Hi Tom, a Tom Clancy style observations which may not amount to a hill of beans... fun labor day weekend stuff __
L. Tish (Lowes Corp), had made some heavy bets to the downside on this market last Spring, apparently they expected a correction to set in at lower levels... looking at the standard occilations of the trend, its easy to see why they did, but they lost big time.
Summitomo bank and other Japan banks pulling in a portion of overseas
staffing and budgets, having taken themselves to the cleaners betting
on interest rates and currency arbitrage.
W. Buffett (Berk Hathaway) apparently, and who knows the whole truth, has been selling enough blue chip and other holdings to ask the question if his buy and hold forever strategy has changed, or is it just time to rotate after seeing mainstays like KO rollover. He is admired by millions of investors as a figurehead of market b/hold strategy.
Putting these together with some other similar stories, I'd group these players as highly successful old guard (using the term with all politeness), conservative money moguls, who have been taken for a ride by this incredible run driven by continuing cash inflows, a break with traditional ranges of acceptable employment/interest rate guages for determining fed actions, and world market expansions. Many of them taken for a losses ride and they are fighting back.
Net Net... this suggests to me, these guys, and I will assume they represent a substantial influence on wall street, want payback to re-fatten their accounts. Without getting paranoid, I can imagine there's a lot of profit to be made if some stocks can be accelerated to the downside, if those derivatives, short sales, or other tools have been put in place...
As I'm typing this make ready for a novel by Christmas scenario and smiling <vbgggggg> .. take note of the generation gap, so often mentioned, of floor people who never witnessed a bear market or even the '87 blip (which I was traded in and out 5 times that day). So you have a group of heavy "old guard money" currently working hard to recapture losses using the tools they learned playing bull AND Bear markets long ago.
Just a paperback novel... but as news bits leak out, as one traces back money to who has it and how they got it, there's an interesting clash of titans fighting for influence and positioning.
Jim |
