Politics caused the global economic crisis. Can politics fix it? Doubtful.

Source [blownmortgage]

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Filed under: Newsletters, Gilead Sciences (GILD), Stocks to Buy

“Long-term, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) is the best life sciences company on the planet,” says biotechnology specialist Michael Shulman in The ChangeWave Biotech Investor.

“Auto sales may plunge, home sales may stay in the tank and retail sales may fall, but disease, old age and human frailty are undeniably ‘forever.’

“While the economy in 2009 is almost certainly going to contract, analysts expect the sale of biologic drugs and other life sciences products to increase 12%-15% — with some winners growing much faster.

“The winners will be rewarded, even in a bear market. In the past year, Gilead has outperformed the Nasdaq by more than 30 percentage points — and it’s doing it as a mature biotech.

Continue reading Gilead (GILD): ‘Best life sciences firm on the planet’

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Via [bloggingstocks]

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Filed under: Housing, Financial Crisis

I’ve always imagined that one of the great joys of belonging to a Socialist group would be not worrying about the well-nigh incomprehensible fluctuations of the stock market. While other people may lose sleep over the screaming highs and soul-crushing lows of the capitalist economies, hard-core socialists just have to worry about plebian things like political purity, the potato harvest, and whether or not the shops currently have razor blades in stock.

With that in mind, I feel somewhat sorry for the Provisional Irish Republican Army. While they rejected the Communist tendencies of the “Official” IRA in the 1960’s, they still self-identified as a “non-Marxist Democratic Socialist” organization. However, when they signed a ceasefire in 1997, they rebelled against this identity and invested their funds in the property market and, subsequently, in high-high-dividend deposit accounts in the U.S. According to some reports, Wall Street’s recent meltdown may have cost the former terrorist group as much as $274 million.

Needless to say, IRA financial advisors are currently “in a state of panic,” as they are watching their funding (and potential political power) evaporate. There is no word yet on whether or not Baader-Meinhof, Shining Path, or Black September were invested in the market!

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Via [bloggingstocks]

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Another guest post from MG who went from Wharton to Wall St. to real estate to Blown Mortgage.

Not all that much seems to have come from the G7+ meeting this past weekend. We somehow expected more than: “The Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood the financial system with dollars, backing up government efforts to restore confidence and helping to drive down money-market rates.

In its statement the Fed said:

“In order to provide broad access to liquidity and funding to financial institutions, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank are jointly announcing further measures to improve liquidity in short-term U.S. dollar funding markets.

To assist in the expansion of these operations, the Federal Open Market Committee has authorized increases in the sizes of its temporary swap facilities with the BoE, the ECB, and the SNB, so that these central banks can provide U.S. dollar funding in quantities sufficient to meet demand.”

And just in the nick of time, we observe, this being options expiration week.

(more…)

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Filed under: Business of sports, Recession

Without a hint of irony, the Associated Press reported that “Trailing by seven runs with seven outs left in their season, the Red Sox pulled off the biggest postseason rally since 1929. Boston staved off elimination in the AL championship series with an 8-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night when J.D. Drew singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth.”

That’s right: in the midst of a market meltdown, the Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in playoff history since 1929, and they did it on October 16th, just 13 days before the anniversary of Black Tuesday. Coincidence? Who knows?

But given that there are a lot of people making predictions about the future of the market — and none of them really know what they’re talking about — I’m proposing a new method. If the Red Sox come back to win the next two games and shock the Tampa Bay Rays out of their first ALCS title, then the comeback is real — and the markets have bottomed.

But if the Red Sox break their fans hearts by losing after such a glorious comeback, then we’ll have to chalk the market’s modest gains of the past week up to a bear rally — sucking in optimists only to destroy still more wealth.

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Via [bloggingstocks]

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