We're Right on the Brink

Just a note here that the invasion of Iraq seems to be about to begin. The President has set up a meeting in the Azores with Tony Blair and the Spanish President. I don't think he's really going - that it's a ruse to give our troops the element of surprise. We've also been broadcasting that we'll attack at night. I think we'll attack at dawn either Saturday or Sunday Bahgdad time.

The feeling is that war is imminent and it has never felt closer. I believe we are hours or at the most, two or three days from the start of this war. Time to get it on.

OK, I Take It Back

Maybe the Google guys have taken over control of Blogger and are fixing it because I've just published two blogs without any problems. Happy Days? I certainly hope so. Now, about those archives and links...

More on the Economy

Today, reading various and sundry economic resources, I found the following in The Daily Reckoning: *** Here's something interesting: a list of all the places the U.S. has bombed since WWII:

China 1945-46 Korea 1950-53 China 1950-53 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959-60 Guatemala 1960 Congo 1964 Peru 1965 Laos 1964-73 Vietnam 1961-73 Cambodia 1969-70 Guatemala 1967-69 Grenada 1983 Libya 1986 El Salvador 1980s Nicaragua 1980s Panama 1989 Iraq 1991-99 Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia 1999.

Nice, huh? Also, it has been reported that MANY companies have overstated pension fund gains. The eventual upshot (or downshot, as it may be) is that companies on the S & P 500 are carrying price earnings ratios in the 80s rather than in the 20s, meaning that these companies are now more grossly overinflated than ever before. While these companies have routinely reported pension fund gains of 8-9%, they have been losing (see: LOSS, as in less) 10-15-20% per year or more. And since these pension fund gains are estimated and done so in completely legal reporting fashion, they have contributed to the earnings of many companies and are a ticking time bomb. My advice: find the companies that have the largest pension funds for rtired workers and short their stocks or buy put options against them. As the economy unravels, you need to make money. Of course, our currency is also devaluing, so convert any gains into gold or other currencies.

Bogged Down By Blogger

I haven't really kept up with this because I have been sorely disapponted with the performance of Blogger. Usually, I am pretty good at organizing and figuring out how to make web-things work, but Blogger refuses to accept my settings for my archives. It's very anoying. I also have had various "run-time errors" when trying to post, which had resulted in a number of swearing episodes and lost "Blogs."

I'm giving it another try and hopefully, the people at Google will put together a more functional operation. I can't wait.

WAR AND THE MARKETS

The threat of war has very little to do with the overall movement of the markets. Please take a look at some of the fundamentals in this market, which stink, such as high p/e's, lowered earnings expectations, continued obfuscation of the truth in public documents, the reality of pension plan underfunding, high unemployment, a sinking dollar, etc. And add to your thinking that this low volume decline is happening when bonds are not an attractive alternative.

The smart money is OUT of this market or SHORT. The war has little to do with it and the cost of $100 billion - while probably grossly overinflated - is not much to whine about. In fact, government defecits and lowered tax rates are *supposed* to be elements of stimulus.

Pay attention! you liberals in the back row. There's going to be a test in 2004.

Just a word on dividends... well, a few words. Stocks which offer dividend payments to shareholders are generally viewed as solid, and with President Bush's recent offer to cut the double taxation on dividends - essentially proposing to have dividend income taxed as ordinary income instead of as a capital gain - many people are looking at stocks which offer dividends.

Recently, however, we've been seeing a rash of dividend reductions by these companies - most of them large and aging. This trend will probably continue as these same companies have huge pension costs to deal with, so they must find a source for additional capital and the easiest place to find extra cash is to cut the dividend payment.

Bear in mind that as a stock's share price decline the dividend yield increases, so if you see a company offering a dividend yield of more than 4%, it's likely that the share price will decline or the company will cut the dividend. It's not a pretty picture in equities.

CNBC, the mother of all stock hype, never ceases to amaze on the bullish side. At 8:30 this morning, they reported the durable goods report, which came in with a healthy 3.3% increase for January. Jubilation! The economy is moving forward! At the very same moment the weekly new unemployment claims report came out and was UNREPORTED on CNBC. Why? Maybe because the number of new unemployment claims for the prior week was 417K, while the experts were expecting a number in the range of 370K. More unemployment claims, unabated, week after week, which the government and CNBC do not want you to know about. As long as the number of new claims remain in the 400K per week range, there will be NO RECOVERY. There is no such thing as a jobless recovery.

The DJIA closed just above 7800 today. There's been no volume for quite some time, due, I believe, to general malaise in the markets. Stocks are not good buys, many are overvalued. One I am particularly fond of is Marvel (MVL), which is the parent of Marvel comic books and also licenses their characters for movies like the current hit, DAREDEVIL and previous films, X-Men and Spider-Man. Marvel has plans for The Hulk and X-Men 2.0 this summer. The stock has doubled in price over the past 6-8 months, but looks like a huge winner. Carrying a forward p/e of roughly 25, it looks like a bargain, especially if they beat expectations, which I believe they will by a wide margin.