The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

reply to post by redhatty


And he said that he will not be managing the auto industry?, well I always call bush a dictator behind the presidential seat, now Obama is becoming a full blown one at best.

Incredible.

Still look at the nations industrial output where are the infrastructure millions of jobs to help the nations unemployed, while he is now dictating what goes on with the auto makers he is completely forgotten about the leaching financial industry.

Mr. Obama needs to switch his priorities or he will be a one term president.

reply to post by marg6043


I just updated that post - It MAY be an April Fool's Joke, but coming from a car mag source, that is in bad taste IF it is a joke.


Futures are falling before open

S&P 500 -9.90 784.90
Fair Value 794.12
Difference* -9.22

NASDAQ -19.00 1218.50
Fair Value 1236.33
Difference* -17.83

Dow Jones -103.00 7459.00

The latest from my favorite country boy, Market Pro :-)

LINK

I won't put the vid here, because, well, the language is usually not allowed here

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

reply to post by redhatty


OH my!!!!!!! I forgot about April's fool!!!!!! today is my wedding anniversary lo and behold, 28 years !!!!!!! occurs it was just the in front of the judge so my husband would start collecting his BOQ, our official wedding by the church was on !!!!!! guess what !!!!!!! a fathers day July 21 1981

White House statement on bilateral meeting with President Hu of China

Happy Anniversary!!!!

Wow 28 yrs of picking up after your man - I'm impressed

We open RED

Dow -103.86 -1.36% 7,505.06
NASDAQ -27.31 -1.79% 1,501.28
S&P -12.99 -1.63% 784.88

Financials are going UP - M2M suspension anticipation?

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

Thanks, I am still with him because he takes good care of himself and he still looks good. just with less hair I am trying to get him to get the hair transplant but he is just to afraid of how it make look.

BTW I listen to that Link and yes he is right and I have to admit he sounds like me when I am really mad at the situation right now.

07:52 FNM Fannie Mae, Freddie are pressured as homeowners fall behind - WSJ (0.70 )

WSJ reports the rapid rise in the number of borrowers skipping their mortgage payments is putting renewed pressure on the financial reserves of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE), which own or guarantee nearly $5 trillion, or half, of the nation's mortgages, have seen their serious delinquency rates -- mortgage payments 90 days or more past due -- shoot to records in the past few months. It isn't just the levels that are worrying but the speed at which homeowners are falling behind on their monthly payments. This week, Fannie reported that 2.77% of the single-family loans held in its $785 billion investment portfolio were delinquent in January. That's a 0.35 percentage point increase from the month before, the largest such increase since the co started tallying the data in 1998. This is more than double the 1.06% a year earlier. Freddie's level stands at 2.13%.

:44 Move to ease mark-to-market rule may undermine Treasury plan - WSJ

WSJ reports a new accounting rule set to be approved this week will relax mark-to-market rules for banks sitting on billions of dollars in toxic assets, making it more attractive to keep the assets on their books. Yet those changes may undermine a larger U.S. Treasury plan to rid the banks of those same assets, bankers and accounting experts say. The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing significant changes to its mark-to-market rules, allowing banks to set their own values for certain hard-to-value troubled mortgages, corporate loans and consumer loans. The new proposal, called FAS 157-e, is scheduled for a vote this Thursday. The change was meant to assist U.S. banks after bankers complained current mark-to-market accounting rules forced them to undervalue their assets, by setting prices at deeply discounted, fire-sale values. Once the new accounting rule takes effect, banks will have new incentive to keep the assets directly on their books, say bankers. That is because the rule states that banks can use their own judgment on asset values as long as there are no willing bidders to set a market price.

Breaking into the Green - will it hold?

Dow +17.28 +0.23% 7,626.20
NASDAQ -1.85 -0.12% 1,526.74
S&P +1.50 +0.19% 799.37

UK Protest Pics on yahoo Don't know how long these will be up

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

We must be getting so conditioned to hearing these numbers that it makes me sick. The number of people who lost their jobs last month alone is greater than the population of the city of Baltimore. For peets sake people wake up (not you guys and girls). This is mind blowing, and the MSM just reads the number and don't react. A whole city's population out of work in one month.

G20: Stupid All Around

As I expected....

LONDON (AP) -- G-20 protesters clashed with riot police in downtown London on Wednesday, breaking into the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland and smashing its windows. Earlier, they tried to storm the Bank of England and pelted police with eggs and fruit.

If those acts were committed by people looking for someone to be held to account for criminal fraud I could understand it, even though I am decidedly against violence.

But....

Demonstrators shouted "Abolish Money!" and clogged streets in the area known as "The City" even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.

Abolish money eh? Let me guess - they used what to get on the planes, trains, and cars to get to the protests? Yeah, ok. That makes sense.

Nor are these protesters particularly intelligent, it would appear:

Demonstrators hoisted effigies of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse," representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.

Financial crimes are a part of the cause of homelessness, but trying to link this to "climate chaos" is just plain stupid. Let's not even talk about the war thing, since that's not my beat.... I suspect these protesters wouldn't like my view there either.

This is the problem with such protests and demonstrations, and there is an embedded lesson here for our administration, although I doubt they will learn it at British expense, having to experience it themselves.

Unfortunately when these sorts of things get going they quickly wind up with an "animal spirit" component to them that can turn truly nasty, will not remain focused on the original offense and its remedy, and has the potential to be a spark that sets off the powderkeg.

Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them.

Anyone doing the latter deserves what they get. Taunting demonstrators eh?

Heh, free speech cuts both ways, but when the demonstrators have shown willingness to turn their protest violent and smash windows one might be a bit more circumspect, lest they discover that they have, in addition to rocks and rotten fruit, come prepared with boiled rope and intend to reprise the 1873 banker hangings.

******* Very possibly an April Fools joke (I hate this day) ********

Steve Levitt (!!!) and Greg Mankiw are taking Treasury jobs.

Link

Sure to raise eyebrows will be the appointment of University of Chicago economist Steve Levitt to Tim Geithner’s team. Rarely venturing into the realm of policy, the author of Freakonomics is better known –and often derided– for research focusing more on cute trivialities like cheating by Sumo wrestlers.

Ironically, his foray into Sumo-economics appears to be exactly why he is getting the call. As readers of Freakonomics know, Levitt made headlines when he used the same statistical analysis to expose widespread cheating by teachers in the Chicago Public Schools. How does this help the Department of Treasury you ask? Stress Tests. The big headline of Geithner’s first announcement as Treasury Secretary was the promise to screen out banks doomed to fail. Strangely, Treasury has since been mum on the results from the stress tests. Now we know the reason: it turns out all the banks are getting passing marks and the suspicious Treasury Secretary is calling on Levitt to bring his Sumo-scrutiny to bear on the banks.

Colleagues at the University of Chicago economics department are cheering the move. “I could not think of a better choice than Steve Levitt to move to Washington and help the Obama team” says Nobel Laureate James Heckman, adding that he expects the job to occupy Levitt for two full Obama administration terms. “We will miss him, but he has an important job to do.”

When we finally reached Levitt, he was at McDonalds headquarters at Oak Brook, IL. Some of their franchises have been cheating by hiding Big Mac revenues that they have to share with McDonalds. Levitt has found a way to benchmark performance that can reveal suspiciously underperforming locations. “This is what economists call ‘moral hazard,’ ” Levitt said over a carton Chicken McNuggets. “Look, economics is not rocket science. Think of the US Government as like McDonalds, a bank and a toxic asset are just like a franchisee and a Big Mac. Once you see it that way, its simple.”

More at the link, regarding Mankiw.

Levitt was courted by the administrations of both Clinton and Bush, so (if true) I'm not sure if I should cheer the fact that Obama finally landed him, or if I should take this as a sign that Levitt thinks we're scroomed and so he's finally willing to throw his hat into the policy arena.


[edit on 1-4-2009 by theWCH]

Hey look I guess we shouldn't feel bad, things are on the mend.

Employment reports show mixed picture
money.cnn.com...

What the hell are these people smoking?

reply to post by elston
Wow...best news I've heard in months....

"The good news is that job cuts appear to be stabilizing in the financial sector," John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.

Nice we can find a glimmer of hope in all the doom and scroom...


...And Apparently seen in bank HQ window during #G20 protest: "While you are here protesting, we are repossessing your homes"



[edit on 4/1/2009 by Hx3_1963]

To those who knows the market:

Move to ease mark-to-market rule may undermine Treasury plan - WSJ

That'll prop up the banks stocks even if they are not worth anything?

reply to post by theWCH


This part:

When we finally reached Levitt, he was at McDonalds headquarters at Oak Brook, IL. Some of their franchises have been cheating by hiding Big Mac revenues that they have to share with McDonalds.

Gives it away as an April Fool's

reply to post by redhatty


That's what I thought too, but Levitt does some pretty eccentric work, so I figured anything is possible!

What clinched it for me was when they mockingly said that Mankiw had tax issues that could prevent him taking the post, due to overseas textbook revenue...but by that I point I had already posted the Levitt blurb!!

Originally posted by Hx3_1963
reply to post by elston

 

Wow...best news I've heard in months....

"The good news is that job cuts appear to be stabilizing in the financial sector," John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.

Nice we can find a glimmer of hope in all the doom and scroom...

Gives you a warm fuzzy doesn't it. The line you quoted was what pissed me off so much. I am so glad that job cuts in the financial sector are slowing down.

I feel pretty certain that even when GM and Chrysler go into bankruptcy there will still be mass layoffs throughout the sector as demand will not be there even after they restructure regardless of what kind of incentive programs they create. People are trying to find a silver lining but can not produce any details or plans in the works that prove their optomistic opinions. Buckle down be prepared.

Stimulus "FAIL"

I would also like to know how these numbers were generated. ie 60billion to so and so bank. Reall? A nice round number. I know when I get a bill or have to write check it is never even. When you are talking about billions rounding that number is significant. Can any of these banks tell us where the numbers are going? They are banks for christs sake. Rounding tens of billions and not having accountability? What the hell are these people doing with our money?

Stimulus "FAIL"

I would also like to know how these numbers were generated. ie 60billion to so and so bank. Reall? A nice round number. I know when I get a bill or have to write check it is never even. When you are talking about billions rounding that number is significant. Can any of these banks tell us where the numbers are going? They are banks for christs sake. Rounding tens of billions and not having accountability? What the hell are these people doing with our money?

There was a great episode of South Park the other day where they showed goons on Wall Street determining the value of things. They had a round pit which was sectioned into zones marked with different values and actions. They would cut the head off of a chicken and let it run around in the pit, and where it finally flopped, that was the amount required. Freaking classic.

reply to post by moonwilson


You mean this part?



Yep - CLASSIC!

Originally posted by elston
I feel pretty certain that even when GM and Chrysler go into bankruptcy there will still be mass layoffs throughout the sector as demand will not be there even after they restructure regardless of what kind of incentive programs they create. People are trying to find a silver lining but can not produce any details or plans in the works that prove their optomistic opinions. Buckle down be prepared.

I live in Metro Detroit, and I'm bracing for 35% (real) unemployment when that happens. Don't be surprised if Celente's "squatters rebellion" starts in Motown.

Most of the area people who still pay their mortgages...they're going to default.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by theWCH]

reply to post by redhatty
A follow up to Reds' earlier post...

Obama Orders Chevrolet and Dodge Out Of NASCAR - Car News
HAPPY APRIL FOOLS' DAY! THIS IS A JOKE. LIGHTEN UP, PEOPLE.
www.caranddriver.com...

Sick people...hmmm


===
DJ INDUSTR AVERAGE 7,679.64 11:32am ET 70.72 (0.93%)
S&P 500 INDEX,RTH 802.93 11:31am ET 5.06 (0.63%)
NASDAQ Composite 1,539.75 11:32am ET 11.16 (0.73%)
===
FTSE 100 3,949.61 11:18AM ET 23.47 (0.60%)
CAC 40 2,834.80 11:33AM ET 27.46 (0.98%)
DAX 4,125.87 11:18AM ET 41.11 (1.01%)
===
Gold $920.95

Nice to see such a rosey outlook on such sad UE #'s this morning...

Guess they know something we don't...

[edit on 4/1/2009 by Hx3_1963]

Great news for the American patriots.

The world may have another undemocratic and secretive organization much like the World Trade Organization, this one will regulate financial markets worldwide, according to Bloomberg News.

And after the G20 The US will be Knocked off its pedestal and China will become the new super powerhouse of the world.

And within four to five years we will have a new entity like the WTO that all it has done is crap on US for years and the US just let them do it.

And China will be the one dictating how it probably things will be run.

Hell who is the third world country now.

www.bloomberg.com...

Don't tell that to the rest of America because they Will never believe it.