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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (37277)	9/15/2005 2:37:36 PM
From: SouthFloridaGuy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116555

Why should the stock market go down? Housing went up when stocks went down. So why not the opposite when housing goes down? With the exception of high yield companies, US companies have debt/equity ratios that are relatively low compared to the 90's. Yes, they may go down slightly intially, but why can't stocks go up while housing falls/stagnates?. The market is already pricing in a slow economy in its own way; by being an under-performing asset class even though valuations get cheaper and cheaper. Markets do not crash when they are undervalued. Unless somebody knows something that we all do not know, for the Long-Term investor, this is the best time to buy stocks since March 2003.

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (37277)	9/15/2005 2:56:29 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

"Why Own Gold?!" gold-eagle.com

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (37277)	9/15/2005 3:14:25 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Heinz on gold vs silver: Date: Thu Sep 15 2005 11:35 trotsky (@silver & ted butler's recent missives) ID#248269: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved as always, there is a lot to agree with, but also a bit of fuzzy thinking. for instance, TB keeps comparing the above ground silver supply to the above ground gold supply. as previously mentioned, this makes no sense. you could just as well argue that copper should trade higher than gold - after all, its known above ground supply covers perhaps three or four months worth of demand. where Ted Butler normally shines is in his analysis of the CoT structure, but even there i don't agree with everything. for instance, i don't think that the much derided 'brainless tech funds' are really losing all the time to the commercial hedgers. think about it - silver rose from $4 to nearly $8, and the hedgers were net short throughout the entire advance, while the speculators maintained the offsetting net long position. true, when their net long exposure gets too large, a short term reversal is usually at hand, but staying net long during a big advance surely means you make more money than you lose. the longer term outlook for silver is likely positive on account of the primary supply/demand deficit continuing to erode stockpiles - i agree with that. what i have more difficulty agreeing with is that a huge undetected conspiracy has actively manipulated the silver price for the past two decades in spite of there not being enough physical supply. Occam's razor applied to this situation says that the silver inventories that were used to fill the primary deficit have been far larger than anyone suspected. for instance, neither European silver traders nor China's government publish their inventory levels, so all we have are educated guesses by the Silver Institute and similar agencies. however, it is inevitable that those inventories will be run down in the face of a primary deficit over time. it has just taken a lot longer than suspected. this does not take away from the fact that it's a long term bullish fundamental datum, but at the same time suggests an explanation for silver's previous dismal performance. note also that up until the '99-'00 period, ALL commodities had been mired in strong secular downtrends for the previous 20 years, so why would silver be excepted. anyway, coming back the the current silver CoT report, whether it is or isn't bullish remains to be seen. the funds didn't increase their short positions without a reason, and i suspect the main reason has been the chart, namely the break of the uptrend on the weekly chart. in order for silver to rise, we need them to change their mind and hop back on the long side. this means in turn that silver needs to regain its broken trendline decisively. this has not happened yet, and from a technical perspective it makes no sense to turn short term bullish until it does, regardless of the CoT report. as an aside, i suspect that some of the fund short positions in silver may be intended as a hedge against long positions in the gold contract. lastly, if the economy turns down ( and recent economic reports have suggested a slowdown was beginning even before Katrina hit, which will now be exacerbated in the wake the storm ) , gold can be expected to begin outperforming ALL other commodities, including silver. this is because gold reacts immediately to a widening yield curve and changing expectations regarding the direction of real interest rates, whereas industrial commodities tend to react with a considerable lag to such a development. normally they lead the economy down as well as up, so that if e.g. the next recession were to officially begin in qu.2 of 2006 , industrial commodity prices should be expected to turn down, especially relative to gold, well before that time. all of which suggests that it is not entirely unreasonable for the specs to add to their shorts in silver ( otoh, if silver DOES regain its weekly uptrend line, the covering of those shorts can certainly be expected to give the price an extra boost ) . Date: Thu Sep 15 2005 10:48 trotsky (silverfox, 9:42) ID#248269: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved the short version of that reply is 'i have no evidence'. that said, we're not totally without evidence. some of the data put together by Reg Howe , Turk et al. do look suspicious and suggest that central banks remain in the business of 'managing' the gold price. as we have seen that has had zero effect, as the up trend from the '00 low has developed like every other normal bull market would. this in turn tells us that worrying about it is a waste of time...

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (37277)	9/15/2005 3:23:56 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

No tax break, no heat - landlords nydailynews.com BY JONATHAN SARUK and LISA L. COLANGELO DAILY NEWS WRITERS Landlords are warning they may not be able to provide heat for the city's 1.1 million rent-stabilized apartments unless they get a break on oil costs. Building owners are expected to rally on the steps of City Hall today and demand that lawmakers suspend taxes on home heating oil to help offset the skyrocketing prices. "Anything short of legislative intervention and we could face unprecedented numbers of tenants consistently without heat this winter - not because owners would ignore their obligation, but because they would be unable to afford heating oil costs," said Joe Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents about 25,000 landlords. But city housing officials said they will go after landlords who do not provide heat for their tenants, regardless of the cause. "Landlords have a legal responsibility to provide adequate heat," said Carol Abrams, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. "If a landlord can't or won't provide adequate heat, the city will step in to restore heat to the tenants," she added. "We do take every landlord who gets a heat violation to housing court." Under the city's housing code, landlords are required to keep apartment temperatures at a minimum of 68 degrees once it drops below 55 degrees outside between 6a.m. and 10 p.m. Those regulations change between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. When the temperature drops below 40 degrees outside, the inside temperature must stay 55 degrees or warmer. Meanwhile, tempers flared at a state Senate hearing on soaring gas prices yesterday as representatives from the oil industry, service stations, and others hurled blame amid accusations of price gouging. The Senate will mull a proposed tax cap during a special session next week. "The bottom line is that consumers are continuing to pay the price at the pump," said Sen. Nick Spano (R-Westchester).