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Latest Comments31 Comments
Ten Missouri Stocks
When Hedgies Attack: Morgan Stanley Drops 40% on Rumors
Inefficient Markets: Shorting, the VIX, and Unintended Consequences
Can Investor Sentiment Be Rescued?
Yesterday's Crude Spike: Most Cut-and-Dry Case of Speculation Yet
Sure, some of them would be balanced out by long speculators, but is there really a 1-to-1 match between short and long speculators (I would find that hard to believe)? Or are there people out there trying to use the futures market the old-fashioned way -- to lock in the price for a commodity they must buy -- getting whipped around by heavy speculation?
GDP and the Decline of National Statistics
High Growth Expectations for the S&P 500?
Home Prices Have Stopped Falling: The Statistics Are Skewed
1) Assumption: Mike Roth's data is accurate. We have no idea who this guy is, where he's getting his data from, what the geographical distribution of the data is, how large a sample he's using.... We don't even have the data itself! Hey Tim, I just sold my house for a 500% profit! I guess there's a new housing bubble... yay!
2) Logic Gap: Roth implies that adding "all new appliances, granite countertops and new carpet, paint, interior doors, garage door, updated windows, central heat and ac" will add $10k - 20k to a house. I don't believe it - show me the data.
2.5) Logic Gap: Mike Roth states that the difference between a bank owned house and a "nice home" is, again, "all new appliances, granite countertops and new carpet, paint, interior doors, garage door, updated windows, central heat and ac." I don't know exactly how much that's worth, but it's clearly worth something. So it does not follow to imply (as the author does) that a home is worth 40% less simply because it's bank owned -- the home is worth less primarily because it's not as nice a home! I would not be surprised if there's some additional "penalty" to the value because the bank wants to unload it quickly and is willing to lower the price to do so, but that penalty is less than 40%.
3) Logic Gap: The reduction of the average caused by the sale of bank-owned houses is very much a real reduction that affects anyone who is going to sell. If my neighbor's house was sold by the bank for 60% the cost of my house, my house is worth less. Maybe not 40% less, if it had nicer appliances, fixtures, etc., but still less. If I then sell my house WITHOUT foreclosing on it, then the houses of my other neighbors are worth less, this time depressed by a non-bank owned sale. And the cycle continues.
4) Assumption: As astutely pointed out above by westwest888, this analysis assumes 0% inflation.
I'm sure there's many more, but I'm tired of this article.
Invest and Stop Working
The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust
I don't mean to be a douche, but any investment advice that has the words "trust me" in a non-ironic context is suspect at best.
Oil and the Futures Market
Then again, oil futures have been traded for about 25 years, so if oil-producing entities are indeed keeping the price up, you have to wonder why they let the price get so low in the late-90s...
Very interesting to think about, although I don't have the expertise to know if this is actually feasible -- has anyone done the analysis to see if this pecils out?
Hey, Congress, Speculators May Not Be the Bad Guys
Oil producers and consumers use futures to hedge well known and *relatively* constant demand and supply, so for them the number of open contracts should remain *relatively* constant (or at least rise predictably with the global consumption of oil).
On the other hand, when speculators buy futures contracts, they start with a dollar value and work backwards to the number of contracts -- they have $1,000 to spend, so they buy $1,000 worth of contracts. They don't say "give me 100 contracts whatever it costs." So as oil (and oil futures) go up, fewer contracts equal the same dollar value.
Is the Equities Party Over?
"[the DJIA is] very vulnerable to a big correction. Few stocks would be spared in such a downdraft. Do you have a slightly greater appreciation for technical indicators?"
This is a circular argument: Technical indicators make a significant prediction, therefore technical indicators must be correct.
Avoid Options on Inverse Index ETFs
Southern Copper's Stock Split Doesn't Hurt Its Fundamentals One Bit
#2 - How could having more shares possibly make PCU vulnerable to shorting?
#3 - The short-term target for PCU is $110, less than 1% above today's close? Not exactly going out on a limb there, are we?
#4 - Actually, unless you're planning on making a large sale soon, your PCU position will change by many shares -- it will triple due to this very split we're discussing!