October 2009

Here is Quicksilver doing Mona. Hard to get any better than that - performed in 1969. Well, there is Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing. Nobody does such excellent guitar work these days. Good trading music.

Observations: Today I went out to lunch by myself, since my wife had lunch with some of her old work buddies. Usually there are a number of customers at this nice Hispanic restaurant. Today there were just 4, including me, and I think that one of them was trying to sell life insurance to the owner. Yesterday, and other days recently at the gym, there was a very small crowd. Usually at around 5:00 PM the place has been busy. Times are bad.

Market hovered around flat to negative today - I lost a little bit. After hours, excellent earnings for Intel. Supposedly we are off to the races tomorrow. Time will tell.

This morning JPM, which I actually own, announced excellent earnings, and the market is up nicely. Still, nothing spectacular. More earnings the rest of the week.

Mixed earnings reports cause a market decline, but nothing serious. GOOG did very well.

Galleon Group's billionaire founder, Raj Rajaratnam, was charged Friday in a sweeping, $17 million insider-trading case, according to court documents filed in Manhattan by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Rajaratnam and five others allegedly involved in the scheme have been arrested.

Galleon it was "shocked" by the arrest but stressed that it continues to operate and is "highly liquid."

"We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities," the hedge-fund firm added in a statement.

Let's hope that they all go to jail for a long time. They have been caught on wiretap. Galleon says it was "shocked", but I seriously doubt that they did not know.

Rajaratnam was considered a leading investor in the technology sector, generating big returns. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed civil charges against Rajaratnam and the five other defendants on Friday, questioned the source of the gains.

"What we have uncovered in the trading activities of Raj Rajaratnam is that the secret of his success is not genius trading strategies. He is not the astute study of company fundamentals or marketplace trends that he is widely thought to be," said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.

"Raj Rajaratnam is not a master of the universe, but rather a master of the Rolodex," Khuzami added in a statement. "He cultivated a network of high-ranking corporate executives and insiders, and then tapped into this ring to obtain confidential details about quarterly earnings and takeover activity."

It was also noted that Raj Rajaratnam was a major contributor both to Hillary Clinton and to a front group for the Tamil Tigers. Interesting combination.

The New York Times reports that Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, who has been accused of masterminding a $20m insider trading ring, doesn't appear to have been very good at it.

One bad trade, in chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, is said to have resulted in a $30m loss - more than the scheme in total is said to have reaped. But profitable, or not, insider trading is illegal - and you can go down whether or not you make any money.

Fisker Automotive Announces Plan to Buy U.S. Assembly Plant

Fisker Automotive has selected the Wilmington Assembly plant in Wilmington Delaware to build affordable plug-in hybrid cars. Fisker executives made the announcement inside the dormant facility today, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, Delaware Governor Jack Markell and other state officials. The plant will support Fisker Automotive’s Project NINA, the development and build of an affordable, family-oriented plug-in hybrid sedan costing about $39,900 after federal tax credits. Production is scheduled to begin in late 2012 and create 2000 factory jobs and more than 3000 vendor/supplier jobs when production reaches full capacity in 2014.

Excellent news! Particularly since no U. S. automaker seems to be bright enough to do this.

A bad month for me, but I am very hopeful for the next 2 months. The volatility has made it very difficult to trade successfully. I hope for a rebound after today's losses. There was no news sufficiently bad to justify this sell-off. Companies have had good earnings, and good projections for the future. A half percent drop in consumer spending is not really bad.

In a column on the Christian Broadcasting Network's Web site, writer Kimberly Daniels asserts that "demons" sneak into bags of Halloween candy at grocery stores.

"[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches," Daniels wrote. "I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

Mother earth is highly celebrated during the fall demonic harvest. Witches praise mother earth by bringing her fruits, nuts and herbs. Demons are loosed during these acts of worship. When nice church folk lay out their pumpkins on the church lawn, fill their baskets with nuts and herbs, and fire up their bonfires, the demons get busy. They have no respect for the church grounds. They respect only the sacrifice and do not care if it comes from believers or non-believers.

Gathering around bonfires is a common practice in pagan worship. As I remember, the bonfires that I attended during homecoming week when I was in high school were always in the fall. I am amazed at how we ignorantly participate in pagan, occult rituals...

Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.

Where do these nuts come from, and how do they manage to convince enough people to support them? There is no end of the idiocy.