August 2009

…You Might Be a Gold Bug.

Gold bugs have been around for over 100 years, lurking at the fringes of the investment community and singing the praises of the yellow metal to anyone who will listen. As a result of the plunging US dollar, apocalyptic drops in asset prices and the commodity’s eight year bull market, gold has attracted a huge…

Hot Links: Ugly Dolls, Trillionaires & The Plant That Eats Rats

Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… The LOLFed kids require that you pay them only in stacks of Zimbabwe Dollars.  (LOLFed) Felix Salmon on who’s winning between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal…in his vestibule.  (Reuters) One of the coolest small business stories I’ve heard in awhile: How Ugly Doll became a company. …

Ultimi Barbarorum Exposes the Cisco Buyback Game

People dislike share buybacks because they often feel as though there are more productive uses for the company’s cash or they would prefer their capital back in the form of a dividend.  This is an argument that is open to debate as their are proponents on either side (cash payouts versus shrinking the float) with…

Forecasters See Recovery… Jobless Recovery

This came out from the Philly Fed on Friday night… The Third Quarter 2009 Survey of Professional Forecasters got a smaller response than normal (only 34 economists participated) but the results are interesting nonetheless. By no means do I endorse the reliability of what this group has to say.  On the panel, you have some…

Hot Links: Dentists, Wheat Crops & the E*Trade Baby

Stuff I’m Reading this Morning… World Index down 1.5% as of mid-day trading in London…does the pullback start today?  (Bloomberg) Dentists feeling the pain of recession as people stop taking care of their teeth.  (Knowledge@Wharton) Stepchild E*Trade being used as fodder for Citadel‘s high frequency trading ops, Ken Griffin adopting that cute baby from the…

Hewlett-Packard Printer Choreography

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3211254&w=425&h=350&fv=] That was sick. Neatorama gives us the details of what we just saw: Who knows how much is paper and how much is special effects in this ad made in response to a challenge from Hewlett-Packard. The finished product, named “Invent” is impressive! Created by Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth. Music by Round…

Halfway Through?

Click Image to Embiggen Doug Short‘s really done a fantastic job on this one…a chart comparing our current nasty bear market (summer rally notwithstanding) with both the 20 year bear market that followed the Crash of ’29 and the lost pair of decades for the Nikkei that began in 1989. The most important thing to…

More Hot Links: Weinstein, Buffett & the US Consumer

More Hot Links for Weekend Reading… Deconstructing Warren Buffett‘s latest 13F filing.  What’s the Oracle up to with his stocks?  (DividendGrowthInvestor) The rise and fall of the Weinstein brothers.  (NYT) This is the post of the weekend:  Tyler Durden takes a detailed look at the US Consumer (with a bit of help from McKinsey).  (ZeroHedge)…

TRB Interviewed on Behind The Spread

Haven’t had your fill of smart alecky Wall Street commentary from yours truly this week? I gave an interview to Hiro Takei of Behind The Spread, a great new site loaded with interviews of Wall Street personalities.  He asked some really interesting questions about being in the business and keeping up to speed with the…