Al Thomas, author of “If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it,” made these market observations titled “Humpty Dumpty Market” in his last weekly update: ….and all the King’s men could not put him back together again. Our king is supposed to be Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Did you have the opportunity to listen to his testimony before Congress this …
How High Can You Go?
Here’s an amazing statistic as reported in “B of A says merger on despite Countrywide woes:” Countrywide said last week that 90-day delinquency rates in its $28.42 billion adjustable rate mortgage portfolio climbed more than 900% from a year earlier, up to 5.4% from 0.6% during the same period last year. The lender also warned that 71% of its ARM …
Sunday Musings: A Friendly Game Of Texas Hold ‘Em
Thursday’s report by MarketWatch titled “Let’s see ‘em” reminded me of a poker game like Texas hold ‘em with the only difference that the eventual last guy bluffing will be not the winner but the big loser. This week, one player after another was forced to show their cards: Over in London, Carlyle Capital Corp., an arm of private-equity giant …
Need $1 Trillion
Here’s an interesting question: Why are interest rates on 30-year mortgages rising even as the Federal Reserve slashes interest rates and yields on Treasury Bonds fall? MarektWatch had this to say about the current mortgage crisis: The answer is that the mortgage market is short of roughly $1 trillion in capital, according to Paul Miller, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, …
No Load Fund/ETF Tracker updated through 3/6/2008
My latest No Load Fund/ETF Tracker has been posted at:http://www.successful-investment.com/newsletter-archive.phpThe bears feasted big time this week as all major indexes headed further into bear territory. Our Trend Tracking Index (TTI) for domestic funds/ETFs remains now -1.68% below its long-term trend line (red), which means we are in bear market territory. The international index dropped to -9.53% below its own trend …
Rally Pretense
Bill Fleckenstein wrote an interesting article called “A great pretender of a rally.” Here are some excerpts: Over the last couple of weeks, the stock-market action has been remarkable. The bulls have enjoyed a nice rally. It was precipitated by the anticipation that the monoline insurers would be bailed out. Then anticipation turned into reality: The bailout was nothing more …