Stock...

The US stock market has had the best week since 1974...
That only shows that if you put gazillion of dollars of someone else's money into something, at least one person shall be able to get a dollar or two out of it.

From the land of the truly stupid...

Florida Teen Commits Suicide in Front of Webcam
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 21, 2008
Filed at 4:33 p.m. ET
MIAMI (AP) -- A South Florida college student killed himself by overdosing on drugs in front of a live online audience as some computer users egged him on, some debated his method, and others tried to talk him out of it. (...)

OK - I'm not going to debate the suicide thing here, but...how sick do you have to be to watch it...

Dow zoooooooooooooom!

Markets at close.
S.&P. 500 closed at 800.03, 47.59 (6.32%) up
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,046.42, 494.13 (6.54% ) up
Nasdaq closed at 1,384.35, 68.23 (5.18%) up

But the week was rather bad for the Dow...

ketchup n' taters

Heinz 2nd-Quarter Profit Jumps 22 Percent
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 21, 2008
Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Foodmaker H.J. Heinz Co. said Friday that strong sales of products such as Ore-Ida frozen potatoes and frozen meals boosted fiscal second-quarter profit by 22 percent as cash-strapped consumers cooked more meals at home. (...)

Really??? Shouldn't one buy raw ingredients and cook from scratch if one is really cash-strapped instead of buying frozen meals and processed potatoes and then (apparently) drenching the whole concoction with ketchup? (No, ketchup ain't no vegetable...)

Ketchup sales grew 12 percent, helped by new packaging formats in Europe and higher prices. (...)

Sales grew due to higher prices...Right...

Axl "Guns N' Roses" Rose

Unbelievable!
Incredible!
Mind-boggling!
Stupendous!
Astounding!
Shocking!
Surprising!
Beyond belief!
Startling!
Unanticipated!
Unexpected!

(No, not the music – which seems to be listenable albeit pompous and overblown rock-something of the bygone era – but the fact that it’s out at all!)

Markets and my new ABC

Markets at close.
S.&P. 500 closed at 752.44, 54.14 (6.71%) down
Dow (DJIA) closed at 7,552.29, 444.99 (5.56%) down
Nasdaq closed at 1,316.12, 70.30 (5.07%) down

Read to me mommy...
Inflation (erosion of purchasing power)
Recession (significant, persistent economic decline)
Stagflation (inflation + recession)
Deflation (persistent low, really low, prices + declining output and employment)

Crude oil price

$53 a barrel. Or less.

Correction @ 9:30 AM EST
$50 a barrel. Or less.
Crude oil in New York trading fell $3.71, to $49.91 a barrel. (Reuters)

Rumor has it that the big oil companies are about to ask the taxpayers to bail them out: the president of Exxon/Mobil just can't make the ends meet on his measly $5,701,515 yearly salary.

Elevator goin' down...

Markets at close.
S.&P. 500 closed at 806.58, 52.54 (6.12%) down
Dow (DJIA) closed at 7,997.28, 427.47 (5.07%) down
Nasdaq closed at 1,386.42, 96.85 (6.53%) down

Consumer Price Index dropped by 1% in October - the biggest drop in its 61-year history! Deflation, anyone?

Field & Stream and common sense

The Field & Stream magazine (December 2008) named its "heroes and villians" for 2008.
Hero - Sarah Palin ("For the first time in a century we had a candidate for executive office who understood real hunting and fishing.") Actor Kevin Costner, golfer Boo Weekley, and the country singer Miranda Lambert were noted too...
Villian - the Governor of "Caleefornia," Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a good company of Pamela Anderson, Paul McCartney and Vladimir Putin. Too bad the Governator is neither fisherman nor hunter...

Dow goes up (a bit...)

At close 11/18/2008
S.&P. 500 closed at 859.12, 8.37 (0.98%) up
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,424.75, 151.17 (1.83%) up
Nasdaq 1,483.27, 1.22 (0.08%) up

Highlights and lowlights...

• The "big three" Detroit automakers beg for federal aid (so they can continue making gas guzzlers shoddily put together by grossly overpaid members of the UAW...)
• Clinton ("Hill" for some...) for the Secretary of State..?
• The Somali pirates have hijacked a big boat with approximately half of the Saudi's daily crude oil output... Hey guys, this is 21st century, the three-letter agencies can read the washing instructions tag inside your underwear from space and we still have pirates able to seize a really fucking big boat?!
• Henry M. Paulson (the Treasury Secretary) has been trying hard to explain why he's abandoned the original "bailout" plan, why he doesn't want to help the individual homeowners and the automakers. Lots of questions - zero answers...

Dow and the pirates

Markets at close today:
S.&P. 500 closed at 850.75, 22.54 (2.58%) down
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,273.58, 223.73 (2.63%) down
Nasdaq closed at 1,482.05, 34.80 (2.29%) down

Somali pirates have overtaken a Saudi Aramco-owned super tanker Sirius Star with 2 million barrels of oil off the coast of Kenya, which triggered a brief $3/barrel spike in oil prices...

Yo yo Dow

Markets at close today:
S.&P. 500 closed at 873.29, 38.00 (4.17%) down
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,497.31, 337.94 (3.82%)down
Nasdaq closed at 1,516.85, 79.85 (5.00%) down

Retail sales (what retails sales..?) October sales were down 2.8 percent from September 2008, and 4.1 percent from October 2007. Ouch! That will hurt our consumption/debt-fueled economy.

Up, up up, up..!

Pretty wild, ain't it?

Markets at close 11/13/2008
S.&P. 500 closed at 911.29, 58.99 (6.92%) up
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,835.25, 552.59 (6.67%) up
Nasdaq closed at 1,596.70, 97.49 (6.50%) up

Meanwhile back on the farm, the hedge fund managers testifying before a House committee said they would support some regulations of their "industry." Yeah, probably as strong as the yesterday's "stranded air passengers bill of rights..."

Mitch Mitchell dies at 61

Bad news never stops...
Mitch Mitchell, the drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was found dead in his Oregon hotel room yesterday (Wednesday, November 12 2008.)

The strong arm of the government strikes again

Yesterday some unnamed federal task force in charge of being stuck on a runway, showed a very, very large middle finger to the airline passengers, by approving voluntary guidelines for airlines and airports dealing with passengers kept hostage in airplanes stranded for hours on the tarmacs and runways of the United States. In other words, the airlines and airports can do whatever they please in such situations, which probably means nothing at all except threatening “unruly passengers" (i.e. anyone who objects to such inhumane treatment) with TSA, FBI, CIA, NSA and eternal damnation.

Here are the recommendations in a nutshell (as reported by the New York Times.) Laugh if you must, I fly way too often to find it amusing…

· Airlines update passengers delayed on tarmacs every 15 minutes even if there is nothing new to report.
· A secure room be provided for passengers from diverted overseas flights so they can avoid having to go through security checks when re-boarding an aircraft to their final destination.
· When practical, refreshments and entertainment should be made available to passengers confined aboard aircraft awaiting takeoff.
· Airlines should make reasonable efforts to keep airplane restrooms usable.

Predictably, the Air Transport Association, the trade association for the airline industry, has lauded this entire BS as success…

Down we go (and go, and go...) again

So...the markets closed way down today...

S.&P. 500 closed at 852.30, 46.65 (5.19%) down
Dow (DJIA) closed at 8,282.66, 411.30 (4.73%) down
Nasdaq closed at 1,499.21, 81.69 (5.17%) down

After the bloodbath last week all indices have been continuing their slide toward zero while the US Treasury does hundred-and-eighty and abandons “the plan” (remember the bailout plan..?) to buy toxic mortgage debt but instead intends to pump cold, hard cash directly into some US banks and credit card companies, probably to follow in the footsteps of the resounding success of propping up Bear Stearns. Think about it: the same people who laboriously guided the US economy into the current financial calamity are now busily fixing it, by giving out cold cash (not theirs, by the way) to the, hmm, “needy.”

So chances are that your friendly neighborhood “payday loan” company (APR 89%, plus another 50% of principal in fees) will be a recipient of your money, dear taxpayer…

An as an aside: “Early Look at the Market - Bear Stearns Morning View” was a super-accurate and perceptive market-analysis publication so it’s hard to believe that the good people of Bear Stearns didn’t know where the market was heading. Or was it all BS..?

Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba, South African singer died yesterday in Italy at 76. She collapsed after the concert and died of cardiac arrest. If you never heard her sing live you've missed a truly amazing performance. Great, great singer and a true civil rights hero!

Paloma and snow...

Hurricane Paloma (Cat.3, the 16th named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurrican season) threatens Cayman Islands tonight or tomorrow. After that it is predicted to weaken to a T.S. after hitting Cuba.


Oh, BTW, the Dakotas are (largely) covered with snow...

And now...

Obama!!!

Today...

vote!

set the clock, set the clock, set...

If you are in the US, set your clocks back by one hour before going to bed tonight. And if you work with computers, make sure that all your software knows about this change. Sadly, still some software behaves as if the Energy Policy Act of 2005 didn't exist.

BTW: in 2009, daylight saving time begins on March 8 and ends on November 1.