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

To: mishedlo who wrote (29069)	3/22/2005 2:34:09 AM
From: Stoctrash	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

mish & all, Here's my thoughts on tomorrow: .25 or .50..no matter - naz & spooz take a powder and US Trash-uries Rally large.(reverse psyche...kind of) Simple fact that these rate hikes are killing any mo-mo the US econ had. $62 Oil is the next stop per a Fib. Bad Ju-Ju Economics is in the works, RE bubble, etc. I can tell you some large US banks are LOWERING credit standards in the last few months - not raising them like they should be on the consumer end. Competition in the large banking arena is getting heated in every area...consumer, commercial lending, you name it. I hear rumblings that some consumer lending segments are only @ 60-80% of target this year. That's going to kill some EPS soon and the Fed's not helping this trend on bit, but they can't help, they're shatting their pants over the Euro. Sadamm was right about one thing...buy that Euro. Pretty soon we'll be quoting OIL in that so it doesn't look so bad, ha! Lastly,,I have large commercial developer friend who indicated to me that another large bank was moving into town soon and he was helping them do so...simply so he could use the competition to widdle down any of the deals he's about to sign with his current LENDERS. Nice gig he's got going!! Sell the new bank in town some prop...then has them low ball all his new plans and bids so he wins & rest of established commercial banks in the area lose. Short BKX anyone <GG>???

To: mishedlo who wrote (29069)	3/22/2005 9:06:03 AM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Surging Gasoline Prices Not Slowing Demand Tuesday March 22, 5:08 am ET By Brad Foss, AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gasoline prices have surged more than 10 percent in the past month to $2.11 a gallon nationwide, the government said Monday -- and the latest run-up in oil futures may lead to even higher pump prices soon. Still, motorists don't seem deterred so far: Energy Department figures show that demand for gasoline has risen about 2 percent from a year ago. In addition, many energy-intensive companies are prospering in spite of soaring fuel costs, thanks to solid economic growth that has allowed them to pass along higher prices to customers. There are exceptions, however: the U.S. airline industry is still losing millions of dollars every day and small businesses are more likely to absorb the financial hit than risk losing customers by charging them more. Overall, executives say they are relatively upbeat about business conditions -- even with oil prices surging. Light, sweet crude for April delivery slipped 10 cents from its all-time settlement high, set Friday, to close Monday at $56.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "The outlook is pretty good," said Shane Pliska, business development manager for Planterra Corp., an interior landscaping company that maintains indoor plants for roughly 1,000 companies in the Detroit area. Planterra has seven delivery trucks and 50 or so workers who drive their own vehicles, but get reimbursed for mileage. The average retail price of unleaded regular gasoline rose 5.3 cents last week and is up 21 percent from a year ago, the Energy Department said Monday. Yet Pliska said business is better today even without asking customers to pay a fuel surcharge. "We don't nickel and dime," Pliska said, noting that profits would of course be better if fuel prices were lower. Bill Zollars, president and chief executive of Yellow Roadway Corp., the nation's largest less-than-truckload carrier, is also optimistic about the outlook for business despite the soaring cost of diesel fuel. Diesel now averages $2.24 per gallon, or roughly 36 percent more than a year ago, and at the current pace the entire U.S. trucking industry will spend nearly $15 billion more in 2005, according to the American Trucking Associations. But the industry thrived despite an extra $10 billion in diesel costs in 2004 because of fuel surcharges and strong demand from the retail and manufacturing sectors. For example, earnings at Yellow Roadway, headquartered in Overland Park, Kan., more than quadrupled in 2004 to $184.2 million. "Most of our customers are just happy to have the demand for their products going up, so paying another 12 percent or so on a fuel surcharge is a lot less of a problem than not being able to sell what you have," Zollars said. Zollars said low inflation and low interest rates have also benefited the economy, which has surprised him with its resiliency to the surge in energy costs. Energy analysts also point out that the United States is much more energy efficient than it was during the global energy shock that followed the Iranian revolution and that oil prices would have to surpass $90 a barrel to match inflation-adjusted high set in 1980. Likewise, gasoline prices would have to climb another $1 per gallon to reach all-time highs. "What we need to do is keep a very close watch on our other expenses ... and hopefully we'll be able to weather the higher fuel prices," said Godfrey LeBron, vice president of Paradise Trailways, a charter bus company based in West Hempstead, N.Y. that has raised its prices to cover the higher cost of diesel fuel. LeBron fears there might come a point where ticket prices rise to a level that begins to sap demand, "but we're not there yet." The main problem for airlines such as Delta Air Lines Inc. and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines is that -- despite growing demand -- they have been unable to raise fares to profitable levels due to intense competition from carriers with much lower operating costs, such as Southwest Airlines Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp. Even though jet fuel prices are up 65 percent from a year ago at $1.59 a gallon, the average one-way price on leisure fares in the 100 busiest routes nationwide is about 14 percent lower than a year ago, according to Harrell Associates in New York. And the latest fare increases from the industry -- major carriers have raised ticket prices twice in recent weeks -- are not expected to dramatically improve the condition for the industry, which Wall Street analysts predict could lose as much as $5 billion in 2005. The package-delivery industry does not appear to be having the same problem. United Parcel Service Inc. of Atlanta initiated its first-ever fuel surcharge for ground deliveries earlier this year and, based on current fuel-price trends, the extra 1.75 percent fee could go up in the months ahead, according to spokesman Norman Black. For air deliveries, the per-delivery surcharge is 9.5 percent, up from 6.5 percent a year ago. Black said things could change if economic growth were to slow, but so far UPS remains comfortable with forecasts that call for U.S. gross domestic product to grow by 3 percent to 4 percent in 2005.

To: mishedlo who wrote (29069)	3/23/2005 7:09:24 PM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

funny how conclusions affected by distorted statistics one govna claims tight labor market shouldve seen higher wage growth didnt happen that is because he accepted the distorted jobless rate stat it must be divided by the participation rate of 65% to get actual jobless rate of 8.8% to 9.0% not tight at all like saying fat 300 lb guy has a tight ass just because he was seen in the carnival house of mirrors I thought yesterday about what a tight interest rate is what is neutrality ??? some goofy guy interviewed on CNBC talked about how a neutral rate is in line with GDP growth so 4.0% is neutral this is horse shit economic thought to begin with but with actual GDP growth at 1.7% to 2.5%, we are tight by his definition I remove the hedonics from infotech spending I learned from my mommy never to DOUBLE COUNT more appropriately, a neutral interest rate is in line with prevailing near term price inflation that is a horribly challenging concept to wrap arms around finished retail product prices are relatively flat, since mostly imported from Asia, where currencys are controlled see the CPI, which is an urban imported product measure with housing rent a dominant spice asset prices are in hyper-inflation, like housing, bonds stocks are only treading water versus the falling USDollar costs are in hyper-inflation, for everything under the sun see the PPI wages are flat, since Asian outsourcing and offshoring competition so what is price inflation ??? it is both way up and way down in a crazy world I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE SEEN MORE DISTORTED AND CONFUSION in the statistics bulletin board for the US Economy every single major economic statistic is a lie I came up with (after much thought) a nice analogy for hedonics on GDP growth distortion Joe Sixpack plays Michael Jordan one-on-one in basketball MJ wins by 80 pts in the official report 20 pts from the competition on the court multiplied by 4x since MJ jumps four times as high as J6P 20 x 4 = 80 it is pure double counting, the stuff of deception & lies the USGovt loves the speed of infotech they lean too heavily on the productivity card unfortunately, we import productivity from Asia thus no actual movement of new job creation I read that job creation is up 0.3% since 2001 adjusted for population growth what is a neutral interest rate ??? I would say 1% for consumer retail I would say 7% for material supplies I would say 10% for mortgages / jim