iBankCoin
Joined Nov 29, 2008
329 Blog Posts

I’m Tired of this Bullshit. Really.

Bloomberg had this article out about how the U.S. housing market lost $3.3 trillion in 2008 AND that 1 in 6 people with mortgages are underwater, or 17%. It’s not getting any better. We have pending home sales coming out today at 10:00AM – consensus 82.3 (range: 78.2 to 84, previous actual: 82.3). I’ll be really surprised if pending sales remained “unchanged”. Motor vehicle sales are also coming out (total consensus: 7.7M (range:7.3M to 8.1M, previous actual: 7.7M). This is another consensus estimate where it is also “unchanged”. Whatever.

You see, 2.6 million people lost jobs in 2008. How in the world are these people going to pay their mortgages? For most families, this is the single largest monthly expense. How are they going to pay it? They can’t! This fuels the supply side of the foreclosure market, thus creating more vacancies and pressure on other homeowners to reduce their prices (against their will).As long as there are less buyers who are interested and qualified, this death spiral will continue. It all comes back to the jobs, you see?

I spent some time investing in residential real estate in Baltimore, buying up properties for $1,000-3,000 each. I can tell you that most of Baltimore is in the shitter. But this isn’t isolated. Cities all over the US are seeing the effects of this crisis. What do I mean? Consider this: a single foreclosure can cost the local gov’t $34,000 (stuff like trash removal, unpaid utility bills, police, inspection, etc.). A vacant house is usually looted within 72 hours of being vacant in some neighborhoods.

It’s no wonder then why California, among other states, is getting terminated. In fact, credit-default swaps, for anything that has to do with Cali, has tripled since September. This lost tax revenue is killing the local municipalities. When the locals start asking for help en masse, the states get burdened, and then what? The states have to turn to the federal government. They can’t support shit right now. Who’s going to support them? The Chinese? Give me a break. This whole thing is ridiculous. It’s like a bad dream, except it’s a real-life nightmare.

Don’t even get me started on these people not paying taxes. Or, how about the fact that BAC spent approx. $10 million to sponsor a bullshit Super Bowl “Fun Fest”? Ask the taxpayers if they’re having fun. Daily news like this just don’t cease to amaze me. Where the hell is all of our money? These banks, I’m tell you, they just don’t get it. One of these days…someone is going go apeshit on these bank execs. You know what I’m talking about.

As for the charts. We are back in the 800-855 range once again. This market got crushed on high hopes of a bad bank plan. You know what I don’t understand? Why would someone even announce the plan if, in it’s entirety, it may not even come into fruition? That’s synonymous to a lie. The market floats on this ephemeral feeling that the gov’t has the perfect solution. Here’s the solution: let the recession/depression take it’s course, not matter how many years/decades it will take to recover. History has shown that gov’t intervention only prolongs the problem and delays inevitable.

We need these clogged up institutions to fail so we can clean out the system. No one wants to do it, but usually, doing the right thing is harder than taking the easy way out. If these institutions do not fail, and if the same people in the executive ranks are not replaced, then hardly anything will change. According to Ben Franklin, insanity is “the act of doing something over and over again and expecting different results”. The firms on the verge of failure deserve to fail.

Anyway, in the ultra short-term, we can see a bit of neutral ranging action between 815-830 SPX. Neutral ranges often mark continuations in the prevailing trend which, in this case, is down. However, an upside breakout reversal is possible as well, thus forming a double bottom. You just have to wait and see. There’s so much “breaking news” these days, you really have to be cautious about what comes out of people’s mouths. This market is on a heightened news-driven, emotionally-charged roller coaster full of illogical riders.

As for earning, we still have quite few (being the season for it and all). Coming out pre-market are as follows: AMSC, ADM, ADP, CME, AXE, CEVA, CLP, COCO, DHI, DOW, EMR, HCA, HDWR, HNT, KSU, LDR, MGG, MAN, HZO, MKL, MOT, MYGN, NNN, NOC, PTRY, PNR, PRGO, COL, RTI, SGP, SMG, TPP, UPS.

We have more coming out during the day: BKH, CAM, CMI, ETR, MRO, MDU, MRK, NEWP, OESX, PRC, PNC, QUIK, TZOO, TRMB, TRP.

And, afterhours: ACE, ACTL, ADVS, ASYS, BYI, BRE, CTX, DIS, EDGR, ERTS, FISV, GLAD, JKHY, ILMN, IVAC, JLL, LEG, MEE, MET, MWA, NLC, NBIX, PEC, PDRT, PXD, PLNR, RSYS, RVBD, SLTC, SLGN, UTI, UNM, UPI, VIGN, WSFS, YUM.

If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter

15 comments

  1. The Chart Addict

    The constant stream of bad news is psychologically exhausting.

    Porn interruption = http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_en_ot/fbn_super_bowl_porn = disgruntled laid-off employee?

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  2. The Real Stumpy

    Hey Fly –

    Really?

    Maybe the charts are brilliant but the prose is awful. A D with grade inflation.

    TRS

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  3. Davey

    Great comments. I couldn’t agree more. Recently, I was at a party talking with a former government official about the crisis. I said that they should let the economy run it’s course and we will be through this with less pain. He disagreed, naturally, and said that pumping money into the system would save the day eventually. What about the business cycle, I told him, he said the the business cycle was dead and that we have moved beyond it. I shook my head and walked away.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  4. Yogi & Boo Boo

    Great rant. This market and the political B.S. have exhausted me. My gut says we get a really stupid monster rally as the fundamentals continue to deteriorate. A rally to short to be sure, but a rally just because everyone is sick of this.

    Davey – Sounds like the “end of history” argument a few years back. yeah right…

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  5. Q

    Chart Addict, you bought a bunch of properties in Baltimore eh. I was looking for some properties in Cleveland and other areas. But everytime I would contact an agent they would say that in the areas where decent sized homes are selling for under $10,000 you better carry a gun with you. Is this true for the areas in Baltimore? Keep up the nice work man, next to fly, you are the best thing ibankcoin has.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  6. JakeGint

    CA better watch out for “Chris” and his nail gun if he wants to buy out some of those boarded up row houses.

    If it smells funny when you go in… turn tail!

    _______

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  7. The Chart Addict

    Oh, I’m well aware of the board-ups. I’ve been in one where I found a skeleton. I also found one with a sleeping/drunk homeless guy with a revolver in his hand. You just screw the board back on.

    I will post some pics here in a few mins to show you guys.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  8. VM

    Chart Addict, where do you get your earnings announcement time data? I use Yahoo and a lot of them say “Time Not Supplied”. Your lists seems so much more ‘time supplied’.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  9. JakeGint

    CA — you know what I’m talking about though… from “the Wire?”

    What an excellent show, r.i.p.

    _______

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  10. JakeGint

    CA — were you the guy that hacked that little tool’s site?

    If so, bravo.

    _____

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  11. The Chart Addict

    I have every episode of the Wire. In fact, I drove through Baltimore as they were taping one of the episodes. Trust me though, the show is watered down. I had to run a red light once to get away from a shooting while visiting a property.

    I did not hack it, but I wish I did though. What’s funny is that when his blog was operational, I said it’s going to get hacked, shutdown, and/or your e-mail account will be hacked. Apparently, all three happened. Whoever has control of that blog also has control of his g-mail account.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  12. The Frog

    I lived in one of those B-more row houses for a while. Not in a bad hood like the ones on the wire but in a slightly less scary one over on Druid Hill Park Drive, a few blocks from the zoo.

    I found the prostitutes and drug dealing gave the area some character but I never felt unsafe.

    I rode my bike to work a few times but the route took me to through some pretty sketchy blocks and I never did it again.

    Still love that City but I hear it has gone down hill quite a bit since I lived there in the late 90s. Shame.

    The wire rules.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  13. The Chart Addict

    VM – http://www.rightline.net/calendar/index.html – updates automatically each night.

    I’m not going to post pics of shit board-ups. They’re too depressing.

    Frog – that’s like a 50% shady area. Too close to North Ave. A lot has changed since the 90s. Druid Hill is a hotbed for crack dealers.

    Fells Point, Canton, Fed Hill, Bolton Hill, and Charles Village are the top neighborhoods.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"
  14. The Frog

    Yeah, I have a friend that still lives in the house that I lived in. Druid Hill Park was known for a body dump site when I was there. B-more was such a wierd block to block city. I was alway amazed that you could feel pretty safe on one block but you wouldn’t even dare walk 4 streets over.

    Canton and Fells were awesome, many a beer consumed there. I also liked Federal Hill.

    It is a bummer that it is going down hill. It really has the potential to be one of the cooler cities in the country. Oh well.

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 Deem this to be "Fake News"