But we’ll also confess to getting a bit nervous right now.
Why?
Two reasons:
First, the Apple zealots have gone silent.
Read the rest here.
Comments »Monthly Archives: April 2012
$BAC Because Fuck You, That’s Why
Creator of the Internet Worries About CISPA
“He revolutionized the world by inventing the World Wide Web. Decades later, though, MIT professor Tim Berners-Lee is warning consumers of his creation against Google and Facebook, as well as the government’s attempts to censor the Internet.
In an interview published by the Guardian on Wednesday, Berners-Lee celebrates the marvels made possible by the Web but cautions users to be weary of what companies could be doing with thought-to-be-private info. While the Internet offers endless answers, solutions and opportunities for entertainment, the British-born professor warns that the companies that consumers invest their personal data into might not necessarily be their friend.
“My computer has a great understanding of my state of fitness, of the things I’m eating, of the places I’m at. My phone understands from being in my pocket how much exercise I’ve been getting and how many stairs I’ve been walking up and so on,” says the scientist.
As helpful as that could be, though, Berners-Lee says it has its downside.
“One of the issues of social networking silos is that they have the data and I don’t,” he explains. “There are no programs that I can run on my computer which allow me to use all the data in each of the social networking systems that I use plus all the data in my calendar plus in my running map site, plus the data in my little fitness gadget and so on to really provide an excellent support to me.”
Who is benefiting then? Companies like Facebook, Google and Apple, which are monopolizing not just the Internet, but their user’s information.
“It’s interesting that people throughout the existence of the web have been concerned about monopolies. They were concerned [about] Netscape having complete control over the browser market until suddenly they started worrying that Microsoft had complete control of the browser market. So I think one of the lessons is that things can change very rapidly,” he says.
Berners-Lee’s comments eerily mirror warnings made earlier in the week to the Guardian by Sergey Brin, the co-founder of search engine giant Google. Discussing the hold the company has over its users, Brin said in his interview that consumers are forced to “play by their rules,” which, he added, are “really restrictive.”
“The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine is the Web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation,” said Brin.
On his part, Berners-Lee says that as companies monopolize out way of receiving and delivering information, consumers are quickly becoming more and more vulnerable to be left at their mercy. In attacking Apple over how they attempt to force their customers into using their own applications, the professor says it should be up to the users to decide how they want to control their own devices.
“I should be able to pick which applications I use for managing my life, I should be able to pick which content I look at, and I should be able to pick which device I use, which company I use for supplying my internet, and I’d like those to be independent choices,” he says….”
Comments »
$EBAY Hits a Six-Year High. Should You ‘Buy It Now’
Great article about Ebay from Bespoke…
————————————————————————–
So with the stock already up 15%, should you ‘Buy it Now’ or keep it on your watch list? The table below shows the 24 days since it came public in 1998 that EBAY rose more than 15% in a single day. For each day we calculated the stock’s average and median returns over the next week and month. As shown, the average returns over the next week and month are both convincingly positive.
Read the rest here.
Comments »Cocaine Craving Rats Jam Out to Miles Davis
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ4UuKMi6bQ&ob=av2n 450 300]
Comments »
Levon Helm, Drummer and Singer of the Band, Dead at 71
The Best Trader I Have Ever Known
For roughly six months during 2006 I worked as a proprietary trader at a small but well known prop trading firm in South Florida. It was a small office with about a dozen experienced traders (some much more than others but there were no newbies) who traded anywhere from $500,000 to $5 million accounts. The guy who invited me to work in this office was also a veteran trader himself who happened to also be one of the firms managing partners. His name was Mark and he also happens to be the best trader I have ever personally had the pleasure of witnessing with my own eyes.
Read the rest here.
Comments »Social Media to Put the Herd Mentality in Social Media Company Stocks
A company named Loyal3 would like to be a transfer agent for publicly traded companies like Facebook. No commissions and every Tom, Dick, & Social Harry to add to the herd momentum trade.
Comments »CHART OF THE DAY: You Won’t Believe How Far Spain Has Fallen
Stocks Are Cheap? Logic Says Otherwise
By BRETT ARENDS
Is it true that stocks are cheap “when compared with bonds”? That’s the line on Wall Street. If you haven’t heard it from your broker yet, you will. Indeed, in a recent report, some investment strategists from big brokerages, in their enthusiasm for stocks, argued that they were at record lows compared with bonds.
The comparison doesn’t come out of the blue. It has a long tradition in finance, where it is known as “the Fed model,” because the ratio once appeared in a Federal Reserve report.
The argument is pretty appealing to many — especially now, when bond yields are so low. The stock market today sells for about 14 times forecast earnings — or, to put it another way, if you buy $100 worth of stocks, they should generate, or yield, about $7 in after-tax earnings. That’s on par with historical averages. But that 7 percent “earnings yield” looks enormous when compared with the pitiful 2 percent you’ll earn from 10-year Treasury bonds. Wall Street will offer data going back to the 1960s that shows the two yields moving in tandem.
Read the rest here.
Comments »A Clear Sign of Present GDP Upside
“Strong earnings reports from two of the nation’s biggest freight railroads show that the U.S. economy is continuing its long, slow recovery.
Union Pacific Corp. said Thursday its first-quarter net income jumped 35 percent as the railroad hauled more cars and crude oil. CSX said earlier this week that its net income jumped 14 percent. Both railroads were hauling more containers of consumer goods and both were able to increase rates enough to offset a decline in coal shipments after a mild winter.
“The economy is stable and slowly growing,” said Jack Koraleski, Union Pacific’s president and CEO. “We’re seeing some generally positive trends.”
Many people will be encouraged by the reports because the major freight railroads are considered indicators of the nation’s economic health. The amount of cars, chemicals, crops, lumber and containers of imported goods that railroads carry across the country offer insight into those industries.
“The railroad is a good leading indicator of how the economy will do,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University.
Both Union Pacific and CSX reported a drop in coal shipments. Winter weather was mild and prices for natural gas, an alternative for power generation, are around 10-year lows. UP’s energy shipments declined 8 percent, and CSX reported a 14 percent drop in its coal shipments.
But shipments of more economically sensitive items like cars, lumber, industrial products and crude oil all increased in the quarter. That led officials at both Union Pacific and CSX to express confidence that their companies could offset the decline in coal shipments this year with growth in other areas of their business.
The 15 percent jump in automotive shipments that Union Pacific reported was particularly encouraging. That figure reflects the 13 percent increase in sales of cars and trucks in the first quarter. Analysts are predicting sales of 14.5 million or more this year, which would be the industry’s best performance since 2007.
Sohn said the railroads’ strong performance, combined with data on trucking and port traffic, all suggest the economy is doing just fine.
“They all indicate that the economy is moving in the right direction,” Sohn said.
That’s the trend railroad officials have been seeing although Koraleski said he worries that sustained high gasoline prices could slow the economic recovery. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.89, up 62 cents since Jan. 1.
The U.S. government issues its initial estimate of first-quarter gross domestic product a week from Friday. Economists estimate the economy grew around 2.5 percent in the first three months of the year.
Omaha-based Union Pacific said Thursday that it generated $863 million in net income, or $1.79 per share, in the quarter that ended March 31. That’s up from $639 million, or $1.29 per share, a year earlier.
UP, which is the nation’s largest railroad, said it increased prices on many shipments and collected more fuel surcharge fees during the quarter to boost its revenue 14 percent to $5.11 billion.
CSX said price increases helped it increase profits 14 percent to $449 million, or 43 cents per share, in the first quarter. That’s up from $395 million, or 35 cents per share, a year ago.
Both railroads exceeded what Wall Street had been expecting.
Deutsche Bank analyst Justin Yagerman gives both UP and CSX a buy rating partly because he believes they’ll be able to continue increasing prices and improving their operations.
Union Pacific has 32,400 miles of track crossing 23 states from the Midwest to the West and Gulf Coasts.
CSX is based in Jacksonville, Fla., and has about 21,000 miles of track in 23 eastern states and two Canadian provinces.”
Comments »
Fast Money: Interview with the CEO of $CPST
Type 5 Prints Rise This Year; Experts See Momentum Building
“NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Short sales are rising sharply, offering many struggling homeowners a better alternative to foreclosure in many of the nation’s hardest hit states.
In short sale deals, the sale price of the home is less than what the seller owes. Often, the bank that holds the mortgage takes so long to approve the sale that the deal falls through. But in recent months, the pace of short sales has increased, a trend that should gain momentum, according to RealtyTrac….”
Comments »TARP Watchdog: ‘We Are Letting Our Guard Down’
“U.S. regulators and the American public have become complacent toward the dangers of another financial crisis, leaving taxpayers at risk of another bailout, a top watchdog said.
“We are letting our guard down against things like moral hazard and ‘too big to fail’ banks,” Christy Romero, the special inspector general for the financial-system bailout, said in an interview. “And that causes me great concern,”
Ms. Romero’s comments come ahead of her office’s next quarterly report to Congress, …”
Comments »US State Revenues Reach Pre-Crisis Peak
SEC Considering Charges Against Egan-Jones
“Egan-Jones plans to contest potential charges expected from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today that the credit rating agency made material and intentional misstatements in its application to the SEC to rate securities in 2008.
Specifically, the SEC may vote on whether to charge Egan-Jones with misleading the market regulator over its rating experience, its finances, its internal procedures, as well as the adequacy of its books and records.
The SEC also may charge Egan-Jones over its conflict of interest policy. Egan-Jones gets paid by investors, whereas the larger credit-rating agencies get paid by Wall Street companies who issue securities. The SEC is not contesting the actual ratings offered by Egan-Jones.
An earlier SEC inspector general report noted the market regulator had misgivings about Egan- Jones’ application to be a credit rating agency. Reuters broke the news earlier that the SEC could vote possibly later today on whether or not to charge Egan-Jones, citing people familiar with the matter.
A person close to the matter says Egan-Jones denies any wrongdoing and will fight any charges. The SEC declined comment…”
Comments »LOL: Man Calls Police Over High Gas Prices
1950 CEO Pay 50-60 Times Average Worker; Today 380 Times
Sprint, $S, Hit With a $300 million Suite for Unpaid Taxes
FT: Big Investors Bet Fed Will Embark on More Easing
“While the economy is on the mend, markets shouldn’t discount the possibility of the Federal Reserve stepping in with a third round of large-scale bond buybacks from banks to make sure recovery doesn’t lose track, big investors say.
The Fed has twice pumped trillions into the economy buying bonds from banks to ensure price stability and encourage hiring, a stimulus tool known as quantitative easing (QE).
Market talk of a third round has come and gone this year, with calls for it growing when economic indicators disappoint and dismissals when indicators surprise.”
Comments »
