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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (14636)	5/28/2004 9:14:33 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 110194

Heinz on the perils of 'reflation' worldmarket.blogspot.com ... entire series worldmarket.blogspot.com J

To: ild who wrote (14636)	5/28/2004 9:51:56 AM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

This sort of eliminates Joe and Martha as the source of this rally. Domestic fund flows were 639m in the last week. Flows so far this month are hardly the inspiration for a new bull market leg? Have to conclude it's leveraged futures related. 5-7: +397 m 5-14: -2,122 b 5-21 -550 m 5-28: +639 m Flows: May 26 Independent Data on Fund Flows & Holdings Equity funds report net cash inflows of $1.42 billion in the week ended May 26 with 45% going to Domestic funds; International Equity funds report inflows ($664 Mil) with Japan funds reporting inflows of $306 million and iShares MSCI Japan Index reporting inflows of $304 million; Emerging Markets overall reported inflows ($8.6 Mil) with Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) and Latin American funds reporting outflows; Taxable Bond funds report net cash outflows of -$596 million as redemptions are reported by Government Bond funds investing in Mortgage-backed securities -($644 Mil), Investment Grade Corporate Bond funds -($234 Mil), and High Yield Corporate Bond funds -($162 Mil); Inflows are reported by Treasury bond funds ($194 Mil) and Flexible funds ($149 mil); Money Market funds report outflows totaling -$13.0 billion; Municipal Bond funds report outflows of -$616 million.

To: ild who wrote (14636)	5/28/2004 3:04:03 PM
From: ild	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Date: Fri May 28 2004 11:26 trotsky (frustrated@economic data confusion) ID#377387: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved first of all, why is Japan not impacted by higher energy costs? two words: HEDONIC INDEXING. Japan is the first major industrialized nation to have taken over the US statistical bag of tricks. this is also the MAIN reason for the recent economic upswing in Japan...it's a statistical chimera ( not entirely of course, but with the 'old' methodology it would have been a very weak upswing ) . regarding PMI, GDP and the Philly Fed survey, note that the latter is notoriously volatile. however, i think BOTH the PMI AND GDP were influenced by the inventory build-up, and it's actually fairly typical to see a PMI in the 60's combined with inventory build-up ( due to channel stuffing, double ordering, building up of raw materials stock piles to escape price rises etc. - all manifestations of the misdirection of resources set into motion by a downright crazy monetary policy ) at major economic ( and stock market ) tops. insofar, the Philly Fed survey may be a first warning shot, which has in the meantime been cemented by dismal durable goods and housing data. note also, the PMI as well as recent GDP and earnings data all profited from comparisons with what was an extraordinarily dismal business recession, part 1. and, as i've mentioned before, the consumer recession still lies ahead. there can be no doubt whatsoever that private sector balance sheets are in for a period of reconciliation to put it mildly. bubbles don't 'repair' such balance sheets ( as Greenspan maintains, incredibly ) , they make them worse. and one of those bubbles is teetering on the brink here imo ( housing ) . interesting times coming. Date: Fri May 28 2004 11:09 trotsky (@merger mania) ID#377387: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved first of all, i think it's a bullish sign for the sector, since as we can see, one proposed merger can suddenly force the hands of other firms looking for deals. secondly, the new merger proposals make a whole lot more sense than the old one. GSS and IAG belong together based on geographical considerations alone, and also based on their respective size, margins, etc. - they're simply an ideal fit, plus as a combination they're clearly a take-over target for the likes of Randgold, or other major operators in the Ashanti belt. i'm not so sure about CDE/WHT, but the fact that both are polymetallic producers rather than pure gold plays also speaks for this combo rather than the previously mooted WHT/IAG. also a better geographic fit i might add, and the combined company has the necessary financial depth to develop the countless development stage properties the new firm will have on its books. this is btw. a point that speaks for BOTH newly proposed combinations: the resulting entities will be growth companies. so, now the guessing games can begin....i.e., who's next? consolidation of this industry is imo FAR from over. there's a number of mid tier producers that look RIPE.