The "Buy American" provisions of the US stimulus package has caused quite a stir. The Economist likened them to the raise of long buried zombies. However there seems still the voice of reason available in all that madness. A broad coalition of US and multi-national organizations has formed expressin...

“Once upon a time, there was a caveman named Fred. (I refuse to name him “Oog” or something, just on principle.) Fred was a very bright guy, but he had absolutely no knowledge of the laws of nature. Please don’t ask how poor Fred managed to grow up this way: it’s a sad ...

Good morning. The negative bias continues following another long speech by Bernanke including his view that there will be no lasting recovery without more aid to banks. President Bush has already requested the second half of TARP after Obama said that "it would be irresponsible for me to enter ...

Earlier this week I was talking to a friend of mine about why, practically speaking, we work. I don’t mean why we do whatever it is that we really do, I mean why we keep up our day jobs. Underneath it all, it comes back to a very simple precept — you need money to buy food. It got me thi...

Earlier today I mentioned on Twitter that out of the nearly 100 feeds I subscribe to and the 1000s of posts that are pushed to me every day, I was having a hard time finding five daily that I really wanted to read. This is a 180 degree shift from last year around this time. The content hasn’t ...

Finally. The children are nestled in stockings or whatever, asleep, and Christmas 2008 is over, and hopefully it was all right — jesus fucking christ and hopefully it did not go as horrifically wrong as this, or this, and what were we talking about again? Where is the bottle, of whisky? Let...

The bears clearly went on Thanksgving vacation . After all, they have a lot to be thankful for in 2008! For the week, the S&P 500 rallied back +12.03% , Dow +9.73% , Nasdaq +10.92% , and the Russell 2000 +16.38% . Looking through the weekly performance among the ETFs, the biggest winners this week w...

You have to love it when the market plays according to script. After busting through recent supports & lows, the bear trap was sprung and we rallied back hard for big gains across the board on heavy volume. In fact, it was truly fitting that we closed at the "911" level on the S&P. You may hate this...

My style to explore a city is to vaguely set a goal (e.g. a famous road or landmark), use public transport and let me drift through the city. So this evening I set my eye on 天安门广场. I didn't go to the Forbidden City, just stand outside, since they are closed after working hours (mental note...

If you were long the ugly ducklings in financials, homebuilders, and retail, you were able to see some profits today. Most everything else traded lower, especially some of the market's top performers. If my email is any indication, a lot of traders are frustrated about chasing their tails this week ...