“…the lusty month of May.
“That lovely month when ev’ryone goes Blissfully astray.”
Apologies to Lerner and Loewe and the gambling public, which includes those who trek to the track known as the stock market.
But Kev insists. Sweatered and blue jeaned this May morning, pondering whether to shave and what the weather will be at 10 o’clock tomorrow when he tees off at the course Babe Ruth used to play, he is remaining buoyant and taking the cue from Camelot’s lovely verse, not the Wall Street chestnut of “Sell in May and go away.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a fan of show tunes. I wore out the cast recording on our Silvertone stereo from Sears as a kid.
But let’s not get carried away like Guinevere. Trimmed positions in Ford and PALM this morning to take profits and pay the Little Sisters of the Poor who manage my sporting life, but still holding on. Cringing at my swine flu play, Novavax, which has plummeted since my tout, but still holding on. The faint of heart will be forgiven if they bail. Now they tell me this virus is not that big of a deal! Oink. But a guy who told me to take Dunkirk in the Derby was wrong, too. Whoa, Nellie.
Getting out and getting back in is becoming a problem for the investing (read, gambling) public. Hope you got back into new Yankee Stadium last night when they began the game after nine o’clock, but you should have hung out with the family at the Hard Rock Cafe for a multi-bucks hamburger dinner before heading to the Escalade purchased by selling credit default swaps for AIG.
Into each life a little rain must fall.
Construction spending rose last month. Bernanke is chirping about economic growth later this year, though high unemployment will continue to persist. But it’s clear now to all but the crybabies that the economy will soon start hitting more greens in regulation
Resist at your own peril. Reason and rhyme tell us the corner has been turned. The market for equities will not swoon because the survivalists and conspiracy brothers wish it. Not to be invested is to put down the rifle with all the fish in the barrel.
And, anyway, It’s May, it’s May!
“Those dreary vows that ev'ryone takes, Ev'ryone breaks. Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes. The lusty month of May!”
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Weep No More, My Lady
The sun shines bright on our old Kentucky home, just as it does for each of us who longs for his Indiana home on the banks of the Wabash far away; or New York New York, the city that never sleeps; or the left coast where birides sing and everything; or Swanee, where you’d give the world to be among the folks in D-I-X-I-E, or Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains. Add to the mix New Mexico, for which no iconic lyric has yet been penned. It's home to a gelding named Mine That Bird.
But America is more than a home. It’s a romance that causes men and women, young and old, to sigh with joy that men in ten-gallon Stetsons, ladies in sleeveless crinoline and flouncy caps of their own and horseflesh as beautiful as a spring day exult in two minutes of glory as mud flies onto the silks of the jockeys. Anyone who didn’t tear up his losing ticket without a care and take a sip of his mint julep is to be pitied. As someone said, everything, including life, is too short not to partake. Needless to say, my pie-in-the-sky Exacta box of Dunkirk and Flying Private lies in shreds. I picked the wrong strong horse and the wrong long shot.
Mine That Bird, trundled to Churchill Downs in a trailer by his lame trainer, Bennie Woolley, a no-nonsense son of a gun with a broken ankle, sunglasses and no necktie, somehow slipped through a narrow opening at the rail in the home stretch and exploded when he and jockey Calvin Borel saw no equine haunches in front of them.
The sporting life has been bountiful today. Yankees at 1:00 pm, Mets at 4:00, Derby at 6:30, Bulls-Celtics at 8:00 (listening on the radio as I write, but will get to the TV shortly), not to mention a scintillating girls’ softball game at 9 this morning in Prospect Park to start things off.
The economic calendar next week is filled as well. Expect better news, culminating with the jobs report on Friday. The past week offered support for those who root for underdogs. The economic future may be a 50-1 shot, but improvements in the University of Michigan consumer confidence and purchasing managers’ surveys tell me that Miss Market sees daylight on the rail. Her nostrils are flaring.
But America is more than a home. It’s a romance that causes men and women, young and old, to sigh with joy that men in ten-gallon Stetsons, ladies in sleeveless crinoline and flouncy caps of their own and horseflesh as beautiful as a spring day exult in two minutes of glory as mud flies onto the silks of the jockeys. Anyone who didn’t tear up his losing ticket without a care and take a sip of his mint julep is to be pitied. As someone said, everything, including life, is too short not to partake. Needless to say, my pie-in-the-sky Exacta box of Dunkirk and Flying Private lies in shreds. I picked the wrong strong horse and the wrong long shot.
Mine That Bird, trundled to Churchill Downs in a trailer by his lame trainer, Bennie Woolley, a no-nonsense son of a gun with a broken ankle, sunglasses and no necktie, somehow slipped through a narrow opening at the rail in the home stretch and exploded when he and jockey Calvin Borel saw no equine haunches in front of them.
The sporting life has been bountiful today. Yankees at 1:00 pm, Mets at 4:00, Derby at 6:30, Bulls-Celtics at 8:00 (listening on the radio as I write, but will get to the TV shortly), not to mention a scintillating girls’ softball game at 9 this morning in Prospect Park to start things off.
The economic calendar next week is filled as well. Expect better news, culminating with the jobs report on Friday. The past week offered support for those who root for underdogs. The economic future may be a 50-1 shot, but improvements in the University of Michigan consumer confidence and purchasing managers’ surveys tell me that Miss Market sees daylight on the rail. Her nostrils are flaring.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Innoculation Nation
Attempting to make money from misery is miserable, positively swinish. But someone’s got to do it. And directing capital to drug makers who aim to profit by alleviating misery makes me feel better, which I could use after my common cold caused me to find every bunker at Dyker Beach yesterday. At least that’s my story for shooting 106 and I’m sticking to it.
How many of us have been able to survive and reproduce, have stellar careers in the arts, sciences, professions and hamburger flipping because of a mold called penicillin?
Now, my stellar career has been more white dwarfish than super nova, so I hesitate to offer ideas to all but the intrepid sailor willing to test his balsa wood Kon-Tiki against the mighty Pacific. But just as I know my next approach shot will hit the green next week, I know there are people brainier than I attacking the H1N1 influenza and they could be right -- saving lives and enriching investors.
Kev (yes, in his megalomaniacal certainty that it’s all about Kev, he is referring to himself in the third person) is adding Novavax (NVAX) to the portfolio at $2.03. This Rockville, Md., company reported encouraging results from its virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine in mice and ferrets dosed with the 1918 Spanish flu virus.
I’m no scientist or lover of rodents, and this is obviously a speculative roll of the dice that only the lonely should play, but I’m buying into it for now.
PALM, F, AMD, DDR remain as well. This is no bear market rally. Obama’s competence becomes more evident every day, and markets are responding.
Don't know much about the NBA, but Bulls-Celtics series is terrific. Derrick Rose sunk me in last year's NCAA championship game. Maybe he'll make up for it in Boston tomorrow like he did last night in Chicago. The Bulls will win outright.
Meanwhile, taking Dunkirk in the Kentucky Derby tomorrow. Hopefully, some horse’s behind (there are a bunch of them) won’t get in his way.
How many of us have been able to survive and reproduce, have stellar careers in the arts, sciences, professions and hamburger flipping because of a mold called penicillin?
Now, my stellar career has been more white dwarfish than super nova, so I hesitate to offer ideas to all but the intrepid sailor willing to test his balsa wood Kon-Tiki against the mighty Pacific. But just as I know my next approach shot will hit the green next week, I know there are people brainier than I attacking the H1N1 influenza and they could be right -- saving lives and enriching investors.
Kev (yes, in his megalomaniacal certainty that it’s all about Kev, he is referring to himself in the third person) is adding Novavax (NVAX) to the portfolio at $2.03. This Rockville, Md., company reported encouraging results from its virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine in mice and ferrets dosed with the 1918 Spanish flu virus.
I’m no scientist or lover of rodents, and this is obviously a speculative roll of the dice that only the lonely should play, but I’m buying into it for now.
PALM, F, AMD, DDR remain as well. This is no bear market rally. Obama’s competence becomes more evident every day, and markets are responding.
Don't know much about the NBA, but Bulls-Celtics series is terrific. Derrick Rose sunk me in last year's NCAA championship game. Maybe he'll make up for it in Boston tomorrow like he did last night in Chicago. The Bulls will win outright.
Meanwhile, taking Dunkirk in the Kentucky Derby tomorrow. Hopefully, some horse’s behind (there are a bunch of them) won’t get in his way.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sign of the Times
Gross domestic product plummeted at a stunning 6.1% annual rate in the first quarter, the government tells us. Throw a tea party, not the one with bags from Ceylonese plantations tossed into Boston harbor, but the one on a sunlit yawn with crumpets and lots of jam. Wear ascots.
The story is in the mix – the cleansing decline in inventories and the rise in consumer spending is making our party. The train is leaving the station. Sure, there will be more tales of financial malfeasance and outbreaks of torch and pitchfork curmudgeons at various stops when we take on more coal and water and let Gary Cooper off to duel at high noon, but the path of least resistance has been paved. The choo-choo, fired by fiscal and monetary stimulus, is staying on the rails. The 2009 second-half recovery is playing out.
All that said, the inflationary world where savings evaporate and borrowing booms will meet us down the track. Great Depression II has turned into garden variety recession. Take what God has given us, which are cycles. Stock prices recover ahead of GDP.
In the event, though, things go awry. My Redbirds’ ace Lohse did his job last night with six scoreless innings, but the Cards lost 2-1 to the Braves. Nevertheless, I’m laying another dime on St. Louis and the stock market, even though the Steinbrenners are cutting ticket prices, a good sign because they are behind the curve. Prediction: Phil Hughes remains in the bigs and Joba is back in the bullpen.
The story is in the mix – the cleansing decline in inventories and the rise in consumer spending is making our party. The train is leaving the station. Sure, there will be more tales of financial malfeasance and outbreaks of torch and pitchfork curmudgeons at various stops when we take on more coal and water and let Gary Cooper off to duel at high noon, but the path of least resistance has been paved. The choo-choo, fired by fiscal and monetary stimulus, is staying on the rails. The 2009 second-half recovery is playing out.
All that said, the inflationary world where savings evaporate and borrowing booms will meet us down the track. Great Depression II has turned into garden variety recession. Take what God has given us, which are cycles. Stock prices recover ahead of GDP.
In the event, though, things go awry. My Redbirds’ ace Lohse did his job last night with six scoreless innings, but the Cards lost 2-1 to the Braves. Nevertheless, I’m laying another dime on St. Louis and the stock market, even though the Steinbrenners are cutting ticket prices, a good sign because they are behind the curve. Prediction: Phil Hughes remains in the bigs and Joba is back in the bullpen.
Give Me V
Pity the noble swine. The animal that is always one step from going feral on us before it becomes breakfast was the focus of the great debate between Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. Which is smarter, the pig or the horse?
The horse, Ed averred, was the obvious choice, Johnny backed the pig, or was it the other way around? Not so fast, camel breath. We need Carnac the magnificent, who divined answers to questions in an envelope that had been sealed “in a mayonnaise jar left on the porch of Funk and Wagnalls since noon today” to tell us what lies ahead.
I make fun, and I apologize. It’s a defense mechanism. Here's hoping you and yours remain safe, but this is certain: Young and old folks in the United States will probably perish from a virus that has been ascribed to a protein source that generations of Americans have relied on in smokehouses and frying pans since Dixie came to be.
But, of course, it will pass, prayerfully with few of our sweet babies and grandmas claimed. That’s what Carnac and the financial markets are telling us now. We the people die all the time, but the traffic outside my open window this summer-like morning keeps up its incessant hum of hope.
The big hope now for those depending on escaping pig viruses and paying the rent is continued greed that shoots stock prices and the prices of what we consume higher.
If inflation does not revive then we are all in the soup. Surely, it will. A tenet of the monetarist religion is that, in the long run, though we may be dead, MV=PQ, with V, velocity, being stable. Deflation Cassandras believe that V will wilt forever.
Policy makers obviously feel otherwise. Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, et al., are intent that V will do what it's supposed to do. They’ll crack open the champagne when inflation begins galloping. And most of America will welcome a dose of it before debts overtake them. Equities look good for the rest of the year. Bonds will suffer. Refinance the home now if you can find someone to give you a loan. Interest rates are going up.
The horse, Ed averred, was the obvious choice, Johnny backed the pig, or was it the other way around? Not so fast, camel breath. We need Carnac the magnificent, who divined answers to questions in an envelope that had been sealed “in a mayonnaise jar left on the porch of Funk and Wagnalls since noon today” to tell us what lies ahead.
I make fun, and I apologize. It’s a defense mechanism. Here's hoping you and yours remain safe, but this is certain: Young and old folks in the United States will probably perish from a virus that has been ascribed to a protein source that generations of Americans have relied on in smokehouses and frying pans since Dixie came to be.
But, of course, it will pass, prayerfully with few of our sweet babies and grandmas claimed. That’s what Carnac and the financial markets are telling us now. We the people die all the time, but the traffic outside my open window this summer-like morning keeps up its incessant hum of hope.
The big hope now for those depending on escaping pig viruses and paying the rent is continued greed that shoots stock prices and the prices of what we consume higher.
If inflation does not revive then we are all in the soup. Surely, it will. A tenet of the monetarist religion is that, in the long run, though we may be dead, MV=PQ, with V, velocity, being stable. Deflation Cassandras believe that V will wilt forever.
Policy makers obviously feel otherwise. Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, et al., are intent that V will do what it's supposed to do. They’ll crack open the champagne when inflation begins galloping. And most of America will welcome a dose of it before debts overtake them. Equities look good for the rest of the year. Bonds will suffer. Refinance the home now if you can find someone to give you a loan. Interest rates are going up.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright
Mr. Inge, third baseman of the Detroit Tigers American League baseball club, is my hero of the day, though he scored no runs and did not drive one in. He didn’t bemoan his just-miss luck. He hit a just-foul double off the wall, a just-foul homerun and then placidly stroked what God gave him from hard-luck CC Sabathia -- a fastball that he solved and scooted into the outfield. Check the box score.
OK, later he was caught stealing after being hit by a pitch and then struck out. Yet he started the double play that pulled the plug on the pinstripers in the ninth -- yeoman’s work in the city that is the poster child of crumbling, but still aspirational, America. Life west of the Hudson goes on. The Yankees had 10 hits, for crying out loud, and only two runs with gobs of runners left on base. No need to break ‘em up until A-Rod returns.
Can the Incredibly Shrinking Three match the moxie of the Bengalese cats of northern Michigan?
The UAW will likely own a majority stake in Chrysler according to the plan that has been hammered out among the USA, creditors and private equity owners. GM is finally smelling the coffee and telling bond holders to take equity or get lost and putting Pontiac to its eternal rest (I can still see the jaunty smile of my father when he cranked up the air conditioning of his brand new baby blue Catalina in the 1960s. I think “Help!” had just been released).
Ford stands tallest, like its home town third baseman Mr. Inge, having secured financing before the credit crunch and refusing taxpayer help. It has missed on a few home-run swings but knocked the mud off its cleats and took a single, thank you.
And we have profited as well from buying Ford common stock because the luck of investing is to settle for the infield hit that can spark a big inning when all the world expects a strike-out. Disclaimer: I’ve been a member of all the world many times. But then, it’s no fun unless somebody gets hurt, even if it’s you.
Verlander threw serious heat for the hometown team. Fastballs can be struck by the weakest among us enough times to plate several runs, yet he gave up zero.
Ford bucked the market today as well. It has further to go. Taking gains is forgiven, but its stock price will be higher this time next year. Will the sub-.500 Yankees?
OK, later he was caught stealing after being hit by a pitch and then struck out. Yet he started the double play that pulled the plug on the pinstripers in the ninth -- yeoman’s work in the city that is the poster child of crumbling, but still aspirational, America. Life west of the Hudson goes on. The Yankees had 10 hits, for crying out loud, and only two runs with gobs of runners left on base. No need to break ‘em up until A-Rod returns.
Can the Incredibly Shrinking Three match the moxie of the Bengalese cats of northern Michigan?
The UAW will likely own a majority stake in Chrysler according to the plan that has been hammered out among the USA, creditors and private equity owners. GM is finally smelling the coffee and telling bond holders to take equity or get lost and putting Pontiac to its eternal rest (I can still see the jaunty smile of my father when he cranked up the air conditioning of his brand new baby blue Catalina in the 1960s. I think “Help!” had just been released).
Ford stands tallest, like its home town third baseman Mr. Inge, having secured financing before the credit crunch and refusing taxpayer help. It has missed on a few home-run swings but knocked the mud off its cleats and took a single, thank you.
And we have profited as well from buying Ford common stock because the luck of investing is to settle for the infield hit that can spark a big inning when all the world expects a strike-out. Disclaimer: I’ve been a member of all the world many times. But then, it’s no fun unless somebody gets hurt, even if it’s you.
Verlander threw serious heat for the hometown team. Fastballs can be struck by the weakest among us enough times to plate several runs, yet he gave up zero.
Ford bucked the market today as well. It has further to go. Taking gains is forgiven, but its stock price will be higher this time next year. Will the sub-.500 Yankees?
Miss Piggy
Like Keats listening to the nightingale, “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as though of hemlock I had drunk.” But I am listening to the snorting and oinking of bacon, not the avian cluck of doom in recent years past. The influenza that originated with the porcine staple of subsistence farmers, such as my grandfather, who relented to my mother’s pleas and didn’t slaughter the pig she had raised in the depths of the Depression, has put us in the slop.
Given the panic infecting the markets, I fully expect to see pedestrians with surgical face masks when I venture out for my bacon (make that steak) and eggs this summery, un-flu like morning. But I got a shot back in the Ford administration when the swine flu alarum first sounded. Hope it took.
Miss Market can turn on a dime from seductress to you know what with lipstick. I don’t mean you, Gov. Palin. I look forward to your presidency and admire you for sticking up for everyone challenged by the mess we make of things. Plus you look as good as Obama in a tailored suit.
The day is not over, but I remain cheered. Unlike Keats, whose psyche (to which he wrote another ode) was absorbed with the fleetingness of youth, my gaze is fixed on tomorrow. I remain in the green, thanks to F and SLV. Even the redoubtable PALM refuses to bend. The only virus it fears is the one that could infect its operating system.
The airlines are suffering. NYT is down after Ms. Dowd’s wry farewell address to her profession on Sunday. Oil is dipping, but precious metals could be a refuge.
And Yankees’ fans, your ballyhooed pitching staff is suffering from walking pneumonia. I’m stealing home on them and I’m having a BLT for lunch.
Given the panic infecting the markets, I fully expect to see pedestrians with surgical face masks when I venture out for my bacon (make that steak) and eggs this summery, un-flu like morning. But I got a shot back in the Ford administration when the swine flu alarum first sounded. Hope it took.
Miss Market can turn on a dime from seductress to you know what with lipstick. I don’t mean you, Gov. Palin. I look forward to your presidency and admire you for sticking up for everyone challenged by the mess we make of things. Plus you look as good as Obama in a tailored suit.
The day is not over, but I remain cheered. Unlike Keats, whose psyche (to which he wrote another ode) was absorbed with the fleetingness of youth, my gaze is fixed on tomorrow. I remain in the green, thanks to F and SLV. Even the redoubtable PALM refuses to bend. The only virus it fears is the one that could infect its operating system.
The airlines are suffering. NYT is down after Ms. Dowd’s wry farewell address to her profession on Sunday. Oil is dipping, but precious metals could be a refuge.
And Yankees’ fans, your ballyhooed pitching staff is suffering from walking pneumonia. I’m stealing home on them and I’m having a BLT for lunch.
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