Greece

The Greek debt crisis has impacted the world. Just what are the austerity measures imposed by European Banks on Greece. Here’s the top 5  from CNBC. (CNBC is an ultra pro bank/Wall Street network.) More details at link.

NB all prices are in EUROs not dollars

• Raise Taxes – 7 trillion over next 3/4 years. Includes a 23% value added tax.
• Wage cuts – 15% public sector (huge 25% of Greece is public sector workers.)
• Military Cuts – about .5 trillion
• Social Security costs – about  5 trillion – means test and retirement age moves from 61 to 65.
• Luxury Tax – All they said was thy were going to soak the rich too.

Lets compare this with what the US is doing to balance it budget.  Obviously both parties are to blame and they are far more interested in ideology than solutions. However, one sides total lack of willingness to compromise was pointed out in Obama’s press conference.

Republican’s are not willing even to compromise on

“limiting tax deductions for corporate jets.”

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KISS & Stocks

(Keep It Simple Stupid)

If you don’t understand a term look in up at Investopedia.com dictionary

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!

DOUBLE CHECK ALL DATA, I MAKE MORE THAN GRAMMAR MISTAKES

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Technicals, Fundamentals & Analysis

Shorter Term Outlook.

• Chart of the Day – Shows HFT trading over 15 major exchanges (not dark pools)  - “The image below reflects high frequency trading (HFT) operations with quotes in milliseconds. The sharp increases in the chart are what’s termed “quote stuffing” as the machines try to engineer some action over the four minute span.”

Thanks to Dave Fry. The quote and chart are his

• At the end of he quarter managers of stock funds “window dress” their stocks. Part of this rally is “window dressing” or stock managers buying the “hot” stocks to impress their clients so that they stay invested. The major factor is the HFT are buying. Both the quarter and QE2 end today.

• The McClellan Oscillator (MO) chart rose to +52.72 (above +30 somewhat overbought , above +60 overbought, above +90 OMG overbought) Repeat -The MO has been unable to get above the +50 range for 6 months. It sure looks like the +50 high of the last 6 months is about to fall = long term bullish. Short term almost overbought = Bearish

• $USD The Dollar fell  again significantly -0.55% yesterday. (+/- 0.50 is a significant move and the dollar is usually a contrarian indicator) The trend since May 1 is bullish for dollar and bearish for stocks. Big reversal down in last 3 days. Most of this movement is based on Greece. Short term tend for stocks now = Bullish/Neutral

• Reading The Tea Leaves - Shorter term – Repeat-  A raging bull is stampeding and right now it looks like the only barrier is that markets are almost oversold and what earnings season might have next month.  MO is at +53 almost oversold

Long Term

• Fed tells Wall Street and Banks - it has your back. The Fed with its surprise announcement favoring banks (swipe fees)  over consumers has sent a message to the markets that it will do whatever it takes takes. MC & Visa up 10+% and banks rallied on $8.5 billion BAC settlement. This $ went to big hedge funds etc. not to middle class.

• It certainly looks like the HFT’s can sustain a low volume rally without Fed liquidity (QE2 which ends today). Earnings season, Chinese inflation, or something else may trump this, but for now bulls have regained momentum and the only barrier is overbought markets.

• Obviously, people who buy/sell stocks think the Greek crisis is bullish.

• Reading Tea Leaves - Changing back to NEUTRAL for the summer.

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Your Stock List

Here’s the LINK to a spreadsheet of YSL #4.

YSL #4 beat the benchmark S&P 500. So did YSL 1 & 2 & 3

Remember t0 send in by emails or post in the comment section any choices YOU have for YSL # 5

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Current Positions

Below – Investors411  hypothetical portfolio that should outperform the S&P 500.

NLY - Annaly Capital Mgt. Ultra high dividend stock

Short term strategy is to short overbought stocks. –  Stocks did not rally from their earlier highs so I did NOT “nibble on” the TZA trade. Will do so if the Dow goes up 60+ points and I’m watching.

NB – The long term strategy is no longer to short rallies since outlook has turned to NEUTRAL

Disclosure - I own NLY &  a group of dividend stocks which I have used some short ETF’s to protect. – I buy all stocks mentioned in the hypothetical Investors411 portfolio.

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Look for an enlightened Paul’s Corner every Tuesday & Thursday and the always informative comments section every day.

Paul is on break for a couple weeks.

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The Fed has moved from an expanding money supply to a neutral – No QE #3. Congress is threatening to contract the money supply. “We [the USA] need to grow at this point more than anything else.” Investors411 outlook will remain negative/neutral on the USA unless the Fed and/or congress return to more pro growth policies and/or Euro defaults are resolved.

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Longer Term Outlook

NEUTRAL

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING

ALL TRADING INVOLVES RISK AND POTENTIAL LOSS OF PRINCIPLE

Poster from 1880

Your Comments

The Day Democracy Died – or the Corporate takeover of America – has received more of YOUR comments (7 public and 4 personal) than any other editorial. We the People , in the USA,  has become We the Corporation. Check out all the insightful public comments (scroll down). Most are listed on the right side of blog.

Fundamentally Democracy has changed in the USA. Investments are taxed at 15% and working class Americans are taxed at

• $8350 to 33,950 = 15%
• $33,950 to 82,250 = 25%
• $82,250 to 171,550 = 28%
• 171,550 to 372,950 = 33%
• above 372,950 = 35%

Bottom line here is that our tax structure encourages investment/gambling on corporations for a living rather than working for a living. People like me are spending more and more time investing/gambling , in part because of the lower tax rates rather than working.

Bottom Line – This adds to the destruction of the work ethic in America . It also make the wealthy who own most stocks, (trust fund children, hedge fund managers, those in the ultra upper class) wealthier. Again the corporations win and working Americans loose.

Even Investors411 is kind of a Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde by offering investment/gambling advice while at the same time recognizing that we are all (as one of you put it) on the Titanic (perhaps a better name would be the Good Ship Democracy) rushing from one side to the other.

There is a quantum shift in that investment advice below

KISS & Stocks (Keep It Simple Stupid)

If you don’t understand a term look in up at Investopedia.com dictionary

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!

Investors411 record – 5 years of beating benchmark S&P 500 and almost all major US indexes

Technicals, Fundamentals & Analysis

See Positions , Strategy , and Overview for changes made over weekend.

US stocks got toasted in HUGE volume – AGAIN – Technically – It’s starting to look like a market that is going elliptical to the downside  or a climax sell off. Four reasons were given for stocks big drop this week.

1. China – China was going to tighten credit and therefore growth would slow.  The BDI which measures the flow of goods, specially China imports shows no signs of collapsing  (see below)
2. Obama will go after shadow banks . If successful this would mean to big to fail firms like Goldman Sachs will be broken up into several pieces.  All the shadow banks can now (Supreme Court decision) spend whatever they want (including your tax dollars and the trillions that the Fed is loaning them at 0%) to prevent this.  It’s an election year and within the Obama administration Bernanke, Geithner & Larry Summers are solidly behind the too big to fail banks. Summers even helped to write the legislation that created shadow banks.
3. Bernanke will not get reappointed – Bernanke was one of the arsonist who brought the world to edge of an economic meltdown and one of the firemen to bail it out. If Bernake’s appointment goes down so will stocks. The uncertainty created by a new Fed chair would hurt stocks. But according to most reports Bernanke has won needed support over weekend .
4. There is no V shaped recovery – My best read of the tea leaves is they are right as far as the economy/jobs are concerned. But earnings reports are showing a lot more  big companies with international exposure are beating earnings on the top and bottom lines.

Relevant indexes

• McClellan Index ($NYMO) at -79.33 = significantly oversold .  Well beyond the  @-60 or oversold level.
• BDI -  The BDI/China has come down from highs in mid November. The Baltic Dry Sea Index has leveled off over the last month and started up the last two days.

Two events, outside of earnings which have been rather  good, significantly impact stocks - The Bernanke appointment (Tuesday) and Obama’s State of the Union (Wednesday)

Long term Outlook has changed to NEUTRAL because some key technical levels were broken in big volume.

Positions

The  Positions Section (also at top of blog) has the latest buys and sells (Usually updated over weekends)

These are positions I actually own

I’ve set up two charts. Put them on a split screen and compare. Both are 18 month charts McClellan Oscillator & the S&P 500 Notice that only 4 times in the last 18 month has the McClellan dropped below 80.  Each time it rebounded. It did reach @120 – 3 times  The Oct. 2008 meltdown, The March lows after the Obama election and a 6+% November correction .  3 times the McClellan has reached 80 and rebounded. Once it reached 100.

Bottom Line – chances are good we are going to see some sort of rebound this week. US markets are oversold and could go lower, but this looks like a good place to add 10 to 20% .  If McClellan goes lower (past 100) I’d add more. Fundamentally -  the situation is no where near as bad as it as at the beginning of 2009.  Working class American’s are going to suffer – but stocks with International exposure to emerging markets are going to flourish.

Everybody else is selling, now we start to buy.

SELLING & BUYING

More on exact buys and Sells on Monday.

See POSITIONS (scroll down) for details on this and what’s under consideration for 2010.

Long Term Outlook = NEUTRAL

AS ALWAYS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING