Dissecting this year’s Santa Rally

November 30, 2008 By dragon 2 Comments

What Is The Santa Claus Rally?

A surge in the price of stocks that often occurs in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are numerous explanations for the Santa Claus Rally phenomenon, including tax considerations, happiness around Wall Street, people investing their Christmas bonuses and the fact that the pessimists are usually on vacation this week.

Many consider the Santa Claus rally to be a result of people buying stocks in anticipation of the rise in stock prices during the month of January, otherwise known as the January effect.

Did we have a Santa Rally last year?  Read more... (1187 words, 11 images, estimated 4:45 mins reading time)

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The G-20′s Secret Credit Crash Debt Solution

November 30, 2008 By dragon 2 Comments

Read Larry' Edelsons article, a conspiracy theory article I don't necessariy believe in but makes for good reading. (I first person = Larry the writer)

If you think Last weekend's G-20 meetings in Washington are only about designing short-term fixes to the financial system and regulatory reforms for banks, hedge funds, brokers, mortgage companies and investment banks … think again.

Behind the scenes, a far more fundamental fix is being discussed — the possible revaluation of gold and the birth of an entirely new monetary system.

I've been studying this issue in great depth, all my life. And given the speed at which the financial crisis is unfolding, I would be very surprised if what I'm about to tell you now is not on the G-20 table this weekend.

 Read more... (1625 words, 12 images, estimated 6:30 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Stock Market & Finance

After so many bottom calls, somebody’s bound to get it right sometime

November 29, 2008 By dragon Leave a Comment

More than a month after our article on Buffett calling a buy but won't define bottom,  a lot of articles appeared calling their own versions of bottoms.  This latest one is from cnbc.

Stocks Giving More Signs Of Nearing Market Bottom

You never know when a market hits bottom until well after the fact, but there have been a series of hints over the past few weeks that stock market investors may be flirting with one.

For one thing, volatility is easing.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, is down about 8 percent for the month and around 38 percent below its 2008 peak hit last month.  Read more... (784 words, 8 images, estimated 3:08 mins reading time)

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Lenovo S10 and HP Mini 1000 threatens MSI Wind, compared and reviewed

November 29, 2008 By dragon 1 Comment

The MSI Wind may be about to be blown over by new entrants to the full computer UMPC game.  First, the Lenovo s10 comes along with a 1Kg mini-notebook for the same price. Take a look at the specs.


The Lenovo S10 arrived last September and retails for about $699, which is the same price for the Wind.

Highlights for the 10.2inch unit include a keyboard 85% the size of a regular size keyboard, ExpressCard slot (useful for a 3G modem, not found in other UMPCs), and Intel's Atom CPU (which is proving to cope with Windows XP on most mini-notes).

 Read more... (1059 words, 12 images, estimated 4:14 mins reading time)

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Local Pump Prices still overvalued compared to nymex crude oil, oil deregulation bill blamed

November 23, 2008 By dragon 4 Comments

Crude oil sank 66% from the top, but local pump prices have not reflected this.  My own computation shown below, reveals that for local pump prices to just mimic crude's movement, our price per liter should at least be only P30, and can even go down to P23! 

Regardless of how overpriced world crude was back in July 2008, in an article that appeared in BusinessWeek in May 2008, Larry Chom, chief economist for Platts (the world’s leading provider of energy information), said that the actual costs in producing the most expensive barrel of oil is only around $70 or $80 a barrel, with the remainder the “market’s risk premium plus speculation”. This implies that the exhorbitant price of US$147 a barrel is inflated by some $67 to $77 a barrel due to speculation.  Read more... (1745 words, 13 images, estimated 6:59 mins reading time)

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what are SDA special deposit accounts

November 22, 2008 By dragon 2 Comments

BSP Special Deposit Account (SDA) and Reverse Repurchase Agreement (RRP)

Short-term liability products of the BSP with tenors range from 3 days to 2 months. These are relatively risk-free investment in terms of credit risk since it is issued by the BSP which is a government agency. These are evidenced by a Participation Agreement.   Interest on both SDA and RRP is subject to a 20.0% final w/tax.  The rate offers a premium of 1.0-1.5 percentage points over the BSP overnight borrowing rate.  Rates remain unchanged at 6% as of November 20, 2008.  Read more... (872 words, 8 images, estimated 3:29 mins reading time)

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Fundamental Analysts Belated Downgrades

November 19, 2008 By dragon 1 Comment

In his blog article,  frequent commentator on CNBC Barry L. Ritholtz comments that some, if not most Fundamental downgrades come late.

One of the strange aspects of running a quant shop is watching some of the fundie guys downgrade previously beloved names long after they have been spanked. Let’s cherry pick a few charts and work our way through them.

We’ve noticed this with GM, AIG, and many others recently. Today’s silly downgrade is US Steel.

I don’t want to pick on any one analyst. Since Goldman Sachs are supposed to be the smartest guys on the street, let’s start with them.

Here is their US Steel (X) chart:

US Steel, 2 years

Goldman Sachs current analyst

Source: FusionIQ, Bloomberg  Read more... (381 words, 11 images, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Stock Market & Finance

Mutual Funds Performance November 2008

November 19, 2008 By dragon Leave a Comment

A mutual fund pools money from individual investors in order to buy stocks or other types of investments like cash, bonds, and real estate. The mutual fund company hires money managers to invest the money collected from investors. In buying a share of a mutual fund, you will share the profits and losses of the fund’s investment portfolio proportionately with other investors in the same pool.

By purchasing shares in a mutual fund rather than buying individual stocks, you not only let the fund managers invest your money, but also spread out your investment risk (also known as diversification) since you own shares of hundreds of stocks instead of a single stock.  Read more... (673 words, 8 images, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)

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