we had  stocks up, commodities up and interest rates up...Now we have stocks down, and commodities and interest rates down also....This is bullish, right?  It will attract some of that massive hoard of cash on the sidelines....Takes a few months however...Any comment on this, please?  

  thnx, Matt...mistakenly thought it was triggered....

making sense to me :   Obama ruining capital opportunities in USA...therefore,  go short $US  and long $Aussie and $Canada.....Long  UDN= short $US   and long FXA= long $Aus   and    FXC is the long Canada loony......What say you ?   

totally in agreement on Hanan....his comments were as relevant in USA as UK ...

  our children's children's children will be paying forever...the concern re: the Chinese is that they don't need us...They DO...they especially need Wal Mart....

   We need them to be buy an hold guys re: our Treasurys....Look at the huge yield decline yesterday on the ten year:  from 3% down to 2.50% area....Amazing move, almost never happens......As the Chinese proverb says:  "may you live in interesting times."   I did not count on this environment....However IBD pointed out about 20 positives to look at and think about, which are occurring WITHOUT the Obama meddling as the cause....Maybe there's still hope for America.....

thanks for the excellent work on this morning's update.....

   If 875 to 900 gets hit, do you have a strategy for diversifying or would you stay focussed on the longs and shorts you've already added to the buy/ sell list?

first got in during their conf call a short time ago.....listened to Schwarzman and his team....they have  $2.14 a shr in cash, he said, no debt; employees own 75% of the stock.....co has $14 billion in real estate and has three other businesses;  should Investment Banking revive, they are well situated....THEY INTEND TO PAY  $1.20 div, same as last year!!!  That is the most amazing thing they said in the Conf Call...I was astounded....very clearly reiterated that that's the number:  1.20.....same as last year...you do the math, if they can pay that it's phenomenal confidence on their part....And Schwarzman said that "not all alternative investment firms should be classified the same way, i.e., as garbage."    He said their portf.cos, at least 75% of them were breakeven or profitable in 2008....Really great stuff....I bot as the stock started rising toward $4....it has hit  $6.50 since then...Cut my position somewhat, ya have to take profits, as you know....And I am holding several thousand still....mb

  Blackstone   listen to BX's replay of  conf call on    www.blackstone.com

  seems like TGT is too high...can see it coming down to $27 maybe.

and happy new year to matt and steve as well....Let's be confident that 2009, if not a great year, will at least be as INTERESTING as 2008 was....nothing to fear but fear itself....And as Gartman said today, quoting someone else:  "The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money."     Good luck, good cheer, prosperity for our little coterie of traders!!  Thanks, Steve and Matt...

  TBT does hit air pockets from time to time.....direction will be Up and to the right, as Gartman says.....

   VIVUS    co has analyst day tomrrw, Friday...Stock is just breaking out over its 200 day M.A.....Anyone know this co?   they have an obesity drug in phase III

  this is "filler," like string beans with a steak....and doesn't belong on the blog imho.