Briefly Speaking

日期:2012/03/18

1. The stress tests assume a fixed response by the banks to dynamic changes and have nothing to do with the resilience of banks, but are designed to create a facade of sticking it hard to the banks but are really a method like most regulations to reduce competition and create an illusion of the public interest.

2. The bond stock ration has taken one of the worst declines in history the last week and this must be very bearish for stocks and bullish for bonds.

3. The decline in VIX to below 15% sets up another great opportunity for squeezes to be created by the market makers.



4. The Nikkei has crossed 10,000 and this has made the imitative Asians much happier but the foreign buyers haven't profited that much because the value of the yen has fallen about as much as the increase in the stock averages.

5. The S&P has gone above 14,000 from a low below 12,000 in two months without benefit of a reversal and this is unprecedented. But how does it affect the future?

6. Oil is about even over the last few weeks and it's future movements will determine how much stasis the current increases in stock prices will have.

7. Like the chickadees in Memoires of a Superflous Man, the banks refuse to buy puts to meet the stress tests because they are so accustomed to the transfers of wealth fro the forgotten man to themselves by the cronies, and flexions that they refuse to invest the few hundred million to meet the stress tests. The ridiculous absurdity of the stress tests assumes that the banks wouldn't change their position if unemployment were to go up by about 100 %, and that they would still have their current positions.

Let us never forget that the signer named his ramblings "Briefly Speaking" instead of "Nobody Asked Me But" in disparagement of the sanctimonious flexion from Nebraska who said he wasn't "briefed" on the matter of the bribery at one of his insurance companies with AIG where the one briefed went to jail, and similar "briefings" he did not have with Sokol on companies they bought stock in.

I would recommend Ring Lardner's book of short stories Roundup particularly "Alibi Ike", "Horseshoes", and "Champion" to all who wish to enjoy the current baseball season better.