Welcome back to The Investor's Coroner, your weekly attempt to make both sense and fun of the current global markets and inform you of the happenings in the international marketplace while simultaneously dropping in jokes from the free throw line of life.
It is a goal of The Investor's Coroner to help you understand just what's going on in this here economy. Or, barring that, maybe you'll learn why you do not deserve liquidity.
Everything is Too Expensive
You name the foodstuff and it's way more expensive than it should be. Those few stocks that have had success are either linked to the high cost of commodities like oil, metals, and every food in the whole world or have a very strong hold in emerging international markets. Because the dollar was so weak, America was exporting quite a bit of goods. That is, until last month when, for the first time in a long time, imports and exports both fell. This is not good. It means that the American consumer is not buying like it used to or selling to take advantage of the weak dollar. For those of you scoring at home, this is what we in the financial world call, a “problem” (we're not very creative in the financial world).
As I type this now, the market is in what we call a distribution day, which means more investors are selling than buying. As a result, the overall indices appear in decline and prices at the grocery stores will be increasing. Which kind of sucks.
This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you the good news but there just ain't much. Speculators don't think that oil prices will stabilize as high as they are so oil stocks aren't jumping off. Gains made from internationally minded companies like Priceline and Yum Inc have already been accounted for. I mean, had you invested in them last week you'd be great but they probably aren't increasing any time soon.
Oh, wait. I forgot about the financial sector.
Shit not as Shitty as Initially Thought
Market writers (real ones, not bums like me) love to point out that the market looks forward and that the subprime collapse has already been “priced in” (I have no idea what that means). So even though Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan et al posted huge losses and are sucking off the government teat like a crack-addicted single parent, their stocks actually went up because things weren't as bad as expected. And if you think that's ironic, well you'll probably find more irony in the next paragraph.
Ninety percent of market analysts work at firms that lost their shirts in the mortgage collapse. And what these guys and girls say actually influences stock prices. Which is to say that these dudes think they can predict the future of the market when they couldn't predict their own future. Which is to say that the whole market analysis game is inherently flawed. Which essentially means that everyone is wrong and no one is to be trusted.
I should have been a lawyer.
Microsoft and Yahoo Need to Just Bone and Get it Over With
And I thought my relationships were fucked up. Microsoft upped its bid to buy Yahoo and Yahoo told them to go to hell. In the end it was only about three billion bucks that kept Yahoo from joining Microsoft's quest to defeat Google, which incidentally had a successful trial run with Yahoo this week. The whole thing is enough to drive a Yahoo shareholder to drink. I mean, what's three billion dollars among bitter rivals anyway?
Countrywide Got Dumped
Bank of America, which was using an assload of government money to purchase Countrywide Mortgage and save its sorry excuse for a company, has decided that they just don't see the advantages of buying a bankrupt, worthless company. On a related note, life is a lot better when you have a lot of money.
Circuit City Sucks
Circuit City, an overpriced retail store that doesn't pay its salesmen commission, thus guaranteeing that they could give two shits about talking to you, recently revealed that it will open its books to any company willing to purchase the aging retailer. The internet is apparently doing more than crawling up Buzz Bissinger's ass. It's also affecting retailers who can't get with the times.
New Innovations Sexier When Drunk
Cornell Labs has designed technology that may make it possible for ships to know where all whales are ten miles away from them. I had no idea that whales were too stupid to avoid big ships. You learn something new everyday.
Flogo, short for flying logo, is a way to advertise in the air with foam shapes or something, which indicates, to me anyway, that soon we'll be genetically modifying animals so that they grow Nike swooshes on their hides. What a time to be alive.
Your Motivational Investment Quote of the Week
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Aaaaa?Martin Luther King, Jr.
Labels: investing