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The Stock Room page 87
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(Continued from page 86) Short Sale Rates: Long Term: 60% Middle Term: 50% Short Term: 40% This should take away a lot of the incentives for betting against the US over a longer term basis. I realize that this is terribly over simplified. We must also see how it affects the Federal Budget and make sure it does not leave a short fall. The long rates can also be used for capital gains on housing for the primary residence. People should not be speculating on their homes. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 03/18/2008 @4:00 pm EST: Mark my words, “Bear Stearns will not get sold!” And they won’t because they don’t and didn’t need to in the 1st place. The FED forced it down their throats knowing all well that they wanted to use it as an pretext to open the FED’s cash window to ‘investment banks’ like it does to ‘commercial banks’. Once Bear got the cash it needed, the FED figured that JPM would be able to bow out gracefully and this ploy would then cover everyone’s ass. Stroke of genius on their part I think. And how ironic is it that the FED, and for that matter the entire banking system are using rumors & deceptions to get what they want, just like all the shorts used to drive the stocks down for no good reason to begin with! You’ll see, and I’m not the only one now thinking it. And, I told you so: SEC Opens Bear Stearns Stock Manipulation Inquiry And, look at who now agrees with me that we need to simplify this market: Buffett Was Right Derivatives Are Destructive _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 03/15/2008 @9:00 am EST: More insanity, just plain and simple! There is no way the FED can even try to fix the issues of confidence when short sellers and others are running these ‘confidence schemes’ in order to make a hideous amount of $, while they destroy the US financial system at the same time. Give me a break! I just cannot believe that the CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Schwartz, Video - CNBC.com, would come on TV Wednesday and say they have 17 billion in cash and everything is fine, then 36 hours later have to put out a ‘Going out of Business’ sign without there being some underlying secretive, external forces at work. They say that these things can happen at lightening speed, but without someone directing the lightening it has really no idea where to strike. Someone was buying ‘puts’ in large amounts on Tuesday (see the lightening link) betting that Bear would implode. You’re telling me they had nothing to do with the collapse? Bull!%?!! On Thursday these same put buyers knew that if they pulled their accounts out of Bear the company would collapse, or at least their strike price would be hit and they would make a fortune. Every bone in my body is telling me that this scenario was a well-orchestrated scheme by a very few to make a very large amount. And someone out there please tell me what the heck Bear Stearns has to do with CVS, so that I had to suffer a 4% loss yesterday!?!? More crappola! All I see is an Enronization of our financial markets. (Not that they weren’t there already.) This market insanity must end soon or we really will become a 3rd World Nation. Side note: I hate to get into this, but where is our Government? Reminds me of Ancient Rome: ‘Nero threw a few bobbles off of his balcony to the adoring crowds, then retired to chambers to play his fiddle as Rome burned.’ _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 03/01/2008 @9:00 am EST: I know I’m jealous and somewhat bitter over the profits and fortunes some have made from shorting stocks and when it comes down to it – shorting people’s lives. However, I see all these asswipes and truly get sick to my stomach, and not just from envy either. What really put me over was a clip on CNBS (formally known as CNBC) about this realtor in California who made a fortune from building small cheap homes, BUT at the same time made ½ billion dollars from shorting the subprime loans that people were using to buy HIS crap! Does anyone else see something wrong with that!!!!!!!!! How can the 1st person be allowed to build and sell something to a 2nd person, AND at the same time the 1st person be allowed to bet (by shorting mortgage bonds) that the 2nd person will go broke and not be able to pay for their home, because they were sold by the 1st person a mortgage that was known to be out of the 2nd person’s ability to eventually pay for in the 1st place. That doesn’t smell right to me; and if it just doesn’t piss the hell out of you, then maybe you should take a long, hard look at your own priorities & values! To make matters worse, CNBS is giving this guy a pat on the back & world-wide recognition for coming up with this larceny. Now that’s just plain insanity! As long as people are allowed to short, buy options, buy derivatives, allocate moneys on margin, use totally contrived and confusing methods to finance extravagant schemes, etc. etc.; we are going to have collapse after collapse. What are these ‘schemers’ creating? In my opinion nothing. Some say they add liquidity and a level of oversight to our markets. Well for me, they can keep their money and who asked them to look out for me anyway! I didn’t! They’re not on MY side, that is for sure! I would love a stock market were I could go and just BUY and/or SELL a stock. No shorting it! No calls or puts! No fancy financial tools to complicate things! No secretive deals that control the stock by manipulating hidden agendas! If you like the company – BUY IT! If you don’t like it then – DON’T! Plain and simple _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/23/2008 @10:00 am EST: OK, now what! I pretty much told you that sooner or later the shorties would take over. They have. I never expected such volatility and rumor mongering from the changes in SEC trading rules, but it sure has occurred. I also said that once the shorties had their way with the financial sector, that they would turn their venom towards tech. They have. All three major indices are down close to one year later. Just one awful market! In my small and humble opinion, it just shouldn’t be this way. All those now 30 something’s that graduated with MBA’s in Finance during the Clinton 90’s, need to be taken out to the wood shed and shot. They created a pyramid scheme economy that no one can understand, and have caused a major downturn in economic growth worldwide. And why? Well, for their obvious short term capital gain, but why did it occur in macro is the bigger question. It occurred for a lot of technical reasons, but the main reason is: THE REST OF US ELSE CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FRIG THEY WERE DOING, HOW THEY WERE FRIGGEN’ DOING IT, AND WHAT THE FRIGGEN’ CRAP IS ACTUALLY WORTH! We’ve all heard the expression: “That if I ran my household expenses like the Federal Government, I’d be broke!” Well, the same applies to these CDO’s, SIV’s, & all those other totally abstract financial tools. No one understands them or what they’re now worth. I for one don’t. I also got to say that all the options, derivatives, etc. people use to trade stocks are also a mess. Enough! I am NOT smarter then a 5th grader, and I want my stocks and financial markets to take that into consideration. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/16/2008 @10:00 am EST: Finally, I’m not the only one bitching about the shorts. This week MBIA joined me with their tirade on one notorious short seller. Ambac also fired off a letter to Eric Dinallo, Superintendent of Insurance of New York State, giving their long awaited impression of Ackman. And finally, Congress held hearings on the bond insurers in which speaker after speaker bashed the shorts and pleaded for hedge form reform. There are all kind of links for the speeches, but the overall theme was that the shorts screwed us ALL over for their own profit. “Direct Link to Congressional Hearings” I again implore everyone to write everyone to: 1. Reinstate the Up-tick rule Links are below in 1/12/08 post. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 02/09/2008 @10:00 am EST: I just took a look at the % Diff of the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq (note: that the 1st mention date was around April 1, 2007) and saw that we are now down across the board almost 1 year later. So much for long term investing. Check out the GCC under the ETF’s on page 2. WOW—just listed and up 8% already. Of course I didn’t buy it. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 01/23/2008 @9:00 am EST: Boy do I love it!!!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGkrNJ19DSU _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 01/22/2008 @8:00 am EST: I told you so!. There’s nothing wrong with our economy! Well, nothing this wrong that is. It’s all about shorties taking over. See the prior post for links to bitch to. Maybe now you’ll listen and act.
1. Reinstating the Up-tick rule
See you on the other side. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 01/12/2008 @9:00 am EST: What can anyone say! That’s was again just plain ugly. I guess another tirade on the abuse and destruction being caused by short sellers is in order. Tirade…tirade…tirade…tirade…tirade…tirade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, no one listens to me or does anything about it, so why should I spill my guts all by myself. Damn it people, complain to the SEC and your local Congressional Reps that they MUST reinstate the Uptick-tick Rule and crack down on Naked Shorting! There will be no peace in Smallville until they do. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 01/06/2008 @10:00 am EST: Another one of those weeks! The Amazing 1 said it was another one of those weeks that you just can’t watch. “You made your bets, now you have to hope that they were the right ones.” Got to agree with the 2nd half of that, but “not watch!” – no way!!!!!! Guess it’s better then nipple clamps. Ugh! Watching this market tank actually hurts more! I’m going to probably plop more $ into the XLF this upcoming week. Might as well put some more good money chasing bad. I’m also looking at TAXI for my IRA’s. The stock doesn’t do squat, but in this market that’s great. It also pays a fabulous dividend of 7+%, and in an IRA that’s closer to 10%. _______________________________________ The Prof’s take for 01/01/2008 @2:00 pm EST: Nice, and I hope we both have a more prosperous new year. Add rfmd & opwv to your list (other losers). Done! _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 01/01/2008 @9:00 am EST: Happy New Year!
Really! That’s all I can say after such a crap ass year in the market. “Riding high in April, Shot down in May”; and never really recovered.
But what really pisses me off is that even with a down portfolio for the year, I still had to sell some of my losers last Friday in order to offset gains so that I wouldn’t have to pay the short-term capital gains tax. All those loses from 2000/01 used up. Talk about adding insult to injury. Frig!!!!!!!!!!!!! As for me, I’m checking out the travel links on the “Links…..” page. I need a vacation really bad!
Prediction (or more appropriately called ‘affirmative reaction’) for 2008: What was won’t be anymore. (I did have a rather technical paragraph on Chinese stocks, but then I figured—who am I kidding!)
With that said, I wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. That is except for all those shorties out there that keep making my life a living hell. (Yeah I know there’s not a real shortie conspiracy or anything. Just need a good way to offset my anguish. It can’t be my fault—I did everything right! Yeah sure!)_______________________________________ apppro’s take for 12/15/2007 @9:00 am EST: My ABK Yahoo Message Board post pretty much sums it up for moi. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 11/17/2007 @9:00 am EST: I really think everyone has gone nuts. I am still totally convinced that the entire credit/subprime slime mess is a perfectly contrived scenario by shorts who are loosing their shirts on their GOOG, RIMM, & APPL positions. Come on people: Has EVERY loan EVER written by EVERY bank and covered by EVERY insurance company, made to EVERY person, in EVERY financial level, and in EVERY neighborhood in EVERY State going into foreclosure???? I don’t think so, but they sure are making it seem that way.
SO STOP IT ALREADY FOR EVRYONE’S SAKE! _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 11/11/2007 @8:00 am EST: Thank heavens for CSCO! Why you will ask, it’s only gone down since earnings. Just check the 5-day chart. Some are going to crap all over me for saying this, but the fact it’s dropping off a cliff is exactly the reason why. Up till now, the shorties have not had any reason (entry point) into shorting the over priced and over hyped technology stocks. CSCO’s bleaker then normal outlook during their earnings call opened the floodgate. This past Friday was the turning point. Up till now the shorts have blasted the financials & related industries, but this past Friday they went up. The XLF actually turned green. In contrast, as they went up the techs went down and down and down. Look at the best-loved GOOG just to name a few. Hate the Google! I think a large sector shift is now under way. The financials have been drained of all their blood beyond reason. Now they will pop as the shorts suck the life out of the techs. I also see a small shift out of oil. Not happy about that though, especially when my CANROY’s get hit over and over. Meanwhile I bought some ABK (listed in Bank section on this page) and GA (listed under new Chinese Gaming section on pg.2) last week. Got piggy on GA and didn’t sell at a nice profit. ABK – well I’m keeping my fingers and amongst other things, crossed and in hand, respectively.
On a more serious note and no matter how we may feel about things, let us all take a moment on this Veteran’s Day and have a hopeful & grateful thought for all those men and woman of our Armed Forces who are making major sacrifices so the rest of us can sit around on our sorry asses blogging about stocks. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 10/03/2007 @8:00 am EST: I mentioned ETF’s a few times now as a great way to invest across an entire sector. I started to make a new ETF list section on page 2. Check it out. What really makes me excited (and for those who know me (does anyone really know anyone) and know that nothing ever gets me excited) are these new ETF’s being offered by TDAmeritrade. You can buy a basket of stocks based on your risk tolerance! Sounds cool. I haven’t had enough time to report more, but let me do some research and I’ll get back to you. You can also check out the ‘Zacks Lifestyle’ link to the left. _______________________________________ apppro’s take for 08/04/2007 @12:00 pm EST: OK, that was really just plain ugly! Even some timely sells in FOXH & SBUX couldn’t save me. I told myself so, but did I listen? Of course not! That up-tick elimination has really thrown volatility into this market. Hard to know what to do or when. I’m not sure when this is going to end. Trying to use the bully pulpit like Cramer is doing to get the FED to lower rates won’t work. That will even make them more steadfast and stupid. Guess there’s not much else anyone can do, but buy more! I dipped my toes into the XLF. (12 minutes too early, but what the hey.) That’s the Financial ETF covering a basket of banks and brokers. I listed the top 10 holdings below. Name Symbol Index Weight (Continued on page 88) |
