Oh Shit, Don't buy stocks yet

The $230 billion backlog of high- risk, high-yield debt that banks planned to sell has stopped shrinking, and probably will hinder lending to new borrowers, Bank of America Corp. said in a report.

Lenders have about $160 billion of leveraged loans on their books and about $70 billion of junk bonds still must be sold, analyst Clemens Mueller in New York wrote in a report today. Bank of America is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Read it all if you choose.  Bottom line?  Oh Shit.......

And George Soros Makes Sense

For all his secretive funding of liberal bullshit we always have to be aware that he knows markets like few others.  He has written a first class piece in the Financial Times of London in which he spells out everything.  He especially warns about U.S. protectionism, something the Democrats are yearning for in spite of the fact that it is universally aknowleged that high tarriffs caused the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Minyanville uses quotes from the great writer, Jack Kerouac, the guy who invented modern writing (no no, not Ginsberg, Wolfe, or Thompson) to look at today's market. When Kerouac's 1947 classic, On the Road, came out everything in our universe changed forever. I don't know if it's still on book lists, but if it isn't buy the paperback, you'll finish it in one sitting. A good slant on the market over there, not that Kerouac would give one fat fuck about stocks, money, or big houses. He was a pussy, booze, pot and fuck everything else man. The first hippie motherfucker.

And for a less artistic view check out Hoofy and Boo's latest video here

Markets:

"He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass."
First: all the know-it-alls have suddenly shut their mouths pretending nothing is happening. You could hit almost every financial link and find zippo. So first, the below YouTube link is to Cramer "going off" about the market and the FED. He is widely watched and he really knows his shit. Go here for a trade by trade analysis of his buy and sell recommendations; keep in mind that like all gurus he never includes transaction costs. In sum, there is no trading God, or Goddess. He's still better than all the touts on the tube. Yes, he's right about Bear Stearns. They should have kept their mouths shut. The Fed better act. Keep in mind that he is more a short term trader. BUT he has a fund (Charitable Trust) so he's also long term with that particular strategy.

Now an observation: all markets, including futures, are dominated and controlled by the long term investor. What is long term? The Japanese look at markets over decades. Many firms in this country are similar in that they put their money in and it stays there until something drastic happens. Along with Cramer, I also know some super top people who tell me that this is all bullshit; that if you look at the markets over time you will see this is a blip and that the stock market has been going up since 1932 with a few pauses. They ain't even thinking about bailing out. So what makes a market suddenly shift? When the long term investor turns short term, meaning that he suddenly bails out of a position held for years, and I mean by "he" that it is most of the herd.

My concern here is that there is almost a total absence of opinion, or even posting, by the big bloggers and firms. This tells me they are very very frightened, in spite of what they told me. A superior blog called The Big Picture transcribed part of the Cramer rant, and boy was it ever a fucking rant:

“This is about Bernanke. This is about Bernanke. He has to be on that call. Forget the investors…. Bernanke needs to open the discount window. That’s how bad things are out there. Bernanke needs to focus on this. Alan Greenspan told everyone to take a teaser rate and then raised the rates seventeen times, and Bernanke is being an academic. It is no time to be an academic; it is time to get on the Bear Stearns call, listen, open the darn Fed window. He Has No Idea How Bad It Is Out There, HE HAS NO IDEA. HE HAS NO IDEA.

I HAVE TALKED TO THE HEADS OF ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE FIRMS IN THE LAST 72 HOURS AND HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE OUT THERE. NONE! AND BILL POOLE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE OUT THERE. MY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN IN THIS GAME FOR 25 YEARS AND THEY’RE LOSING THEIR JOBS AND THESE FIRMS ARE GOING TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS, AND HE’S NUTS, NUTS! THEY KNOW NOTHING!! … THE FED IS ASLEEP!!

I also think this is serious and that Bear Stearns has made it more serious than it should be. And The Disciplined Investor is the best financial blog on the web; their pieces are very long and today is no exception. For those who are really into it, link away. A hell of a forty minute survey.

BTW: Erin Burnett, the lady who "shared" the tube with the crazed Cramer, should get a medal. She stood in there.