On what appeared to be a harsh "down" day, there were some stocks that
managed to make gains. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have recommended touching them
with a ten-foot pole. Thornburg Mortgage (TMA), Freddie Mac (FRE), LDK Solar
(LDK), and MBIA (MBI) just to name a few, made big percentage gains. Freddie
and Fannie (FNM), Ford (F), Citigroup (C) and Lehman (LEH) landed in the top 5
for heavily traded equities today. Nope, nary a one would I have picked for a
trade. Not my style. Pretty much everything else was in the red on light
volume. Let’s look at some of the on-going news items of the day:
Will Lehman be bought by a foreign entity? I would say, probably not. I’m
not sure Lehman’s will survive in it’s present form. Selling off pieces of
itself and restructuring seems more plausible. Everyone in management should be
fired (sorry folks), and a workable business plan needs to be developed. The
new business plan should not include "and if we screw up badly enough, the Fed
should bail us out." No investment bank or other bank should have that as part
of their business strategy, but it seems many are counting on it.
We continue to be inundated with Fannie/Freddie sound bites assuring everyone
that the GSE’s are sound and do not need a bail-out, and the GSE’s are too big
to fail, too important to the housing market. Yea, right! Fire everyone at
Fannie and Freddie, too. Scrap the whole thing! Have the top executives at
these institutions made any intelligent decisions? Ever?? The government
cannot, CANNOT, keep housing prices inflated beyond the citizenries ability to
pay for it. Get over it! All of the "prop up the housing market" garbage is not
to help people stay in their homes, but to try and save bad decision makers from
the consequences of their actions. That includes the US Government, who has
waged a propaganda war to convince Americans that every bail-out is in
everyone’s best interest. Bull! It’s in the ‘bad decision-maker’s’ best
interest, not the country as a whole. It is NOT capitalism to bungle your
business, then ask the government (taxpayers) to make you whole again. Business
is seeing a contraction of available credit, and this will slow the economy, but
America will survive. We will survive, even though the hard times have barely
begun.
To CNBC talking heads: Since you can’t seem to get an answer to that burning
question you all ask every five minutes, every day….here’s your answer:
NO!! THIS IS NOT THE BOTTOM!!
Yes, I’m sure you can tell I listened to these guys five minutes too long
today. 
From the White House: The US is reviewing it’s complete relationship with
Russia. No other commentary at this time. We’ll post any breaking news (on
anything) that comes out after commentaries are posted for the evening.
Here are the daily index charts-DOW, Nasdaq, S&P. "Stuck in the middle with you" keeps running through my
head…..
