The mother of all typos August 1, 2008
Posted by Shane in Uncategorized.Tags: investing
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Hey kids, just so ya know…
If you have a Charles Schwab account and you make a typo putting in a buy order for something – let’s say for a quarter million dollars or approximately 2,400% more than anything you’ve ever bought before – and its within yourself to somehow click past the confirmation screen…Schwab will go ahead and let you hang yourself if that stock should happen to decline before you notice there’s a problem.
In related news, E-Trade is giving away Blackberries to new (and existing?) customers.
Dunkin’ Donuts is smart July 26, 2008
Posted by Shane in Uncategorized.Tags: investing, nutrition
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The good folks at Dunkin’ Donuts know their current events. Following Mississippi’s 3-year reign as the nation’s fattest state, Dunkin’ Donuts is tackling our slow economy head-on by setting up 34 new stores around the state.
Can we declare war on OPEC? June 30, 2008
Posted by Shane in Uncategorized.Tags: investing, oil
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Headline: “OPEC Leader Khelil Says Dollar Will Drive Oil to $170“
Excerpt:
June 28 (Bloomberg) — OPEC President Chakib Khelil predicted that the price of oil will climb to $170 a barrel before the end of the year, citing the dollar’s decline and political conflicts.
“Oil prices are expected to reach $170 as demand for fuel is growing in the U.S. during the summer period and the dollar continues to weaken against the euro,” Khelil said today in a telephone interview. The leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also serves as Algeria’s oil minister.
Mr Khelil, the $170 is only believable in as much as punks like you keep hyping up markets with mis-information. Let’s examine this falling dollar you drone about.
The Euro in US dollars, last 12 months
Get out your calculators, kids. You’ll see that in the last 12 months, the dollar is down 13.5% against the Euro.
All else being equal (which it isn’t, thanks to your kind Mr Khelil) oil would be up 13.5% in the same period. Let’s see how oil made out.
My math tells me that in the last 12 months oil is up 115% . How can a more than doubling in oil be justified by a 13.5% devaluing of the US dollar? It can’t.
Search the news for oil demand and you’ll see that demand in the US is deteriorating. Sure there are soundbites out there about inventories declining, but inventories are only declining in response to reduced demand. Several Middle Eastern countries have even stated their production exceeds demand.
The only thing in here short supply is the supply of oil futures contracts. The investment money available exceeds the volume needed to facilitate commodities markets. We need to remove mutual funds, pensions funds, investment banks, hedge funds, etc commodities. We also need to dramatically reduce or eliminate margin trading in commodity markets.
$2 gas within 30 days June 25, 2008
Posted by Shane in Uncategorized.Tags: big oil, investing
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Oil for $60/barrel and $2 gas is the prediction from some analysis should congress pass a bill banning or placing strong limits on speculative commodity trading. I believe them. The only camp I see claiming that oil prices aren’t driven by speculation or those with interests in oil or high trading volume on commodity markets.
One needs only to look at the fact that oil skyrockets every time an investment bank (with oil commodity interests) predicts a large increase in the price of oil. The biggest one-day rise in the price of oil came when an investment bank recently predicted $150 oil by July 4th.
Finally, those that claim there’s no speculation problem present no downside to placing limitations on oil speculation. So let’s try it, OK?
