Free Republic

A Big, Fat Stock Market Selloff By Eric Fry 10/20/09 Laguna Beach, California – Stocks prices are very, very high… Our contrarian colleagues over at The 5-Minute Forecast continuously lament…which means that the collective anxiety of investors is very, very low. Our colleagues don’t mind that a rising stock market is adding trillions of dollars to the asset side of household balance sheets. That’s good news. But the worrisome part is that a falling stock market could erase those trillions from the ledger just as quickly as they first appeared. And as our colleagues correctly point out, rising share prices,...

Vanguard Cautions Investors On RallyOct. 6, 2009, 4:25 p.m. EDTSam Mamudi, Market WatchDon't be taken in by this year's robust gains, fund firm warns. NEW YORK (MartketWatch) -- Many mutual funds are poised to celebrate stellar returns this year, but one fund firm is going out of its way to warn investors not to get too giddy. Vanguard Group issued a cautionary note on Tuesday, emphasizing that strong third-quarter gains don't mean it's time to go overboard on certain areas of the market. Investors Brace for Earnings SeasonMichael Cuggino of the Permanent Portfolio Funds says the coming parade of quarterly...

HONG KONG -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first public-speaking engagement outside North America, blamed the world financial crisis on government excesses and called for a new round of deregulation and tax cuts for U.S. businesses. "We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom," she added. On the foreign-policy front, she told the room full of bankers and executives...

"After the collapse of the equity and real estate bubble that has plagued us for the last 10 years, Americans have absorbed a tremendous blow to their wealth. We all know housing is down about 30% from its peak. But I’d like to concentrate on what the equity market has done since December of 1999 in both nominal, dollar and gold terms. In nominal terms the S&P500 is down “just” 28.6% since the decade began. But when you ask questions like what how much of my purchasing power have I lost vs. gold and other currencies, the data become even...

Barrick Gold has been hedging its gold production by selling futures contracts, thus locking in the price a year or more in advance of the physical gold being mined. This is a great strategy when gold is falling in price. It makes no sense when gold is in a bull market. Gold has been in a bull market for close to 10 years. It has climbed from a low of $255.10 an ounce to over $1,000 an ounce. Thus, Barrick Gold executives look pretty much like idiots. What were they thinking say back in 2003, when all the key players...

What's interesting is that Connecticut, a state that has for the past three years failed to have passed legislation providing greater transparency in government finances is now calling for more transparency in the private sector.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Cleveland Cavaliers have agreed to allow an investment group from China to become a minority owner of the basketball franchise and its arena. The group, which includes JianHua Huang, a Chinese businessman who has brokered sponsorship deals with the New York Yankees and other sports franchises in the U.S., could acquire as much as 15% of Cavaliers Operating Co., the entity that owns the team and operates Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

Remember the Chrysler "hedge fund investors" that President Obama berated on national TV? Among these people labeled as "no goodniks" by the President were organizations such as the the Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund, and the Police retirement fund. The President of the United States was trying to intimidate retired teaches from exercising their rights as primary investors. That's the politics of change, screw a bunch of retired teachers to reward the UAW for helping you get elected. Now that GM is nearing its bankruptcy a new group of investors are about to get the Presidential screw. Unlike the Chrysler...

'I'm saying that when the president does it that means it's not illegal," shouts Frank Langella's Richard Nixon at Michael Sheen's David Frost in "Frost/ Nixon." He was wrong, and so was President Obama when he said last week that he'd override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler's senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers. Typically, lenders who make money available to a company in return for a first claim on the company's as- O's deal will make investors sit on their assets. sets get about 80 cents back for every...

Citigroup posted a smaller-than-expected loss thanks to cost-cutting and improved investment banking. Still there were missing details and the report left questions open like when will Citi be ready to repay its bailout funds to the government and are its taxpayer supported profits from this quarter sustainable? (See "Citi Profits, For Now.") Wall Street was unimpressed with Citigroup and the stock fell 1.5%, or 6 cents, to $3.94, in midday trading. The past 12 months have been unkind to the New York-based firm, whose seen its market value sink no less than 84.3%. Meanwhile, General Electric ( GE - news...

NEW YORK – Investors doused a two-week-old stock rally Thursday as concerns emerged that the Federal Reserve's new bond-buying campaign could wind up hurting the dollar and causing inflation. ... The retreat came a day after stocks surged in reaction to the Fed's aggressive plans to pump more than $1 trillion into the financial system by buying Treasury bonds and stepping up its purchases of other debt securities. The aim is to lower borrowing rates and stimulate lending. On Thursday, investors began to digest the possible downsides of the Fed's program such as a potentially weaker dollar. That can lead...

JOINT BASE BALAD — Coalition forces and members of the Balad Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) recently hosted Iraqi business investors, future entrepreneurs and local government leaders for the first Iraqi Banking and Finance Conference in this area. Soldiers from 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) and the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment worked with the PRT to provide a safe environment for approximately 80 economic leaders, including city managers from Yathrib, Ishaki and Dubuiya, to network together and discuss future business opportunities. Amir Abdul-Hadi, the Mayor of Balad district, said to the group there are many profitable projects in the Balad district...

Seventy-five percent (75%) of investors now say the economy is getting worse. That’s an increase from 58% since Lehman Brothers collapsed last September to begin the financial industry meltdown. On the day that President Obama was inaugurated, 63% of investors thought the economy was getting worse.

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds. That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

The FBI is probing possible money laundering linked to Mexico's infamous narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel in its investigation of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford.... An FBI source close to the investigation would not give exact details but confirmed the agency was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford's banking activities. Reports in the US have said Mexican authorities have detained one of Stanford's private planes as part of an investigation into possible links to the Gulf Cartel. It has been alleged cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is...

How investors can cash in on economic stimulusLevi Folk, Financial Post Published: Monday, January 26, 2009 As the global economic downturn sinks in, bipartisan politics is taking a backseat to broad support for Keynesian style fiscal stimulus and infrastructure projects in particular are getting a major boost because they are quickly implemented and lead to immediate job creation. Monday, the Conservative government unveiled the $7-billion in infrastructure spending, to take place over the next two years. Share prices of publicly listed companies in the infrastructure space are reacting to this near term investment opportunity, this against a backdrop of long...

Is the author of this complaint any relation to Madoff. They appear to have the same last name.

Listening to President-elect Barack Obama is downright depressing. He was able to brand himself as the avatar of “hope” during the election campaign. But this was really the triumph of marketing over common sense. Just because Obama speaks well, and has a baritone voice, like Paul Robeson, doesn’t mean he is actually saying anything worth listening to. Obama’s remarks to Joe the Plumber during the campaign indicating that he wants to “spread the wealth” betrayed his long-hidden inner Marxist. His comments yesterday when naming a new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) demonstrate either his complete ignorance of...

New York (AP) -- Bernard Madoff's contention that he pulled off one of the biggest financial frauds in history without any help is being met with disbelief by his investors and experts in the securities industry. It normally takes a team of accountants, stock brokers, lawyers and more to operate the kind of multibillion-dollar investment fund that Madoff ran from the 17th floor of his Manhattan headquarters. The firm had clients around the globe. Simply generating the detailed financial statements investors got in the mail every month would have been a monumental effort for just one person, observers said, even...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bernard Madoff, a long-time fixture and powerful adviser on Wall Street, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, U.S. authorities said. The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market who remains a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's nominating committee, is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he founded in 1960. But the alleged fraud involved a hedge fund he ran from a separate floor of the building where his brokerage is based. Madoff told senior employees of his...

Militants are being encouraged to use the online site through postings on other Islamic forums on the Internet. Wednesday, December 3, 2008 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Islamic extremists are being instructed on how to use the popular video-sharing site YouTube as a way to disseminate propaganda videos, a U.S.-based terrorism monitor said on Tuesday. Militants are being encouraged to use the online site through postings on other Islamic forums on the Internet, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Last week, an extremist authored step-by-step instructions on posting video to YouTube, which he described as "one of the most famous and biggest...

Yesterday's Politico story puts it this way: Generally, financial analysts say the stock market likes Republicans more than Democrats. And while predicting market movements is as difficult as predicting the winner of the World Series in August, some experts say the market is already anticipating an Obama win on Nov. 4 and has at least partially accounted for it. “Potentially, you could see a one or two-day rally on a McCain victory, and not much of a reaction if Obama wins, because that’s what’s expected at this point,” said Justin Fishkin, a partner at The Cypress Group, a financial services...

Oil prices tumbled more than $6 a barrel Monday, briefly slipping below the $100 level as traders bet that global demand for petroleum products will keep falling despite a planned $700 billion U.S. financial bailout. A stronger dollar also weighed on crude prices as investors who bought oil and other commodities as a hedge against inflation sold their contracts. Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell as low as $99.80 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before edging up slightly to $100.28, down $6.61. The contract fell Friday $1.13 to settle at $106.89. Crude has...

HK investors protest losses on Lehman products By Jeffrey Hodgson Sun Sep 21, 6:06 AM ET More than 100 angry Hong Kong investors marched on government offices on Sunday, calling for action after losing money on structured products linked to failed U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The protesters, many of them elderly retirees, accused the government of failing to provide proper oversight and said local banks did not do enough to warn of them of the risks involved. Many had purchased so-called "minibond" products, notes secured by swap obligations guaranteed by Lehman. "They were misleading investors on the...

"Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. "The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.” How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007? Q: “Well the dimension of...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday outlined plans for the four biggest U.S. banks to issue new bonds to stimulate mortgage lending, the latest in a series of steps to aid the troubled housing market. Paulson outlined rules to issue so-called covered bonds backed by mortgage loans. The instruments are popular in Europe but had little appeal in the U.S. until demand for mortgage-backed securities plummeted because of soaring home loan foreclosures. C,JPM,BAC,WFC...have signed up to issue covered bonds, seen as less risky than mortgage-backed securities. "Covered bonds have the potential to increase mortgage financing...

Investors this summer have been placing their bets on an Obama presidency, and for the most part that hasn't been good for the market. Without giving him a chance to explain himself in detail on the campaign trail or at the Democratic National Convention, they are voting with their shares by tossing financial, health insurance, manufacturing and high-dividend stocks into the ash can, and are growing skeptical about energy companies as well. It's not that major institutional investors don't like the man -- far from it. He has many backers among the financial elite, including multibillionaires George Soros and Ron...

While millions of American families struggle with falling house prices, soaring gasoline costs and tightening credit, some environmentalists, urban planners and urban real estate speculators are welcoming the bad news as signaling what they have long dreamed of -- the demise of suburbia. In a March Atlantic article, Christopher B. Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of urban planning, contended that yesterday's new suburbs will become "the slums" of tomorrow because high gas prices and the housing meltdown will force Americans back to the urban core. Leinberger is not alone. Other pundits, among them author...

Wall Street faces the growing risk of an equities bloodbath in coming months as the credit crunch spreads to the wider economy and earnings crumble, according to a pair of grim reports issued by Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo. David Kostin, the chief US investment guru for Goldman Sachs, expects the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities to plummet a further 15pc over the "near term" as companies scramble to lower their outlook for this year. "Although only a few firms have reported first quarter results, early signs are awful. We expect a swath of lowered profit guidance," he...

First the good news: Automotive expert Ed Wallace says there's no gasoline or oil shortage in the U.S. today and near-record reserves are on hand. Now the bad news: Not only has the congressional mandate for ethanol jacked up the price of food, but Washington, Wall Street and fuel producers all want you to think the gas and oil shortage they keep talking about is real. Washington, Wallace says, appears to be protecting oil speculators and ethanol producers rather than the interests of U.S. citizens who will ultimately pay higher prices for food and U.S. farmers, who are already staggering...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The white bus rumbles into the quiet suburban neighborhood, heading toward a foreclosed home that sits empty. Neighbors, young and old, cock their heads in curiosity or point at the slow-moving coach. Once the vehicle stops, about 20 potential buyers file out and become detectives, opening and closing cabinets and drawers, knocking on walls and asking about the price, the previous owners and what repairs may be needed. Welcome to the Foreclosure Bus Tour, a six-hour expedition to show Orlando-area homes and educate potential buyers on the vagaries of snatching foreclosures in a state where the...

· Insurer blocks exit for 100,000 investors · Crisis has seen some funds lose 50% of value The insurance group Axa shut the door to withdrawals from its £2.1bn property funds yesterday, the latest victim of the slump in commercial property. Axa said more than 100,000 small investors in the fund would not be able to access their money for up to six months, although regular income already being paid, retirements and death claims will not be affected. It joins Friends Provident, Scottish Equitable and Scottish Widows in halting withdrawals from once high-flying funds, which many savers have seen as...

IN THE TUMULTUOUS MONTH of January the bears had their innings, and the bulls did too. We finished the month down 6.0% on the S&P 500. But on the other hand, measured from last week's bottom, stocks are up 5.2%. So the bears win it on points. But did they make any money in January? Probably not. You know what they were all saying, their leering ghoulish faces snarling on CNBC that the world banking system was going to be sucked into a black hole thanks to "subprime slime." But over the month of January the financial sector of the...

This just in: The much-ballyhooed Stoneridge case has come down. Here’s the opinion. The Supreme Court has voted 5-3 that investors can’t bring private lawsuits against third parties in corporate-fraud cases unless they relied on actions by those parties when making investment decisions. (Justice Breyer did not participate in the case.) Here’s the early story from Dow Jones Newswires. For earlier Law Blog posts on Stoneridge, click here, here and here. Here, also, is an exchange on the issues from last year between two securities-law heavyweights. The case centered on the issue of “scheme liability,” i.e., whether third parties —...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday curbed investor lawsuits against businesses accused of scheming to inflate stock prices. In a 5-3 ruling, the court gave a measure of protection from securities suits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with publicly traded companies. The court ruled against investors who alleged that two suppliers colluded with Charter Communications Inc. to deceive Charter's stockholders and manipulate the price of the cable TV company's stock. Charter investors do not have the right to sue because they did not rely on the deceptive acts of Charter's suppliers, said the majority...

Investors warned of slide in shares By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor Last Updated: 1:42am BST 25/10/2007 The credit crisis is far from over and British shareholders are at serious risk of becoming its next victims, the Bank of England warns. Full coverage of the credit crisis | Interest rates In an unexpectedly downbeat report on the state of the British financial system, the bank warns that the UK stock market is "particularly vulnerable" to a downturn. Almost all British workers have money invested in shares – either directly or indirectly through their pensions and life assurance plans – and could...

Call them grave dancers, vulture funds, turnaround specialists or the more euphemistic "opportunity investors." However you identify them, the deal is the same: When hyperactive real estate markets lose their sizzle, or property owners no longer can afford to hang on to their houses, well-capitalized investors smell blood and move in.

Security: Newly released books and films show a growing pop-culture bias against U.S. counterterror efforts. It's another sign the pendulum is swinging back to a 9/10 state of mind. Six years ago we were united as a nation against a common enemy — 300 million Americans resolved to defeat Islamic extremists. Even Hollywood was on board. But as the nightmare that befell our nation dims, we have turned our anger inward. Now the enemy is portrayed in pop culture as the government, the military and law enforcement — the very forces aligned to protect us from the Islamist enemy. The...

Even as he sits in the suburban Bay Area jail that once housed condemned killer Scott Peterson, Norman Hsu is still a wanted man. Jilted investors who sunk $63 million into Hsu's alleged Ponzi schemes are competing for whatever financial crumbs they can shake from the disgraced Democratic fundraiser. At the same time, state and federal prosecutors are wrangling over where he should be jailed. "We have the body," California Deputy Attorney General Ronald Smetana argued last week outside San Mateo Superior Court after a shackled Hsu was ordered held without bail. Hsu's fall from top-tier fundraiser has been swift:...

EuroMoney PLC, the UK-based company that arranges dozens of financial conferences around the world each year, has refused to allow WND staff reporter Jerome Corsi to attend next week's "North American PPP (Public-Private Partnership) & Infrastructure Finance Conference" in New York, even though WND offered to pay the $1,999 conference fee required to attend. "When government officials want to go behind closed doors with investment bankers and lawyers to discuss selling our public infrastructure to foreign investment leaders, investigative reporters need to be there to tell the public what is really going on,” Corsi said. "Why is it that all...

LOS ANGELES -- Just a few years ago, the idea of bankrolling starry-eyed ventures to fly ordinary people into space was laughed off as science fiction. Now some investors are betting on space tourism as the next big thing. The infant industry got a boost in June when a Boston-area investment group backed a private rocket company developing a spaceship that will take off and land like an airplane. The deal between Boston Harbor Angels and XCOR Aerospace, believed to be the first investment by a group of angel investors in a commercial launch company, raised hopes that others will...

When investors were stung by the plunge in the value of their WorldCom stock in 2002, lawyers were ready to sue on their behalf against key executives of the company and its underwriters, financial advisers and auditors. But a Florida lawyer who says he lost more than $600,000 on WorldCom has taken a different tack. Steven I. Weissman sued the Nasdaq Stock Market, as well as its former parent, the National Association of Securities Dealers, claiming that Nasdaq's television and print advertisements fraudulently induced him to buy WorldCom stock by touting the stock's virtues. The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court...

March 20, 2007 -- Flamboyant Wall Street trader turned TV host Jim Cramer, not known for being the shy, retiring type, might have said too much in a video interview he did for a financial Web site. The host of CNBC's daily program "Mad Money" had hedge fund-trading desks buzzing yesterday after he bragged about manipulating stock prices during his days as a trader. In the video from TheStreet.com's "Wall Street Confidential" Webcast, Cramer boasts about manipulating the price of a high-flying stock down, and even acknowledges that doing so might have been illegal. The video is making the rounds...

You've doubtlessly seen more than a few of these messages in your email: "THE BULL REPORT! All signs show that this one is going to Explode!! Price: $0.043 (2 days - UP! 70%) 5 Day Target price: $0.15." That's a real-world example from my spam folder this morning. As a good Fool should, you've probably immediately discarded them. These companies are usually deep in penny-stock territory, straight off the unregulated Pink Sheets, and very thinly traded. Our friendly spammers sound like they found the next Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) or the early days of the next Hansen Natural (Nasdaq: HANS), but...

Investors Say: Give the Iraq Plan a Chance I agree. By Larry Kudlow Amidst all the pessimism about the U.S. strategy-shift in Iraq, world financial markets seem to be voting for Bush and his plan — not against. On the days immediately preceding the president’s speech, as its contents were leaking out, oil prices were plunging and stock prices were rising. And right after the speech, when the contents of the Iraq plan were clear, guess what? Oil prices continued to fall and share prices hit record highs. Of course, there are a lot of factors driving these markets. Corporate...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Manhattan federal judge overseeing the main class-action lawsuit over WorldCom Inc.'s collapse on Wednesday authorized the payment of up to $4.52 billion to aggrieved investors. U.S. Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York said the distribution should be made "as soon as practicable." More than one dozen investment banks, including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., agreed to pay about $6.15 billion to resolve allegations that they helped WorldCom sell bonds when they should have known the phone company was concealing its true financial condition. The remaining...

WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - U.S. and world emergency crude oil reserves could replace a complete shut-off of Iranian oil exports for 18 months, avoiding an estimated $201 billion in damage to the American economy, the Government Accountability Office said on Tuesday. There has been concern among energy traders that tough action by the United States and other western countries against Iran's nuclear program could cause Tehran to retaliate by cutting off the country's oil exports. Iran is the world's fourth biggest oil exporter, selling about 2.7 million barrels a day. Such a disruption would remove close to 1.5 billion...

Investors are keenly interested in the pronouncements of economic forecasters, judging by the massive amounts of ink and airtime allotted to them by the media. It doesn't necessarily follow, however, that heeding the prognosticators is useful in selecting securities. Whether or not seers have insight into future conditions is a testable proposition. If it turns out that they don't, governmental attempts to guide the economy also come into question. Such efforts, after all, rely on forecasts generated by the same methodology that private-sector economists utilize. Statistics compiled by Bloomberg L.P. shed light on the success of prominent forecasters. Each month,...

Sometimes the best thing an investor or trader can do is nothing. It's hard enough to make money in a bear market. It's also tough not to lose it. Three out of every four stocks follow the broad market's direction. Thus when the market falls into a downtrend, it's important to cut your losses, pocket your profits and move toward cash. Sitting in cash lets you free yourself from the daily market noise. You can use the time to reflect, go over past trading mistakes and sharpen your skills. Despite what some so-called market gurus say, your probability of finding...

Probitas surveyed investors earlier this year about their views on which geographic regions in Asia are most attractive. Here are the results: 7. Southeast Asia - 2.4% 6. Australia - 3.9% 5. Korea - 4.9% 4. PanAsianFunds - 14.1% 3. China - 15.1% 2. India - 16.1% and Number 1 was 1. Japan 18.5% Japan is back; its economy is growing, and investors see it as the best bet these days. So, where in Asia do you plan on investing?