I was reading the following on CBC.
Although four banks holding 70 per cent of the debt had agreed to erase it for $2 billion, the hedge funds were holding out for a better deal.
After allowing talks to continue late into the night Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury finally ended negotiations after the hedge funds were unable to come to an agreement, the person said, asking not to be identified because the talks were private.

Folks, I work for a hedge fund, and I am part of this industry. But the fact that …

There was an investor on Fast Money and he said he is seeing patterns of flight into low quality companies, when instead it should be flight into high quality. An example of the flight into low quality was in 2002 how everybody jumped back into Nortel, and we all see how that turned out.

First if he is truly an investor and he is going back to 2002, then well sorry he is not an investor. I tend to consider myself an investor and I look at charts all the way …

I was listening to Fast Money and how the entire crew is sceptical of Apple and its ability to execute, even though it did execute. So what gives, is Apple over valued? Is it a company that is not able to execute?

You have to rethink your strategy with Apple. I had a long talk with some people and we talked about Apple. Apple is not a computer company. Apple has become a new generation company.
I have been long enough in tech to know when changes are underway. For example IBM …

You might have heard it, or maybe not. Why is copper going up? In our local paper it is because the Chinese are moving towards currency diversification.
Eine Erklärung für dieses merkwürdige Verhalten lautet: Die Kupfer-Hamsterkäufe dienen gar nicht dem Werk-, sondern dem Finanzplatz. «China ist aufgewacht», sagt Nobu Su vom Logistikunternehmen TMT dem «Telegraph»: «Die Chinesen kaufen Rohstoffe ein, weil dies eine sehr vernünftige Anlage für ihre Devisenreserven von 1’900 Milliarden Dollar ist.» Mit anderen Worten: China setzt auf eine Art Kupferstandard, um massive Verluste auf seinen Dollarreserven zu vermeiden.

It …

IBM posted better earnings, but worse revenue…  OMG sell, sell…
Oh yeah Texas Instruments did pretty well…
BUT ignore that, focus on how IBM missed, missed…
Am I being cynical? Yes I am!
As I posted in previous entries the leverage is staying, and the volatility is staying…
Does this mean that you stop being investors? No! What you need to do is take advantage of the volatility. Do you want to become traders? Unless you are a professional I would stay away from trading.

I now work part of a fund, and on Friday I was talking to one of the traders and we thought, “that was probably it and there will be a pullback…”
Guess what today was that pullback…
So what was it that we saw?
Was it the bad shape of the financial system?
Was it the issue that the government keeps changing the game board?
Was it that earnings and that the recession will keep going?
After all all of these issues today were new, right? They just popped up over the weekend…
No, me and the …

A blog has leaked the stress tests and in it it says that 16 of the 19 banks are insolvent!
Really, no s**t Einstein! Yes the banks are insolvent, but guess what most banks are! In all of this hoopla, and crying we forget one very important thing, most people and institutions who take credit are actually insolvent!
If you are thinking? WTF are you talking about Christian, let me explain it. I used to write mortgage algorithms and as such I think have a pretty grasp on the topic.
Let’s say that …

I watch CNBC and just shake my head when these experts say, “oh there is no volume and that is bad”, or “oh the world will become saner with less leverage”
Pimco’s El-Erian is on record saying that there will be less credit, less leverage and people will become saner. Sorry, but that is not correct. Did you know the ETF’s that are all the rage are the 2x, and 3x ETF’s like this one. If we were really going into a “saner” less leveraged society then these ETF’s would not …

In the middle of March (18 to be exact) I started this blog entry. I am posting it now because somebody else finally said what I was thinking privately for quite a while.
Investor Jim Rogers said he prefers oil over gold as he believes the International Monetary Fund will sell its reserves following the recent rally in the precious metal.
“The IMF is trying to sell its gold,” Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The IMF is one of the largest holders …

Here is something I found quite interesting. If you read the following article you would get the idea that Marc Faber is down on the economy.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 1.1 percent. The benchmark index slumped 2.4 percent yesterday as investors George Soros and Marc Faber predicted that the recent rebound in equities will falter.

But what was interesting is that this is a sound bite to bolster a negative article. Because he said something quite different. At the Swiss German website he said the following:
Marc Faber: …