THE DOT - if this turns orange or red be alert

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Brainstorming Wednesday

1. First off all as expected the corrections are very limited so far due to the high expectations for one plus the fact that some indicators were not really ready for more. On top we have now window dressing operations plus some Jewish holiday effects. The basic line though is that nothing has really changed for the better nthe most positive momentum one can see is temporarily created by the governments and not sustainable plus effects deriving from the propaganda machine trying to convince people that they can act with a good faith that things are better.
Ironically all the pundit crowd lining up to convince that things have changed for a better were not the ones forseeing the downturn at all - they can not be trusted but as market participant you still need to figure out how you need to act being right does not pay the bills but making the right trades.
For me it remains the same story I said one should sell around 1050 SPX and we are about 1- 2 weeks away from a severe correction in the magnitude of 10% as the government of the USA is determined to make a positive year and therefor supports the manipulative forces on Wallstreet who are carring this rally on undeserved levels.
Below some very interesting facts who confirm what I have been writing about all way long that Goldman is heavily involved in this manipulation.

Excerpt

Hank Paulson's Speed Dial #1: Goldman Sachs


It would appear that employees of the NY Post can do more than merely plant stories and spread unfounded rumors. Some of them actually do investigative work. Case in point - John Crudele, who has compiled FOIA reports to create a chronological narrative of Hank Paulson's speed-dialing in the days after the Lehman collapse, in a piece titled "The secret to Goldman Sachs' good fortune." The net result: more communication between Paulson and Blankfein during the heart of the crisis than anyone else (including then-President Bush), with the only exception of Ben Bernanke. Just what were these two people talking about so frequently in the two days when the Dow made an 800 point round trip? And just who was leaking the rumors that ultimately were based on information sourced by Hank Paulson himself? Crudele's chronology presents a relevant framework for analyzing just who the critical decision-makers are in US financial markets. Hopefully one day phone transcripts will be released and the full picture of just what information Blankfein was getting straight from his former boss can be reconstructed.

Crudele's post, represented almost in its entirety, due to the extended amount of relevant detail:

On Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008 -- the day before the one I am writing about -- the stock market performed horribly.

By the end of the session the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 449 points as investors worried about the nation's financial system. The next morning, Sept. 18, Paulson placed his first call of the day at 6:55 a.m., to Lloyd Blankfein, who succeeded Paulson as CEO of Goldman. It's unclear whether the two connected because Blankfein called Paulson minutes later.

And then Blankfein placed another call to Paulson at 7:05 a.m. for what looks like a 10-minute conversation.

After that Paulson called Christopher Cox, Securities & Exchange Commission Chairman twice; British Chancellor Alistair Darling and New York Federal Reserve head (and now Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner two times.

Then Paulson took another call from Goldman's Blankfein.

It wasn't even 9 a.m. yet -- 30 minutes before the stock market was to open -- and Paulson and Blankfein had already exchanged three phone calls.

This wasn't particularly unusual.

On Wednesday, Sept. 17, the day the stock market was in trouble, Paulson spoke with Blankfein five times, including a pair of calls at 7:20 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. One of the earlier calls -- at 12:15 p.m. -- is listed on Paulson's log in the same five minute interval as a call to Geithner, which could indicate that this was a conference call.

If Paulson did set up a conference call, it would have been an extreme instance of putting someone who wielded a lot of power -- Geithner -- together with someone -- Blankfein -- who could profit from that connection.

And all of this doesn't include possible cell phone calls. The Treasury turned over to me Paulson's official schedule and phone records after I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

There's no way for me, or anyone else, to know what Blankfein and Paulson talked about during those first three calls on Sept. 18.

But it would be reasonable to assume that the conversation, coming as it did in a period of market turmoil, had something to do with what was happening on Wall Street.

So no matter how you slice, dice or excuse it, Blankfein by 9 a.m. would have had information that was not available to anyone else who makes their money trading securities. And, as you can imagine, there is a whole lot of value in that kind of inside access.

Robert Scully, a co-president of Morgan Stanley, called Paulson at 8:50 a.m. on the 18th.

But he appears to be the only Wall Street-type who was in contact with Paulson until Larry Fink, head of the private investment firm Blackrock, called at 12:40 p.m.

By then the stock market was going down again. But the decline wouldn't last long.

Stocks began a miraculous recovery at 1 p.m. on Sept. 18, when rumors started to spread that Paulson was considering a "government entity to bail out troubled banks" and that a meeting was going to be held that night on the matter.

At 1:05 p.m. Blankfein called Paulson again. Paulson would call Blankfein for the last time that day at 4:30 p.m. when he "left word."

That was the sixth time these two men called each other on Sept. 18.

That's one time less than Paulson spoke with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, arguably the most important person when the financial markets are in trouble. But Bernanke didn't get his first call from Paulson until 9:30 a.m. -- and it included Cox and Geithner.

President Bush only spoke with Paulson twice that day. To be fair, on the afternoon of Sept. 18 Paulson did call John Mack, head of Morgan Stanley (at 1 p.m.) and Merrill Lynch's John Thain(at 1:10 p.m.).

But Fink is the only one who seems to have gotten through to Paulson anywhere near the time the market started rallying.

By the end of the day, the Dow was up 410 points in an astonishing comeback.

Hopefully Tim Geithner is aware of the 1-800 arrangement that his predecessor set up with Goldman Sachs. After all why spend taxpayer money on phone bills when that same money can go straight into the balance sheet of the only company worth calling, for advice on how taxpayers should bail said company out. If this sounds too circular, don't worry, it is.

2. Sentiment update - most indicators do confirm that a 10% correction is possible and likely but we do not have a situation which cries for a crash scenario - even ISEE numbers (not shown here) have been rising towards a more severe correction level but do not confirm urgency right now. The Rydex is also more in neutral territory and the media bias is not as negative anymore as it was for Sep ( in terms of a correction) which increases the probability for one.

Excerpt from Barrons
INVESTOR SENTIMENT READINGS
High bullish readings in the Consensus stock index or in the Market Vane stock index usually are signs of Market tops; low ones, market bottoms.

Last Week2 Weeks Ago.3 Weeks Ago
Consensus Index

Consensus Bullish Sentiment56%53%39%
Source: Consensus Inc., P.O. Box 520526,Independence, Mo.
Historical data available at (800) 383-1441. editor@consensus-inc.com
AAII Index

Bullish39.1%42.1%37.3%

Bearish44.640.044.0

Neutral16.417.918.7
Source: American Association of Individual Investors,
625 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611 (312) 280-0170.
Market Vane

Bullish Consensus51%50%49%
Source: Market Vane, P.O. Box 90490,
Pasadena, CA 91109 (626) 395-7436.
FC Market Sentiment

Indicator54.2%53.8%53.6%
Source: First Coverage 260 Franklin St., Suite 900
Boston, MA 02110-3112 (617) 303-0180. info@firstcoverage.com
FC Market Sentiment is a proprietary indicator derived from actionable sell-side trade ideas sent by the sell-side to their buy-side clients over the First Coverage platform. Over 1,000 institutional sales people at more than 250 firms participate on the First Coverage platform and have contributed hundreds of thousands of ideas since inception. Each Idea is associated with a ticker or sector and is tagged bullish or bearish by the creator. This data is aggregated at the sector, industry and market level. The FC Market Sentiment score ranges from 0-100 (0=most bearish, 50=neutral, and 100=most bullish) and represents a completely objective, real-time view into what advice the sell-side is providing to their buy-side clients


Citigroup Panic/Euphoria Model
Market Sentiment

No comments:


About Me

I am a professional independent trader