3Q08 GDP Negative

Today the advanced GDP estimate for the third quarter was released from the Commerce Department. GDP is released three times- as an "advanced estimate", a "revised estimate" and a "final". Today's release is the advanced or rough, rough draft. It should come as no suprise to anyone that GDP contracted this quarter.

Additional URL

For those of you who don't use an RSS reader, we have a new URL that redirects to the blog. www.TLRblog.com will now take you to the blog.  So spread the word and pass out our more convenient address. Thanks!

Free Energy and Free Lunches

The famous economist Milton Friedman is attributed the quote "there is no free lunch". Say a salesperson offers you a free lunch just for coming to his seminar. Obviously, he hopes to sell his wares at the seminar. The profits on those sales pay for the "free lunch" and so collectively, the free lunchers are paying for their own lunch- hence it is not really free.

Not This Email Again: Gas War!

I just keep getting this email forwarded ad infinitum.  You know the one- that email that tells us how to beat the oil companies at their own game by starting a price war.  Here are the pertinent excerpts from the email:

GAS WAR! Join the resistance!

Hedge Funds

You hear the term quite a bit these days, in all sorts of contexts. What is a hedge fund and why are they so special?

China, Debt and Currencies- huh?

We received an interesting question via email. I will paraphrase:

1) Is it true that China owns a significant portion of America's debt, and if so what are the implications of this? Is having China as one of our primary backers a necessarily bad thing, or are bonds bonds, regardless of the holder?

2) Is it true that China's currency is artificially tied to the value of the dollar, and should they choose to remove this pin from the cork board, it could drastically devalue the dollar even more than it already has?

The P/E

No, I'm not talking about Phys Ed. As exciting as those high school hours playing softball or dodgeball were, it is unfortunately not the subject of this post. The P/E we refer to now is the Price-to-Earnings ratio. We never said there wouldn't be math at TLRB.

Acquaintances always seem to ask me what I think of this or that stock.

An Observation: WSJ

It is shortly after 11:30pm local time and I just finished reading today's Wall Street Journal.  The WSJ is my paper of record having been a daily reader for well over a decade.  Why am I reading a newspaper at 11pm?  Isn't the news old?  Why am I reading a paper at all?  Good questions for this internet age, I suppose.

Ugly Numbers: Where the Market Stands

I am out of antacid and almost out of hair after today's plunge in the stock markets.  In my September 15th, 2008 post, "The Most Difficult Decision An Investor Must Make" I wrote:

"I can at least promise the coming weeks will be exciting- at least as exciting as market watching gets."

I continue to stand by the things I shared in that post and recommend a re-read.  For now, let me provide a little market history and perspective from the proprietary research at SFP.

Flattery Scams

I remember back in the late 1980s on Detroit's Channel 50 there being this reoccurring infomercial featuring spray-on hair. Basically if you were getting thin in back or on top and you had, I dunno, lacquer black hair, you could get this can of spray paint and then simply spray it on the more noticeable bits of flesh tone. It was a ridiculous product and, given the appearance of the test subjects this infomercial featured, this product was mostly marketed to long haul truckers.

The way this infomercial sold this spray-on hair formula was formulaic. They'd get a long haul trucker out of the audience, comb his hair a bit, determine the appropriate "spray shield" to use (basically a piece of cardboard with various sized holes cut into it), and then give his bald spot a couple blasts of spray-on hair. And here's the part me and all my other 17-year-old friends loved. They'd bring out this busty woman in a short sequined dress. She would inspect the head of the long haul trucker for about 3 seconds and then moan on command "ohhh, it looks so natural".

Crisis Update

Deep breath.  Ok.  First, I'd like to apologize for too few posts in the past week.  As you can imagine, it has been quite hectic around here.  Add the end of the quarter which requires massive reporting to clients and I am simply swamped.  Excuses, excuses, I know.  So without further adieu, let's talk crisis.

Congress finally passed the Paulson Plan.  We will call just that, the "Paulson Plan" or rescue package and not a bailout as previously discussed.  The fear as of late last week was that perhaps it was too late.  Indeed the credit markets are deeply frozen.  Student loans thought to be approved, failed to consummate.  Some students were sent scrambling as were schools trying to find alternative sources of financing.  So much for this being "just" a Wall St problem huh?

Mark To Market

Some headlines from Bloomberg today:

Manufacturing in U.S. Contracts at Faster Pace Than Economists Estimated
Cash-Starved Corporations Scrap Dividends, Tap Credit Lines to Raise Funds
Trichet Says Congress Must Back Bailout Plan for 'Sake of Global Finance"
Treasuries Rise; U.S. Growth May Slow Regardless of Rescue Plan
Bank Bond Spreads in Europe at Record on Funding Woes

Aside from a relief rally in stocks yesterday, you can see from the headlines things have not improved much in the credit market trenches. Of note was a "clarification" by the SEC and Financial Accounting Standards