Ok, April Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization numbers aren’t pretty:
APR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION: -0.7% V -0.3%E; CAPACITY UTILIZATION: 79.7% V 80.1%E
- Prior Industrial Production revised from 0.3% to 0.2%
- Prior Capacity Utilization revised from 80.5% to 80.4%
I wonder about the quality of collateral here, too:
ECB’S MERSCH SAYS BANK IS REVIEWING COLLATERAL QUALITY AND NOTICED DETERIORATION IN QUALITY - CONF COMMENTS
- Lower collateral quality is a high concern
5 Comments
May 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am
What will it take for the bulls to give up the ghost? Bernanke showing up at their door with a tin cup pleading for donations to keep the doors open and the lights on at our financial institutions?
May 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Bennie is already doing that, in essence. Bulls give up only when they have taken a thorough pounding, and that hasn’t happened yet. The desire to evade reality is at an all-time high.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am
REALITY!!!! I have been holding Sept. puts on the XHB for a month now and the home builders share prices continue to inch upward! The only reasonable explanation for this is that they have the contract for building millions of FOR SALE signs.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I know what you mean…….I have to constantly remind myself…..Stocks don’t always do what you want them to do, or what they are “supposed” to do. They do….what they do. Don’t find stocks that should be going higher….find stocks that “are” going higher.
I was very tempted to buy the XHB when it broke it’s longer term downtrend line in late January. I did not do so because I assumed that a housing stock could not possibly go up given the current problems in the housing market. With the housing crisis in full force how could the housing stocks possibly go up?? Instead of trying to rationalize why it should not go up, I wish now I had just bought it when it broke the downtrend line. If I had just bought and held the XHB in late January (when it broke the trend) I would be up anywhere from 10 to 20% in only 4 months!!
One investment guy that I respect said it well… “when a stock that should go down doesn’t go down”…. it is going up.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
And like my tax accountant said to me after doing this years return “Don’t quit your day job.” The smug ******* knows this IS my day job.