Global Market Comments for December 4, 2008 Featured trades: (VIX), ($GOLD), ($SPX), (BAC), (DD), (T) 1) The relentless drumbeat of layoffs continues. United at SFO 500, DuPont (DD) 2,500, AT & T (T) 1,200, and Bank of America 30,000! Many of the BAC cuts will be at its newly acquired Merrill Lynch subsidiary. If the [...]

Global Market Comments for December 3, 2008 Featured trades: (DRYS) (BDI), (FCX) 1) The ISM non manufacturer's index for November came in at 37.3, down from 44.4. This number is so solidly recessionary, it is almost unbelievable. 2) The stock market looks like the North Atlantic just after the Titanic went down. Dead bodies are [...]

Global Market Comments for December 2, 2008 Featured trades: (POT), (MOS), (AGU), ($NIKKEI), (GM) 1) It's official. We are in a recession. And the great news is that we have been in a recession since December, 2007, as I suspected all along. This means that we are 13 months into a postwar recession that averages [...]

Global Market Comments for December 1, 2008 Featured trades: (WTIC) 1) The good news is that the Black Friday retail sales figures came in better than expected, up 7% according to some surveys. The bad news is that designer goods were sold at flea market prices, jumbo flat screen TV's were given away for half, [...]