The Recovery? Or The Latest Bubble?

Dear Readers,

When almost everyone is sure about the state of economy world over getting better and many waiting for the good old days of 'sky is the limit' culture, there are signs of worry again.

First of all I must clear it once again that all these fundamental details are not for short to medium term traders as markets are NOT driven by news or events. This post is only a way to express my feelings and thoughts on the way things are shaping in broader economic scene.

October, 2008 was the month when we witnessed bears taking control of almost everything from stocks to commodities to BDI. BDI (Baltic Dry Index) which is a meassure of shipping costs for dry bulk commodities plunged more than 90% then. BDI is a barometer of how well goods are moving around world signalling demand (or lack thereof) for commodities.
Please look at the following log chart of BDI from investmenttools.com :

Please note that the RED trend line is my drawing. When this line broke down in October 2008, it was necessary to have a retest of this line. So we got this recent rally till June 2009. The catalyst required for this up move was not real recovery but the Chinese madness! Yes, the Chinese went on a buying binge courtesy that $587 billion stimulous package. They started importing commodities like there will be no tomorrow and that too despite having their factories being shut down as exports kept falling! This is one great example of how central banks and govt intervention creates non-sense in markets. There was no other use of that forced money and speculators had no choice but to push that money into commodities.

Remember last year's drama of oil going to $147 ? If you recall I had posted about "Oil Vessels just lying idle in high seas paying as high as USD 175,000 per day as charges". We all know what happened after that. When madness reaches its peak we witness some of the funniest things. History reapeats itself? it may not but may do enough to make you feel nostalgic! and this time its yet another nostalgia.

The index plunged once again by as much as 35% so far from June highs indicating the madness may soon be over. The recovery? my foot.

The Story of Bailouts and Stimulus Plans ! Hilarious

Dear Readers,

Today I visited my friend Jules' blog and I kept laughing out loud for almost half an hour :) Well, this is not only funny, this is actually the fact behind the so called bailouts and stimulus and what you have.

Let me put it right here exactly how it is and share with you: (all orange is exactly copied from the site mentioned and black is what I typed)

Stimulus plans

In a small town in the United States, the place looks almost totally deserted. It is a tough time, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the town's only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter as a deposit and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill to the hotel proprietor for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment the tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms and takes back his 100 dollar bill, saying that he did not like any of the rooms and leaves town.

No one earned anything.......... however the whole town is now without debt and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government and the State of California are doing business today.

Got the idea? how the Keynesians are trying to CHANGE things???

THINK THINK THINK
What pleases you may not be the elixir, it may be poison in disguise...
Obama may not be real Balm for this headache...
enjoy your weekend and sunday...