural Gas. Given market moves today it is time to exit that trade.

Whoaaa Gotta love this gambling stuff.

richard_d_lee: The weather is not good in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and another state where dry weather has led to forest fires. Dry weather has led to Wheat futures rising substantially yesterday. The dry weather in Edmonton is perfect though.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9276699/Facebook-IPO-fight-back-begins-share-price-implausible-says-analyst.html

====
Company filings after the market closed on Friday night however revealed the extent to which the banks who led Facebook’s initial public offering - in which $16bn of shares were sold to new investors - were forced to move in to the market and buy shares in order to keep the price above the $38 level. Morgan Stanley, Facebook’s lead financial adviser, ended the day with 162m shares, worth $6.16bn. Other banks including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs also bought shares, ending the day with $3.2bn and $2.4bn holdings respectively.
====

Hmm... So 16 billion dolllars of shares were sold, of which the big investment banks had to buy 6.16 + 3.2 + 2.4 bn = 11.76 billion dollars worth of. These seems impossible and implausible. I think the UK Daily Telegraph should double check these mind blowing numbers. It's still an interesting story that at least SOME shares had to be bought in the first place.

As a share holder of Morgan Stanley, or JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs I would be screaming bloody blue murder. They thought shareholder activism was strong last week?...haha wait until next week.

If Obama tries to bail out these wall street investment banks again for their blunders or Bernanke opens his Fed discount window to them after hours God help them. Let these 3 investment banks shed blood like many of the rest of us have.

richard_d_lee: The casual business dress orchestrated G8 summit announced it supports Growth for Greece and other EU zone members. How nice. Such pretty words. I support Growth for Greece, EU, the Americas, Africa and Helium 3 moon bases.

I misspoke Russia is at the G8 but in the form of the Prime Minister and not the President. I saw him on TV at the round table. I counted 10 people at the G8. Haven't researched that one yet... must be 2 observers.

As I suspected the G8 is going to muddle the whole Piiigs situation with words that are not backed by dollars because the IMF and ECB have already said no more dollars and governments have to utilize the bailouts already given to date. Besides all those stimulus dollars to date were a band-aid and most profits naturally went to the smarter millionaires. Austerity to millionaires growth to twentythousanddollaraires please. If you can't figure out who they are there is a four letter word to help you find them.... a BANK!

richard_d_lee: The daily telelgraph reconfirmed the story 31 minutes ago and say the banks bought 86 percent of the share floated yesterday:

=====
Banks move in after shaky start to Facebook IPO

Facebook’s banks ended up owning 86pc of the social networking site’s $16bn (£10bn) initial public offering after a lacklustre first day of trading in which shares ended marginally up on the opening price.
Mark Zuckerberg rings the bell remotely to mark the start of Nasdaq trading hours at a packed outdoor event at the company’s headquarters, 2,500 miles away in Menlo Park in California’s Silicon Valley.
James Quinn and Richard Blackden in New York

5:14PM BST 19 May 2012

As the first analyst to place a “sell” rating on the company emerged over Facebook’s $100bn (£63bn) mega-float, filings from the company revealed the true extent to which Wall Street underwriters were forced to prop up the shares on Friday.

A revised S-1 filing made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that Facebook’s five key banks ended up owning $13.86bn. Morgan Stanley, its lead adviser, ended the day owning 162m shares, worth £6.16bn, followed by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, which ended the day with $3.2bn and $2.4bn holdings respectively. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital each held $1.04bn stakes.

A significant proportion of the shares owned by the banks will have been bid for ahead of the float itself, as part of the banks’ underwriting duties, but a smaller proportion will have come from a result of the banks moving into the market on Friday to maintain the price above its $38-a-share opening level.
=====

The banks can claim they bought the shares at a "good price" for their "high net worth clients" and turn an egg in the face event into a gourmet omelet and serve that to the global community I presume.

richard_d_lee: Monday I'd expect the VIX to spike up from Friday's close of 25 north towards Facebooks IPO of 38. And Facebook to plunge down south towards VIX's current 25. Probably my favourite number of 18 soon, given my favourite number of 63 (million shares) was in the greenshoe of the IPO underwriters.

But what can you buy with commodities like oil going down and discretionary stocks like Sears and GAP also going down?

Well I guess you can buy wheat and corn futures given the blog post earlier today. This assumes the current weather pattern holds steady and there are no big moves in the futures. You can also buy shorts on Russia, Saudi Arabia, NASDAQ and selected S&P500 companies. There are shorting opportunities in China too, but that hybrid capitalism/communism market is probably too dangerous a sandbox to play in.

You could have "sold in May and gone away" but you're still in the game so it's too late for that strategy. Ha! maybe you could create a new strategy: "Sell in June and wait for the next boon".

richard_d_lee: Yup you can't make money on falling Facebook share price because you can't short it until May 29th. But you can make money by shorting the people who but the shares at the propped up price. Like Morgan Stanley who rightly or wrongly bought 6 billion dollars of the seemingly over valued stock at 38 bucks.

Now Morgan Stanley has a 27.5 P/E ratio which is double the industry average of 14.4 Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio.

So the shares could fall 50% on their own. However with the 6 billion dollar potential loss (it'll be less the sooner they sell the falling knife (never catch a falling knife Mr. Morgan Stanley)) it'll put downward pressure on cash reserves (they could put the FB shares on the books as an "asset" and not mark it to market until down the road).

Luckily the SEC is there to get their daily filings on share purchases and prices paid. It's good for people to know the $38 share price isn't market driven but rather propped up artificially by Morgan Stanley investors' money.

This is an exciting gambling casino house. Filled with terms of "Greenshoe" and "floats". It's interesting for those of us without "skin in the game". A very educational few days this has been. I can't wait to see how predictions turn out tomorrow on global & US markets.

Oh yes, they also predict Wheat shortages for Russia too based on weather.

Oh yes, the two extra people at the G8 summit which made it a G10 were European Union officials which mirrors the Greek "technocratic government". Unelected people controlling the democratically elected "politicians". Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely interesting how the democratic process is being usurped.

richard_d_lee: Morgan Stanley briefly fell this morning but rose back after they stated they weren't supporting the Facebook IPO stock price anymore.

China announced plans to stabilize their economy which lifted world markets. However, other BRIC nations seem to be heading downwards too. Lots of money has left Russia over the past couple/few years and now the India Rupee hit a fresh low today.

The BRIC nations might or might not be a good indicator of EU zone health. Weirdly it seemed like it was only yesterday China's policy was to tighten money supply and now today they are talking about loosening it???

richard_d_lee: Just like Friday the 18th saw a concrete floor under Facebook pricing at 38 bucks, today (if I was reading Yahoo Finance bid / ask pricing and volume correctly) it looked like huge volumes of shares were being bought at $34 to create a new concrete floor to support prices.

It'll be an interesting week on stock symbol "FB".

The markets saw a nice bounce upwards for those who took long positions. I have a hunch it was a "technical" bounce though. The rest of this week will be interesting for the broader markets.

Well it's been an interesting 4 trillion dollar slice, but back to work tomorrow so no more arm chair market critiquing for me.

richard_d_lee: It's raining so no work today. You are stuck with my market air chair critiquing.

China isn't loosening monetary policy only fiscal policy is being revamped for more spending. They like the fact house prices dropped in 46 out of 70 markets.

Yesterday's stock market bounce was partly due to short covering and partly due to low volumes. There was a hint on bloomberg tv yesterday because commodity prices only rose 1% yesterday where on a real rally they come up 3% or so. Today however you see commodities falling which can be a forward looking indicator overruling another stock market rise today.

They came up with a new nickname for Facebook: Flopbook.

70 million people unemployed between the ages of 15 and 24 around the world they said today. Hard to imagine new car sales or home sales to them huh? Easy to see how they engineered wars in previous generations during cycles like this to erase excess labour capacity eh?

We are witnessing the results of spoiling 1 and 2 kid families without chores, work, ethics, elbow grease, etc. etc.

Governments made taxes, from corporations and self-employed making income, from banks generating loans, for people buying houses and stuff. 70 million young people won't be taking out loans. Each year millions more people are past borrowing years and entering retirement savings years so there will be no loans to them.

Net results are less revenue (or none) for corporations and self-employed. Governments might pick up the pace by spending more. However governments aren't going to be paying taxes on the economic expansion they create/consume. So City and State governments won't tax the Feds and vice versa.

A lot of the current conditions won't come out until the fall though at which point the stock markets will all (according to some analysts on TV).

They are discussing Euro Bonds again. Which they did like 6 months ago and wrote off as impossible. Wow they are talking in circles.

A new idea floated was for Germany to leave the Eurozone. Germany could create it's own super powered currency and the rest of the Euro could devalue to become more competitive. But that would only leave France as the "super power" and right now there is some balance of Germany and France playing off each other. Kind of like the Republican vs. Democrat balance you see in the states.

Of course they could just do all the right things in the first place with a never changing government but that model is cast aside as a "dictatorship". There is no fun playing with bubbles.

richard_d_lee: I need a stock purchase for my imaginary stock market portfolio. I heard Dell fell 10% in aftermarket trading. It seems the desktop is in the demise for consumer markets. Teens are flocking to cell phones like frugal men to 25 cent cheeseburgers.

Facebook can't figure out how to "monetize" the mobile phone market (5.5 billion cell phones (and tablets?) versus 1.5 billion desktops).

I'm going to check out prices on AT&T, Rogers, Verizon, etc. and buy them for my imaginary stock portfolio. They are guaranteed to make money selling bandwidth. It doesn't matter which of the current social networking software battles to the top of the fray, if any of them. The way software/hardware players turn over it could be brand new applications sitting on the cell phones in a year. You know stuff designed for the 4 inch cell phone screen and not legacy PC software designed for 19 inch screen and scaled down like Facebook is doing and trying to "monetize" now.

Today the Greek Prime Minister said they will likely drop the Euro currency. But just a few days ago the G8 released a statement saying they want Greece to stay. The most important opinions though would come from German voters. A plan can probably go forward without France's or Poland's support. But it can't proceed without Germany's support. This is not democracy's finest hour.

richard_d_lee: Bloomberg TV/Asia (Remember Susan Li's sweet voice from 2003?) corrected the story and says it's Greece's EX-Prime Minister and not new prime minster / senior judge that is forecasting Greek Exit from the Euro Currency.

China's CIC (whoever they are) have just been reported as saying they are going to stop buying European debt. Haha silly CIC (whoever you are), the Central bank (ECB) can simply buy government bonds after retail and corporate appetite for buying government bonds runs out. The same thing happened with US Treasuries a couple of years ago and the third round of Helicopter Ben's US Federal Reserve buying Tiny Tim's T-Bills is about to start again in a few months some industry analysts predict. (pssst it's not called "printing money" it's called "QE" because it brings up images of sweet old queen of england).

richard_d_lee: Although I was right about Facebook going down (that was easy when you look at their advertising earnings from the last quarter) I was very wrong about the VIX going up. I learned today the VIX is the premium charged on puts and calls (selling short / buying long) and because most of the big money is parked on the sidelines and traders are enjoying the beach in new south hampton (where ever that is) or cape cod (i know where that is (sort of)) May to September is the wrong time to buy ETF's that double up one the VIX.

If you want to sell Facebook short on May 29th (or whenever) you have to pay a 28% premium on the stock price they said today. Therefore the price drops you see are REAL people selling REAL stock.

richard_d_lee: The OECD (Organization of Economically Developed Countries (or something like that with like 100 members (or something like that)) was lecturing the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates in order to slow housing sales. Hmmm... well that will attract more potentionally useless Euros to Canadian Government Bonds.

Why not recommend what China did which is to set a down payment of 25% on your second house / property purchase? Or why not recommend (like some Canadian experts) the elimination of the 40 year amortization period? Or why not recommend the CMHC (Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation) change the down payment from 5% to 10% for First Time Home buyers?

Dead beat car loans are set at 14% to cover default ratios and cost or repossessions to send Guido to break your legs. I'm sure banks and / or regulators can set appropriate costs to disincentanize (sp?) buying a home before you are married with a nice 25% down payment.

Of all the things the OECD can do telling the Bank of Canada if they pay more interest on Euro converted deposits that will slow down the housing bubble, is the least logical thing.

Oh my but how they like their bubbles. These stock / bond markets are fascinating. It's amazing none of the morons have figured out how they led to world wars and generation destruction in the past. And they say I worry too much....geez.

richard_d_lee: BNN had another new buzzword this morning "Faceslap".

Betty Liu of Bloomberg (how did Bloomberg get all the sweet female voices?) interviewed a short selling analyst who figured out only 18 million shares (4% of the float) were shorted on Friday (the stock actually increased that day from $38 to $38.23). So most of the selling was real shares and not shorts.

As much as Greece, Dell and Facebook gives juicy daily beta moves for the market, long term consideration should be given to the US changing capital gains (and/or dividends?) from 15% to 44%. This is because the "Bush tax cuts" are set to expire on December 31st.

Warren Buffet and Romney both say they don't mind paying the same tax as everyone else. Obama says the Rich should pay their fair share of taxes. This means equities will be less popular and financial instruments such as tax-free city and state bonds will become more popular. Yes in the USA cities and states can issue bonds that are tax-free. Naturally the interest rates are lower. But not as low as the 0.07% 2 yr German bonds issued today as reported by Caroline Hyde of Bloomberg TV/Europe. Did I mention Bloomberg has all the sweet sounding female voices?

Facebook actually has a 3% bounce in the first 1/2 hour of trading. I don't think it'll last because more information about the company will be leaked. I imagine 10% of the "hackers" at Facebook are sitting on their hands waiting for their millions and will then quit and launch their own companies based on the ideas they have peculating in their heads. No doubt they don't like Mark Hoodie's preaching they can't buy Lamborghini's especially given his own track record of pretending to work for the "twins" whilst really working for himself and "thefacebook" back in 2004 or whenever.

richard_d_lee: Oh yes it's another no work due to rain day

richard_d_lee: Facebook and the Underwriters are being sued for misleading investors on the value of the company. An investor led class action law suit filed today in Manhattan Court claims they lost 2.5 billion dollars so far.

Yet on the internet on IPO day you could read stories and see graphs showing advertising revenue was slowing. Plus a few days before the IPO GM announced that it was pulling 10 million dollars in advertising off of Facebook because there was no value in advertising there visa ve sales.

Surely investors should do their own research?... but the courts could still hold Facebook and the Underwriters responsible for misleading investors. Strange things have happened in North American courts.

Sara Eisen from Bloomberg TV/usa posted on Twitter that a Greek exit could result in a "drachma" valued 75% less than a Euro. I still prefer a cool name like "Grecko" for the new currency but whatever. The Spanish tourism industry would be hit hard because Germans could forsake the 4,000 Euro Spanish holiday in favour of a 1,000 Euro (=4,000 Grecko) holiday. If the 75% devaluation is true.

Sara Eisen also posted that there is only a 46 hour window in the bond markets for the conversion to the new Greek currency. I disagree because they could do it over a labor day long weekend. I also disagree because for years Russia had poor man's Rubles and rich man's hard currency USD's circulating behind the iron curtain. The Greek government could pay pensioners and employees in Grecko's and charge taxes in Grecko's. They could also setup Grecko tarrifs on discretionary imports (cars and electronics) like South Africa used to do. They could encourage not only tourism but food exports to get more "hard currency" into the country.

Talk of 46 hours to do things is wrong. There is still the infamous "bank holiday" as another 3 day delay tactic. When it comes to the complicated currency, trade and deficit/debt issues it's really the WTO that should weigh in on the issue.

richard_d_lee: Oil and Gold took a 1% dip today. Oil and Gold indexed Toronto jumped up 1% in a counter-intuitive move. It did it long before NYSE and seemed to draw the NYSE up too. Perhaps some secrets are brewing in Toronto?...hmmm

richard_d_lee: haha Facebook just said they want to switch to NYSE on Bloomberg TV...weird!

richard_d_lee: weird timing because I just mentioned NYSE I mean. Dow closed down 6.66 so far. Now that is just weird.

richard_d_lee: It's 5 pm and I'm cooking dinner (the cook had the last 1.3 decades off from work).

Susan Li is on Bloomberg TV/Asia (she brushed her hair and put on lipstick tomorrow morning (voice is still sweet)).

She probably doesn't know Toronto and American analysts wrote off the Asian Region (and Latin America and Russia) over the next 3 months as a "beta trade against asset value to account for the 2% drop in Asia markets. Witnessing Dell's drop in earnings and the four fold impact on Taiwan chip manufacturers supplying Leveno is very telling.

Yeah I'm afraid I'm not good at predicting BRIC and Asia/Pacific forward earnings based on squeeze put on Spanish and Italian banks based on Germany's bravado at feeling callous of kicking out poor little Greece.

They say World Government Debt (including In God We Trust USA) now outweighs World GDP. It is unlikely the Marsians are going to come invest Mars Gold Bars into the fray. Yup sunny day scheduled for tomorrow you'll have to have fun on your own in North America markets.

richard_d_lee: ok maybe Greece can't use "Grecko" as a new currency because it violates American copyright laws. How about the "Zeus" or the "Olympian" (it is an olympic year in london). The "torch"?... hmm.

Greece isn't the problem. Spain, Italy, USA are bigger spenders / wasters.

richard_d_lee: And UK and France of course....Look to the colonial powers loosing power. Germany and Japan lost their colonies back in WWII.

richard_d_lee: Susan Li just said on Bloomberg (in more words or less) that China is going to start playing the privatization game like Alberta did with Alberta Government Telephones. Things can swing both ways

richard_d_lee: HP shares shot up because they announced plans to fire 27,000 instead of 25,000 employees. Will Obama call them a private equity firm?

richard_d_lee: It doesn't matter at this point if Private Equity firms are good or evil. It doesn't matter if the Tea Party supports big cuts in Government Headcounts.

What matters is the G8 summit costs a lot of money to make. Obama's speech writers giving him the names of so-called reporters to ask pre-loaded questions and answers at a G8 summit is WRONG.

richard_d_lee: Meg Whitman and Carli Fionia have lots of buzzwords.

richard_d_lee: Speaking of giving out lots of work... I have to work 16 hours a day straight for 24 days unless it rains in Edmonton. Lots of money, but no chance to look at girls.

richard_d_lee: My stock pick is Eastman Kodak at 18 cents a share.

Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ.PK)
-OTC Markets

0.1840 Up 0.0043(2.39%) 4:06PM EDT

They are one of the reasons HP had to announce firing 27,000 people. They figured out people don't want to pay a ton for printer ink. "Give away the razor make money on the blades" marketing by HP resulted in Kodak selling printers that use reasonably priced ink.

At 18 cents I figure there is lots of upside. Plus I like the number 18

There is talk the US is going to use QE3 to print a whole bunch of money to save Europe. Giving your currency away to other nations is one good way of getting them to buy your products and keep your people working. It's a great short term play.

richard_d_lee: German Manufacturing dropped 1.9% today but it was "only" forecast to fall 1.1%. Some would say well that's not so bad, it's only a .8% miss. Some would say oh no the drop was almost double the forecast.

It is safe to say though that German manufacturing is slower. There will be less pocket change for the "consumer" and less tax revenue for the government. The German government will be less likely to expand the size of bailouts. However, slowing manufacturing should have been predicted given cutbacks in spending by Greek, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish governments and corporations that live off them.

An analyst on BNN said about 1/2 hour ago (today's a work (I finally got around to fixing potholes like I preached 10 years ago) rain out day so i'm market surfing at home) that four years ago Europe should have bit the bullet:

1) Guarantee retail deposits.
2) Let some banks go under (shareholders get nothing, bond holders get a haircut (or buzzcut?)).
3) Let other banks pick and choose left over assets from bankrupt banks.
4) Let depositors get fully reimbursed and move to another bank.

Also Spanish Prime Minister wants all of Europe to go cap and hand to world markets for funding. China with 2.3 trillion in foreign reserves could easily inject funds into European Bonds but this does nothing for changing "tainted" EU governments. For example, the incentive to reduce public industry and increase private industry with those newly created human resources is lost. Also a China bailout does nothing for tax adherence in the food industry, cash based economy and large charitable write-offs. There are many other examples I guess. Furthermore, China giving all these paper instruments to Europe suppresses America from generating these financial instruments like they are used to.

From the "other side of the pond" the large investment banks are starting to lay off employees. Probably a good thing for NYC property markets which were overheated (especially in condo rents). Also a good thing from the point of view of the BNN Analyst who said this should have happened 4 years ago instead of governments borrowing money to prop up banks that were addicted to NINJA loans and the human resource bubble it created in that industry. Holland Tulips anyone?

Coordinated action between all nations and grown up discussions are necessary.

Facebook update: $26.82. Down substantially from $38 IPO and $45 opening day high. It'll probably float down to $18 given market directions (or lack of) until the locked up shares can be sold around Labor Day. Traditionally after Labor Day is when the stock markets really get solidified with direction as the high priced traders come back to work.

Oh yeah, they also said "Friday's USA Job Numbers were disappointing".

richard_d_lee: Susan Li of Bloomberg just reported that 6 Greek banks had their ratings cut.

She was right yesterday asking what Greece exported (no oil, etc.) and said all they had were dates (wouldn't i love one ))

She said something wrong ago but I forgot to write it down.

richard_d_lee: haha no wait she said all they exported were "olives"... where did "date" come from?

Greece can repay in Euro's (some are mandated by latest bailout agreement) or in Drachma's (the balance of debt) or in Gold (that caused German second war after the first or in Olives (that would be the best for Greece). Instead of 3 olives at Gimmy the Greek's restaurant at Kingsway Food Court I'll be be getting 4 olives.

What is a date anyway?... Does a Date come from a shrunken raisin that come from a shrunken grape?... lol... dateless is craaazzzzzyyyyyyyyyyyy!

richard_d_lee: Well the G7 came out and pledged "coordinated" efforts on the EU and the stock market rose. But didn't anyone else notice it wasn't the G8? Besides isn't Italy in the G7 and isn't she in the dumps like Spain?

Japan pledged to support the Euro, which makes sense since she was selling Yen and buying USD to devalue her currency. Now she can still sell Yen and buy Euro and make it look like she's a princess.

richard_d_lee: So as I said on twitter: @LinzieJanis 50 billion will be a nice downpayment to kick the can down the road.

It turned out today that it's 100 billion euros or $125bn usd that the spanish banks need to "tie them over" on "non-performing loans".

Well the Spanish banks have a budget for salaries, bonuses, lease rent, cut the lawn (does grass grow in spain?), keep the lights on, buy water for the office gossip cooler, etc.

When they make a loan they take their depositors' money, spin it 10 fold and make a loan. So you put 100 grand in the bank using the fractional reserve money system they lend out 1 million dollars to build a house or a road to a house no one lives in. Assuming the 1 million dollar loan gets paid back all it's principal and 2 million in interest the bank makes 2 million profit plus the 100 grand deposit. The 900 grand money created out of thin air goes back to the central bank where it is vaporized because it never existed in the first place. However the 900 grand did go to construction workers and construction material suppliers, etc.

Of course governments in Spain made revenue on taxes paid by construction workers and material suppliers, etc.

Although Ron Paul and the Austrian School of Economics have huge problems with fractional reserve banking system, they might not be aware of "Asset Backed Commercial Paper" where bank loans and mortgages are bundled and sold to investors. This implies to me that the 900 grand that didn't exist was sold to the ABCP investors in Canada (50 billion bought from the National bank of Canada by the Canadian Government in Ontario).

So the Banks are double dipping. Getting a bailout for lost interest of 2 million, plus lost principal of 100 grand on depositors' bank account, plus they are selling the 900 grand that didn't exist to MBS (Mortgage Backed Security derivative) and ABCP markets.

They say the derivatives market have a total exposure of 14 trillion dollars or something crazy like that.

It's going to take a long long time unwinding all this stuff given my limited time and woefully absent resources (some could say all the human resources around me this week that claim aliens will save the world and black and whites will mate into a colour of tan are mearly distracting me).

richard_d_lee: Were international banks buying stocks in Asia tomorrow morning (10:30pm tonight) and oil to make them rise 2%?

richard_d_lee: Rain day, no work.

So Spanish bank bailout is like TARP helping banks and finance industry but nothing for Main Street which will generate hurt feelings amongst the 25% unemployed in Spain.

Fracine@bloomberg retweeted a story how EUROZONE brainiacs released a plan to freeze out ATM withdrawals if things get bad. It's good to have a plan, it's bad to announce it to the world. Tomorrow morning expect to see widespread paper note withdrawals and increased sales in jam jars and shovels.

Time to take off the Financial hat and put on the Political hat. Greek elections this weekend I imagine to turn out much like the last election with the exception of higher voter turn out. Some of the center party austerity voters might have been scared by Golden Dawn leader slapping a woman during a tv debate so might realign towards the left party (anti-austerity). This said, I heard an hour ago that Greek Ballot workers will be on strike this weekend so there won't be a vote...lol. Either way I predict Greek will stay the same with no majority government and no coalition government.

Countries like Canada and Australia might consider putting restrictions on how much liquidated Euros can be used to purchase $CAD and $AUD. For both obvious and not so obvious reasons the USA doesn't put limits on foreign currency holders converting over and buying $USD.

Although Italy wasn't scheduled to blow up until 2014 her finances are starting to come under the microscope this week.

richard_d_lee: So I bladed to the park to drink some beers and read "Extreme Money" tonight. A couple of 8 y/o's wanted to play the game "Princess that is in Protection Program" which reminds me of watching the Snow White and Huntsman movie yesterday. I appreciated the way snow white healed body ailments and the way the Huntsman drank because he couldn't save his family in the first place or snow white in the second place.

There was another 8 y/o girl at the park that wanted to play she's the whore and the 7 y/o boy is her pimp.... that one is xrated. Or perhaps the "Princess under the Protection Program" should be x-rated?... hmmm

The "Extreme Money" book I read at the park wasn't a page turner, given the content and 8 y/o distractions of reality from females. God how I wish I knew how much an 8 y/o girl knew. I could deal with 40 y/o cougars so much easier.

In the first dozen pages they talk about ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) and NINJA's (No Job, No Income or Assests). I'm thinking with Spanish bank bailouts in the limelight how much do we know about spanish accroynms for investment banking "gotcha's"?

We know nothing!

richard_d_lee: Oh yeah well one thing we do know is that Spanish banks need 650 billion and the Spanish government needs 350 billion to prosperity for a total of 1 trillion Euros. But if the rest of the world can have debt based money supply why can't Spain is what the Conquistador wanna-be's are asking tonight.

The other thing about ARM's and NINJA's hitting US real estate markets in 2008 you will ask why didn't it hit Spain then instead of now in 2012? Well at the same time Mr. Q. questioned the validity of USD and promoted gold. This in turn made Spain and other European countries "safe escape havens" for artifical ownership with OPM (Other People's Money).

It turned out the USA didn't tank as betted and Gold didn't go to $100,000 per ounce as it should. Globalization sucks when Spain is in the fractional banking game.

Yeah we know nothing about princesses but we know something about 1 trillion Euros.

richard_d_lee: Oh since this is a China thread I thought I should look up the 15% year over year increase in May. Initially I thought it was because last year exports were artificially low because of Japan's Tsunami and Thailand's flood. But when you google "May export declines" you come up with:

1) New York Daily News‎ - 9 hours ago
Exports in May declined 4.13 per cent to stand at $2.2 billion from the same month last year. However, exports rebounded by 16.31 per cent in
2) www.bloomberg.com/.../ukraine-s-grain-exports-declined-45-in-may...
6 days ago – Ukraine's exports of grain fell by almost 45 percent to 1.35 million metric tons in May, agriculture researcher ProAgro said, citing preliminary ...
3)1 Jun 2012 – NEW DELHI: India's coffee exports declined by 11 per cent to 34415 tonnes in May this year, according to the latest Coffee Board data.
4) 4 days ago – TAIPEI, Taiwan --Exports in May declined by 6.3 percent on a year-on-year basis, but was up by 2.2 percent compared to last month, ...

Danielle Steel commented that Alison Redford should not have gone to the "secret" Bilderberg conference in Chantilly VA USA. However, Redford will probably be the first elected Female Prime Minister of Canada given the Bilderberg record of appointing global leaders and ruling the 1 %.

Duh.

richard_d_lee: Spanish bond interest rates "sky rocketed" in one month. They (the government) had to pay 5% for short term bonds (12 to18 month). Last month they had to pay 3% for the same duration. The Spanish government is suffering for it's failure to address the banking system. They could have liquidated, they could have bailed, they could have bull-dozed houses but all they did was sit on their hands. Now they are paying.

A Chicago Professor said that Greece could default on her bonds and still stay in the Eurozone. Greece's 13 week treasury bills are paying 4.3% which is an annualized return of 17.2%. Making 17.2% on your Euro's is very attractive and with a 13 week risk exposure it's a safe investment. It takes Greece 13 weeks to have elections and form a coalition government, it'll take them longer to default on these short term T-Bills.

Italy has something like 335 bn Euros in bonds maturing over the next year or so. Italy will have to borrow again to repay the maturing bonds of course. The 450 billion the IMF raised passing around the hat in Mexico's G20 meeting today seems to have been spent / allocated already.

It's hard to imagine these historically warring European countries joining hands to save each other and one gets the nagging feeling the Euro could be the world's disposable currency.

Canada is eager to join the Trans-Pacific trade union this year. It seems 10 years ago Canada was eager to beef up trade with the EU. Not so much talk about that now and indeed Canada refused to fork more dough over to the IMF to allocate to Europe's "weaker sister" nations.

braiken: who is a japan girl?