Here in my upscale neighborhood, Miami Beach, I still can’t see any sign whatsoever of the fabulous economic recovery that the stock market is forecasting. I used to have to go my barber on weekday afternoon’s to avoid the weekend crowd. He is very popular, but now I can just waltz in any time on a Saturday afternoon to get my hair cut without having to wait.
In the strip mall, the Italian restaurant had zero customers for three straight hours last Saturday night. The dog-groomer sometimes just closes up shop and goes home because the fashionable ladies simply aren’t getting their purse dogs groomed as often as they used to. The tanning salon will often go for hours with no customers at all. Tanning used to be very important to the club-kid crowd here. It is also easy to park at this strip mall now because the real estate company that used to clog it up is long gone. And the half-hour wait at the car wash is gone too. Even at formerly peak hours, there is never more than one car ahead of me when there used to be four or five back in 2007.
These businesses are away from the tourist areas and cater mostly to locals. I suppose that they are lucky that they still have their doors open, and are probably doing far better than their counterparts in other areas of the country, but still… There you are surrounded by gleaming luxury high-rise condo buildings filled with rich people, and you can’t sell them a car wash for a lousy $7?
From what I can see, this rally is still a candidate for one of the greatest sucker’s rallies in history.
I will agree with you ONLY when my system gives me permission to. (how’s that for following my system Yerk? haha)
now onto my chair for once more
Yerk, your suggestion means i would have to liquidate my “speculative & learning account”
1.5k? LOL and i thought $250 was a lot.
I asked the delivery man if this was a tough week for deliveries since it’s been very muggy here. he honestly replied “I’m thankful that at 57 they let me still work here and I get paid to do this, it’s better than sitting on the couch on a hot day with no money”
I wasn’t expecting that anyways
how’s Ziggy treating you Matt?
I know SuperK has treated me ok (no thanks to $9.99 commissions) but that will soon be over. $1/trade coming up!! 
I’ll reveal the broker only after am satisfied by the fills etc..
Japan is expanding efforts to attract buyers to the nation’s growing debt load, flooding the backs of taxi cabs for the first time with pamphlets in the hopes of getting retirees to invest more money in bonds.
I will be going home to Dubai in about a week’s time. My flight will cost me almost half of what it used to be and the traffic in Dubai will be much too. You have to love recessions. Except for the bloody short squeezes.
What Strikes me as interesting is the volume from march to now. big divergence…
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/9/9/209573/dowmonth2108.png
Hey Dressguard,
no wonder I had a dream that we will crash aug 27th.. you will go back and there will be nobody to stop the schoolboy!!!
The bottom is in. Can’t go below zero customers. Buy stocks.
K, dow-monthly stochs and macd look like q2/2003. That would be a target of 10.5-11K on the dow. I tell ya, the bottom is in.
Looks to me like we are building the left side of the “A”. With Larry now dabbling on the short side, you have to start really respecting the possibility of a top to that A.
Seems like it all comes down to the world living off of unprecedented gov’t stimulus, USA being the biggest contributor. But even with stimulus and a massive increase in govt debt, the private economy is still losing jobs – we are no better off. But…
People are feeling marginally better in general because they now believe the “gov’t will save them” or “bankruptcy is OK, we will get a fresh start”, so they go out and continue their reckless ways – loosen the purse springs just a titch..and voila…the recession is over, we survived the greatest economic disaster in our lifetimes – we are heros, we are now safe….
Randall,
You could give Ayn Rand a run for her money. Nice perspective.
Here’s a decent article that attempts to get at avoiding using single number probabilities to navigate around a black swan reckoning..
Just thinking about my own style of managing risk with so many unknown variables, I remember telling a friend that he may want to get some Ford along with the Chevy he was intent on getting (What’s the probability of 1; both going bust? Over what time frame? etc.) Had he done that his securities would be set to return 15%+.
A potential negative for the market is the news that Cerberus is going to begin liquidating as big investors pull money out of their hedge fund. The Wall Street Journal reported this after the bell on Friday.
So buying Chrysler was not smart – who’d guessed that?
August 21, 2009 – Summer Recess Program – 2nd Hour Guest Experts
has an interview with Louise Yamada and Gerald Celente
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
Hey Matt and folks – been following along but not dipping into your HF waters so haven’t chimed in.
Just recently updated econ out and mkt outlook – which, no surprise as it has been true for months – we’re smack in the middle of the same spot on the same page:
Econ: http://llinlithgow.com/bizzX/2009/08/same_ol_same_ol_economic_cliff.html
Mkt: http://llinlithgow.com/bizzX/2009/08/wheres_the_beef_panic_to_eupho.html
Interestingly Grantham agrees with us at least according to a WSJ story tonight/tomorrow. Happy to provide URL but not sure it’s free. Worth tracking down for external confirmation.
Meanwhile what’s beyond Miracles ?
somebody is saying FAS 90 target?
yay thinkorswim platform on blackberry!!! I am alive again time to overpower the market.!!
courtesy of tmobile!
http://www.safehaven.com/images/du_plessis/14272_n.jpg
night
dblwyo,
RE: “Meanwhile what’s beyond Miracles ?”
Box of Chocolate.