This weekend we drove all over Will, Grundy, Livingston and Kankakee counties in Illinois scoping out places to find Mazon Creek fossils (yes, we drove over the Mazon Creek or River several times but did not go into the town of Mazon). While we did not find many good fossil sites until [...]

Last July, the SEC retired the Uptick Rule. The rule was promulgated in the aftermath of the Great Crash of 1929 and requires that a short position in a stock may not be established unless the stock has most recently ticked up in price. People in general do not understand what shorting is (I [...]

An outline of what is in store for the next 6-8 months is starting to take shape.  The major issues are the US presidential election, the end game in the Iranian crisis and what the ultimate harvested crop sizes will be.  For stocks, it seems clear that we are in a bear market.  No not [...]

In early 2007 I wrote this entry about Bush’s State of the Union speech in which he very unwisely staked our nation’s future on corn-based Ethanol (and Congress obliged with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [loud guffaws and tears rolling down cheeks at the title]).  Well it is no secret that all [...]

It is amazing how much nonsense is thrown around by people on CNBC.  Dennis pleading with the president of NYMEX to raise margin requirements so speculators cannot take such big positions.  Congresspeople talking about curbing speculators (see below).  Can we really so stupid as to blame the messenger rather than attacking the causes?
It is very [...]

I have to address some silliness we have been seeing more of recently, people like Senator Byron Dorgan, saying things like we need to clean up markets to reign in speculators and only have the hedgers have access.  Dorgan isn’t the only one with an alarming lack of understanding of how markets work sitting in [...]

Though it seems counter intuitive, the best thing the Fed can do for the health of the American economy right now would be to announce an immediate inter-meeting 50bp rate hike, perhaps after telegraphing it for a few days first.  The immediate effect would be to inflict massive losses in oil and other commodity speculation [...]

This morning on CNBC, former Dallas Fed President McTeer made a very important point about the recent history of the Fed.  If you look at the fact that Crude Oil has just jumped by well over $10/bbl since yesterday mornings imprudent comments by ECB Governor Trichet, and that the Euro is now stronger against USD [...]

On Tuesday morning, Chairman Bernanke made a watershed appearance in which he stated that the Fed was aware of the delterious effect of the weak dollar and promised that they were on top of it.  This is the statement everyone was looking for after the April meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee but did not [...]

As a form of national protest at the high and rising cost of energy and food, everyone in the nation should stay home on Wednesday, June 11th.  This might help get the attention of the idiots in Washington and the ear of fellow citizens who – for whatever strange reason – are not thinking much [...]

I hate to gloat, but gloat I shall.  Here is what I wrote Tuesday afternoon in my daily chatter with the friendly ‘quants’ with whom I chat in Greenwich:
[4/22/2008 3:36:08 PM] t0mmy berg says: btw,  i believe there is a pretty high probability (like 70%) that the high in the eur/us rate was either today [...]

It is interesting to hear all the breathless talk about a bottom being put in, and now it is time to get long stocks again.  That the Bear Stearns blowout (which was somewhat forced) is that singular event that marks the turning point.  It marked “a” turning point to be sure.  But not “the” turning [...]

When you are wrong, you are either wrong or early. I have been wrong in thinking that economic weakness would take commodities down with them. Markets have not traced out so many charts like those we are seeing today since the 1970’s. I wrote a couple years ago that there was [...]

The Spoo blew right through 1350 last week, settling at 1325 on Friday. Tonight it had a 50 handle at its low, but the 50 handle had a 12 in front of it. Scary. I told a friend on November 6th that I felt we were going to embark on a bear [...]

Last week I saw Peter Thiel on CNBC say that emerging economies are in fact decoupled from the US and will carry on in the face of the slowdown here. No. The markets tonight and yesterday are telling us no with Asia and Europe down 7% in a single session. There is [...]

Well would you look at that. The Spoo came up to 1492 yesterday (1496.75 was the high print on the e-mini), tried to find equilibrium around 1490 and then took a late day dive (reeejected). Continued to deteriorate today. The short term trend is down. Asia is taking it on the [...]

As you can see from the chart of the CRB, commodity prices did in fact head higher in the short to intermediate term since we last looked at it here on September 28th (never mind that the CRB dropped 10 points starting the day after we called for them to go higher in the short [...]

I have to believe that if the administration has any sense, they will instruct or “allow” treasury to organize the undertaking of an exercise (responsibility obfuscated enough there?) to punish speculators who are selling the dollar imminently. There have started to be some musings about this in the press. The selling point for the cowboy [...]

Markets rarely go straight down. Though the Nikkei is right now opening the week down 500, the Shanghai Index is down 200 and the Hang Seng down almost 1200 points, the S&P futures are down only about 6 points. If I had to guess, I would say that in the absence of additional [...]

I do believe we are witnessing a major turning point in world equities markets with commodities soon to follow. Below is the chart of the Hang Seng index. That looks like an island reversal, confirmed by last nights session in Hong Kong where the Hang Seng was down a massive 5%, over 1500 [...]