Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Inside Information

Would be good to have, wouldn't it? I mean, with Wall St. profits exceeding all expectations again, or still benefiting from the "not quite as bad as it could've been" reporting, the S&P will cross 1100 today and the Dow has exceeded 10K (again). As David Weidner points out in today's Marketwatch column (sometimes he gets it right), we continue to be the suckers in the great Wall St. Ponzi scheme, "what Wall Street calls the 'dumb money' never fail to live up to our reputation as suckers, chumps and easy marks. We keep putting our money in the market, diversifying and looking at the fundamentals of the underlying investments."

Look at the arrest of hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who will be going to jail for insider trading that netted him $20 million. He is worth $1.3 billion. So, for most people in this country, that we be the equivalent of going to jail for about $300. But this is the largest arrest for insider trading in U.S. history. C'mon!
It's interesting to see people like Weidner and Dylan Ratigan, so entrenched in the MSM, voicing their disgust recently over the current financial system. Disgusted by news such as Geithner's non-appointed trustees reaping million dollar consulting bonuses. No, we truly do not have a chance in this game.

But the bubble-blowing machine has its hamsters running at full speed. Oil hit $80/barrel yesterday, gold at almost $1070, and the dollar plummeting. Einhorn, one of our favorites here who predicted the Lehman collapse, is also waiting for the impending dollar collapse. Aside from hoarding gold, he loaded up long-term Japanese interest rate options with a 4-5 year window. So that's Itulip, Paulson, and Einhorn who are now waiting for the next collapse. I'll side with these guys.

Good thing I didn't post new picks for the weekend. Suffice it to say Donovan Mcnabb's championship game-like performance would have been a bad call.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/einhorn-bets-on-major-currency-death-spiral-2009-10-19

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-the-inside-path-to-wall-street-riches-2009-10-20

4 comments:

An Observer said...

I too was struck by the size of the profits here. Let's face it $20 mil is chump change in the hedge fund world. Translation: the SEC has been doing nothing for 15 years or more and is starting to take some heat. So they round up a foreign investor who may or may not be guilty of anything and, even if he was, was dealing in relative nickels. Meanwhile the SEC did zip while Madoff and Allen Stanford were stealing billions. If you look hard at what the SEC knew about Madoff and Stanford and how long they knew it, only two conclusions are possible: incompetence or corruption. Simple probabability suggests the latter.

said...

True True... Why would the government start regulating now... It's been a party that has simply moved to after-hours that's all.

These spiders have spun an intricate web... let's not be their prey..

Good to hear from you again Ax!!!

AX said...

And good to be back, TC, finally with a little time on my hands. Thansk to The Mixx for chiming in again. It's been apparent for some time that the SEC regulators in New York has strong evidence against Madoff at least by 2005, and early evidence as long ago as the late 90s.

We are well beyond the outrage and government expectations. The next step is predicting within I'd say a 6-month time frame of accuracy whether or not gold can hit say $1300-1500, oil back in the $100s, the S&P at or near March lows, or whether this shell game persists as late as 2012.

Anonymous said...

My dear friends,

Let us understand that 2012 is teh target date... All optins are on the table to keep this PONZI scheme rolling... Let us remember that the more blocks that are used to balance this tower... the increased probability of the tower crashing even harder... with longer term implications... it could make the March lows look good... or simply option II... INFLATION with a capital I.

P.S. Ran into one of the Nathansons of Shaker yesterday...