Re: REVISION TO THE MEAN, Part One

verfasst von Pancho, 28.09.2001, 00:27

>REVISION TO THE MEAN, Part One
>THE DAILY RECKONING
>PARIS, FRANCE
>THURSDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER 2001
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>*** Rally halted...no hat trick on Wall Street
>*** Is the age of irony over?
>*** Profits collapse...stocks go down...CMGI a penny
>share..."Buy Gold!"...and more...
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> We've been following the great"river of no
>returns" stock, Amazon.com...all the way down.
>Yesterday, it lost another 10% - closing at $6.35. CMGI,
>which once traded at $162, became a penny stock, trading
>as low as 98 cents yesterday.
> These stocks once represented the golden future of
>American capitalism and modern information technology.
>They were supposed to go up, not down. Meanwhile, gold
>shares - which were supposed to go nowhere - are up 73%
>so far this year.
>("Buy the gold shares," said Harry Schultz, as we
>enjoyed the sun at the Paradis Caf‚ a couple of days
>ago."They've already gone up a lot, but they have a lot
>farther to go.")
>But irony is underappreciated these days."The Age
>of Irony Comes to an End," declares Roger Rosenblatt
>sourly in Time magazine.
>To save you some time, I read his piece. Now I
>have doubts that he even knows what irony is."The
>ironicists, seeing through everything, made it difficult
>for anyone to see anything." Rosenblatt goes on to
>complain that Ironicists even made fun of such heartfelt
>expressions as"I feel your pain".
>To Rosenblatt, irony suggests that"nothing is
>real." Now he says that irony is dead because the nation
>knows that some things ARE real: real pain, real
>anger...and, of course, the real greatness of the
>country.
>Okay, Roger, let me ask you: was the productivity
>miracle real? The"new era", the social security"lock
>box", the never-ending economic expansion? What about
>the ever-rising stock market or the federal surplus?
>Ironically, life is still full of lies, myths,
>hypocrisies, wishful thinking and twists. About which,
>more below...
>Eric...what's happening over your way?
> *****
>Eric Fry in New York:
>- A stock market"hat-trick" was not to be. Stocks could
>muster no better than two consecutive days in the plus
>column before fading yesterday. The Dow dropped 92
>points to 8,567, while the Nasdaq lost 2.5%, to 1,464.
>- Adam Lass and Bryan Botterelli, our colleagues at the
>Options Underground, nailed this one on the head
>(again!). Tuesday morning, they urged their subscribers
>to buy puts on the Nasdaq 100 Index (betting that the
>market would fall). One day into the trade, things look
>pretty darn good. The Nasdaq 100 has dropped about 3%
>since midday Tuesday. (see:
>Options Underground
>http://www.indxtrader.com/your_wealth
>- Last week, Wall Street analysts made 3,390 changes to
>their revenue or profit forecasts for specific stocks,
>according to Thomson Financial/First Call. An unsettling
>84% of those forecasts were revised down. Brokerage
>stocks typify the trend: Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and
>Lehman Brothers all posted quarterly declines in net
>income yesterday...Goldman's profits fell 43%, Bear
>Stearns' slid 26%, and Lehman Brothers' dropped 32%.
>- Bad news for the stock market was good news for gold.
>The monetary relic mounted another of its stealth
>rallies - rising $3.50 to over $393 per ounce.
>- Immediately after the World Trade Center attack, gold
>rallied about $15. But the advance quickly reversed as
>many dispirited, would-be gold bulls threw in the towel.
>Since then, gold has been tiptoeing higher. And now,
>more than two weeks after the attack, spot gold has
>managed to climb to its highest closing price in more
>than one year.
>- Ironically, investment demand for gold coins appears
>to be the driving force behind the move. Greg Weldon of
>Weldon's Money Monitor reports that retail demand for
>gold coins is"through the roof." Mike Tordella, a
>wholesaler of precious metals, bars, and coins tells
>Weldon that his sales volumes are up 500% over last
>month.
>-"We are getting calls from financial planners who are
>looking for half-a-million or even one million dollars
>worth of gold for their clients," says Tordella."That
>represents a small portion of an individual portfolio,
>but it is a lot more than what people had been
>considering previously."
>-"The Mint was caught unprepared for the run on coins,
>having maintained minimal inventories due to lack of
>demand," says Frank McGhee, a coin dealer at Alliance
>Financial in Chicago. This new demand"has created
>problems with getting enough planchets (blanks) for the
>making of bullion coins."
>- Something less extreme than impending Armageddon may
>be whetting the appetites of all these gold buyers. Like
>plain vanilla inflation, for example. The recent sell
>off in the 30-year Treasury bond seems to suggest as
>much.
>-"Fed easings have been unusually aggressive
>(inflationary?)," observes the ISI Group."The attack
>has opened the door to wartime government spending
>(inflationary?). The dollar could decline persistently
>as foreign investors unwind unprecedentedly [large] long
>positions in U.S. stocks and bonds." These trends may
>all add up to rising inflation...at least, as ISI sees
>it.
>- Still, the price of oil dropped again yesterday.
>"Crude prices have declined 25% in the past week,"
>writes John Myers of Outstanding Investments,"and is
>now hovering around two year lows. One reason? Demand
>for jet fuel is dropping dramatically as airlines cut
>back on their traffic by as much as 25%. The industry
>accounts for as much as 1.8 million barrels a day of jet
>fuel - almost 10% of the U.S. oil consumption. War, of
>course, could make the price turn around in a hurry."
>- John, by the way, is having his own string of luck
>with The Resource Trader Alert. He recently added 145%
>to his readers' portfolios with this interesting twist
>on the surge in demand for gold: a"call" on the Swiss
>franc (betting the market would go up). This currency,
>seen by many as a safety play in times of strife, is
>largely backed by gold reserves. {see:
>Resource Trader Alert
>http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/HOTS/ProfitWithRTA/
>- Life in lower Manhattan, while far from normal, is at
>least moving in that direction. Yesterday's spectacular
>fall weather seemed to put a shine on everything.
> *****
>Back in Paris...
>*** I stopped in at the famous auction house Drouot
>yesterday. If you want to buy antiques, this is a good
>place to go - it's the wholesale market, where Paris
>antique dealers get their inventory.
>*** At an auction of modern art...I felt as though I was
>glimpsing the future.
>*** Two men in suits held up a large tableau covered in
>brown paint with purple figures. It looked as though it
>might have been done by a 5th grade art class in a bad
>neighborhood.
>***"We will begin the bidding at 5,000 francs," said
>the auctioneer.
>Silence.
>***"Well, let us reduce the opening bid to 4,000
>francs..."
>Silence.
>***"Two thousand francs. Do I hear 2,000 francs...?"
>No one spoke.
>***"Okay...1,000...?"
>***"500 francs...? Does anyone in this room want to bid
>on this painting?"
>Dead silence.
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>REVERSION TO THE MEAN, Part One
>by Bill Bonner
>
>"Patriotism...is the last refuge of scoundrels. It also
>occasionally can be the first resort of shills, not
>excluding those peddling stocks."
>Alan Abelson
>Barron's
>
>Widely reported is the idea that Islam abhors violence
>and the Koran specifically forbids suicide missions.
>But great religions all have one thing in common. They
>lay on such a light yoke that their adherents can run
>off in almost any fool direction they want to.
>How else can you explain so many mullahs and Muslim
>clerics throughout the Middle East who seem to support
>bin Laden and other terrorists?
>And is it not at least ironic that in a nation of more
>than 200 million Christians, hardly a single voice
>suggests turning the other cheek to terrorists? There it
>is, about as unambiguously stated as anything Jesus ever
>said:
>"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an
>eye, and a tooth for a tooth...But I say unto you, That
>ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on
>thy rich cheek, turn to him the other also."
>As I have explained, the Daily Reckoning is a free
>service. But if I had the same views as Time magazine,
>what would be the point of reading? (Not that I am
>advocating turning the other cheek to murderers. It is
>just that an unnoticed irony is a dangerous irony.)
>The entire American press agrees: the nation has been
>rocked by a tragic and catastrophic attack, but it seems
>to have brought out the best in America. Americans are
>united as never before and prouder than ever...of
>themselves.
>But here at the Daily Reckoning, we are a bit
>disappointed in our fellow Americans. Just when they
>seemed to be coming to their senses, after a long spell
>of overconfidence...they seem to have slipped into even
>greater fantasy.
>The ordinary man seems to have suddenly taken up a vast
>and unhealthy interest in military affairs and politics,
>just as he was beginning to recover from his interest in
>stocks. And now he can scarcely tell the difference.
>"If you believe in our great country - that we will
>survive and prosper - then spend a little money," urges
>Louis Navellier."Buy that new sofa. Go out to dinner.
>Take a weekend getaway. It'll do your psyche good and
>help grease the wheels of recovery, as well. AND ONCE
>YOU'VE spent a little cash on yourself and your family,
>invest a little in America, too. The stock market
>represents our future - a bright future, I believe.
>But don't invest just to be patriotic. Invest the right
>way now - with great companies selling at flea market
>prices..." (Uahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!, J.)
>History will some day record that following the
>terrorists' strike in September of 2001, God, Mammon,
>and the State curled up so tightly together in
>Americans' minds that separating them was like trying to
>pull apart mating snakes. The nation's blood is up. Now
>is the time to act. To speak out. We will have plenty of
>time for regrets later.
>"Wake Up, America!" comes the clarion call from Ben
>Stein in Barron's. The terrorists' attack gave us a
>wake-up call just like Pearl Harbor, Stein believes.
>How did America's Greatest Generation react?"We didn't
>worry a lot about hurting anyone's feelings. We bombed
>their cities from the air...we won and saved the whole
>future of mankind."
>Bombing cities is a popular theme."Bomb them all," said
>one New Yorker, as I reported yesterday,"Let God sort
>them out."
>"Strike hard and fast," adds Stein.
>This sentiment has already triggered streams of refugees
>pouring out of Kabul. Residents of Delray Beach, Florida
>are said to be packing up too.
>If Simon de Montfort had had bombers, he would have used
>them to crush the Cathar heresy in 1208. Cathars lived
>in towns in the southwest of France...where they
>practiced their form of"pure" Christianity. They
>believed that work was good but that all matter was
>evil. Why were they considered such a threat? Eight
>hundred years later, it is hard to imagine. Perhaps it
>was because they did not eat meat; vegetarianism has
>always been regarded with alarm in France.
>Blessed by the Pope, and joined by men in search of
>paradise in heaven or confiscated lands on earth, Simon
>de Montfort led a campaign against the heretics.
>St. Dominic despaired of trying to talk sense into them.
>"I have preached, I have entreated, I have wept...the
>rod must now do the work of benediction."
>In the ensuring campaign whole towns were wiped out -
>with every man, woman, and child put to the sword...many
>tortured before finally being put to death. A favorite
>means of killing heretics was to burn them alive at the
>stake..."with a small, slow fire", the chroniclers
>report. Those who escaped ran and hid in the forests.
>There, they starved...other towns were forbidden to give
>them food or shelter, under penalty of death.
>How could de Montfort tell the difference between
>heretics and the honest Catholics who lived in the same
>towns? He was as ignorant of an individual's guilt or
>innocence as a smart bomb. So he killed them all."Slay
>them all," was his instruction (attributed to Papal
>Legate Arnaud Amaury)."God will recognize his own."
>The ruthlessness paid off. Scarcely a hundred years
>later, the last known Cathar, Guillaume Belibaste, was
>burnt alive, and - in the eyes of the church - the
>future of mankind was saved.
>For Stein too, the time for modesty and cautious
>thinking is over."Back to reality..." he says.
>"Reversion to the mean is a law, not a choice."
>Long suffering Daily Reckoning readers will recall too
>that"reversion to the mean" is a law that rarely goes
>unenforced for long. A bear market had already begun on
>Wall Street before the terrorists finished flight
>school. Stocks were already reverting to the mean and so
>was the U.S. economy. Those trends still have a long way
>to go.
>But your editor wonders whether there isn't an even
>bigger bubble waiting for deflation...and whether, in
>some ironic way, a bear market in confidence might cost
>the nation even more than its bear market in stocks.
>More tomorrow...
>Bill Bonner

393$/Unze, hach wär das schön! Aber irgendwann werden auch diese 393$/Unze kommen.

Gruss:-)

Pancho

<center>

<HR>

</center>

Thread gesperrt

 

gesamter Thread:

• REVISION TO THE MEAN, Part One - BossCube, 27.09.2001, 23:20
  • Re: REVISION TO THE MEAN, Part One - Pancho, 28.09.2001, 00:27