Daily investment & finance & thread (4-8-13 edition)

4-8-13

[dennisw]

Daily investment & finance & thread (4-8-13 edition) Freepers lets make some cash

Trying to focus on the markets for today and each day and the economic news

This is where you can impart some investment wisdom to your fellow freepers. You can vent about the big one that got away. You can

chime in how Obama is out to wreck American capitalism.

If you see another FR economic thread you like and want to link to it here, please do

Post your favorite economic site links. Your favorite economic blogs and precious metals blogs and sites

Apmex.com is a solid place with good reputation to buy precious metals and has great presence on ebay for easy quick impulse buys

such as a gift for a college boy's graduation. College Girls too! Even high scoool.

Kitco is the best site for gold and silver charts and other precious metals information

Ping list -- on or off let me know here or via freep-mail. If I missed you then Freep-mail me

I might ping you to other interesting economic threads a few times a week. One per day maybe

Sites that posters have recommended ------ zerohedge turdferguson

[dennisw]

ping

[The Duke]

I’m giving some consideration to moving down to (the nation of) Panama and opening an IT office there to compete against the folks in India. Anybody have any thoughts about this crazy idea? :O

[entropy12]

That is one crazy idea! What name are you going to assume?

Duke or Dustin?

[entropy12]

http://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/?iid=HP_LN

[Maurice Tift]

  I just looked at silver bars on Apmex.com. I think silver is pretty close to the cost of production now and this insane "quantitative easing" will eventually send the price much higher.

  Silver actually went up on Friday, but I wonder if JPM will slam it with more heavy short selling in the morning.

[MichaelCorleone]

I see elsewhere on FR that Japan is preparing to ward off somehow what could be an unannounced missle test toward Japan. The hardware was recently moved to the East coast of No. Korea. Tokyo's taking it seriously.

At this time Japan is up nearly 2.5% or 314 points and Dollar/yen is at 98, up eight tenths of a percent.

With the gargantuan yen printing, does this really tell us anything meaningful about market reaction? I wonder.

[bluefish]

Silver popped higher on tonight’s open, but then started declining slowly. Given Friday’s gain, after the beatdown, it should be interesting to watch Monday.

You can see multiple live charts for silver here:

http://www.pmbull.com/silver-price/

(Plus, they show good sources for bullion cheaper than Apmex)

[tamu]

I see it in simpler terms - China has been uber-peeved at the US for exporting inflation to China. Japan is the strongest US ally in the region, has a bad history with China to begin with and has now begun QE in earnest (due to its negative current account). In concert, this crossed the line with TPTB in China, so it’s go time with all sorts of bluster out of their puppet Norks in an attempt to get the Japanese back in line.
The Japanese PM was in the States awhile back. I thought they were talking about securing NG shipments long term post Fukushima. Evidently there was a lot more being discussed!!

[zeestephen]

Maurice,

Bill Fleckenstein had some comments on silver on Friday.

Weakness in manufacturing, where half of silver is consumed, has definitely put downside pressure on prices.

Like you, Fleckenstein believes that money printing and deficits should be pushing silver up, but he continues to recommend shorting silver in the near term.

After a 50% drop in two years, and almost straight down for the last 7 months, I say be very careful on the long side.

My favorite Wall Street quote.....

“Being early is the same as being wrong.”

[expat_panama]

moving down to (the nation of) Panama and opening an IT office

Actually it makes a lot of sense.  Intelligent hard working enthusiastic labor force.  Minimum wage @ a dollar & change.  Virtually all high school grads already have netbooks that they got in school.  A legal system pretty much free of trial lawyers means liability risk is low.  OK, that one also means few avenues of recourse so you got to really know the people you work with.

Not having Obamacare is a BIG plus.  Doctor visits without insurance are convenient, only $20...

[expat_panama]

"China has been uber-peeved at the US for exporting inflation to China..."

That must be why America doesn't have any --kind of like all that 'exporting jobs to China' maybe?.

[Son House]

March job creation estimates are off, the average estimate in one economist survey was around 190,000...Why is the economist estimates so far off? Bias vs reality?

The 190,000 jobs estimate is the ‘Average’ of a Bloomberg-News survey of 87 economists. The Bloomberg article is linked at the bottom of this Rush Limbaugh News;

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/04/05/we_are_living_in_a_dying_country

[Wyatt's Torch]

Almost all the macro data the last two weeks has missed:

US Macro Data Plunges Most In 10 Months

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/05/2013 19:53 -0400

The last two weeks have not been pretty for the 'it's different this time' crowd. Day after day has brough miss after miss in macro-economic data for the US; from PMIs to NFPs, no matter how hard you try, there is not even enough for an 'anecdotal' strategist to pin his BTFD thesis on. Quantitatively, the US macro surprise index has seen its biggest 10-day drop in 10 months, completely reversing all the 'seasonally-adjusted' difference from the 2011 'Deja-Vu' market and macro behavior. So with the first pillar of bullishness (macro data is 'supportive'), it is up to earnings (but but but profitability is at highs) to hold up the market - good luck with that.

Biggest 2-week drop in macro data in 10 months...

is reverting all the 'seasonally adjusted' green shoots that made this time different from last year...

and once again, just for fun, someone explain how the market is not solely dependent upon the Fed for this to occur?

Charts: Bloomberg

[dennisw]

Bill Fleckenstien on silver....He has been commenting on gold for a long  time

 

First off was an article headlined, "Silver bears pounce as manufacturing sputters." The article claims that the reason silver has been weak is because "mounting evidence that the rebound in global manufacturing is stalling has investors worried that industrial demand, one of silver's last remaining pillars of support, is crumbling as well."

 

The author quotes Andy Rosenberger, a portfolio manager, regarding what he says is a win-win strategy of being short silver.

 

"If the economy improves, you get more demand for silver but less of a tailwind from the Federal Reserve," Rosenberger is quoted as saying. "And if the economy doesn't improve, you don't get the industrial demand." Hence his short position.

 

(By the way, Tuesday's sell-off in gold was precipitated by a major dead fish house in Europe claiming that the U.S. economy was getting better, therefore the dollar was going to be stronger, therefore you should sell gold, which echoes the story Goldman Sachs was touting last December.)

 

As for Rosenberger, in the case of precious metals, his can't-lose "thinking" is that you sell silver if the economy is getting better and you sell silver if it isn't, which speaks to my point about the action writing the news. Since metals prices are down, the news is bearish and all stories are spun bearishly.

 

The truth of the matter regarding silver and Rosenberger's argument is that if the economy stays the same, or doesn't improve, we will get more quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve. However, if the economy does improve we will get more inflation eventually, which will precipitate more silver demand. Note that this version will be the one that gets tossed around when silver goes on another rampage, but for now the get-short argument carries the day.

[Maurice Tift]

   My favorite Wall Street quote..... “Being early is the same as being wrong.”

  I've been wrong lately.

[Aliska]

I read it's going to be a bumpy week so I put 20% trailing stop quotes (loss) on all my positions. My copper mining and Campbell's Soup are doing the best right now.

[PGalt]

Information BUMP!

[dennisw]

Are you a guy or a gal :) Not too many women trade

[Aliska]

Gal. Always wanted to try it. There's a really smart gal on the community forum for Scottrade, a regular trader like me but much more savvy. I opened an acct last summer but didn't activate and fund it until Feb of this year. So I've only been at it for about 2 months now.

How long have you been at it, and what stock(s) have done well for you?