zero hedge would argue its heading lower;

"Market News reports that the Chinese Ministry of Finance was unable to sell all of its planned issuance of 91- and 273- day bills. The bond failures were attributed to increasing concerns of monetary tightening which, of course, would impact short-term rates and make investors skittish about locking up capital. Although being unable to fill a 3 Month order book is stunning - Chinese bond vigilantes are now officially on the prowl, and their (in)action guarantees either a hike, or much more serious liquidity withdrawal over the next 91 days, which would spell doom for stockswhich trade now only on the combined efforts of the PBoC and the Fed to drown the world in colored pieces of paper."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gray-swan-chinese-bill-auctions-fail

Matt - from last night's update, the ascending triangle on the 10 year UST yield also shows a brutal inverse H&S.....looks like it 'could' play to over 6% in time -

here's a link to wign a petition put out by greentrader, a trader tax cpa, that does an auto send to your senator/congressperson based on zipcode

I would have written it differently, but here it is;

http://www.rallycongress.com/greentradertax-traders-association1/

I have a 64bit PC, quad core Intel and like it

re Trades Station, their tech support advised me that TS is not written for 64bit and that a translation was req'd to convert from 32bit and there culd be a 250-500 ms delay (1/4 to 1/2 second)

-you might want to verify that w TS, and then evaluate if it matters to you

good luck

re: the SPX thin zone (1050-1200), its not clear to me why it would support  'further upside'.

Since that zone (on the way down) had no buyers, and it was all sellers, that demand supply imbalance suggests 'resistance' to me.

..of course, its subject to a squeeze, but all things considered, it seems more like resistance to me

useful to know that the 1929/30 crash and the Nikkei crash had Primary B wave rallies that lasted 5 months (plus, but less than 6 months) with similar %-returns off the bottom

- don't know if we come into that same timeline, but we KNOW that a current market reversal from here has very solid precedent

still a green shoot......

......when considering a commercial sponsor on CNBC, the "Topsy Turvy" upside down tomato grower --- where the green shoots grow straight down !

-someone on the top floor at NBC has a sense of humor

..nothing suprises me anymore - I've suspened the 'rational'

whether your trade is a winner or a loser, Congress wants you to pay .25% for the total value of your trades in taxes - in both directions !!!

-- excerpt below, and link at bottom to sign a petition and you'll also be linked to an email to your US Congressional representatives

“Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street's Bailout Act of 2009”, which aims to impose a 0.25% transaction tax on the “ sale and purchase of financial instruments such as stock, options, and futures.”

http://www.rallycongress.com/no2tradertax/1536/tell-congres-to-block-trader-tax/

I've been very satisfied with TradLog software -for sched D

- it takes some effort, but a time saver or cost saver from your CPA bill - at least in my experience

http://www.armencomp.com/

good luck

"If interest rates go to 18%"

get as much cheap debt as you can handle, and let the dollar destroy it tax free

"60% at your Fed income tax level and 40% at 15% cap gains"

not sure if I got that right -see Matt's post that 60% is taxed at long term cap gains rate, not income - sorry

I currently use an integrated broker for graphs and trading, but want to improve on this - I see that several folk here like Ninja

Question  -if I change brokers to eg Interative Brokers, could I get by with just Ninja as a graph-analysis and order management tool, or would I be better served using someting more like Trade Station, IB, and Ninja overlay on top for order management ?

Any comments are appreciated.

TIA

taxes are always tricky - even though they apply to all, not everyones's situation is the same - that said;

$3K is max loss you can take if under the 'wash rule'

- unlimited loss if under 'mark-to-market', which requires a mark-to-market election (and imo, cpa guidance) by 4/15 of the year, ie, 4/15/08 for 2008

as Matt said, futures are taxed 60/40 long/short term - so 60% at your Fed income tax level and 40% at 15% cap gains

-futures - some (this si where you really want a cpa to weigh in) I'm trying to get clarity on whether the SPY (and all other broad based index ETF's) and equity options are also 'taxed as futures' at the 60/40 method

here's a resource, but wouldn't suggest a move without a cpa signing off on it -imo

http://www.greencompany.com/EducationCenter/GTTResources.shtml

this site offers corroborating video on 'how money is created' - chapters 7-10

-- also has expanded video chapters on other aspects effecting the 'future economy' - ie, baby-boom and increasing costs to secure energy

- informative, and broken down to bite size 'lessons'

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

"start builing superior cars at a cheaper price...and people will buy them.....JMHO"

or inferior cars

- have read that Ford's European fuel-efficient models would do well here, but they can't bring them to the US market because they don't meet Gov't Regulations on Safety - interesting.

-suspect they're referring to unfunded entitlement liabilities for Social Security and Medicare - its a big number

-- this is also a big issue for every Stae and Municaplity as well -- unlike the private sector, Governement pesnions and healthcare benefits must be paid as a matter of law - which is not the case for Social Security by the way

hi Folks,

Any ideas on how to short corporate bonds ?  Is there an ETF (similar to TBT for Treasuries) or other that you're familiar with.

Thanks !

have heard thatanywhere from 30% to 50% of the AIG credit default swap exposure were foreign banks  --- would sure like to see foreign central banks 'grab an oar' here as well

- AIG had to be saved, but sure hope Hank and Ben claimed some markers with Trichet, et al ---- on behalf of the real lender of last resort, the US Taxpayer

excerpt from wsj;

"

Bank of America Reaches Deal for Merrill

In a rushed bid to ride out the storm sweeping American finance, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed late Sunday to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for roughly $44 billion.

The deal, which was being worked out in 48 hours of frenetic negotiating, could instantly reshape the U.S. banking landscape, making the nation's prime behemoth even bigger. The boards of the two companies approved the deal Sunday evening, according to people familiar with the matter.