By Robert Perrego, at 9:19 am on February 27th, 2009
Initial GDP numbers for the fourth quarter of 2008 that were announced a few weeks ago gave some investors cause for hope. The top line number announced initially was that the U.S. economy had contracted at a 3.8% pace with common expectations of a contraction of 5%. Of course the negative ninnies cited an increase in inventories of 1.2% and there we were again right back at down 5%.
Oh well – at least it wasn’t worse right?
Well it is! Revised numbers on the Q4 GDP all of a sudden are a big negatory 6.2%. Hey, will someone please turn the lights off and close that office down before we end up at negative 10% already!
Consumer spending, which usually makes up about 2/3rds of GDP has left the building with Elvis. Consumers are slamming those wallets shut in anticipation of tougher times ahead – or maybe it is because a whole lot of them no longer have jobs. General Motors, a key participant in the ‘Hey, I Got More Problems’ parade is talking about letting another 47,000 people go worldwide. The surprising thing here is none of us thought they still were employing that many people these days anyways. In General Motors next revision don’t be surprised if they start firing people working for General Electric – how many people can this company fire anyway?
By Robert Perrego, at 12:56 pm on February 25th, 2009
COME FIND a TRADER CHEATING! No way!
All seems to be as it is, was and hopefully will not be. The CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) has just busted a $1.3 billion commodities fund that was not using the raised funds to invest as they told investors they were going to and approximately $533 million were siphoned off from the fund.
Madoff (with your money), Stanford (lets go to Antigua with your money) and now Stephen Walsh (wash your money) and Paul Greenwood (would you give me more green money) might all share a prison cell together.
By Robert Perrego, at 1:30 pm on February 23rd, 2009
Charles Dow was the first editor of the Wall Street Journal and penned many comments on the stock market and one long term theory that came from his observations is called The Dow Theory.
One of the most followed tenets of Dow Theory is that the stock market averages must confirm each other. The traditional two averages that Dow Theory practitioners have all followed are the Dow Jones Industrial Average (components such as Citigroup, General Electric, etc…) and the Transportation Index (composed of railroads, trucking companies, etc…). Dow Theory says that if BOTH these averages are making new lows or new highs, then that is the trend of the market. The Transportation Average and the Industrial 30 have indeed been making new lows and therefore the market trend is confirmed and down. This is not big news to anyone.
Today the S&P 500 traded below the low close it set back on November 20, 2008 while the Industrials broke to new multi-year lows as did the Transports.
And old rule of comedy is to repeat three times for effect.
Industrials, Transports, S&P 500 – 1,2,3. Look out below!
By Mark Pason, at 10:23 am on February 23rd, 2009
Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers (UAW) reach Agreement on VEBA Changes according to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
By Robert Perrego, at 1:16 pm on February 16th, 2009
Now they have gone too far! Obama, who has been the world’s loudest prophet of doom and despair this side of Al Gore, has stated that if his ‘Stimulus Bill’ was not to be passed immediately (hey – wasn’t he the ‘Hope and Change’ guy three months ago?) the United States would not be able to avoid catastrophe and disaster! Well, the Democrats rammed it through pretty fast even if they did not have time to read the final bill.
Friday night the Senate passed the reconciled Bill and rushed it to Obama’s desk. This needed to be done immediately as time was of the essence as Obama had prophesied. In fact, the White House was so concerned about speed that as soon as the bill was signed and passed by both houses, Obama took the weekend off to go to Chicago. Was the bill signed into law? NO! This sounds like the proposed new Olympic sport of dash-fishing where opponents line up for the 100 yard dash and then go fishing. Hurry up and wait!
And guess what horrible, catastrophic disaster could be the result of Obama’s weekend off? The State of Oregon is now considering a 1900 percent tax on BEER!
Ok, Obama, you can drive the country hopelessly into debt with welfare non-job creating spending, you can talk to all the despots and religious crazies on the planet, hire tax cheats and lobbyists all day long, but WHEN YOU GO AFTER MY BEER THAT’S IT!
I thought this ‘Stimulus Bill’ (and notice I do use quotes every time because this bill should have a more appropriate name like ‘Obama’s Massive Spending Project’) was bailing out the states and saving us all from disaster? BEER UP 1900 percent? Now that’s a disaster!
Oregon contains more breweries per person than any other state and regularly takes a massive share of beer awards from London to Munich. Now the Yakima Brewing and Malting Company, The BridgePort Brewing Company, The Full Sail Brewing Company and The Widmer Brothers Brewery can pay the government $49.61 more per barrel of beer. Needless to say Anheuser Busch Inc. (NYSE: BUD) will not be opening any breweries there anytime soon.
This is awful – I NEED A BEER! Maybe I will have something from The Hair of the Dog Brewing Company. You know what I mean – the ‘hair of the dog’ – what you take the next day when you realize you made a big mistake and got too high on something… maybe ‘Hope and Change’?
Happy President’s Day Obama. Sign the damned bill already – before they start taxing my… well… they are already taxing everthing anyway. Nevermind.
