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

reply to post by irishchic


As an investment advisor I could have been that guy you spent 3 hours with (I'm not). Depending on your individual circumstance, I probably would have told you all the same things. it all depends on what you hired your advisor/broker to do for you.

Are you investing to make money today or to reach certain long-term goals in the future, like retirement, education, etc?

If you are investing to make money over the short term and to flip and flop, then this guy obviously isn't for you. For one, he should have sold treasuries when short term rates went basically to zero. At that point there was very little room to the upside. If he put you into treasuries at that point then the guy should be shot. If he did it at your insistance then that is just proof that your trading is reactionary and emotional which is the absolute wrong way to go.

However, if you are investing for the long run, then he is most likely doing what he thinks is right for you. Just because it is not working right now doesn't mean that in the end you won't be better off. Most people have any where from a 20 to a 60 year time frame for each dollar they invest. If you are 35 (you look younger if that is you) then you will most likely be buiding your account for the next 25-30 years and then spending that money during your 20-25 years of retirement. So we are talking about your funds being invested for a period of 55 years from here.

The truth is most people cannot handle making market calls over a period of 55 years. Normally if they try, there will be some point where it becaomes an absolute disaster and at that point they give up investing all together and turn to annuities and cd's. The very few are able to maintain success over long periods of time. Note all the hedge funds that have closed down. Many of these guys were the best at one time at what they do. Now the emotion of short term returns has basically ruined their business.

On the other hand you have the folks who are invested in a particular allocation which is only changed as a result of life events or the approaching of retirement. The theory here is that if you take a broadly diversified portfolio, keep feeding it through good and bad, that over long periods of time you will achieve your goals (and you always have). If this is how your account was to be managed then your broker/advisor is telling you the right things. You need to stay the course.

This fall is not the first in our markets history. Every 10 years or so events happen that make people lose all confidence in the markets. Those who bail at those times usually soon regret it. Even those who bailed at the bottom in 2002-2003 would have been better off staying the course than most other alternatives. And this is after experiencing a 55% decline in the overall markets over the last few years. I have the figures to back it up, but they are based on particular investments which I am not suppose to post here. But basically a diversified mutual fund portfolio allocated evenly between large caps, small caps, international mutual funds of both the value and growth disciplines has a higher return than most all asset classes during that time.

While in the face of current events a buy and hold portfolio looks pretty stupid, as it always does when the market is in a down trand, the truth of the matter is that such a portfolio is more likely to meet your future needs then a frequent trading strategy. The reason is emotion. Look no further than this thread for proof of that. Emotion makes people do the wrong things. How many people sold and went to treasuries near the market bottom? Or stopped making their monthly contributions to their equity funds. Emotion makes you do all the wrong things and then eventually give up. Many CD buyers are failed traders. They have given up much for their lack of faith.

So basically don't crucify your advisor/broker if he makes some wrong decisions. If you are asking for short term results from a long term portfolio then you are kidding yourself. No one really knows what is going to happen. Anyone in the past who sticks to their guns with a diversified portfolio has eventually been greatly rewarded. I don't expect that it will turn out any different this time. although many people willcommit financial suicide by trying to be smarter tahn the markets.

reply to post by DangerDeath


The chart I posted with the wave would correlate with your #'s which is interesting.. and yes that is what would happen if only something horrible was said by someone of importance here.. again IMO

reply to post by disgustedbyhumanity


One of the best posts I've ever seen and absolutely one of the best explanations and for that,I am grateful and thank your beyond words!

Love ya' for the compliments: it is me and I'm "much older",LOL! Hard work;good genes,and the will to achive and grow keeps me in great shape and on top of my life!

Long-term goals allllll the way with me and you are very valid in all you say.

I think for a while EVERY financial person out there who held someone else's money was running scared...bonds/treasuries traditionally were the "safety zone" when markets went down and I think the "new ideas and ideals" of exactly WHAT sort of "face" the current and future markets will show is still so un-clear that they still go on history a lot of the time.

They sure don't want to make mistakes/lose clients either.

The rules have changed but I do agree that "plugging away",staying on course and staying as non-emotional as possible is hard...especially when you have earned your wealth (as opposed to inheriting or other) and you are right,it all needs to be put in a new perspective and I'm will try.

We're all re-learning learning and it's SO wonderful to have you and others for "new and improved" teachers!

Hugs to you!



[edit on 6-6-2009 by irishchic]

Hey hey, no personal investment advice on the pages.. it doesn't only apply to GBM.

Irishchic.... your old? I DON'T BELIEVE IT??! Hehe .. all I care about is red hair, irish, pole. Throw a beer in the mix and I'm in heaven. I can only hope you graced this world with a few daughters, maybe one my age? Lol

And something else to think about before I head out for the day



Just another thing to put into the "theory"

Money was being moved in and out all day Friday through the FX markets to support treasuries and equities. If you have the ability to take a study of /ZN and overlay it over /ES, you can see it looks like waves. From 100% correlation to 100% inverse correlation, over and over. FX and equities stayed that way most of the day. All the "real money" was in and out of treasuries though. If you pull up the correlation, you can see exactly when -- when one of those waves is at the top of the chart is when money was flowing into T's at the same time as equities. When it's at the bottom it was only flowing into equities. This was a HUGE effort to support the T's and keep the spreads stable.

At 3:15, the last bump happened in FX, and would normally have been bullish for equities, but they didn't react. I *think* that move was the movement of money back into FX and is being held there for the next "round". The FX market is probably providing a place to draw money from and stick it back in. After that, FX went flat and equities finished the day at damn near the same place there were at 3:15.

If the equities market is the tail that gets wagged by the dog that is the bond market, then the FX market is the master holding the dog on a leash.

GS and JPM have enough money available at anytime to support the futures market. And they did a fine job Friday as we came down to the very recognizable support line for the ES. But the money was mostly going into the Treasuries. All week it seems like the big players were pumping the equities where they could to make gains which would then be used to support the T's, amybe, IF they are the ones supporting the T's, that is. If they are the ones doing the T and MBS action too, they're burning through money like they were throwing it in the money pit. Both have cost billions to do what's been done in the last week.

For the last 12 days (what comes up on a 10d 5m chart right now) EVERY SINGLE VOLUME SPIKE is to the downside. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

The bad thing is that in supporting the 30yr T's and the MBS, the 2yr T's took a hit hard Friday. Yes it's bringing in the 2/10 yr spread, but it's not a "healty" way of doing it. It is almost as if those who hold our debt (T's) are not even being slow about the move to shorter and shorter frequency of the debt holdings. Money out of 2 yr appears to be heading into the 4, 13 & 26 week Bills.

The 30yr has already had it's flight, yet we know there is more to come, unless Ben has been concentrating on buying all the 30yr himself, if so, then we are literally paying other people interest to loan ourselves money we don't have.

As all this debt converts over to the short term notes, that also means that they can come due faster. If I was to ask myself, what is the most profitable way to destroy the US, I would have to say, get all the short term debt possible and call it on maturity, refuse to roll it over.

All of us in this thread should know by now that the US does not have the money to pay off all this debt. A concerted effort to force Ben to pay off on the Notes can cause repercussions that make TEOTWAWKI a wonderful alternative.

Seriously, IF (and it is a big IF) this is the plan that our debt holders have constructed, saying TSHTF is such an understatement that it isn't even funny. I hope I'm wrong, and if someone here can show me anything to dispute all this, I would welcome the information.

reply to post by redhatty


I was under the impression that one thing boosting the stock markets was in fact short term debt maturing and being moved back into the markets?

I had always assumed those in T's for long term stuck to long term debts, such as the 30yr.

reply to post by Rockpuck


The long term T's are being sold or rolled into short term T's at an alarming pace lately.

www.marketwatch.com...

www.marketwatch.com...

blogs.cfr.org...

www.reuters.com...

Originally posted by irishchic

I sort of set him straight and when I started asking about pulling a chunk of money immediately out of the treasuries I hold and trickling that back into some other funds he gave me the lame: "well...we're still getting some sort of return on them and I don't advise that."
I'm very cautious about treasuries and bonds: I know the least about how they "work" and they are dicey at best right now.
Trust me,I made my point with him,LOL! My money,my way.

What yield did you begin buying treasuries at? And what length of time? If you bought them a month-2 months ago then you are certain to lose money if you pull out now because the present value of the T-Bills are lower than they were a couple of months ago.

www.reuters.com...

Russia will like Treasuries even if U.S. rating is cut.

reply to post by RetinoidReceptor


Too bad China is looking fondly to IMF bonds

www.ft.com...

Russia's US Debt holding were $119.6 billion in January 2009.

China's holding were $739.6 billion in January 2009.

OF course, the FED itself holds $4.806 trillion in US Treasury debt.

Originally posted by redhatty
reply to post by RetinoidReceptor

 

Too bad China is looking fondly to IMF bonds

www.ft.com...

Russia's US Debt holding were $119.6 billion in January 2009.

China's holding were $739.6 billion in January 2009.

OF course, the FED itself holds $4.806 trillion in US Treasury debt.

They are of course diversifying but that doesn't mean they are going to stop buying U.S. debt. They will reduce their purchases though for sure.

Bond market is what intrests me in the next couple months

then Aug-Dec is when stock market should have gut check time

GBM do you have any concerns about 3'rd or 4'th Q earnings meeting expectations

i think the key to the medium term on the stock market is when and how 3'rd and 4'th Q earings dissapointments get priced in...just my opinon based on Consumption and credit availability trends.....and the distrubing trend of the last ohh....10 times....that they have been downgraded......actually they have been downgraded so much that i wonder if the future downgrades are priced in LOL.....(they haven't been) but i will BET YOU that JPM AND GS load up on shorts sometime before 3'rd/4'th Q earnings......and that should take some pressure off Bond market (late in year) unless of course a straight up capital flight out of dollars occurs.....but i don't see that as likely due to other country's plights

GBM wrote:

But I rather not give a up to the minute or even hour by hour opinion - bc I have a feeling my ideas were getting "followed" and I never intended that.

''

I know the feeling, God forbid someone should get hurt following well intended technical advice that was only meant for sport. Or even worse some nut decides to take you to court for a slanderous statement and you end up in prison. Trim in shape technical geeks like us get passed around for currency in prison. Better to stay on the outside as IC's pool boy.

The markets have been manipulated to such a degree that I'm getting disillusioned. Economic stimulus helps the economy when the dollars initially invested by the government get respent over and over again as they work their way through the economy ADDING "working capital".

Dollars given to a bank that end up leasing a heating oil storage supertanker, just remove heating oil from the world market which drives the price of heating oil up. Higher heating oil prices only REMOVE "working capital" from the economy and send it overseas.

Great points by all about the possible future of yields and interest rates!
Hard to say exactly when or where the NWO will decide to raise interest rates.. Looks like a pretty effective bridge has been built over a very low point in the US economy for the equities markets thus far. Financing a thinly traded technical rally with bailout money seems a little superficial but who are we to judge the master plan. For those of us that shorted this rally it could be a lot worse, just keep watching reruns of Papillon to keep your spirits up!

I so love this guy...

WARNING: Adult Language

Formulex I am disillusioned as well. Manipulation is rampant and I don't trust anything right now. This is my hobby so I can wait until I feel more comfortable to delve in (though I still dabble).

reply to post by redhatty


If this guy isn't being closely watched by the government then no one is. Most of the things he stated are in the news or were discussed here on ATS.

Crazy stuff.

that guy is my favorite ............seriously .........

and believe me ......people are max'n their cards.......buying food and gold

and then not paying and taking the hit on credit but advantage of the new

credit card laws passed in congress........and i'm not gonna piss and moan

about these people doing this.....BC if you continue to think being a

obedient little sheep is gonna help you ...they were gonna pull 2 trillion

worth of credit lines anyway....now with the credit card rules congress

passed they are gonna cut those lines quicker and jack the rates faster

bc they know people are chompin at the bit ready to bend THEM over!

the gov't by ignoring the people and continuing to be in bed with lobbyists

and big industry

are playing with FIRE



[edit on 6-6-2009 by cpdaman]

I wonder how the preventive measures proposed will look like in their finalized form.

Institutions want to repay the government as soon as they can in order to get out from under some unwanted obligations such as executive compensation restrictions, dividend payments, among others.

The government also sees repayments as a positive sign for financial institutions that have raised more capital than needed to exit the bailout program.

The newspaper report also said Treasury could unveil rules on executive compensation for bailout-assisted institutions as early as next week.

Executive compensation practices at Wall Street firms will be the subject of a congressional hearing scheduled for next week.

The House Financial Services Committee is planning a June 11 hearing focusing on how to eliminate compensation practices that encouraged excessive risk-taking and contributed to the financial collapse and ultimately hurt the U.S. economy.

news.yahoo.com...

The recent history teaches us how some of the "free marketeers" operate.

When Lehman Brothers were heading south, the scope of the interconnection was dawning on Paulson altogether with the all financial sector. JP Morgan didn't mind to buy whatever was left from Lehman. So Paulson sent the cash but JP Morgan wired back asking about the rest. There was no rest -- that was it. Paulson punished Lehman to the max and a Lehman share became $2 worth. Lots of Lehman's employees were also shareholders and cried when the anticipated offer from JPMorgan was $4 a share. But Paulson made them speechless for good.

When AIG started to slip right after Lehman went, it turned out that the principal corporate strategy of the risky business was that Lehman would never be let go under if trouble develops. That's how some of the proponents of the "free market" think -- they put the government parameter into the formulas that make all the fancy "financial instruments" to see the light of day.

But AIG execs were wrong -- they run into disgusted Paulson who almost vomited when Lehman books became available for perusal.

I hope that the Congress consults Hank Paulson when devising various deterents to dissuade speculators who relied on the government to take risk-free decisions to rake in larger and larger bonuses.

The government and the financiers have different goals, and if a conflict of interests develops, as it did, the government will always win. There is not much of a contest.




[edit on 6/6/2009 by stander]

reply to post by Rockpuck


Not old my darlin' one...I'm simply a bit "seasoned" and lots wiser than I appear and act LOL!!!

The red hair is mine just "enhanced" and the pole plays a huge part in "keeping me young!"

I do have a killer-gorgeous daughter however and yes,she is single.

6' blond/green with a great job and sense of humor to boot!

People often think we're sisters and we both love that.

Bond market has my interest as well...as for the T-bills,I'm going to take a bit of a hit on the ones I still have but am not going to play their game much longer and will re-allocate that money asap.

Interesting article:

mortgage.freedomblogging.com...

"Do These Homeowners Deserve Help?"



[edit on 6-6-2009 by irishchic]