Heinz was bust yesterday
charitably speaking... -- trotsky, 15:14:31 03/23/07 Fri
it's 'ease of movement' - an absence of sellers. today's recovery involved little to no institutional participation. only FCX seeing really big trades.
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# @pm shares -- trotsky, 14:32:27 03/23/07 Fri
still very resilient - which is nice, but i fear we owe this mostly to the buoyant Dow. who wants pm stock performance to be tied to the broader market? i sure don't - i'd rather suffer some short term pain in exchange for a steepening yield curve and the return of the non-correlation of 2000-2002.
as an aside, as Bob Hoye has correctly remarked, most people speculate in pm's for the wrong reasons. gold is the ultimate 'anti-boom' investment - the fact that it is currently behaving pro-cyclically is evidence for a misunderstanding, basically.
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# @RYSMF -- trotsky, 13:53:21 03/23/07 Fri
the company has been bedeviled by a range of issues, chiefly a big delay in the planned production start-up, problems with former employees, and a revolt by a dissident shareholder group. however, lately the stock has stabilized, and even garnered a recommendation by an independent research outfit (its independence is not assured, 'independent' only in the sense that it's not part of the usual WS stock tout scenery).
i noticed that the stock is rallying a bit today - resistance is at about 60 cents, but should that be overcome one would be tempted to conclude that a more constructive period lies ahead. there's nothing wrong with the company's assets in Nevada - they all look quite promising, and drilling has generally revealed grades and widths above expectations.
the problem seems to be execution on the road from explorer to miner - this type of trouble is often encountered (see NSU for a recent example), but not impossible to overcome. sometimes it requires new management (example: GPXM).
must see! -- trotsky, 13:34:58 03/23/07 Fri
Grant on sub prime:
grantspub.com
has the consumer-led recession begun? -- trotsky, 13:16:11 03/23/07 Fri
CHICAGO - March 20, 2007 - ShopperTrak RCT Corporation’s National Retail Sales Estimate™ (NRSE) today reported that retail sales for the week ending March 17 declined by 7.4 percent from the same period in 2006. This was the third consecutive week that retail performance has been weak compared to the previous year, with shopping activity adversely affected by tight budgets and gas prices that are dramatically higher than last spring’s.
doran@guardian report on drugs -- trotsky, 12:40:26 03/23/07 Fri
"Alcohol worse than ecstasy on shock new drug list"
the only people who could possibly be 'shocked' by this evidence are the government's drug warrior bureaucrats. everybody else has known this practically forever...especially w.r.t. cannabis.
"Prof Nutt said young people already know ecstasy is relatively safe, so having it in class A makes a mockery of the entire classification system for them. "The whole harm-reduction message disappears because people say, 'They are lying.' Let's treat people as adults, tell them the truth and hopefully work with them to minimise use."
in spite of his colorful name, Prof. Nutt knows whereof he speaks. the government is LYING about drugs, just as it is lying about a lot of other things. the true purpose of modern-day drug legislation is completely different from the officially stated one of 'protecting the volksgesundheit'.
however, as bad as this is, it also has a positive aspect - many people discover that they are being lied to via this avenue. it's often a trigger enabling critical thinking.
the two things that are the worst aspects of current legislation:
1. the State involves itself in something that should be the sole province of the owners of the bodies concerned, i.e. individuals;
2. by putting relatively harmless drugs such as cannabis into similar categories as truly dangerous drugs such as opiates, many people are probably misled as to the dangers of the latter once they find out that the alleged dangers of the former are nothing but bureaucrat-hooey.
Pete@gold -- trotsky, 12:06:21 03/23/07 Fri
"He estimates that a 1 oz gold coin should be valued at $48,000/oz calculated by dividing current estimated gold reserves into current money supply. USGOLDCOIN site...."
tell him i'll sell him mine for $30,000/oz. - he'll make a certain profit of 18K per oz. as soon as it goes to where it 'should be'...
@pm stock money flows -- trotsky, 11:54:40 03/23/07 Fri
money flows still suck. today's dip hasn't brought forth new buyers. iow, this dip is unlikely to be over.
there's strong support from open puts at XAU 135 though - which is to say, this is a support we don't want to see getting broken. it's bad news when a large put strike gets taken out.-
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# @peak oil -- trotsky, 11:48:29 03/23/07 Fri
some things haven't been thought through by peak oil theorists. for instance, if the theory turns out to be true, then oil companies would be one of the worst long term investments possible, since they produce something the economic importance and value of which is headed toward zero.
are there any great whaling companies listed on the stock market? there was a 'whale oil crisis' in the 1850's - back then, whale oil was the main ingredient powering lamps. when a resource becomes uneconomic on account of running out, it is replaced with something else. this means that the value of the formerly important resource begins an inexorable decline.
the same will happen if/when crude oil runs out - its replacement will become the major energy commodity, and the production of crude will become a quaint anachronism.
philbond, hambone et al. @CDE -- trotsky, 11:24:24 03/23/07 Fri
i agree that CDE is probably a good buy here. the share price has been depressed due to concerns about its growth pipeline running into trouble (first it was worries about the Bolivian project, and now the Kensington permit trouble reared its head), but these problems have been more than discounted here imo.
otherwise, what's not to like? their balance sheet looks strong, their Australian acquisition is paying nice dividends, Martha is getting a face lift (as an aside, CDE's acquisition of Martha way back when has turned out to be THE savviest buy of a silver deposit EVER. they only paid $2.5m., and it is now becoming an extremely low cost producer of 3m. oz. p.a., up from 2.5m. oz.), and they shed one of their highest cost mines by selling it at a reasonably good price, which brought down their overall production cost profile.
the fact that the shorts have decided to lean on it is only additional gravy. regarding the news on Bolivia and Kensington, since the current status is 'news=bad', chances are that the future status will be 'news=getting better'.
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# @Ban Ki-Moon in Iraq -- trotsky, 10:44:00 03/23/07 Fri
yesterday i watched the clip of Ban Ki-Moon's address in Baghdad's Green Zone as a mortar hit pretty close by. what was really funny and revealing, was how Ban immediately ducked (the normal expected reaction), while Maliki, who stood next to him, didn't even bat an eye-lid!
also, he said right away something along the lines of 'don't worry, happens here all the time'.
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# @GFI -- trotsky, 10:39:28 03/23/07 Fri
since January, short interest in GFI has exploded - it's up nearly 300%. this makes very little sense, as the Rand gold price average last quarter was at a new record high. some of it may have to do with the WAR acquisition though, so it's not certain to which extent this represents a directional bet.
in any event, this short position will have to be eventually covered, regardless of the reason it was initiated for.
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