Sentient Money

Insiders are fleeing stocks like a Russian pilot fleeing a plane at a European air show (Bears Prowl Wall St. as Insiders Dump Stock - Reuters):
“Company executives are selling stock at a rate not seen in two years after a near 50 percent rise in the S&P 500 from a March 9 low. That [...]

Bloomberg reported today that the U.S. recession may have ended in June, per Edward McKelvey at Goldman Sachs (U.S. Recession May Have Ended in June, Goldman’s McKelvey Says)?
“The upturn in industrial production reported for July suggests that June could wind up being the NBER cycle low,” McKelvey wrote. The projection was “highly tentative” and “a [...]

Ok, I got a little sidetracked from my blog, but now I’m back.  Of course, given my long lay off it won’t be surprising if no one notices.  Who could blame anyone?  Anyway, let’s get right into this.
The market has probably completely confused everyone by now.  First, the market has a spectacular crash last winter [...]

It’s been a while since I posted, which doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything interesting going on.  I just got lazy…these things happen.
Anyway, we are heading into the bulk of the earnings reports, which should either solidify the recent run up or start to pound it back into its dank little hole.  I’m voting for the [...]

Finally, the government is doing the right thing.  First, it was Wagner being fired and now either GM makes real changes, or proposes real changes over the next 60 days, or they will be forced into bankruptcy. 
Hopefully, this will wake up all the banks and Wall Street firms who have been taking advantage of government [...]

Per Bloomberg, this is the biggest 10 day rally since 1938.  The relief is visible on the faces of our “vaunted” CNBC hosts and in the voices of the many financial pundits from the WSJ and other financial papers.  They are all acting like everything is fine, well, it’s not. 
On the outside, the recent gains [...]

This is what Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times advocates (you know he is cool because he uses his middle name).  We should just go ahead and pay the AIG bonuses and count ourselves lucky. 
“So here is a sobering thought: Maybe we have to swallow hard and pay up, partly for our own [...]

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report in November 2008 detailing future energy production.  The report focuses on oil, of course.  Guess what?  We are entering a period of declining energy production:
The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. [...]

Is this the ultimate use of Buffett’s “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful” rule?
Billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. posted its worst results ever in 2008, said the economy “has fallen off a cliff” and that efforts to stimulate recovery may lead to inflation higher than the 1970s. [...]

I have one word, and it’s a word you have heard over and over again…China. I know…I know, I’m not coming up with anything new and earth shattering, but it still needs to be said with conviction. Why? Because, even though everyone talks about China there always seems to be an air of non-committal or [...]