My losses at 2:20pm, following today’s Fed decision, were staggering. Well, not as bad as they could have been, since I raised a lot of cash a few days ago, but still bad.
I had my heels dug in, heavily short oil, with a minor bank short, partly hedged with longs. Nonetheless, if I did not take action today, it could have been a -10%+ day, or one of the worst trading sessions this year— for Senor Tropicana.
This post is not to rub in how smart I am or how evidently dumb you might be. Instead, it is a message, from the darkest corners of the internet, penned by a strange man, who refers to himself in the 3rd person and wastes inordinate amounts of time on the internet, during very weird hours of the day.
Here’s the point:
No matter how embedded you might be in your theory, as I was prior to the Fed surprise, be prepared to do the exact opposite, at all times. I know that seems nonsensical to many of you wannabe Warren Buffetts or Jimmy “bow tie motherfucker” Rogers. See, here on planet earth, where money dictates quality of life, it’s important to preserve what you have.
Assholes like Jimmy “fuckfaced bowtie” Rogers can afford to ride out 80% slides in his asinine commodity plays. However, for people worth less than 500 million, you might want to watch your positions more carefully.
Now, come tomorrow, I may switch sides again, which is okay. My gains in FAS, ABX, TNA, C, URE, amongst others, are so great, I am almost ensured to profit from today’s momentum chase—barring a “fuck you, you’re dead” collapse tomorrow.
For the record, I am not in the Cramer camp, who is totally ignorant to the market whims and current economic crisis. I believe today’s news was in fact horrific. I do not believe a Fed Funds rate of zero percent will help out the unemployment rate.
And, furthermore, once the economy does rebound, prepare for the mother of all inflation cycles, headlined by the crash of the U.S. dollar.
To play this (mother of all inflation cycles), I like gold, agriculture chemicals and select financials.
Within Gold, I like:
ABX, RGLD, GG, AUY and KGC.
Within Agriculture Chemicals, I like:
MOS, CF, SYT and POT.
And, within Financials, I like:
C, BAC, ITU, NLY, AFL and CMO.
Other stocks on the radar include: GWW, AMKR, INTC, ISIL and PCP.
Odds are, I will resist buying any of them, since the market is a fucking meat grinder and will likely collapse under the weight of idiocy. Just to fuck with people, as sure as I am sitting here, the dollar will firm and oil will shit itself. Who knows?
However, in the event I opt to execute some long trades, the above list is where I will go.
NO MORE 2x, 3x ETF’s.
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Dude I’m with you on those 2x inverses. I dumped SRS earlier for a minor loss. Turns out I would have lost more then double the amount if i stayed in.
I will load up on the inverses when this market is ready to go lower. Which it eventually will.
What!!! FAS me some FAZ!
Or are you just waiting for 10x ETF’s?
I want something that only moves in 5 point increments.
Indian casino’s rule.
Everyone thinks the market is heading lower.
Fly, remember, back in the simple days, let’s call them the “orange” days, when you had your simple “are you bullish or bearish?” poll and you’d do the opposite?
Well right now everyone is bearish.
-DT
DT
Do you own a Television?
fly.. HIG should go back above 20
Oil should not be played one sided. For example if you are short USO, it is a good idea to hedge by going long some DIG and vice verse. The insane volatility in the oil sector will give you opportunity to profit from both positions or to limit your losses in worst case scenario.
Fly is absolutely right when saying that this market offers an opportunity for everyone to be right. To utilize the volatility, you should not praise your skills when you see a >10% daily profit in your account. Accept it as a gift and take at least half of it.
Tony,
A 1977 model Zenith. It’s “bangin’.”
You’re under the impression that CNBC is relevant. It’s not. Smarten up. The Internet, specifically stock market blogs, is where sentiment lies now.
-DT
I still think the Dow is going to 6000, pulled my 401k out at 8000, and waiting.
I didn’t say that CNBC is relevant. Just everyone is Bullish as well as Bloomberg, and Fox Business (definitely not relevant). The majority of Internet message boards and blogs seem bullish to me as well.
Yes, fly, I agree the news today (and last Friday) was horrific. And yet, and yet the market moved higher. Peculiar, no?
Over time FAS/FAZ tend to lose money. These ETFs are good only for daytrading and very short-term plays. If you put them on the same graph, they’re not a mirror reflection of each other.
We move opposite every time the day after the fed. I bet this entire move is erased tomorrow, and then some. Skinny Steve is in hiding and Honda will announce the world is ending tomorrow.
You know….I am really worried. I know personally that ” I will be okay” one way or another but what a mess our country is in. Desperate leaders doing desperate things. I dont trust our leaders, sometimes I think I could go out on the street and say ” tag your it’ to a by-stander and they could do a better job than our elected officials in any party.
I contemplate…moving to some other country but where would I go? Australia- New Zealand?
Then I wonder why the Hell am I in this market? I should just pull out all my money in every bank and buy gold.
I HATE to panic, I hate to live in fear, I have spent my entire life….living as best as possible without fear. Fear is the mind-killer, fear is death, fear is the total belief that ‘ nothing and no one can save you’ and that you cant even save yourself.
I refuse to live that way. I can only hope that ‘ there are others’ out there that choose to live in the same reality as me….and that we all find each other and ‘stick together’ and refuse to let fear destroy our lives and refuse to ‘ go down with the ship’.
The world will always have fearful people….creating fearful lives…afraid of their neighbors so creating wars, afraid of ‘ lack’ so taking from others, afraid of death so living their lives in addictions of drugs, alcohol and sex,
what can we do with these people? They are civilization destroyers…
We cant let these people destroy our lives.
“living their lives in addictions of drugs, alcohol and sex,”
Is there a problem with that?
John Q Public –
Smooth move. You kept your 401k invested from DOW 14k to 8k, but then pulled it out because you think you are really slick by keeping it from dropping to DOW 6k. Obviously, you don’t know your dick from a dooknob, and should probably refrain from timing the market.
Just another bear market rally. In its later stages it messes with your head.
Thanks for that post. Solid gold.
Fly,
What are your thoughts on CIT?
“Bear Market rally”
You have to be kidding, right?
A Devilly Doggy ???? type o’ rally
curiously quiet?
The opposite side of the “everyone has an opportunity to be right” meme is that “most of us are wrong most of the time”.
No wonder you don’t sleep well Fly.
But, proper respect to the idea that most trades can be saved with averaging down (aka leveraging in) and Khan Singh like will power to see it through to the end.
Fly,
isn’t the rally in fact a bear market rally in terms of your longer held views on the market.
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from with your last comment.
What the fuck else is it? It’s the same goddamn pattern asthis spring: the market drops, people get scared, it drops more, then settles a bit, the govt monkeys with things, we melt up for a while, people start to get happy, then down we go again.
Obviously, the degree of govt fuckitude is getting extreme and unpredictable. I’m just saying that no matter what machinations the govt institutes along the way, the market is fucked long term. I lack the ability and the time (given my bullshit job) to play the swings both ways like you do. So I just play the longer trend and try not to get too worked up about the counter trend moves. I know that’s totally against your nature.
Methinks you wouldn’t be swearing off the 2x/3x ETFs if you were as profitable on them as you claim to be..
Fly,
if what you’re saying is that recent moves are far too significant to be characterized as merely a “bear market rally”, then I agree. We’re in global financial meltdown. Irreversibly so. But however many dark forces are aligning to drive the market up, they will ultimately be overwhelmed. The market will take another dive before the inflationary forces unleashed by the Fed start pushing the nominal value of the market up like the inflationary move we saw from 2003 to 2007.
Tony,
Make no mistake. You are a bear retard.
Yes, you.
_______
A message from Puny Andy*
John Q Public –
Smooth move. You kept your 401k invested from DOW 14k to 8k, but then pulled it out because you think you are really slick by keeping it from dropping to DOW 6k. Obviously, you don’t know your dick from a dooknob, and should probably refrain from timing the market.
____________
* (recently pored over by NY’s best Osteopathic surgeons, and not an ironic bone was found in his entire body.)
________
I will bitch slap the Fly all the way to S&P 1050 by EOY.Skunk ass bitch
Oh good grief.
Nice post Fly.
Wish I could say the same for the commentaries.
I just did a little “The Fly is God” action on Atilla’s blog. Let’s see how that goes over.
Blog War I?
I’ve searched my feelings… and used the Force.
And I see so many frippin’ geese stepping that I feel like I’m on the ninth hole at the Rockaway Hunt Club course.
_________
It’s a debt thing.
Seriously, during the 6 year, credit fueled bull market, GDP fell each and every year in terms of goods and services produced. However, if you add massive credit extension, GDP looked good. So if we don’t borrow and spend, and companies don’t, then the Government appears to want to. They do this to extend the credit bubble further, in hopes of delaying reconciliation till a miracle comes.
Payments on all this debt must be made. Else we watch an endless sequence of defaults. Bonds – first corporate, then Government. Seriously.
There must be a settling, to occur when supply and demand meet with transparency. The road to that settlement involves a deflationary spiral (which the Government just delayed, by increasing the problem), followed by an inflationary whirlwind.
I have spent the past year planning for this. I hope I am wrong, but I cannot see how that could be. Its just about when and for how long the cataclysmic crash hangs around. This is what I presume The Fly refers to.
The Fly is the most lucid of those who seem to understand this. How can a swing trader trade a biblical bomb bursting in bond defaults (I’m not as prosaic as The Fly). Hence his unavoidable stress.
I lack the courage to trade like you guys. Option spreads lack the drama with similar returns. And you don’t have to be right.
But you guys are thrilling to watch.
Goddam it I wanted to post GOD FLY to hold long and sell short intra day, instead of the opposite, but I am low, much too low to speak .. What have I but this humble pot, which I may shit in, full of my stinking piss, which i take to hurl in the public sewar and return to my abode, where I fill it yet again, staring all the while on the wall, letting my mind turn utterly to nothing..
It’s a good gig lord but still do bring us an unfix for this fixed tape. Bears have turned communist, monkeys and leopards are fornicating, madness!!
Thank goodness that speaking crap’s gone.
Just trade half a fucking position in the 2x 3x ETFs for Christ’s sake.
Liske.
Obviously, you don’t trade. You are an idiot of the first order for that statement.
Seriously, during the 6 year, credit fueled bull market, GDP fell each and every year in terms of goods and services produced.
Nonsense. GDP is the agglomeration of the total goods and services produced in any economy.
Yen still still crushing USD.
GBP can’t break out vs. Yen.
CAD and AUD beating Yen.
Commodity based currencies strengthening. (Especially the AUD.)
Just wanted to say, the Vix is now down -18% from last week, and -30% from December 1. We had our first “spike down” on the Vix today thanks to the Fed cut (yesterday’s top 58.xx to today’s bottom of 51.xx = 13%. This is usually a good sign to start emptying longs and prepare to enter shorts aggressively on our next spike down on the Vix into the 40s. Let’s see if we can clear quadruple witching before big moves are made.
-gio-
The charts are pointing north. These down futures are a #$%^&* gift to cover shorts & get egregiously long for the next pit stop around 950.
Many charts are seriously bullish here. Don’t be DevilDogDogmatick. Sure, we’re eventually heading to SPX 500 but not before a detour to bankrupt stubborn bear cubs like DDog & Attilla the Lemming Slayer.
Oil service offers excellent risk/reward to play serious catchup. Fly has offered some good plays.
Most bearish charts have turned neutral & many neutral-bearish charts have turned bullish.
Don’t be the bug, be the windshield.
Juice
How extended could this run move the indices to, you think?
I think it was you… you wrote an interesting perspective on an earlier thread about the early 80’s stock market movement.
I gave it some thought and have came up with a different opinion.
the early 80’s fall and recovery was as a result of rates going to sky high levels caused by Volcker’s Fed to dry inflation out of the system. Once rates had peaked and the mission had been accomplished people began to see huge value in bonds and hence the potential for stocks to reprice to the new world of much lower yields.
It’s different now as the Fed is fighting to prevent to economy from collapsing. The real crash will come after the Fed is forced to deal with the inflation they are now creating in the monetary system.
Here’s the thing about this rally that disquiets me, mainly that everyone wants it and expects it. Everyone is either counting waves and waiting to load up shorts/puts at S&P 1000 or is hailing Santa as a saviour that will ensure the rallies continuation. Can it really be this easy? From my point of view the bulls are vasty outnumbering the bears at this time.
next year santa bens’s rate cut bag is empty .. so you better enjoy your gifts now ..
I’ve been busy doing nothing. I didn’t change my perspective that December seemed like a month that would end higher. I still see the retest coming too. Just a matter of time.
My great grandfather handed me a dime in 1969 when I was five and he was 76 yrs old, he told me that it used to be worth much much more. That before the depression it was a lot of money, but not anymore. He walked away to sip some bourbon and smoke a cigarette where gramma couldn’t see him in the garage. I stood there looking at it and thought “why is it losing it’s value? Why the fuck did he tell me that? Why is he such a dick to give me something and tell me it’s lost it’s value?”.
My conclusion was that it was because I had turned him in to gramma when she asked me if I’d seen him sipping and smoking.
Fly, weve bin begging you to be more flexible for near 2 weeks now. And now finally this post – sheesh.
SPX 1k ~ then kaboom.
Get ready for a much worse version of the 70’s… bad economy, very high inflation… Studio 54, Plato’s Retreat, squeegee guys on the Bowery, scam artists in Times Square, drug addicts in the East Village, where you can get mugged at any moment… New York sleaze is coming back!! I love that fear and anxiety… it makes you feel more alive! Are you ready?
Market Raider, this may help you quantify sentiment:
http://www.market-harmonics.com/free-charts/sentiment/investors_intelligence.htm
Deplation
Not for nothing, Deplation but you have a blind freaking governor who’s raising taxes on Iphones
Boo-Yahhh
Jim Cramer Blog
The Fed Finally Gets It
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney Columnist
12/17/2008 7:28 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/jimcramerblog/10453661.html
Why did the Fed really do what it did yesterday, which is go nuclear, pull out the stops, make sure that people realized it was worried only about deflation and recession?
Because it reads the newspapers and watches TV. It was impossible to listen to Jamie Dimon last week and realize that nothing was working that they had done yet. He basically told you, “It ain’t working, it ain’t going to work.” They know they are staring at a Citigroup (C) and a Wells Fargo (WFC) that have tens of billions of mortgages still on their balance sheets that TARP ain’t ever going to buy. Bank of America (BAC) is loaded to the gills with the stuff.
But more important is the layoffs. Day after day they come in and hear about Bristol-Myers (BMY) firing 10% of this or Goldman (GS) firing 10% of that or Best Buy (BBY) slashing payrolls and BAC laying off 30,000 people. They are watching the employment claims and they see that things are about to go to 10% — that all-bets-are-off territory where everything goes awry and defaults for everything skyrocket.
You see the largest corporations in the country have thrown down the gauntlet. “We will fire everyone we need to fire to adjust to this new world,” they are saying. The companies are saying that Main Street is going down, but they are not going to go down with it.
Yes, the Fed acted out of desperation. It had to drop the pretense — under which it was still operating — that the risks are balanced!
Balanced!
I mean the risks between a severe recession and a depression.
They have chosen wisely. Late, but wisely,
Now let’s hope other nations join them.
j,
First of all it’s “DEPFLATION”, get it right! Second, he also has snorted coke and smoked weed… so, what’s your point?!?!
J – don’t know how far we can go without a serious correction .. for me, the next trade is up … one step at a time. I’m not gonna trade too many moves down the fork in the road like DDog or Attilla .
To each their own.
It wasn’t me who posted about the 80’s.
Cramer is a fucking idiot. Period
So MS loses 2,2 billion. More than expected. well, will it completely say fuck you to the shorts and sky rocket like GS did?
70’s not 80’s. Think Sex Pistols/Sid and Nancy… not Madonna.
Moe
be a little careful here.
I have a quick look at their results.
Leverage is now 11:1
it also seems to me that they really took a clean sweep at all their writedowns and will start the year with a relatively clean book.
It also seems to be the case with GS.
So a short bet works if you think the model is broken and they can’t turn it around.
They’re very smart guys and could actually succeed over a 5 year period by turning it into some hybrid bank/ I-bank.
Holy shit on a stick, engine room we need more BONDS!
30 year yield now 2.6%, seems more than fair.
First of all it’s “DEPFLATION”, get it right! Second, he also has snorted coke and smoked weed… so, what’s your point?!?!
Well my point is that he’s smart enough to know that taxing Ipods and Iphones is the way to replenishing the treasury.
Thanks for the link Private Parts, very helpful.
This is one reason it’s really freaking dangerous to go short from here on in.
The ted spread and 3 month libor both had a dramatic move down to 1.58 and 1.55 respectively.
This is the level that starts to ease pain in credit market and shouldn’t be ignored. Now you can short if you honestly think the economy is going to tank etc…. but it’s not because of increased tension in credit.
Dog pay attention.
S&P500 will rally to 1008 to 1090 max.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SPX&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30924608117&a=155603272
The definition of perma-bull: Abby Joseph Cohen
How’d you boys like that “hot” new hair on the perma bull.
I’m still laughing, who told her that was a good look?
Mr.Fly a question on all your gold trades ….and anyone else who cares to comment.
I guess you are assuming that everyone thinks the recent Fed cut will continue to devalue the dollar?
I read this morning however in the RGE Monitor that the USD has NOT passed its peak. That the recent decline was end of the year profit taking on long positions on the dollar.
That the trend is still UP and does not alter the medium term trend of appreciation verses the euro. They site…deleveraging, risk aversion, growth differentials and the dollar’s reserve status still keeping the dollar from pulling back.
They also state that plenty of governments, banks and other firms are still scrambling for dollars to repay their USD denominated debt while signs of global recession and credit crisis spur on the ‘ flight-to-safety in US treasuries
What say you?
Sure, we’re eventually heading to SPX 500 but not before a detour to bankrupt stubborn bear cubs like DDog & Attilla the Lemming Slayer.
That is so gold it should be spray-painted across two cars of the N train.
In magenta Rust-o-leum.
Friggin’ Jonestown ovah theah.
___________
Yen still still crushing USD.
GBP can’t break out vs. Yen.
CAD and AUD beating Yen.
Commodity based currencies strengthening. (Especially the AUD.)
Good information.
Are you apprised of its significance?
__________
ultrashort semis H+S
“The Japanese yen hit a 13 year high against the dollar in mid-December when it broke below 90 per dollar. it may hold the distinction of being the only currency apart from the Swiss Franc that could appreciate against the dollar in 2009 due to carry trade unwinding and repatriation of Jap. funds invested overseas. The recent surge in the yen is being driven by carry trade unwinding as well as a substantial shrinkage in US-Japan rate differentials.”
Bizarro world.
Ignore them while the US is monetizing and the other fuckers aren’t.
The Japanese have only begun thinking about it and the Eurotrash are totally Teutonic in their adherence to inflation targeting. Europe is fucked. Their inflation rate which the ECB watches (CPI based) is mostly monopoly created in that governments there can simply jack up prices. So the free market is fucked in Europe as they are suffering with interest rates still far too high. They will only learn of their fuck up once their economy is tanked.
China gets it.
the stupid fucking Euros will only begin to monetize when the Euro/ dollar hits it’s highs again.
Watch gold as that is telling you which way the buck is going.
Also watch Euro Yen… which is now hitting 125. If that level breaks that will be a signal that credit tension is easing.
Roubini ought to eat another plate to spag.
I keep saying that you stock dudes really need to look and understand the macro and what’s driving it at the moment as it is so, so important.
X-Trends = the new Jonestown
berry good JG 🙂
This Auburn fan apparently didn’t like the new coach hiring. He met the plane to voice his opinion.
http://blog.al.com/tigerscorner/2008/12/video_auburn_fans_heckle_jay_j.html
j the flight into gold is also a panic move by unsavy people..fearful of all kinds of things. I dont think you can use this recent surge in gold as a completely accurate litmus test for the year to come.
j the flight into gold is also a panic move by unsavy people..fearful of all kinds of things. I dont think you can use this recent surge in gold as a completely accurate litmus test for the year to come.
Maybe try again, this time looking at the price of the US dollar.
________
LG
I don’t give a shit about the next year. All I care about is riding this trend in gold.
You can’t ignore the gold move when it was only last week there was massive liquidation in that shit. gold going up is an inflation indicator in the same way that it is a deflation marker when its tanking.
It’s a Dollar play with possible concerns that the Fed may be overplaying its hand. Seriously, we may look back and think the Fed overreacted.
Well j
We know where you are coming from….riding short term trends in gold and using it as an inflation/deflation indicator…by whom? by you and ‘ some people’
We will have to see if the dollar goes up again- I guess you are either in the deflation or inflation camp.
I am trying to get various opinions about that.
I am also trying to ‘ see beyond” my nose ie… (dont give a shit about next year) statement you made
Sorry, Wasn’t meaning to be rude with that comment, LG.
I can’t think past my nose because these days the market can kill you. So I try to ride the trend for what it’s worth. I can turn it into a long term trade but I won’t take a hit to capital doing so. That’s what i meant. I raised my stop to the entry level.
Very disrespectful Juice.
You are bashing someone who turned his friends account of $350K to $4.5 million in a couple weeks. Atilla is nothing but generous in every way.
You are bashing someone who turned his friends account of $350K to $4.5 million in a couple weeks.
Sounds risky. Does he know Hillary Clinton?
Or Dick Fuld?
_______
Fly, regarding the above list:
You left out MON.
On porpoise?
_______
It’s gonna get dirty, I can feel it! Think Dog Day Afternoon… Serpico.. not Sixteen Candles. There’s gonna be a lot of job opportunities in the Meatpacking district for all you MBA’s, finance majors, etc., if you know what I mean… All aboard for funtimes!
Everyone on TV speaks as if we are now out of the woods. That we have survived the total meltdown of system thanks to the injecting money into the banks and the fed’s action yesterday. IMO the fed’s action and the injection of cash will do nothing to create jobs which is the only thing that stops this downward spiral. Interest rates could be a zero for years but if a person does not have a job how can he get approved for a loan let alone pay it back. The days of cashing out equity from the home is gone. The jobs in construction that stemmed from that cash are gone. The days of leverage at banks and their massive earnings are gone. the i banking jobs are gone.
Here… Watch this space on Friday.
The Fed’s move could push the Bank of Japan to cut rates from 0.3 percent on Friday. A Reuters poll showed two-thirds of 12 analysts expected a rate cut, and a quarter saw a return to quantitative easing by March.
‘It’s likely to cut rates, even to zero,’ said Hirokata Kusaba, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.
Minutes of this month’s Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting showed a 9-0 vote for a full-point UK rate cut. An even bigger reduction was discussed but then rejected for fear of undermining any lingering confidence about the economy.
The BoE policymakers said further measures to underpin bank lending growth would be needed as well as rate reduction
The Euro/Yen rate is telling us that the Japanese will move rates to zero later this week and begin quantitative easing. The Japanese never move first or with any sense of urgency even if their lives depended on it. However they will be strongly encouraged with what the US has done and what the Chinese did earlier in the week,
This will then put enormous pressure on the Europeans to move towards quant easing as well.
This is really a momentous week if the Japanese move to zirp policy on Friday.
Moe
the 90% of people who have jobs will ace it with easier credit and the possibility that the mortgage rates will come down to 4.5%.
Recessions are ace for people that have jobs. This will eventually create it own momentum
there was a recent scholarly piece written by two professors that actually measured the potency of monetary policy and they concluded that monetary policy has an enormous effect on a recessed economy.
I’ll try to dig it out and link to tomorrow.
They’ve decided to destroy the currency. Gold, commodities and exporters will win.
I think a lot of what will happen falls into the hands of human nature.
Although most people here on this blog and also across the trading world are very negative about the future
Most people even if they are scared want to find a ‘reason’ to be positive and a reason to spend, grow and have hope for the future.
Its human nature that you can only be ‘ negative’ for so long before the shear weight of that negativity gives way to ‘ desiring hope, a way out,a light at the end of the tunnel” so when people see any glimmer of that light….they ‘go for it’. That is why Obama got elected…people were tired of the Bush war, fear of terrorist, and the general weight all that brings.
Its the enduring quality of human nature…we need to not only survive but to thrive.
Cubs … I don’t know Attilla’s history.
No doubt, he hit it outta the park .. no doubt he’s addicted to Swinging for the fences. He may be able to hold onto his trade but some may get wiped out blindly following.
He banned me for no good reason. Apparently he gets sensitive when losing. Understandable.
Monetary Policy = Barney Frank
Get the point?
anyone have thoughts on why Oil is not participating in the commodities rally this morning?
Just wanted to say I graduated with my BSBA in accounting yesterday… Today… Continuing the job search… One of the top 5 fastest growing occupations, huh?.? So, what is the definition of fastest growing in a negative growth economy where I have heard the term “hiring freeze” more than a few times…
Congrats on graduating – keep at it.
Oil is in a bear market, simple as that.
There’s always a Nashville connection.
http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2008/12/16/nashville_native_hardest_hit_in_madoff_case
too much supply in oil and gas
BSBA — Hook up w. Danny, he’s an accountant too.
Maybe he needs an editor or a Jaeger machine bottle changer or something.
_________
Juice, I didn’t know you were banned. I can understand your bitterness for that. More than likely it was Johnboy(who adds nothing to the site) that banned you.
Jake,
I can do the later, bartended my way through school… lol
Hey Bad News-
Need a job—
Offshore Rig Workers Call The Shots on Jobs
by John W. Miller Dow Jones Newswires Monday, November 10, 2008
STAVANGER (WALL STREET JOURNAL via Dow Jones Newswires), November 10, 2008
Industries world-wide are slashing costs and laying off workers. But one sector continues to recruit employees aggressively, dangling before them six-figure salaries, signing bonuses and job-training programs.
Multinational oil companies are grappling with a shortage of specialized labor for offshore rigs that promises to get worse. Drillers
plan to erect 180 new offshore rigs over the next three years — adding to the current total of 640 — spanning the globe from the Vietnamese coast and the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil. Every new offshore drilling operation requires an average of 200 workers, some offshore and some onshore.
It will take more than the recent drop in oil prices to $65 or $75 a barrel to derail these rig projects, companies say, even if the price downturn since the summer has led to postponements elsewhere, such as in oil sands and refineries. Oil development projects “take an average of 10 years to complete and operate for more than 30 years,” said Susan Houghton, a human-resources official at Chevron Corp. “In 2008, we hired approximately 6,000 new employees and will continue that rate in 2009,” she said.
Salaries for the most sought-after categories of oil workers have risen about a third over the past four years, according to Stephen Whittaker of Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s biggest oil-services company by revenue. An experienced “roughneck,” the nickname for rig workers, can make $100,000 a year, and top white-collar engineers can make as much as $500,000 a year, industry analysts and officials said.
But it’s not easy money. Offshore rig work involves round-the-clock shifts of manual labor in whatever weather Mother Nature dishes out.
Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron, BP PLC and others are increasing budgets for training and recruitment, and are spending more time on college campuses. “Kids are getting summer internships that pay $5,000 to $7,000 a month, and signing bonuses of $10,000 and $20,000,” said David S. Schechter, a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
A hundred students a year are graduating from his department, four times the number just five years ago. “Historically, enrollment has always tracked the oil price pretty closely,” he said.
Shawn Dawsey, one of Dr. Schechter’s undergraduate students, switched his major to petroleum from electrical engineering last year. It has paid off. He will graduate in May and already has received eight job offers of around $80,000 a year. He said some of his peers worry about how declining oil prices could affect their prospects, “but the job offers keep coming,” he said.
Oil companies, in large part, are playing catch-up from the early 1990s, when they sharply curbed hiring due to the slump then in oil prices. Labor shortages ensued, leading to widespread recruitment and training efforts, and a determination to hold onto workers even through downturns.
“Companies hired so few people when oil was $10 a barrel in the 1990s, so at $75 a barrel, there’s still a huge personnel deficit,” said Doug Wearley, a recruiting manager at CSI Recruiting, a Denver-based placement service. “It’s a business with a lot of 25-year veterans and a lot of five-year veterans and not much in between.”
The hiring extends beyond Western college graduates. BP is investing $50 million in engineering schools in Libya. The company also runs an apprenticeship program in Angola.
The oil workers’ status is evident in Stavanger, the home of Norway’s offshore oil industry. Though North Sea output is down, the region is teeming with companies looking to extract some 7.3 billion barrels lying deep under the ocean.
Workers enjoy salaries starting at $100,000 and a month off between two-week shifts. The month off is a point of contention. Companies need workers to put in more hours, said Kjetil Hjertvik, a spokesman for the Norwegian Oil Industry Association. Employers plan to use the next bargaining session with the country’s three big oil unions in 2010 to lobby for a reduction in time off to three weeks. Mr. Hjertvik conceded, though, that “in a tight labor market, workers have the leverage.”
“Our time off is pretty much nonnegotiable,” said Dog Unnar, a 54-year-old union representative at StatoilHydro ASA.
Oil workers have had checkered success in unionizing, but in the past two years, they have used their newfound power to successfully strike for better pay, perks or conditions in Nigeria, Scotland, Gabon, Norway, Iraq, Mexico and Brazil.
Looking to control labor costs, oil companies are relying more on unmanned rigs and wells. At the new Ormen Lange field in the North Sea, six companies pump natural gas with 24 underwater wells. Engineers sitting in offices on the coast run the rigs. For oil companies, “that’s the new model,” said Mr. Hjertvik.
In the Gulf of Mexico, BP runs several oil-rig power-generator turbines from an office in California to save on costs. “In the past, one individual was able to monitor 40 engines; today that person can monitor 4,000,” Andy Inglis, BP’s chief executive for exploration and production, said during a speech at Houston’s Rice University in October.
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Cubs, I’m not bitter. I don’t need to write anything. I’m just needling him some … I appreciate and respect what he has to say.
Here you go Juice: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9967/65027437pk1.gif
A couple weeks earlier he posted it and there was ~350k. Sol was then in a car accident,hospitalized and Atilla took over his account. After this, every retail sucker came to the site and the comments section went to shit.
T,
Damn should have been a petroleum engineer. Oh well, guess I could always “roughneck” with a degree… Glad to see someone is getting paid.
All roads lead to Nashvegas!
thx Cubs … impressive is an understatement
R-E-S-P-E-C-T … word up
So who is going to end up choking Kudlow first…
Minyanville Staff
10:35:00 AM
No positions in stocks mentioned.
Vibes from Minyan Tony “Snoop” Dwyer of FTN Midwest
The December FOMC statement said it all…”The Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote the resumption of sustainable economic growth and to preserve price stability. In particular, the Committee anticipates that weak economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for some
time.”
There is not a lot of ambiguity there. The Fed will join the Treasury Department in doing everything it can to reopen the credit markets inside the U.S., which is creating the hope that it will end up benefiting equities. A few of the catalysts I’ve highlighted for a near-term 100-150 additional rally toward S&P 500 (SPX) 1000-1050 appear to be falling into place IF the market is able to hold yesterday’s gain. A few of these catalysts are:
Possible Trend Channel Breakout. If the SPX moves above 920, it will have exceeded last week’s high and broken out of a very clear downtrend channel that could draw in additional buying.
Bounce in Shipping Rates. The Baltic Dry Index has bounced to over 800 from a recent low of 663. While this is welcomed, the improvement is very slight and should be put into perspective.
A Touch Less Risk Aversion. An early sign that investors are willing to take on more credit risk is if the 90-day U.S. T-bill yields begin moving higher as investors begin to show signs of taking on more risk for a greater return. While it is tiny, the 90-day T-bills have moved up a few basis points from stubbornly low levels.
Crude defying the $, and taking a big’ol Dino Shit all over the bulls.
This is the kind of stuff the US used to do before we were broke. Now we just read what others might do. Pathetic.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6vuYja6WeaI&refer=home
SRS to $75
It never fails. I always post 1 min before the new thread
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