Goldman Sachs will find it much more difficult to manipulate the markets when trading volume increases in September.
By Daniel at 29 August, 2009, 12:24 pm
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The entire thing has come full circle and now we should see a market correction. Household debt in the United States has far outpaced the growth of real disposable income and “real†household wealth. Even worse, there are millions underemployed, those who use to make $80,000 per year are making $60,000 per year. Do not expect the consumer to spend us out of this recession until debt levels are manageable.
If consumer spending is that catalyst that sparks rally prospects, what makes analysts believe consumers are energized to increase spending?
1) Housing values are still falling.
2) 32% of residential mortgages are underwater with that percentage to climb to 48% in 2011.
3) Unemployment is still rising.
4) Consumers have readily shifted away from borrowing to reducing debt, increasing savings (unwinding huge leveraged positions)
5) Banks have shifted from one end of the lending spectrum to the other, ie lending to the most pristine of borrowers and then under very conservative terms and high rates. Biggest obstacle durables report is hefty required down payments. The days of borrowing on FICO and cash flow are over.
6) Consumers seem more focused on needs vs wants.
a) Could consumers be rethinking immediate gratification?
b) Could the burden of overleverage be deemed too high a price to pay?
c) Could consumers be rethinking housing as shelter and no longer an investment?
7) If this market takes a significant hit (15% correction) what impact will that have on a buy and hold strategy, boomer fears about retirement, etc, perception that stocks are a viable investment for the untrained investor?
ImpendingDoom
Decimal Place Trading caused the recession of 2008
This recession was caused by the manipulation of stock prices on Wall Street through naked short-selling, flash trading, high-frequency trading, secret software, super-fast computers and what I feel was the main cause of this corruption: “Decimal Place Trading.†As I write this article today, much of this corruption is now slowly coming out through social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, along with bloggers on the internet, Yahoo bulletin boards, and the movie Stock Shock. The news media is also to blame for what has taken place in this country — including the near-collapse of Wall Street and the banking industry.
There are many things to point fingers at or place the blame on, and I can think of a few off-hand that I would like to cover — the first being Wall Street’s regulation changes. I am no expert — I am not even a writer — but decided to tell this story since the business news media was not telling it. These Wall Street regulation changes contributed to the aforementioned problems in many ways, with the first being the removal of fractions in stock pricing. On January 29, 2001, the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, went to four-decimal-place trading. On March 12, 2001, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation, or NASDAQ, followed suit. This new rule had the best of intentions as we headed toward the computer and digital world, but over time it was manipulated and companies like Goldman Sachs figured out how to take advantage of the new system. I am not sure how it happened, whether it was lobbied for years or what — but along came the biggest mistake of all with the elimination of the uptick rule in July of 2007. This rule had been implemented after the great depression, and had been in place since 1938. How could the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, abolish a rule that had been in place for close to 70 years, and had worked? Put these two changes together, and you get a simple equation: greed plus corruption equals recession.
Reports have been released on the web that Goldman Sachs made over 100 million dollars per day in 46 out of 64 trading days in Fiscal Year 2009, second quarter (April, May and June). Let me say that again. They made over 100 million dollars per day, and are still doing it as I write this letter today. But the question remains, how did they do it? There has been no report of this by any of the news media. How can this be? This corruption is 100 times the gravity of the Bernie Madoff story, and yet there has been no coverage by CNBC or Bloomberg News. Why? Goldman Sachs, upon Wall Street transitioning to fractions and the abolishment of the uptick rule, designed secret software and used this software to gain an advantage on every potential investor. Basically, Goldman Sachs became a Las Vegas poker dealer in New York City on Wall Street, turning profits on investors every trade with their super-fast computers and software.
Richard Keane August 26th, 2009 Revised version
http://www.twitter.com/stockshockmovie