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Is the Correction Camp Too Crowded?

We posted yesterday that the S&P500 was set up for a pullback after carving out an outside day (higher high and lower low than previous day) at strong resistance and looked for follow through selling today.   Didn’t happen.

In fact, the S&P500 followed yesterday’s outside day with an inside day with today’s high/low lower/higher than yesterday’s.  This reflects a lack of sellers and nervous buyers.

An inside day following an outside day is a relatively rare three-day pattern and has initially happened on six times since the current bull market began on March 6, 2009.    In every case, the post 5-day return on the S&P500 was positive, averaging 2.08 percent.

Today’s pattern and run up looks very similar to the one made on January 31, 2011.   The S&P500 rallied 22 percent in 108 trading days from the August 26, 2010 low into the inside/outside three-day pattern.  It added another 4.4 percent in the next 14 trading days before correcting.

Read the rest here.

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Fed Shrugged Off Warnings, Let Banks Pay Shareholders Billions

by Jesse Eisinger
ProPublica, March 2, 2012, 8 a.m.

In early November 2010, as the Federal Reserve began to weigh whether the nation’s biggest financial firms were healthy enough to return money to their shareholders, a top regulator bluntly warned: Don’t let them.

“We remain concerned over their ability to withstand stress in an uncertain economic environment,” wrote Sheila Bair, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in a previously unreported letter obtained by ProPublica.

The letter came as the Fed was launching a “stress test” to decide whether the biggest U.S. financial firms could pay out dividends and buy back their shares instead of putting aside that money as capital. It was one of the central bank’s most critical oversight decisions in the wake of the financial crisis.

“We strongly encourage” that the Fed “delay any dividends or compensation increases until they can show” that their earnings are strong and their assets sound, she wrote. Given the continued uncertainty in the markets, “we do not believe it is the right time to allow transactions that will weaken their capital and liquidity positions.”

Four months later, the Federal Reserve rejected Bair’s appeal.

In March 2011, the Federal Reserve green-lighted most of the top 19 financial institutions to deliver tens of billions of dollars to shareholders, including many of their own top executives. The 19 paid out $33 billion in the first nine months of 2011 in dividends and stock buy-backs.

That $33 billion is money that the banks don’t have to cushion themselves — and the broader financial system — should the euro crisis cause a new recession, tensions with Iran flare into war and disrupt the oil supply, or another crisis emerge.

This is the first in-depth account of the Fed’s momentous decision and the fractious battles that led to it. It is based on dozens of interviews, most with people who spoke on condition of anonymity, and on documents, some of which have never been made public. By examining the decision, this account also sheds light on the inner workings of one of the most powerful but secretive economic institutions in the world.

Read the rest here.

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio May Make an Ass of Himself, or Create a Constitutional Crisis

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Poll after poll in recent months has indicated that Americans have a high level of concern over Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president, with one poll showing fully half of the nation wants Congress to investigate the question.

But reporters for the traditional media – networks, major newspapers, major news corporations and conglomerates – mostly have giggled when talk turns to the serious question of just what the U.S. Constitution requires of presidents.

Nevertheless, media organizations from all political persuasions are seeking admittance to a news conference to be held by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz.

The event is tomorrow at 1 p.m. Mountain Standard Time in Phoenix, 3 p.m. Eastern, and will be live-streamed by WND.

The topic of discussion will be an investigation by Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse into concerns about Obama’s eligibility. It’s the first time an official law enforcement report has addressed many of the allegations about the presumptive 2012 Democratic nominee for president.

The issues include Obama’s eligibility under the U.S. Constitution’s requirements, questions about his use of a Connecticut Social Security number and the image of his purported birth certificate from Hawaii.

In addition to the live-streaming, WND will make available to the public, the same day by email, the official report distributed to media by Arpaio’s investigators. Those interested in receiving the report can sign up for the free service.

Top national media organizations have indicated their plans to attend, and bookings for radio and television reports are in the works. Expected are reporters from the Associated Press, Reuters, Univision, the Washington Times and NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates, as well statewide radio networks, among many others.

Because of the circumstances, a decision was made to hold the press conference at the sheriff’s training center on the outskirts of Phoenix, rather than at the downtown office.

The event is expected to draw protesters who object to the sheriff’s office review of allegations that Obama may attempt to use a fraudulent document to have his name placed on the 2012 presidential election ballot in Arizona.

Without releasing any details, Arpaio has said the findings “could be a shock.”

He constituted a special five-member law enforcement posse last year to investigate allegations brought by members of the Surprise, Ariz., Tea Party that the Obama birth certificate released to the public by the White House on April 27 might be a forgery.

The posse is made up of three former law enforcement officers and two retired attorneys with law enforcement experience. Members have been examining evidence since September concerning Obama’s eligibility to be president under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, which requires a president to be a natural-born citizen.

Among other issues, there also have been allegations of Obama’s use of a Social Security number that corresponds to a Connecticut address, even though the president apparently had no links there.

WND earlier reported a private investigation found that the Social Security number being used by Obama does not pass a check with E-Verify, the electronic system the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has created to verify whether or not someone is authorized to work legally in the country.

Arpaio’s investigation is the first official law enforcement look at the allegations surrounding Obama’s eligibility. Many of the private investigators who have examined it contend there are too many questionable circumstances to believe that everything regarding Obama is above-board.

Arpaio previously told WND that when he launched his Cold Case Posse it was with the possibility that he would clear Obama.

He said it wasn’t an issue he could ignore, after 250 members of the tea party organization “came to me and asked their sheriff to investigate Obama and the birth certificate.”

The WND TV live-streaming coverage of the news conference Thursday is possible through the support of the Western Center for Journalism.

The decisions in dozens of court cases over the last few years questioning Obama’s eligibility were typified by a recent decision in Georgia in which several individuals filed challenges to Obama’s name on the 2012 ballot and provided evidence to a hearing officer.

Even though Obama and his lawyer deliberately snubbed the case – the lawyer wrote the judge a letter in advance telling him Obama would not attend – the judge threw out the evidence presented by several attorneys and ruled in favor of Obama.

Similar ballot challenges are being filed in a long list of other states already.

The Arpaio investigators were given the case following a meeting held in the sheriff’s office Aug. 17, 2011, with tea party representatives from Surprise, Ariz., who presented a petition signed by more than 250 Maricopa County residents. The petitioners expressed concern that their voting rights could be irreparably compromised if Obama uses a forged birth certificate to be placed on the 2012 presidential ballot in Arizona or otherwise is found to be ineligible.

The tea party letter formally stated the following charge: “The Surprise Tea Party is concerned that no law enforcement agency or other duly constituted government agency has conducted an investigation into the Obama birth certificate to determine if it is in fact an authentic copy of 1961 birth records on file for Barack Obama at the Hawaii Department of Health in Honolulu, or whether it, or they are forgeries.”

The posse was constituted as a 501(c)3 organization, designed to cost the people of Maricopa County nothing, while enabling people from around the country to contribute to its mission.

Those wishing to send a tax-deductible contribution directly to the Cold Case Posse may do so by mailing a check or money order to: MCSO Cold Case Posse, P.O. Box 74374, Phoenix, AZ 85087.

WND has reported that dozens of experts with varying ranges of competency who have looked at the situation believe the birth documentation image released by Obama last year is not genuine.

A flying-banner and billboard campaign to let people know about the questions regarding eligibility that was started by WND CEO and Editor Joseph Farah also has raised the public’s awareness of the situation.

Farah wrote recently that the underlying question to be determined is whether the U.S. Constitution remains the law of the land, or whether it has become “an archaic old document that needs to be amended.”

“At its core, it’s really quite simple: Does Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution dealing with who can serve as president of the United States simply mean that any citizen age 35 or older is eligible? If so, why did the founders use a different term altogether – ‘natural born citizen’? What is a ‘natural born citizen’? Is it anyone born in the United States? If so, why have candidates born outside the United States been deemed eligible? Do we owe it to America’s future to go back in history to determine what that term actually means?

“Until now, as hard as it may be to believe, no official vetting of Obama’s credentials has been done – not by the 50 secretaries of state who oversee elections, not by the Federal Elections Commission that administers the nation’s elections laws, not by the Electoral College, not by any judge in America, not by Congress, not by anyone,” he continued.

Even before the results become public, Farah said he’s confident there will be a significant impact.

“I strongly believe it could be a game-changer,” he said.

Source

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The Myth of Buy and Hold: Even Buffett is an Active Trader

via Dorsey Wright Money Management

No one can dispute that Warren Buffett is a good investor—he’s made a ton of money over many years and it’s been well-documented.  He holds court periodically and even his public calls have been pretty good, like his “Buy American. I Am.” editorial in the New York Times on October 16, 2008.  (More recently he said bonds should come with a warning label, so take that for what it’s worth.)  You could do worse than trying to emulate Warren Buffett.

So what is St. Warren actually doing?  Well, fortunately some college professors did the heavy lifting.  They analyzed Berkshire Hathaway’s quarterly filings from 2006 all the way back to 1980, 2,140 quarter-stock observations.  CXO Advisory had a nice summary of their work.  In the words of the professors:

…we observe a median holding period of a year, with approximately 20% of stocks held for more than two years. At the other end of the spectrum, approximately 30% of stocks are sold within six months.

Yep, Warren Buffett has 100% turnover.  He blew out 30% of his portfolio selections within six months, and held about 20% of his picks for the longer run.  That is active trading by any definition.

Read the rest here.

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World Beta: Combining Value and Momentum Approaches

February 28th, 2012 by Mebane Faber

This is a really interesting semi-annual report from Hussman.  In it he shows the returns of his main fund, both hedged and unhedged.  The take-aways are that a) his stock picking has added a lot of value over the broad indexes and b) the hedging has added value, not on an absolute level, but a lot on a risk adjusted level by reducing volatility and drawdowns over the past decade.  Click on chart to enlarge.

 

We have presented a lot of hedging ideas over time, the main one being a momentum, or trend, based system (A Quantitative Approach To Tactical Asset Allocation).  Most of the results of a moving average system have similar properties in that the they do not increase absolute return over buy and hold, but rather reduce volatility and drawdown. (One can use other methods such as momentum/relative strength and or leverage to increase absolute returns like Relative Strength Strategies for Investing.)

Hussman’s fund is interesting, as it essentially increases equity exposure as valuations come down, and decreases exposure or hedges as valuations increase.  Reminds me a lot of GMO.  So in some ways it is a bit of a dynamic short volatility fund based on valuation (I know not quite the right description but works for purposes of this post).  Here is an older post we did on hedging using CAPE, and found that a simple method of investing when the CAPE was less than average generates equity returns with less risk and drawdown.

Anyways, I think it is instructive to demonstrate how pairing a fund like this with a long volatility strategy would have worked since inception.  So, I’m going to include the GTAA strategy from my paper here, only using the hypothetical 5 asset classes and the 10-month simple moving average.  I’m also going to lop off a very conservative 2.0% for fund expenses,  trading friction, etc.

To see the strategy and the returns, go here.

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Time to Add the VIX to Your Equity Portfolio?

Author: Prieur du Plessis  ·  February 29th, 2012  ·

The interim solving of the debt crisis in Greece has restored calm in the markets, with the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) settling at 17.3 compared to its long-term average of 20.0. The big question now is whether the VIX will return to the low levels of 1991-1996 and 2004-2006.

To read the rest of the analysis and see some great charts, go here.

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Gold Falls in ‘Manic’ Plunge

By Debarati Roy – Feb 29, 2012 5:27 PM ET

Gold futures fell as much as $100 to below $1,700 an ounce on signs that that the Federal Reserve will refrain from offering more monetary stimulus to bolster the U.S. economy.

In testimony before Congress today, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke gave no signal that the central bank will take new steps to boost liquidity. The dollar rose as much as 0.8 percent against a basket of major currencies, eroding the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative investment. Yesterday, gold reached $1,792.70, a three-month high, even as coin sales by the U.S. mint slumped in February .

“People were expecting that the Fed would loosen policies, even if the perception is that the economy is doing well,” James Dailey, who manages $215 million at TEAM Financial Management LLC in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “The investor sentiment changed as the Fed committed to nothing. This is the manic nature of the market.”

In electronic trading on the Comex in New York, gold futures for April delivery fell $90.30, or 5 percent, to $1,698.10 at 5:14 p.m., compared with yesterday’s settlement. Earlier, the price tumbled as much as $100, or 5.6 percent, to $1,688.40, the lowest for a most-active contract since Jan. 25.

The settlement at the close of floor trading was $1,711.30, down 4.3 percent, the most since Dec. 14. The price, down 1.7 percent this month, has gained 9.2 percent in 2012.

Read the rest here.

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US Fund Managers Boost Equity Holdings in February

By Sam Forgione

NEW YORK | Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:39am EST

(Reuters) – U.S. money managers increased their equity holdings in February to the second highest level in 14 months, tracking a rally in the S&P 500 stock index, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

The poll, which surveyed 13 U.S.-based fund management companies between February 17 and 28, found that firms allocated 65.6 percent of their assets into equities, a gain of nearly 3 percentage points since January.

February’s equity allocation figure is only exceeded over a 14-month period by 66.8 percent in December.

The benchmark S&P 500 – which has risen 3.5 percent in February and on Tuesday closed above the May 2011 intraday high of 1,370.58 points – is up more than 9 percent this year. Also on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 13,000 for the first time since 2008.

Risk has made a huge comeback this year on signs of improvement in the U.S. economy, including job growth, manufacturing and consumer confidence, as well as an attractive risk-reward ratio on equities relative to other asset classes.

“There’s almost a crisis fatigue, and cash has been on the sidelines for such a long period of time and people want to have a better return than the 1.98 they get on the 10-year Treasury. They’re looking for more,” said Colleen Denzler, senior vice president and head of fixed income strategy for Janus Capital Group.

“So if there’s any chance that clarity and consistency is around the corner, they’re going to reach for high yield, they’re going to reach for equities, and that’s what we’ve seen since January.”

Read the rest here.

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Why it took the Dow so long to eclipse 13K: Next Few Days are Crucial

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Well, the Dow finally did it.

The “it,” of course, is closing above 13,000.

The real story here, however, is not that the Dow finally did so — but why it took so long. After all, it’s been nearly a month since the Dow first came within 1% of 13,000.

The market’s action over the next couple of days will be crucial in helping to answer this question.

If the Dow’s tentativeness in recent weeks was caused by nothing more than the routine difficulties of breaking through a resistance level, then the stock market should exhibit abnormal strength in the next couple of days, now that this resistance level has been broken.

If, in contrast, the market was bogged down by something more serious, then stocks’ behavior in coming sessions could very well be anemic at best — and possibly much worse.

I base these comments on a fascinating 1993 study, “Price Barriers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” which was published in the academic Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. The authors were Glen Donaldson of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Harold Kim, who at the time was at Princeton.

The two researchers carefully analyzed the past behavior of the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.41%   as it approached round numbers, such as those ending with two or three zeroes.They theorized that, to the extent such round numbers represent genuine psychological barriers, the Dow’s behavior in the vicinity of those barriers would have been different than its behavior when it was well above or below those levels.

Dow closes above 13,000

Stock indexes rise but give up earlier gains after a morning of choppy trading that follows mixed economic data. Still, the Dow ends up closing above 13,000.

For example, it should have taken longer on average for the Dow to move through a multiple of 100 or 1,000 than through any other level. And by the same token, once a barrier was broken, the pace of the Dow’s change should have become faster than average.

This is exactly what the researchers found.

The researchers next conducted the identical test for the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index XX:W5000FLT -0.56%  , reasoning that few investors have been aware of that index’s level. That certainly seems a reasonable assumption; after all, how many of you are aware of where it closed on Tuesday, the day the Dow finally closed above the 13,000 level?

Read the rest here.

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Why the ‘Risk-on’ Rally Will Not Last

By Richard Bernstein

The recent rally in global markets has been led by what most investors are now calling “risk-on” assets. Their counterparts, risk-off assets, have lagged. We question the longevity of this risk-on trade. Indeed, we believe that the secular investment theme remains risk-off.

Investors use the hackneyed term risk-on to refer to assets that have tended to outperform when investors are bullish. Commodities, real estate and emerging markets would be prime examples. Risk-off assets are perceived haven assets such as US Treasuries, German Bunds, the US dollar and even US stocks.

Yet few investors seem to understand the implied economic forecasts of the risk-on/risk-off trades. Our research shows that risk-on assets’ outperformance during the 2000s was directly related to the inflation of the global credit bubble. The most popular investments during the decade were all credit-related investments. When one buys risk-on assets, therefore, one assumes that the deflation of the global credit bubble will subside and that credit will again expand. The implied forecast of a risk-off trade is the exact opposite, ie, that the credit bubble will continue to deflate.

During 2009-10, it was widely thought that the deflating credit bubble was solely a US problem, and that economies in the remainder of the world were still healthy. Consensus at the time was that the US was de-basing the dollar, and the euro would soon be an alternative reserve currency. In 2011, investors fully realised that there were credit problems in Europe too, and talk of the euro becoming a reserve currency ended.

Despite 2011’s dismal emerging markets equity performance, investors continue to believe that the emerging markets are largely immune to the developed world’s credit hangover. But cycles often begin in the US, travel to Europe and then end up in the emerging markets. This cycle will likely follow that historical precedent. The emerging markets’ difficult tugs-of-war between inflation and growth indicate that the emerging markets, rather than decoupling from the developed world, were perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the global credit bubble.

If risk-on assets are credit-related assets, then it follows they should outperform when credit is expected to expand, and underperform when credit is expected to contract. Accordingly, we expect risk-on assets’ outperformance to be periodic when policymakers attempt to reinflate the global credit bubble. Risk-on assets outperformed subsequent to the Federal Reserve’s attempts to stymie US financial sector consolidation, and they have been outperforming more recently as the European Central Bank made moves to thwart European bank consolidation.

The question is whether policymakers can fully alleviate the effects of a deflating global credit bubble. Longer-term investors should be sceptical.

Read the rest here.

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Top 10 Hedge Funds By Net Gains Since Inception

Top 10 Hedge Funds By Net Gains Since Inception

1. Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater PureAlpha: $35.8 billion net gain since 1975
2. George Soros’ Quantum Endowment: $31.2 bn net gain since 1973
3. John Paulson’s Paulson & Co: $22.6 bn net gain since 1994
4. Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group: $16 bn net gain since 1983
5. Brevan Howard: $15.7 bn net gain since 2003
6. David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management: $13.7 bn net gain since 1993
7. Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates: $13.1 bn net gain since 1983
8. Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital: $12.7 bn net gain since 1990
9. Thomas Steyer’s Farallon Capital: $12.2 bn net gain since 1987
10. Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital: $12.2 bn net gain since 1992

 

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Markets Start to Anticipate Obama Victory in November

By: John Melloy
Executive Producer, Fast Money & Halftime

While President Obama may not be Wall Street’s ideal candidate, stock prices are rising on growing expectations he will be re-elected this November.

Part of that, market pros say, is simply that investors feel more certain about who will be in the White House for the next four years and which policies they will have to deal with.

Obama’s chances of winning in November increased to above 60 percent on Tuesday, up from about 50 percent at the beginning of the year, according to the odds on prediction market Intrade.com.

Read the rest here.

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That Sucking Sound is not Public Education; It’s Teachers Getting Free Liposuction

Lindsey Tugman

BUFFALO, NY (CNN) — As thousands of teachers face layoffs across the country, teachers in Buffalo, New York are getting lipo? Yep. And nose jobs and whatever else they want. All on the taxpayers’ dime. How is this happening?

This Buffalo plastic surgeon has a lot of happy patients. Dr. Kulwant S. Bhangoo says, “Let’s just suppose I was a woman weighed 300 pounds, and I lost 150-160 pounds.”

Indeed, that’s what happened to Buffalo school teacher Valerie Akauloa, but it’s not just the results that make her happy, it’s the sweet deal that she gets.

The sweet deal that all the 3,400 teachers in Buffalo are eligible to get under one of their insurance plan options, they are billed nothing for any plastic surgery procedure, such as botox, liposuction, tummy tucks, and there is no deductible.

Linda Tokarz teaches second grade and says she gets regular treatments. She says, “I think its great for us. I wouldn’t want to see it taken away.”

Dr. Kulwant Bhangoo has been a plastic surgeon in Buffalo for almost four decades. He says, “I feel the teachers have paid their dues and it would be wrong to take it away from them.”

While he does have plenty on non-teacher patients, Dr. Bhangoo does say three out of every 10 are Buffalo teachers and the school district’s insurance covers every single penny. They will come in for hair removal on their face, liposuction, breast enhancement, and rhinoplasty.

Dr. Bhangoo is one of many plastic surgeons who advertise in where else the teachers union newsletter.

Last year, Buffalo’s schools spent $5.9 million on plastic surgery which is also known as a cosmetic rider. And Buffalo teachers have had this rider for nearly four decades.

Now you might think Buffalo’s school district must be flush with cash to be offering perks like free plastic surgery, right? Wrong. Louis Petrucci, the president of the Buffalo Board of Education says he is projecting a $42 million deficit in next year’s school budget.

You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to know that a plastic surgeon or a teacher would like this policy more than the typical taxpayer. But the teachers will tell you there is more to the story. They say the teachers contract with the city expired nearly a decade ago negotiations for a new one have failed.

And they add they are woefully underpaid. It is quite interesting to hear what the president of the teachers unions says about the plastic surgery benefit. Philip Rumore says, “We’ve told the district from the beginning of negotiations six or eight years ago that we’re willing to give it up, so as long the district comes back to the table with us, it’s gone.” When asked, “Do you feel as a gesture of good faith, the union should say, teachers, no more free plastic surgery?” Rumore responds, “It would be a wonderful gesture of good faith. We’re willing to give it up. All the district has to do is come to the table and negotiate with us. But not willing to do it unilaterally.”

Fact is that police and firefighters in Buffalo have similar plastic surgery programs, but those departments are not dealing with the same financial problems as the economically challenged school system.

But at least for now, the policy remains in a school district with a unique mix of brain and beauty.

Source

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Why There’s Never Been A More Dangerous Time To Invest

Via The Psy-Fi Blog and Abnormal Returns

Facing the Big Guns

Tadas Viskanta, who writes and curates the excellent Abnormal Returns, recently penned an equally excellent article entitled There Has Never Been A Better Time To Be An Individual Investor. In this he cogently sets out a list of reasons why investing is cheaper and easier than ever before while caveating that our innate biases work against us when investing.

While agreeing with every word of the article, I think there’s danger for anyone executing anything other than the suggested default option of a low cost, globally diversified, occasionally rebalanced portfolio. Active private investors are engaged in an arm’s race with the securities industry and most of the big guns are facing the wrong way. The problem is that darned scientific method, which is why there’s also never been a more dangerous time to invest.

Read the rest here.

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Interpol Arrests 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers

LYON, France – Interpol has arrested 25 suspected members of the Anonymous hackers group in a swoop covering more than a dozen cities in Europe and Latin America, the global police body said Tuesday.

“Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February following a series of coordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain,” Interpol said.

The statement cited attacks on the websites of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and the presidency, as well as on Chile’s Endesa electricity company and its National Library, among others.

The operation was carried out by police from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain, the statement said, with 250 items of computer equipment and cell phones seized in raids on 40 premises in 15 cities.

Police also seized credit cards and cash from the suspects, aged 17 to 40.

“This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity,” said Bernd Rossbach, acting director of police services at Interpol, which is in the French city of Lyon.

However, it was not clear what evidence there was to prove those arrested were part of Anonymous, an extremely loose-knit international movement of online activists, or “hacktivists.”

Read the rest here.

 

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About that Crash in Natural Gas Prices

Posted by on February 28th, 2012

It’s looking like fresh lows are in the cards for nat gas. Where is the bottom? When is the blood bath over?

We’re going on over 3 1/2 years of destruction and 80% losses. There is an old saying on Wall St. that, “Bottom Fishing can be Hazardous to your Wealth”. If you didn’t know this, let the current state of Natural Gas and the ’08 Financials be a lesson.

But in this case, we’re not talking about a company that can go bankrupt right? This is a commodity after all. So the reversion to the mean process should begin at some point. But where and when?

Take a look at the recent consolidation in the United States Natural Gas Fund ($UNG). The breakdown here below the triangle is typical. This type of brief pause usually resolves itself in the direction of the underlying trend. In this case it is clearly down. As scary as it may sound, the 4 point base in the triangle gives us a target somewhere in the 17.50 area. We may not get that low, and we can just as easily go even lower. But I have a feeling that a vicious tradable rally will develop from this breakdown.

Read the rest and see the charts here.

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Yoga Fans Sexual Flames and Plenty of Scandal

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: February 27, 2012

The wholesome image of yoga took a hit in the past few weeks as a rising star of the discipline came tumbling back to earth. After accusations of sexual impropriety with female students, John Friend, the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing styles, told followers that he was stepping down for an indefinite period of “self-reflection, therapy and personal retreat.”

Mr. Friend preached a gospel of gentle poses mixed with openness aimed at fostering love and happiness. But Elena Brower, a former confidante, has said that insiders knew of his “penchant for women” and his love of “partying and fun.”

Few had any idea about his sexual indiscretions, she added. The apparent hypocrisy has upset many followers.

“Those folks are devastated,” Ms. Brower wrote in The Huffington Post. “They’re understandably disappointed to hear that he cheated on his girlfriends repeatedly” and “lied to so many.”

But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.

Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe — began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state of consciousness.

The rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also include group and individual sex. One text advised devotees to revere the female sex organ and enjoy vigorous intercourse. Candidates for worship included actresses and prostitutes, as well as the sisters of practitioners.

Hatha originated as a way to speed the Tantric agenda. It used poses, deep breathing and stimulating acts — including intercourse — to hasten rapturous bliss. In time, Tantra and Hatha developed bad reputations. The main charge was that practitioners indulged in sexual debauchery under the pretext of spirituality.

Early in the 20th century, the founders of modern yoga worked hard to remove the Tantric stain. They devised a sanitized discipline that played down the old eroticism for a new emphasis on health and fitness.

B. K. S. Iyengar, the author of “Light on Yoga,” published in 1965, exemplified the change. His book made no mention of Hatha’s Tantric roots and praised the discipline as a panacea that could cure nearly 100 ailments and diseases. And so modern practitioners have embraced a whitewashed simulacrum of Hatha.

But over the decades, many have discovered from personal experience that the practice can fan the sexual flames. Pelvic regions can feel more sensitive and orgasms more intense.

Read the rest here, you perverts.

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10 Tips If You Are Losing Money In This Market

 

Posted by bclund
February 28, 2012

 

There is really no such thing as an “easy” market to make money in, however some types of markets are more conducive to success than others, and right now we are in the middle of one those types of markets.

If you are not making money in the market right now, you need to seriously re-evaluate your trading (and conversely, if you are making money hand over fist right now, you need to make sure it is because of your trading, not because everything is just going up).

So if your trading P/L is currently bleeding red, here are ten tips that might help put it back in the black.

Read the rest here.

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