KPLU: Mark Anderson’s Market Forecast
December 2nd, 2008
From KPLU and NPR: ”Is the economy falling off a cliff? Mark Anderson forecasts economic trends in his Strategic News Service newsletter. He tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer his crystal ball may be cloudy, but we should see some positive signs in the first half of 2009.”
And Now for the Winners —
December 1st, 2008
While everyone is watching GDP figures to understand who the winners and losers are in the global economic crisis, one could also pick a different ruleset, if one sensed there were a different game on altogether.
Currencies, for instance.
Here is a quick quiz:
Q: How many world currencies fell against the dollar since the crisis began?
A: All but three.
Can you name them?
China, Hong Kong (i.e., China), and Japan.
Is this fight about GDP, or about currencies? If you had an export-driven economy, which would you pick?
If you are not from one of these two countries, are you really planning on exporting to them? Really? Have you thought this through?
The Obama Rebound?
November 25th, 2008
The old adage says, The darkest hour is just before the dawn.
It’s hard to be upbeat these days, when every statistic is worse than the last. But the other day, as I was considering predictions for the coming year, a thought occurred to me: we are experiencing the waning days of the administration I have repeatedly called the worst in US history. Of course things look dark.
Is it possible, once the new administration is in place, that hearing daily announcements of LIPs (leadership, ideas and plans) put forward by people who are both smart and qualified, will have the opposite effect on the public from the constant drumming of fear we continue to have today?
Of course.
Is it also the case that markets react more to perception than to ground truth?
Generally, yes.
So I asked myself, what will the state of mind be of the average American, say, three weeks into the next administration - let’s say, by Valentine’s Day, February 14th?
If their house has just been foreclosed and their car repossessed, we know what they’ll be thinking. But otherwise, I expect it will be radically more optimistic than it is today.
Is that enough to provide a market rebound? It could be.
The Men Who Killed JFK
November 23rd, 2008
While some gullible souls (fewer than half, by most surveys) continue to buy the Warren Commission myth of a lone, crazed assassin, the rest of us, reflecting on yesterday’s anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy, are convinced that this killing, like almost all of its kind, was the result of a conspiracy.
Based on the rules of journalistic “proof” (confirmation from two independent sources), SNS members have known who killed JFK for over a year now. For those who missed this discovery, you can search on “Kennedy” above, or click on the url below:
http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2007/06/jfk-plot-confirmed/
We now know who killed JFK. We even have their names and pictures. It’s time for someone to move this forward, and fill in the rest of the story - despite the ongoing disinformation campaign that hits the media now and again.
The question is no longer, Who Killed JFK? Now, the question is, What do we do about it?
Shorting the Shorts
November 20th, 2008
Today, Citigroup begged the U.S. government to reinstate the ban on short selling in the financial sector. CNBC ran an interview piece on shorts yesterday, with experts generally agreeing that drops of over 15-20% per day in a stock was not because of value, but could only be because of shorting.
A day earlier, a US investment expert (in London at the moment) exhorted the US audience at MSNBC to reinstate the “uptick rule”, one of the many regulations cleared away in the last few years, which prevented shorts from just piling on without an interim uptick. Citibank asked for the same assist today.
Finally, John Bogle (Vanguard co-founder) has now come out strongly against what I’ve been calling Vampire Investors; he figures they take about $600B a year out of the US financial system, without adding value. He actually says they subtract value.
One of these classes of Vampires are a certain category of shorts.
One view of shorts is that they are the other half of a natural balance: long vs. short. Simple, eh?
Another is that they form a necessary part of any arbitrage play, and so provide natural risk aversion and stabilization to — to what? To individuals, hedge funds, or the market?
I would suggest that the natural balance of things is represented not by long vs. short, but by buy vs. sell.
Shorts operate in various ways, but the most insidious, I think, is the Jackal Trade, where you see a whole bunch of jackals pick a target (in the last few weeks, we’ve seen a long list of examples in the financial sector), and then attack it in concert, driving the price down even as they make money on the decline.
Does this add value? No. Does this stabilize the market? Just the opposite: it is perhaps the primary danger equities markets face today. Can we count on the self-interest of shorts to stop doing it when it endangers otherwise-healthy companies, or even whole market segments? Obviously not; they won’t stop as long as there is money to be made - and why should they?
Australia outlawed shorts in September.
I think it is time for serious consideration to be given not just to stopping shorts in the financial sector, but in the markets. Perhaps there is some alternative way to provide some hedging range of offlaying risk, without allowing shorts to drive global banking stocks down 40% in a day. If so, fine.
But the SEC and friends have to bring this carnage to a stop. It has nothing to do with capitalism, everything to do with market manipulation, and it is wreaking incredible damage at a time when we need serious repairs.
Companies on the Road South
November 18th, 2008
I mentioned last week at the WTIA Predictions Dinner that Jerry Yang’s act of refusing Microsoft’s $33 / share offer for Yahoo! may have been the greatest disservice to shareholders in recent memory. That followed an earlier prediction in the SNS newsletter that Yahoo! stock would act like a reverse rocket if they turned down the MS offer.
All of which leads to the category of Companies on the Road South, often exacerbated by the current economic climate, but almost always already in dire straits for some other reason.
Here are three obvious nominees for this dubious award:
Yahoo! Although my friend Matt McIlwain thinks Disney is the likely white knight here, whoever gets it will be paying almost nothing for the privilege. And if top officers keep leaving, they will be getting almost nothing, too.
Nortel. One of my tests for companies headed south: I can’t tell you their strategy in a sentence. And wanting to sell products, or being the coolest company in Ontario, do not qualify as goals or strategies.
Sun. With the final sunsetting of its proprietary server edge, due, in my opinion, over the next twelve months, exactly what business does that leave Sun in? Selling free Java kits? Giving away Office competitors software? Writing blogs?
Sun, Nortel and Yahoo! have been great companies in their time, but each lost direction, loaded up on way too much hubris, and blew the ego/value ratio out the door, on the way to that fabled Road South.
One hopes they’ll find happy homes inside some other company somewhere, since they still have many skilled employees who deserve better, and since the chances of them being an independent company a year from now are vanishingly small.
The Funniest Part Of Putin, Chapter 3
November 16th, 2008
As many will have noticed this weekend, Russia slipped even further from the landfall of democracy, as Putin’s handpicked legislature voted almost unanimously to increase the presidential term from four to six years. Not only does Vlad intend to serve those next two sixers himself, but the smart money is on Medvedev stepping down early so Vlad can get back in sooner. Why change the curtains after all?
The funniest part of this whole charade: only one party had the guts to stand up to Putin’s self-serving antics, and vote No on the extended term. Want to guess who they were?
The Communists.
And that should tell you all you need to know about the State of the Russian Union. The Communists are opposing the KGB (FSB).
Barack’s Technology Potential
November 12th, 2008
Barack Obama has already let it be known that he will be seeking a Chief Technology Officer for the United States of America. Wow! Really?
For me, this is right up there with the current PM of Australia running on a platform of broadband to the masses, and one to one education to the children.
Australia is living in the 21st century, based on its last election and current administration. Perhaps the U.S. can now leave the 18th or 17th century, and join them. That would be a relief.
Tonight, at the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) Annual Predictions Dinner, I had the chance to be on a panel with Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint (and past co - founder, Blue Nile, the most successful online jewelry site); Matt McIlwain, managing director, Madrona Ventures; and Kelly Smith, Founding Partner, Curious Office.
The panel was moderated by John Cook, who has just come off writing a great column for the Seattle Times on local venture ops, to joining hands with well-known SNS member Todd Bishop, to form a new local site called Techflash.
The whole evening was enjoyable. Some of the high points: everyone had a very high regard for Amazon’s cloud compute data center. My suggestion of Microsoft being the stock to own going forward a year seemed to be well accepted, as at least a smart defensive maneuver. Matt and I had some ideas about what might be done with EMC and VMware to make gobs more money than they are currently making, despite their recent capture of our genius / friend Paul Maritz.
I think the seasoned folk convinced the general crowd that more bad things were coming, both in the equities markets and on Main St., but that there were several ways to the exits, if you were paying attention.
I will soon be writing a full newsletter on this subject, and Members will learn more about which companies will be coming back first, in my estimation, and why.
All in all, it was a delightful eventing, and I thank Ken Meyer and the WTIA for including me, once again, in their Predictions Dinner.
Now I will start getting ready for our private release of SNS predictions for 2009. These seem, increasingly, like the things folks could make real money on. I hope we will see you with us in New York, at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel, on December 11th, for our Fourth Annual meeting.
Did the Neocons Nuke McCain?
November 9th, 2008
Most observers probably think that, having dragged the U.S. into a useless and bankrupting war in Iraq, after which on e of their own pleaded guilty to spying for Israel against the U.S. while working at the Pentagon, thought maybe they had all just disappeared, perhaps in shame.
After all, they certainly became invisible in Pentagon ranks, with everyone from Richard Perle to Paul Wolfowitz and Don Rumsfeld (and Paul Feith, and —) just evaporating from the roster overnight.
Well, it turns out they’ve been busy. It would appear that the sinking ship was no longer attractive, compared to John McCain’s campaign.
As you know, Senator Joe Lieberman spent last year campaigning with McCain, forgetting for awhile that he was a Democrat. I’ve been telling friends, like the editor of our local paper, that McCain wanted him for VP; now, thanks to Newsweek, we learn that this was true. Also true: McCain was deprived of his choice (by the RNC?? by whom?) at the very last moment, forcing the non-vetted choice of Palin.
Certainly, Israel would be happy to have Lieberman in as VP. if part of the definition of Neocon is fighting Israel’s wars for it in proxy, then Joe is all there. It looks like Plan A didn’t make it, perhaps because the RNC could not stomach having a Democrat on the ticket.
But - probably no accident - they had another neocon on staff ready to help: Randy Scheunemann, head of foreign policy (and national security) for McCain, is a longtime neocon. Not that there was any lack of neocon assistance in McCain’s ranks, inluding John Bolton and Robert Kagan.
So here comes the theory part. Did you know that the Neocons first became entranced with Palin when they were conferencing on an Alaskan cruise, where she joined them for an afternoon tea? Word later was that they were bowled over by the Governor, with one person later describing her potential as “a blank slate.”
Zoom back two years later to Joe getting dumped. In no time, the Neocon Plan B comes into place, inserting Blank Slate Sarah in as VP instead of Joe.
Now you know where Sarah came from, it would seem. And by either plan, given Mac’s age, the Neocons would have a new VP, and likely a new President, before long.
While many in the press this week have been reviewing the lack of wisdom or vetting in McCain choosing Palin, no one has been mentioning the Neocons, at least in public. Except the NYTimes, which published a story last week in which it revealed that, near the end, Sheunemann was leaking anti-McCain inside information to uber-neocon William Kristol, for anonymous publication.
Gee, did Randy work for his boss, McCain? Or did he work for someone else?
Are you ready for Sarah? She looks like the new Neocon choice.
Luckily, there is no indication that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s first staff pick (chief of staff), is a Neocon. True, he holds or held Israeli citizenship. True, he escorted Obama to a private meeting with the AIPAC executive board just after Obama made that embarrassing over the top speech to them about giving Israel all of Jerusalem, and true, he announced his support for Obama just after that executive session.
Did I mention that, during the first Gulf War, Rahm signed up for the Israeli military, rather than ours?
And of course you read the Net comments about his father, bragging back in Israel about the influence his son would have over Obama. Did you know his father belonged to the terrorist-like group Irgun, and is said to have assassinated a Swedish diplomat and other civilians on the path to the founding of Israel?
But he’s no Neocon.
Do you think McCain suspects that his friends, the Neocons, nuked him, first by picking Palin, and then by leaking campaign problems? I wonder if he can see it.
Fourth Annual SNS Predictions Dinner in New York
November 3rd, 2008
The Fourth Annual SNS Predictions Dinner in New York will be held on Thursday, December 11th, at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, New York City.
Last year’s attendees were perhaps the first people in the country to hear that the Federal Reserve had lost control of the U.S. economy, oil was going to break the $100 / bbl barrier, and the U.S. economy was going to split, favoring global technology companies even as finance and housing went down.
SNS members, have gotten used to knowing the news before it happens, and being ahead of their friends and competitors on the issues of large-scale, strategic changes in markets and products.
Because those advantages matter more in a down market, I’ll be doing what I can to put together a forward look that will be useful to our guests in the coming year. I hope you’ll join us, and benefit accordingly.
This is always an enjoyable evening, offering a chance to think outside the box, to meet new and old friends and make new business contacts at the reception, to enjoy an excellent dinner, and to be the first to hear our key predictions for the coming year.
As usual, the global business press will be joining us.
We have reduced the fees this year, in keeping with the new landscape. Space is limited, as past attendees know, so don’t wait too long to register which you can do here:
https://www.tapsns.com/newyork/2008/registration.php
Next Page »