Global Market Comments for February 23, 2009 Featured Trades: (C), (XOM), (GM), ($NIKK) 1) The Treasury moved to raise its stake in Citigroup (C) by up to 40% by converting preferred into common, yet another step down the road to creeping nationalism. With C trading as low as $1.20 on Friday, taking its market cap [...]

Global Market Comments for February 20, 2009 Featured Trades: (POT), (PBR), ($COPPER), (SCHW) 1) Gold blasts through $1,000 to a new high for the year. Need I say more? 2) Here is another thought about Obama's mortgage bailout plan. It is so small, and helps so few, it isn't really a bail out at all. [...]

Global Market Comments for February 19, 2009 Featured Trades: ($GOLD), (DGP), (GLD), (WFC), (EPD) 1) GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! This is the cry being heard worldwide by investors in the Great Gold rush of 2009, looking for a generic 'short America' trade. Where in the past gold seekers used sluices, shovels, and jackhammers to extract the [...]

Global Market Comments for February 18, 2009 Featured Trades: (NAT) 1) Obama's mortgage bailout package is out, and the market didn't care, hitting new six year lows. After wading through pages of arcane, mind scrambling detail, it appears that $75 billion will be made available to distressed homeowners to cut mortgage payments to 31% of [...]

Global Market Comments for February 17, 2009 Featured Trades: (TM), ($GOLD), ($SSEC) 1) In three short weeks we have gone from an administration that had a political interest in portraying the economy as not as bad as it really was, to one that paints the economy as worse than it really is. The markets don't [...]

Global Market Comments for February 13, 2009 Featured Trades: (ABX), FCX), (GOLD) 1) We learned yesterday that not only does the Obama administration watch the stock market carefully, it also has a technical analyst on board. We were exactly at a crucial support point on the charts when the Treasury leaked the home mortgage subsidy [...]

Global Market Comments for February 12, 2009 Featured Trades: (DEO) 1) Those who believe that the wine and spirits business is recession proof should take a look at UK based Diageo (DEO). Its shares just hit a new low for the year of $50, down 42%. Although the giant purveyor of alcoholic beverages posted profits [...]

Global Market Comments for February 11, 2009 Featured Trades: (IWM), (LSE-AJG), (BAC) 1) After the passage of an $800 billion in stimulus, and another bank bailout package, I don't see any market boosting events on the horizon. Hence the Dow's 400 point swan dive yesterday. The market is not going to wait until the end [...]

Global Market Comments for February 10, 2009 Featured Trades: (IWM), (C), (BAC), (INTC) 1) Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced his bailout plan and the market gave him a big raspberry. Long on platitudes and short on specifics. The Dow plummeted 381, Bank of America (BAC), dropped 18%, and Citigroup (C) pared 16%. The 'End of [...]

Global Market Comments for February 9, 2009 Featured Trades: (IWM), ($COPPER), (DRYS) 1) This week it is all about Washington. CNBC has turned into CSPAN. Democrats coming off an eight year starvation diet are loading the stimulus plan with more pork than a bacon factory, and sending Obama the bill. There is also a personal [...]

Global Market Comments for February 6, 2009 Featured Trades: (BAC), (TM), (TBT) 1) The dreaded January nonfarm payroll came in at minus 598,000, the third monthly figure over a half million, taking the unemployment rate up to 7.6%. It was the worst monthly reading since 1974. We'll probably see 9% by June. Notice how the [...]

Global Market Comments for February 5, 2009 Featured Trades: ($GOLD), ($SILVER), (BRK/A), (GS), (GE), ($SSEC), ($BDI) 1) UBS was matched by Goldman Sachs in raising its 2009 target for gold ($GOLD) up to $1,000, triggering a $30 rally to $920.While jewelry demand from India and the Middle East remains weak, this is being more than [...]

Global Market Comments for February 4, 2009 Featured Trades: (FCX), (CAT), ($BDI), ($BVSP), (EWC), (EWZ), (EWA) 1) There is a rare anomaly in the markets now, where mining stocks are trading at huge discounts to the metals they mine. Usually they trade at substantial premiums. This is the result of the credit crisis, as well [...]

Global Market Comments for February 3, 2009 Featured Trades: (SQM), (CGW), (TIP) Special 'Invade Bolivia' Issue 1) Politicians, industrialists, and environmentalists who see battery powered vehicles as the wave of the future are overlooking the fact that 50% of the world supply of lithium comes from impoverished, landlocked Bolivia. This is a country that until [...]

Global Market Comments February 2, 2009 Featured Trades: (BX) One month into the year, let's review where we are among major asset classes: '¢ Stocks are down globally and falling. The Dow is down 10% year to date. '¢ The long Treasury bond bubble has popped. Corporate bonds of all grades are on a tear. [...]