Market Comments for May 8, 2008 1) New high for crude at $124.60. Who has been the best speculator in the market? George Bush. The strategic petroleum reserve hit an all time high of 727 million barrels, which equates to 58 days of US imports. Every one of these barrels could be sold now for [...]

Market Comments for May 7, 2008 1) Weekly crude inventories jumped 5.7 million barrels. Crude prices fell $1.50, then soared $3 to a new all time high of $123.80. Traders are gunning for $125 within the next week. This has become a one way bet. There is now so much excess oil in the system [...]

Market Comments for May 6, 2008 1) Fannie Mae (FNM) announced large losses and plans to raise $6 billion in new equity. They expect serious losses in real estate loans to continue through 2009. More than 8 million homes in the US now have negative equity. At the peak of the housing market in 2005 [...]

Market Comments for May 5, 2008 1) Today it was all about Yahoo. Microsoft raised their bid from $31 to $33 while Yahoo dropped their offer from $40 to $37, but there was no deal. Jerry Yang was asking for a 67 times multiple of expected 2009 earnings. 2000 levels of hubris don't work in [...]

Market Comments for May 4, 2008 1) Non farm payrolls came in at -20,000 instead of the anticipated -75,000. The unemployment rate fell from 5.1% to 5.0%. Money poured into financials and technology stocks. The biggest job losses were in the construction area. Interestingly, the hot new job growth area is the retraining of auto [...]

Market Comments for May 1, 2008 1) The rout in commodities is continuing. Crude hit $110. Gold is getting crushed, off 15% from its high. The euro hit $1.54. The “buy the dollar and sell commodities” trade is accelerating. In the stock market money poured out of energy and commodity names, and into banks and [...]