a little doom and gloom article to share (this was printed in my local paper.....locally most people think Bush and party are the antichrist)
NOW THAT THAT'S OVER, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING SERIOUS?
Now that the biennial democratic pretense here in the United States has run its course, can we talk about something serious? We can? Good. Hmmm. Ha! Here's a good one we can sink our teeth into for a few paragraphs: the distinct possibility that the world economic system could soon blow up in our faces. You say nobody mentioned this in Campaign 2006? Of course they didn't. Who said political campaigns have anything to do with reality?
Let me direct you to a recent series of polite coughs, reminiscent of a sheep quietly clearing its throat somewhere on a fog-bound hillside in the north of England. Aforementioned coughs emanated at the start of this week from the Financial Services Authority, (FSA), a body set up under the purview of the British Treasury a few years ago to monitor financial markets and protect the public interest by raising the alarm about shady practices and any dangerous slides toward instability.
In a briefing paper under the chaste title "Private Equity: A Discussion of Risk and Regulatory Engagement," the FSA raises the alarm.
"Excessive leverage: The amount of credit that lenders are willing to extend on private equity transactions has risen substantially. This lending may not, in some circumstances, be entirely prudent. Given current leverage levels and recent developments in the economic/credit cycle, the default of a large private equity-backed company or a cluster of smaller private equity-backed companies seems inevitable. This has negative implications for lenders, purchasers of the debt, orderly markets and, conceivably, in extreme circumstances, financial stability and elements of the UK economy."
Translation: It's about to blow!
"The duration and potential impact of any credit event may be exacerbated by operational issues which make it difficult to identify who ultimately owns the economic risk associated with a leveraged buyout and how these owners will react in a crisis. These operational issues arise out of the extensive use of opaque, complex and time-consuming risk transfer practices such as assignment and sub-participation, together with the increased use of credit derivatives. These credit derivatives may not be confirmed in a timely manner and the amount traded may substantially exceed the amount of the underlying assets."
Translation: The world's credit system is a vast recycling bin of untraceable transactions of wildly inflated value.
"The significant flow of price sensitive information in relation to private equity transactions creates considerable potential for market abuse … Although transparency to existing investors is extensive, transparency to the wider market is limited and is subject to significant variation in methodology (e.g. with respect to valuation, fee disclosure, etc) and format. … The duration and potential impact of any credit event may be exacerbated by operational issues which make it difficult to identify who ultimately owns the economic risk associated with a leveraged buyout and how these owners will react in a crisis."
Translation: Crooks could blow us all up any minute now and we don't even know who's holding the detonator. And you thought Osama was a problem!
The problem is that the oversight and stability of the world credit system is no longer within the purview of familiar international institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the Bank of International Settlements. Private traders are now installed at all the strategic nodes, gambling with stratospheric sums in such speculative pyramids as the credit derivative market, which was almost nonexistent in 2001, yet which reached $17.3 trillion by the end of 2005. Warren Buffett, America's most famous investor, has called credit derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction." On the political hustings there hasn't been a whisper about this, though the London Financial Times has been issuing frequent alarms, as have such well-known figures here as Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. As the great American historian Gabriel Kolko remarked in a detailed run-down on the crisis in CounterPunch at the end of July (www.counterpunch.org/kolko07262006.html), "Contradictions now wrack the world's financial system, and a growing consensus now exists between those who endorse it and those, like myself, who believe the status quo is both crisis-prone as well as immoral. If we are to believe the institutions and personalities who have been in the forefront of the defense of capitalism, and we should, it may very well be on the verge of serious crises."
Translation: Capitalism has its downsides, and right now we're at the edge of the precipice.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. He is also co-author of the new book "Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils," available through http://www.counterpunch.com. To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at http://www.creators.com.
[quote]"The duration and potential impact of any credit event may be exacerbated by operational issues which make it difficult to identify who ultimately owns the economic risk associated with a leveraged buyout and how these owners will react in a crisis. These operational issues arise out of the extensive use of opaque, complex and time-consuming risk transfer practices such as assignment and sub-participation, together with the increased use of credit derivatives. These credit derivatives may not be confirmed in a timely manner and the amount traded may substantially exceed the amount of the underlying assets."
Translation: The world's credit system is a vast recycling bin of untraceable transactions of wildly inflated value.[/url]
If this guy did any research he'd know that the SEC is cracking down on the sell/buy side to clean up their data on who owns what...should be implemented within a year...in q3 '07
Success is a State of Mind - - Tommy Bahama Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do. The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking their first small loss. - - Jesse Livermore The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - - Jesse Livermore
ps- does anyone read harry dent.....personally i dont care for him, as i dont believe in someone who makes ridiculous forecasts 10years into the future but my co-workers in real estate were all talking about him and his diagnosis that real estate going to hell and all these outlandish forecasts for the next 8years...i just rolled my eyes and didnt say anything .......so from amazon.com summary on his new book, here are his forecasts ......
Dent gives us all something to look forward to, including: * The Dow hitting 40,000 by the end of the decade * The Nasdaq advancing at least ten times from its October 2001 lows to around 13,500, and potentially as high as 20,000 by 2009 * Another strong advance in stocks in 2005, with a significant correction into around September/October 2006 * The Great Boom resurging into its final and strongest stage in 2007, and even more fully in 2008, lasting until late 2009 to early 2010
like i said ridiculous(i always wonder why these guys if they are so accurate waste time writing books and instead just buy a gazillion SPX leaps and become a billionaire)......
Success is a State of Mind - - Tommy Bahama Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do. The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking their first small loss. - - Jesse Livermore The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - - Jesse Livermore
Success is a State of Mind - - Tommy Bahama Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do. The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking their first small loss. - - Jesse Livermore The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - - Jesse Livermore
Success is a State of Mind - - Tommy Bahama Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do. The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking their first small loss. - - Jesse Livermore The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - - Jesse Livermore
The best Stock Market advice you will ever read is to learn from mistakes when someone else has made them. So, this stock market advice list I made a list of some of the most common trading mistakes that are made. Even I’ve made some of these. If you have already made some of the mistakes, you can rest assured that you aren’t alone in making them. If you haven’t made them, then here’s a way to get around having to learn by making the mistakes yourself, by reading my stock market advice list.
The Stock Market advice tip #1, and worst mistake that people make is that they believe trading is the easy answer, a way to get rich quickly. People will often expect to become wizards in the market overnight, but they fail to realize that trading is like any profession; you must learn how to do it first.
For example, would you attend a weekend doctor’s seminar and expect to conduct heart surgery on Monday? Of course not! I am shocked at what people expect when they go to a weekend trading seminar. They think they will create wealth without having to work, invest or think, and it just doesn’t happen that way.
After treating trading like a get rich quick scheme, my next stock market advice tip #2 and most common mistake, is to approach the market without a plan. Without a trading plan, traders approach the market in an inconsistent manner. One day they trade stocks and the next they trade the foreign exchange. Or, they may use one set of indicators one day, and the next day they will throw these indicators out the window and take on a completely new set. Without a consistent approach, the only thing governing their trading decisions is really emotions, and that will doom them to failure.
If a new trader has managed to skip these last two mistakes, they often fall down when they try to go it alone. This is my Stock Market advice #3, all traders should find themselves a coach, or a mentor. Someone who can help them spot the errors in their system that they might not have noticed. An outside point of view can help you avoid other costly mistakes, and greatly increase your profits.
These are some common and quite basic mistakes. The next errors I’ll mention are ones that are just as prevalent in the trading industry, but they often occur once traders have been around for a while. I have some personal experience with these mistakes. Let’s call this stock market advice list, the three most expensive mistakes I’ve made.
My stock market advice mistake tip #4, or the first most expensive mistake, I made was to search for the “Holy Grail” of trading. This was an incredible waste of both time and money. During the first three years of my trading career, I spent over $25,677 on a library full of books, videos and seminars as well as spending thousands of hours in search of the perfect trading methods. Honestly, 95% of what I bought was pure junk… I should have listened to my mentor earlier and realized the “Holy Grail” of trading is simply excellent money management!
My stock market advice mistake tip #5 or the second most expensive mistake I made was not having a predefined exit point. Early in my trading career, I remember trading a stock I thought had a high percentage chance of rising. I was too confident. I fully leveraged the position. Unfortunately, when things did not go as planned, I did not know when to exit, and was paralysed. I kept rationalizing why I should hold onto that stock. As the stock continued to fall, I made more and more excuses. At the very end, I remember thinking, “I can’t take it anymore!”
I sold out. That, of course, was the point the stock turned.
I learned two very valuable lessons that day. First, always have your exit points predefined. Second, big losses once started out as small losses, and it is much easier to take a small loss than a big one.
My Stock Market advice mistake tip #6 or the last most expensive mistake, I made is not one that took money out of my pocket; instead it was a mistake that made me leave money on the table. In fact, this reoccurring mistake cost me big.
Early on, I remember selling positions as soon as they showed a profit. I would not let my profits run, as I was too afraid to give the money back to the market. I figured the profit as mine. The result was that I ended up selling the stocks that were making me money.
It wasn’t until my mentor explained to me that when you are trading, and showing a profit, that is the point where you should be adding to the position, not closing it out, that I began to understand what I was doing. Once I started following his advice, my trading profits soared.
Trading is not an easy profession, but it give you great rewards. Avoid these common errors on my Stock Market advice list, create a simple, well-designed trading system, and learn your market. If you take the time to study the market, and learn from other’s mistakes as well as your own, you will become a successful trader.
ORK - post the places you go to look this stuff up!
Success is a State of Mind - - Tommy Bahama Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do. The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking their first small loss. - - Jesse Livermore The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - - Jesse Livermore
check this out - looks like someone can read the whole darvis book for free online (i already read and own it so i didnt enter my info)...its a .org website so probably is non-profit
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT
The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.
It is one of several weapons being developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include super gloves that would give the user the strength of a "bionic man" and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers.
The research integrates nanotechnology into Israel's security department and will find creative solutions to problems the army has been unable to address, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Yedioth Ahronoth.
"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry. It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons," Peres said.
The 34-day war in Lebanon ended with a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in mid-August. The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Prototypes for the new weapons are expected within three years, he said.
This was an article that I thought was semi-good in Stocks and Commodities magazine. I changed the product name at the bottom to the product name that has given me that "edge."
Do you feel lucky, trader?
Why do traders trade? It seems like a simple enough question, but the real answer may be more complicated than the obvious "to make money" retort. Traders are human beings, after all, and human beings are complex creatures with complex and often contradictory motives. Do traders trade because they want to make money -- or because they enjoy the felling of being right when a trade they have plotted comes to fruition? Do traders trade because they want to make money --or because they want to prove they can be independent of or free from (a) a boss's time clock, (b) family money, (c) an underprivileged background, or (d) something else altogether? Do traders trade because there is little else more fun than telling people you trade for a living?
I do not mean to suggest a trader must have the purest of hearts to be the best trader he or she can be. But it is important for traders to be as self conscious as possible when seeking to understand the motivations that have them spending time and money in what is, if not the oldest profession, then certainly among the most challenging. Are you the successful trader you want to be? If not, what is standing between you and the success you are convinced could be yours? If you think or even suspect that part of what is holding you back as a trader is your own ego, your own determination that you must be able to find the right traders, the best setups, all the answers without the assistance of crutches like computerized searches, automated trading systems, and number-crunching algorithms, then maybe you owe it to yourself to see what life is like for the trader who has put making money above all other trading concerns such as impressing the Joneses or proving he or she is better than the doctor-son or daughter Mom always wanted.
Chances are that trader has no problem with the crutch provided by a 21st century product like (TCNET). And that trader is likely riding that crutch all the way to the bank.
David Penn is Technical Writer for Stocks and Commodities
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