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

Well more "better than expected news" people

AIG Reports Much Deeper Loss than Expected, (but remember better than expected) American International Group reported a quarterly loss that was narrower than last year's shortfall but much deeper than analysts had expected. Shares dropped steeply in late trading.

Oh!!!!!!! new phrase, narrower than expected but deeper than expected

The loss included $1.2 billion of costs related to AIG's wind-down of a controversial financial products unit, almost $1 billion of interest and costs related to a credit line from the Federal Reserve, and investment losses or writedowns of $1.6 billion.

AIG reported a $61.7 billion loss in the fourth quarter, the largest quarterly loss in corporate history.

Wait a moment this people lost more than half of the bailout money that the tax payer gave them?

And they are still allowed to exist !!!!!!!!!! what in the hell is going on.

www.cnbc.com...

Originally posted by marg6043
Well more "better than expected news" people

It is amazing how things can look good when you present the worst possible thing.

You are in a desert and dying from dehydration. You don't open your water pouch because you think it is empty. Out of desperation you open the pouch because you are so desperate. There is a drop of water. You begin jumping up and down and celebrate and smile as you are licking the drop of water. You die 5 minutes later because you lost more water from celebrating than the drop.

That is the markets

reply to post by RetinoidReceptor


I love your reasoning, you know now I see why in June is a new bail out heading our way.

Banks needs to raise 76 billions in new capital, that means they are still in deep caca, and then top with the AIG loses that is unacceptable all that money been squandered on this institutions and they are still failing.

What is next?

Well let the experts talk,

The stress tests, which are aimed at determining a bank's vulnerability to a severe downturn, also appear to conflict with the government’s plan to sell toxic assets and new regulation over so-called too-big-to-fail institutions.

“I think the government’s policies have all run against each other,” says Paul J. Miller, banking analyst at FBR Capital Markets. “They keep throwing things out there to see what sticks.”

Opponents view the stress tests as nothing more than a band aid on the wound of a body with massive internal bleeding—that’s where the other programs come into play—creating a false sense of security about the industry.

After the stress tests analyst see the entire government bail out program as throwing "things" I guess paper as money now is just like toilet one, to see if it sticks, you know if you wet the toilet paper it will stick to the ceiling and walls

Then like we say over and over nothing than a band aid on the wound that is is continuously bleeding because is has massive internal damage.

But hey that is why we have morons, I mean geniuses in Washington right?

www.cnbc.com...

reply to post by marg6043


OMG! Between you and Stander my sides hurt from laughing!

Reminds me of being a kid at Truck Stops on trips and sticking T.P. in every bathroom ceiling

@ RetinoidReceptor:

GMAC Needs $11.5 Billion in Capital After U.S. Stress Test
www.bloomberg.com...

Told ya...but nooo....

Where are these entity's going to get all this cash?!?

And speaking of Crooks

Rothschild Difference With Madoff Becomes Geneva’s Obsession
www.bloomberg.com...

[edit on 5/7/2009 by Hx3_1963]

My question to Geithner would be: Why would banks want to sell their toxic assets for a low price if changing the mark to market accounting rule allows them to dramatically increase the "market" price of these assets? Furthermore why would any private investor buy these assets with true confidence if the accounting rules have been changed? The suspension of M2M and the toxic asset program seems to contradict each other

Yet nobody in Congress has inquired about this?

S&P 500 +5.70 912.70 5/7 9:41pm
Fair Value 916.49 5/6 10:38pm
Difference* -3.79

Fair Value 1422.24 5/6 10:38pm
Difference* -23.99

Dow Jones +45.00 8432.00 5/7 9:34pm
===
Nikkei 225 9,402.95 9:36PM ET Up 17.25 (0.18%)
Straits Times 2,209.97 9:41PM ET Down 31.63 (1.41%)
Seoul Composite 1,404.88 9:36PM ET Up 3.80 (0.27%)
Taiwan Weighted 6,521.49 9:36PM ET Down 51.38 (0.78%)
===
Gold GCK09.CMX Gold May 09 915.00 9:00pm ET Up 4.50 (0.49%)

Gerald Celente: Green Shoots or Greatest Depression?

Trendpost: With so much money being dumped into the system, there will be money to made ... and lost. The agile and the knowledgeable may be able to reap "green shoots" while they're sprouted. But beware!

"The Greatest Depression" -- that we forecast would begin to set in by the end of this year -- may have been postponed, but it has not been averted. When it does set in, it will do so with enhanced intensity and at a pace accelerated by complex financial finagling ... all under the guise of nation-saving action. Rather than let the failing industries fail and the failed banks go bankrupt, the government is deliberately bankrupting the nation.

The lesson to be learned from the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007, is that nothing succeeds like failure. The greater their failure, the bolder they become. The more they lose, the more they take. The greater the chaos, the more control they exact. The bigger they fail, the harder we fall.

More at link...

China fears bond crisis as it slams Quantitative Easing.

Full Stress Test Results, courtesy of Zero Hedge.

Brief History Lesson: The Panic of 1873



Eventually, the Electrical Revolution ended the Long Depression; just as the Semiconductor Revolution would end the Great Depression. What will end our current depression? And will the next revolution take place in America; or in China, India or elsewhere? I wouldn't count out the inventive spirit of America.


[edit on 7-5-2009 by theWCH]

reply to post by RetinoidReceptor


Yes but guess who will be buying the toxic assets with government back up, the financial system itself.

With such a bargain backed by the government they will keep it to themselves.

reply to post by theWCH


Well that is exactly what is going to happen as we all has seen the developments of all this crisis in the last two years since the mortgage bubble burst.

The time line from all the failing banking institutions the cash infusions the bailouts the TARP and now the "whatever name is the new one coming on June" it has done nothing to fix the nation but just concentrating on the financial and the Markets.

Then again how can a nation recuperate with the real issues behind the crisis has been completely forgotten.

Throwing money away for the wrong reason to the wrong places because Washington is been run by private groups links to the same financial sector that is failing.

Darn it doesn't take a genius to see the pattern of failed policies here.

Because this government is concentrating on only one think, keeping the markets on "better than expected" notion to create a sense that everything is bottoming out.

Hello to all of you who are the keepers of this great thread. I pop in every once in a while to see what the ATS financial minds are thinking.

I got a question, anyone notice oil inching back up lately? As of right now, it is at 57.33. What happens to this economy if oil starts to approach $100 a barrel again this summer?

Does anyone think Oil has the legs to approach $100 this summer or is this just a little run up?

Another question:

Do any of you run your own small businesses? Do you see this thing turning around or just getting worse? I run a one man law practice. I have been running my practice for 4.5 years now. In each of my first four years, I had growth (perhaps about 20% per year). But this year, I will be really lucky to be flat. In reality I expect to be worse off this year compared to last.

The first four months of this year have been really crappy. Even in my line of work (criminal defense) people who would have spent the money for a good private attorney are trying to get by with public defenders. You would have thought that criminal defense would be recession proof, I guess not.

Originally posted by RetinoidReceptor
My question to Geithner would be: Why would banks want to sell their toxic assets for a low price if changing the mark to market accounting rule allows them to dramatically increase the "market" price of these assets?

The rule doesn't give the banks any power to arbitrarily increase the value of the toxic assets; it wishfully handles the toxins with rubber gloves and and throws the assets into the general supply/demand pricing scenario. In this case it's a bonafide fire sale. But the toxins should have now a market value set by the bid/ask haggling. I'm not sure how the bid value is recorded in the books, but it could be very well listed under the Fantasy column before the real bid is made available to the prospective buyers. I don't know what kind of value Geithner assigned to the rest of the toxins while conducting the stress test.

In the beginning, the taxpayers were those who were "freely forced" to buy those toxins by the decision of the Congress on the advice of the FedRes/Treasury wizards, but the taxpayers didn't like it that much, so the Congress Financial Committee started to think about how to get the private investors join the rescue mission -- somehow. But it's all cosmetology now.

The change in the rule kind of hopes to follow the case of the European garbage odyssey where the ever-resourceful Chinese decided to buy garbage from the Europeans to process it once again with incredible efficiency.

That's how I see it -- just my opinion.

edit:

The Financial Accounting Standards Board, an independent body that sets standards for U.S. companies, has already signaled that it will relax the rule in April, in time for the banks' first-quarter financial reports. FASB says it will allow bankers to use "significant judgment" in valuing assets where no active market exists.

So the active market for the toxins doesn't exist. How was the $700 billion used then? The government was buying the bad assets for some price, so some market price had to be there. I bet that the "significant judgement" melted when the government garbage truck showed up by the bank.

It just takes some time before the banks hire some wizard kids from MTI who invent and spray the crap with perfume #2 and ship the "investment" to Iceland once again -- via Switzerland.




[edit on 5/8/2009 by stander]

Originally posted by finemanm

Does anyone think Oil has the legs to approach $100 this summer or is this just a little run up?

Probably around 80 dollars a barrel but not 100. That is just my guess.

Do any of you run your own small businesses? Do you see this thing turning around or just getting worse? I run a one man law practice. I have been running my practice for 4.5 years now. In each of my first four years, I had growth (perhaps about 20% per year). But this year, I will be really lucky to be flat. In reality I expect to be worse off this year compared to last.

I own a part of a furniture business (though I do not physically run it). It is a crap shoot for us. We mostly supply hospitals...so it is a little more recession proof. But some months we do well and others we haven't. January was bad. February was good (we got an order that was the size of one month's worth). March was break even. April was okay. With that being said, I have not taken money out of the business this year and my brother has taken a meager salary (he runs it) because if we took money out like normal we would cut our profit down dramatically.

Probably around 80 dollars a barrel but not 100. That is just my guess.

Well it depends... it's priced in US dollar. The more the US dollar goes down, the more oil prices will go up...

And of course now that Goldman Fraud is somehow back in business, they may rise oil using speculation like they did last time...

We'll see what information is leaked at Bilderberg this year... but it doesn't look good so far. They will be discussing either to have a short depression but very deep, or to have a few decades long depression... and it looks more likely that they will go for the decades-long one.

[edit on 8-5-2009 by Vitchilo]

Originally posted by finemanm
Hello to all of you who are the keepers of this great thread. I pop in every once in a while to see what the ATS financial minds are thinking.

I got a question, anyone notice oil inching back up lately? As of right now, it is at 57.33. What happens to this economy if oil starts to approach $100 a barrel again this summer?

Does anyone think Oil has the legs to approach $100 this summer or is this just a little run up?

Another question:

Do any of you run your own small businesses? Do you see this thing turning around or just getting worse? I run a one man law practice. I have been running my practice for 4.5 years now. In each of my first four years, I had growth (perhaps about 20% per year). But this year, I will be really lucky to be flat. In reality I expect to be worse off this year compared to last.

The first four months of this year have been really crappy. Even in my line of work (criminal defense) people who would have spent the money for a good private attorney are trying to get by with public defenders. You would have thought that criminal defense would be recession proof, I guess not.

Within five years oil will be $300 dollars a barell - here is a clue as to how much it is valued - the russians buiding nuclear powered stations to excavate it from the arctic circle...peak oil.

Another better way of looking at this is do you think ever single machine of war will be replaced with some battery operated hybrud solar electric daisy ? How long do you think it would take to replace the global fleet of military machines -

No - oil is going to go through the roof - (but not before then end of the year I agree)....

Another cracking video

People get ready for the better than expected jobs report

A Slightly Better April Jobs Report Is Expected, predicted unemployment 8.9 better than expected from 8.5. in April, ( got to love the wording here),

Employers are letting up a bit on the mass layoffs they resorted to earlier this year to cope with the recession, but the unemployment rate is climbing because many businesses remain wary of hiring given all the economic and financial uncertainties.

The Labor Department on Friday is slated to release a report expected to show that a net total of 620,000 jobs were lost in April.

If analysts are correct, the figure — while still big — would be an improvement from March's 663,000 job losses and mark the fewest reductions since November.

www.cnbc.com...

Occurs they are easing on lay off or the companies CEOs will have to bring their fancy families to do the jobs because they are running out of staff

New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns
Another Goldman Sachs scandal...

Stephen Friedman, chairman of the board at the Federal Reserve bank of New York, abruptly resigned Thursday, days after The Wall Street Journal pointed out his approval of a request by Goldman Sachs was in violation of policy because of his considerable holdings in Goldman shares.

Send that son of a gun to JAIL.

That's really nice people that are in government... Madoff and Friedman... creator of NASDAQ and head of the NY FED... just like was Geithner.

[edit on 8-5-2009 by Vitchilo]

reply to post by marg6043
Hmmm...a new play on words..."Slightly Better"...how imaginative!

Jobless rate jumps to 8.9% even as job losses throttle back
Nonfarm payrolls drop by 539,000; average hourly pay grows just 1 cent

]marketwatch

~
The government said the U.S. economy lost 539,000 jobs in April, less than economists expected. The report also said the unemployment rates rose to the highest in 26 years - 8.9% -- from 8.5%, matching forecasts. The previous two month's losses were revised higher.

~
April's loss of 539,000 jobs was the smallest decline since October's 380,000. However, job losses in February and March were revised higher by 66,000.

~
Since the recession began in December 2007, payrolls have fallen by 5.7 million, or 4.1% of payrolls, the largest percentage decline since the 1958 recession.

Hmmm...dang...that didn't last long...back to, "less than expected"

And I wonder how "Jr" likes scrubbing the toilets after his dad laid-off all the "hired hands"

And see how they keep *updating* prior months? or should I say downgrading?

[edit on 5/8/2009 by Hx3_1963]

Now why did I think of "Pinky and The Brain" after reading this last post??

I cannot type a second line because of laughter.

Peace...