Edit

Nope. Done for good.

Have a nice day.

Hiatus

Back next week.

Difficult

"Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said the rise of China and other emerging economies has underscored a decline in the comparative economic and intellectual leadership of the U.S.

“I don’t know how we accommodate ourselves to it,” Volcker, an economic adviser to President Barack Obama, said in an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose taped yesterday in New York. “You cannot be dependent upon these countries for three to four trillion dollars of your debt and think that they’re going to be passive observers of whatever you do.” "

From Bloomberg. This is a very difficult issue and one that I haven't touched on since it is obvious to me that I have no edge here. Give China a big hug if you get a chance.

Heading into NY soon. Later.

Mid Day Update

At 12:30 the averages are up 1.5 - 2.5%. Quite a day for one that was supposed to be quiet.

There is some speculation that this is end of the quarter mark-up time, which is possible. More probable in my opinion is that there are people who still need to get long, and show that they are long at the end of the quarter. The S&P 500 is up over 15% quarter to date. If you are a client of a pro who missed that, you will be pretty unhappy when you get your quarterly letter next month.

My new investing rules for 2009:

1. anything can happen
2. nothing will surprise me
3. I will stay flexible
4. I will not get greedy

Like a Library

Very quiet Monday today as some of us observe Yom Kippur.

Xerox announces that it is acquiring services and outsourcing player Affiliated Computer Systems. That's a pic of a Xerox buggy whip to the right.

Futures are up a little; oil is down a little. The tech data point of the week should be Micron's earnings reports tomorrow. Folks are uniformly positive on memory and Micron never reports exactly what is expected so there should be fireworks.

Good News. Bad News.

Good news: I'm playing Liberty National today, the new track near the Statue of Liberty that just hosted the Barclays.



Bad news: It's raining.



Good news: The rain might stop by then.



Good news: Other than the really troubling stuff in Iran, no new bad news this weekend. So far.



Bad news: Tomorrow is a holiday for some so trading volume will be light and inconclusive.




****

I have mixed feelings abot HBO's Bill Maher but I like where he's going with this OpEd piece.

"why has America become a nation that can't make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs - oh, and there's still 60,000 troops in Germany - and can't make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform [or] rebuilding infrastructure."

Leaving each of the above examples aside, the truth of that idea is depressing. We need some radical change, not incremental populist politics.

No Way of Knowing

Whether this is a clean data point or not. h/t to Carpe Diem.

"MP: The 16.2 point increase in Consumer Sentiment from 57.3 in March to 73.5 in September of this year is the largest six-month gain in consumer confidence in 15 years, going all the way back to January of 1994.."

This one is a head scratcher for me, since the economic data has been getting softer for the last couple of weeks. Best to keep on moving.

Branford Marsalis Has An Opinion

Yowsa.

Oil - One Foot on a Banana Peel

The technicians are having a field day with oil this week. That chart comes courtesy of Daily Oil Prices. I'm not a technician so I'm not sure whether that is important support but it looks scary. I'm glad that chart is not a stock I own.

There is no shortage of opinion on the causal relationship between and among commodities, currencies and stocks. Leaving the dollar aside, I am very interested to see whether stocks can hang in if oil craters.

****

Can I go to the G20 meeting and protest something? That Corzine is the Governor? My property taxes? The amount of rain we got this summer? That my car is dirty?