Yeah, if you look at SBUX and GMCR chart, you can see SBUX was being bought up, and GMCR was being sold off, prior to the "news" flash....it wasn't me.....that's for sure.

damn.. there was huge call volume for MCD before the sales announcement thursday.. wish that one played out like gmcr & sbux did. : (

Oscar Carboni,without all the hand motions and yelling,explains why he thinks markets go higher. He speaks of,gold,dow transports,copper, the dax and bonds

alot of leak talk, from companies to job reports, etc etc.. kinda wierd.

Reminder: Time Change..

i wondered where an hr went..

Apple has sold out of initial supplies of the new iPad in every country where it will launch the tablet on Friday, and is now telling buyers that orders will not ship for up to three weeks.

The shortages have again created opportunities for resellers who claim they will have the tablet next week.

On eBay, for example, prices for a 16GB Wi-Fi third-generation iPad run as high as $1,200, a 140% markup over that model's list price of $499, while 64GB 4G tablets are priced as high as $2,799, or 238% above the $829 list price.

PS: This reminds me of SJ's comment regarding people waiting in rain for hours in line for Ipad3

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225077/Apple_runs_out_of_new_iPads_for_Friday_delivery

In the middle-east market seem to be in bull mode. DFM Index gained over 4.73% today with DFM gaining around 9.73%.

http://dfm.ae/Option3/default.aspx?t=N

For the Dubai Financial Market (whole Index) this is the largest gain since December 2009.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philosuffer 

Apple has sold out of initial supplies of the new iPad in every country where it will launch the tablet on Friday, and is now telling buyers that orders will not ship for up to three weeks.

 

The shortages have again created opportunities for resellers who claim they will have the tablet next week.

On eBay, for example, prices for a 16GB Wi-Fi third-generation iPad run as high as $1,200, a 140% markup over that model's list price of $499, while 64GB 4G tablets are priced as high as $2,799, or 238% above the $829 list price.

 

PS: This reminds me of SJ's comment regarding people waiting in rain for hours in line for Ipad3

 

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225077/Apple_runs_out_of_new_iPads_for_Friday_delivery

I ordered 2 of them. One for me and one for my friend. I hope I don't see any freakin checkerboarding on my Safari or reloading when switching between tabs this time around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldFart 

Yeah, if you look at SBUX and GMCR chart, you can see SBUX was being bought up, and GMCR was being sold off, prior to the "news" flash....it wasn't me.....that's for sure.

Was it Martha Stewart?
 

Credit default swaps are insurance products. It’s time we regulated them as such.

It's a novel idea in that it forces banks to create a large enough 'capital buffer' in case any of its 'investments' or 'market bets' go astray. Essentially, it allows CDS to be traded as insurance contracts (their real purpose), and not trading vehicles were any institution that has enough leverage can actually pose a threat to the system. The only problem with this is that there is not a big enough will to push for it in DC. First of all, who will command (or oversee) this new agency, and second, assuming that this reform or/and agency is created and passed, what guarantee is there that there will be not interference whatsoever by any bank, institution or private entity that could alter the course of that reform/agency. In other words, whose to say that event if the government creates this agency, that the agency itself will not be infiltrated by any private entity that is there for its own personal gain?

We saw this in 2007 when investment banks infiltrated the rating agencies and payed them to rate all of the CDO's and MBS as AAA, when most of these agencies knew from the get go  that the pooling of these securities warranted a grade of C - or worst. That's the problem I see. Basically a re-do of 2007 where the agency itself does more harm than good. I think its a great idea, but imposing it  and making it a viable long term solution is the real issue here.  

Note: I think Ritholtzr nailed it towards the end when he talked about the Greek default. I've highlighted below. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philosuffer 

Credit default swaps are insurance products. It’s time we regulated them as such.

 

This had enormous repercussions. The biggest underwriter of default swaps was AIG, the world’s largest insurer. Without that reserve-requirement limitation, it was free to underwrite as many swaps as it could print. And that was just what it did: AIG’s Financial Products unit underwrote more than $3 trillion worth of derivatives, with precisely zero dollars reserved for paying any potential claim.

 

Though this may sound utterly absurd today, circa 2005 it was considered brilliant financial engineering. Consider this quote from Tom Savage, the president of AIG FP: “The models suggested that the risk was so remote that the fees were almost free money. Just put it on your books and enjoy.”

 

Ahhh, free money — how could that dream ever go wrong?

As it turns out, quite easily. Underwriting swaps was enormously lucrative — so long as you don’t count that unpleasant crashing and burning into insolvency at the end.

Oh, and that massive $185 billion AIG government bailout. Aside from those tiny hiccups, there was some good money to be made.

 

It was more than just AIG. While the radical deregulation wrought by the CFMA led to AIG’s self-directed collapse, it also helped steer two of the largest securitizers of mortgages — Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers — into insolvency. Perhaps they were lulled into complacency, believing (wrongly) that they were hedged against losses. The CFMA led to their demise, and it was indirectly responsible for the collapse of Citigroup, Bank of America and Fannie and Freddie. It also was a significant factor in the near-death experiences of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and quite a few others.

 

Despite the CFMA’s horrific fatality toll, it has never been overturned. Parts of it were modified by Dodd-Frank regulations, but not the insurance exemptions. Today, these swaps are cleared through exchanges or clearinghouses — but they are still exempt from all insurance regulatory oversight. Which is bizarre, because they are little more than thinly disguised insurance products, with the CFMA kicker that there is no reserve requirement.

 

Which brings us more or less up to date — and onto more topical issues, such as Greece. Two weeks ago, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said that “based on current evidence the Greek bailout would not prompt payments on the credit default swaps.”

That is an odd statement about a tradable asset — based on evidence? Typically, an option or futures contract expires, and it either is in or out of the money. Any tradable asset — stocks, bonds, futures, options, funds, etc. — settles on its own. There is a market price the asset closes at, a total volume of sales, and a final print for the day, month, quarter and year. No interpretation is required. Why on earth would anyone need a committee ruling for a trade?

 

On Friday, the ISDA committee ruled that Greece formally defaulted. Thank goodness that was cleared up. Had they failed to do so, it would have fatally damaged the swaps market and made sovereign debt financing much more expensive.

What makes this issue so fascinating is not whether Greece has or has not technically defaulted. Rather, it is that there is a committee of conflicted interested parties rendering a verdict on that issue.

 

Funny, no sort of group declaration is required when a futures contract or an option must settle. No committee decision is required. Which (again) is why credit-default swaps look, sound and act a lot more like insurance than they do other tradable assets.

Why does it matter if swaps are not insurance? In a word, reserves. That is the key difference between insurance and swaps. State insurance regulators actually require reserves from insurers — a lot of reserves — to ensure payments can be made in the event any payable event occurs. The swaps industry does not require reserves. Not even one penny against billions in potential losses.

 

I think you can see why this matters so much. Swaps are a lot less profitable as an insurance product than they are as a trading vehicle. That is the primary issue that we all should be concerned about. It is exactly how AIG blew itself up. There is nothing that prevents the marketplace from doing it again. We could very well see a repeat unless this gets resolved. Indeed, the odds heavily favor such an event occurring, unless we collectively do something to stop it.

 

Credit-default swaps are insurance products. It is well past time we regulated them as such.

 

By Ritholtz

 

Lot of people are even more bullish, watch the market pull back,

Full article: Bloomberg

well were at 161.8% retrace, i dont think she has much more. Also sentiment is getting flat.

Well everything in my brain screams Sell! ... but I'm done shorting this market.

At this point, no idea which way market has headed.  After looking at so many charts and doing some of my own, just don't know anymore.

Also, with our favorite one stock carry all in AAPL doing well with pre-orders, it may just translate over to earnings.  In the past, if people needed to take risk off the table, they would sell and go into cash.  Recently, if you want to take risk off the table, you sell and go into Apple stock.