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19 Nov
Stock Market Bullish On Obama Future
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Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm | 20 views
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With the dow having dropped like a 1000pts in the last few days, anything perceived as good news can just make it jump up 500pts easily, when trading shorts cover back or funds that are too cashed-up get scared and buy stocks. If you look at many of the well-known hedge funds(eg Tudor, etc), they are like 80-90% in cash. It doesn’t mean that the markets are in for a sustained rally, tho that might start from any low point.
We’ll only know a week or so later, if the markets can stay up for at least so many days, be resistant to bad news, react bullish to good news, etc.
It’s still very tough to call the lowest point in your market, we’ll probably only know it from hindsight, but I think with the uncertainty of what Obama will do later on, there is still potential for downside. On the other hand, the markets have dropped so much already, that it’s possible they don’t have that much more to drop unless Obama does something really stupid.
In other words, the markets have always disliked Obama, and acted months BEFORE in selling down because they were betting Obama would win, since he was leading in all the polls for months up to the elections. But I am repeating myself.
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Mike on energy and possible gas tax:
Hi Mike, best wishes to your family and stay safe in these tough times. I don’t think I want my writing put up as an opinion piece, I’m publicity shy and I don’t think that I am writing anything important enough or well enough to merit such an “honor”.
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On what Mike said about energy and energy-related taxes, first of all, I will give a prejudiced opinion because I am long in energy shares for SEAsia personally and also for my clients. Basically, I am betting energy prices will go up from around here.
I’d like to talk on what I think is the background before I start:
I think we all know, higher energy prices don’t always translate into higher profits for energy coys because if they are refiners as well as producers, it is the spread between their raw materials(crude) and refined products that gives their margin.
Generally the margins in asia tend to be higher than the margins in europe and north america. India has the highest margins, as far as I know(as much as US$15 a barrel sometimes). This quarter, maybe we are looking at abt US$5 a barrel in some places here.
I believe ExxonM(XOM) refines almost double what it produces, as you can see, it hasn’t dropped much so far in this savage downtrend in the markets. Thus those people with faith in “Big Oil” so far have lost not much in the markets compared to those who had faith in, let’s say, Fannie and Freddie.
I think Obama has talked about two taxes: A windfall tax on oil companies and a tax on gas consumption.
There are many well-written articles in your financial media(eg: IBD)on why a windfall tax isn’t logical for ExxonM and the other large oil coys. I think the main argument is that XOM’s margin is nothing exceptional, it is lower than many other industries, it is just that their business is very big, that is why profit is large.
The way I see it, when marxists like Obama see a huge clump of $$$ somewhere, be it in ExxonM or industries not supportive of democrats, they will always try to steal it away via taxation and then dole it out to their supporters or cronies. They talk about social justice and helping the poor, but actually the unsaid proposition is to make a whole new class of voters support him and his party because they will be getting other people’s money from him.
This is just base human nature, so we shouldn’t blame Obama for it, but we should realize that this has nothing to do with social justice, but rather with power and control through controlling money. Social justice is just the excuse to justify it. That’s my personal opinion.
The other secondary aspect is that taking away XOM’s money will probably just make prices rise as company passes on the additional cost to consumers. Stop that with price controls, profit vanishes and the industry languishes and production goes down and this creates even more shortage. This is just basic economics and you can see it happen all thru history and even nowadays in different parts of the world right in front of your eyes, but Obama and his gang of marxist buddies don’t subscribe to this…….they are only looking at the money, the power and control and the votes that money can buy, IMHO.
What about R&D and money for investment into greater production to increase supply??? Obviously additional taxation will reduce all this. Taking away money from a proven energy supplier like the oil industry and throwing it on what politicians decide are desirable alternative energy sources(that his buddies have invested in, incidentally), might be driven more by idealogy and special interests rather than reality.
Last time during the Mao era, the central govt tried to direct agriculture, industry and everything else. They did not do a good job and everything messed up and many people died of starvation. I guess you americans are now doing it in a milder form. There can be some govt direction, but it has to be a light touch, and the right touch. I am guessing that Obama doesn’t have it.
A tax on gas consumption will just be an additional burden on businesses and the economy. I don’t think Obama can do it now in the present economic climate, but later who knows?
I guess this is basically an argument against more taxation.
If Obama justifies such a tax on gas consumption by saying it will be used solely to develop alternative energy sources(that are invested in by democrats and their supporters), then the argument will spread out to such issues as whether such alternative energy is viable and whether global warming is really caused by man’s activities.
Thanks sigmundringeck. You have a way of getting right to the heart of the matter of what are very complex financial issues. As I said before: I’m sure we would be proud to post one of your opinion pieces as reader post using your pseudonymn. But I’ll be happy just to read and respond to your comments if you prefer.
A couple of points from your comment above I would like to emphasize:
There is so much uncertaintly with Obama because he has no record of experience that would hint at what he might do and because he ran a campaign that was nearly devoid of specifics. Either that or the specifics changed from one day to the next.
I’m sure that many smart people did see this train wreck coming and had the good sense to get out. However, there are a lot of retirees who are reluctant to make large changes in their retirement portfolios and who now find themselves with very large losses on paper that might not recover for years leaving these people short of what they had planned for their twilight years.
You got that right. Power is #1. Actually doing something to help the approved group of victims is far down the list. Meanwhile, the very free market that has moved millions from the lower class into middle class and above (substantial increases in Americans making above six figures in the past few years) has now become the target.
This ties in with what you said above. The consequence of a marxist power grab which necessitates centralized state control is to diminish the power of the free market to help the greatest number of people to climb to the next rung on the economic ladder. The overall ability of the economy to create new wealth will be curtailed.
I too am guessing Obama doesn’t have the “light touch” necessary to chart a course here without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. There is nothing in his past but associations with radical thinkers whose ideology has been a proven loser every time it is tried.
It reminds me of this tongue in cheek sign from the Protest Warriors:
Mike, you said it right.
Actually I don’t want to sound so preachy because back here we don’t have that much to be proud of.
But at least we have got our economies going and raised our material living standards without needing the american military to come in and regime-change us. And most importantly, we did it by embracing the main elements of capitalism, not marxism.
Back in the late 70s and early 80s, the central govt used the Singapore model of a govt directed economy to boost foreign investment and create a manufacturing base that has now pulled in a lot of investment and money into the mainland and also SEAsia. It worked because the model they used had worked before, in Singapore and SEAsia.
It is my hope that with improved economics, better education and knowledge on the mainland, we will slowly see a change for the better society-wise, with more electoral representation, more human rights and freedom. I believe it is always economics first, then elections and human rights later, if the society is going to change from within.
Already such large societies like Russia and China are no longer the threat to other countries they used to be. That is already a great improvement. Their style now, is if we want to conquer you, instead of using our military, we’ll just wait until your markets crash, then buy up all your assets and companies.
I don’t know about Russia, but China(the mainland) has changed a lot since my parent’s time. Now a lot of the young people speak passable english(as a second language) and educational standards have gone up a lot. And while criticism on domestic policy is still restricted or “guided”, the young people will shoot anything they want to say about the rest of the world, and by this exposure and discussion, I think we will grow as a society.
For the islamic world, it is a different story.
Places like Iran, I think, are still horribly backward in terms of social development. Don’t talk about the 4 wives and women’s rights, when my youngest sister went to Iran as part of some middle-level govt-to-govt project she complained that she was “felt-up” or molested dozens of times by the iranians there.
“You mean the normal people?” I asked her.
“No,” she said, “the bureaucrat types also.”
But she kept her peace so not to cause any diplomatic problems. She told me she now understood it was part of the culture there. I was very surprised, because before this everyone was saying that the iranians are very civilised. My sister has this type of civil service job where part of her duties are to host around foreign VIPs like the BMW CEO, arab princes, etc, bring them to meetings, take care of their hotel and so on. There was even this arab prince who kept on wanting to date her after she hosted him around and when she kept on refusing, he smashed a chair right in front of her.
While silly behavior is not restricted to any one one race or society, and there are many arabs that are polite and considerate, I am beginning to suspect that it is a cultural thing.
sigmundringeck, your posts are quite informative. Obviously you have given a great deal of thought to the world economic situation. I was wondering if you come across any North Americans working in your country for local employers?
Several years ago, four or five, there was a TV piece and several articles about North Americans’ moving to various parts of Asia because the intrusiveness of government in business at home was limiting growth. The stories included young Canadian and American entrepreneurs who felt they would have a better chance of success in Asia.
That is similar to the “brain drain” the English underwent when the Labour Party was in power and nationalized everything causing great unemployment and drove university graduates and new doctors to look elsewhere for their future. The United States and Canada were beneficiaries of that move, and now it appears the pendulum has swung in another direction.
I hope you are right about Russia and China being less of a threat. I tend to see it as just the opposite. China is building a military whose offensive power could destablize Asia and Russia’s desire to threaten their neighbors has been proven recently.
The problem with a weak Obama Administration will be that the more aggressive elements in China, Russia and elsewhere will feel less constrained.
On that I have to disagree.
Of course I may be biased because I am talking from the other side.
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I am not knowledgeable on Russia, but compared to their behavior last time, the russians seem to me to be rather restrained. Last time they would have rolled over Georgia, killed a large number of civilians and hung Sakashvilli by his gonads as Putin reportedly said. And while I’m sure both sides were provoking each other before, a good argument could be made that the Georgians, in sending heavy military into South Ossetia(their argument is that it was pre-emptive) made such a move that would result in some kind of vigorous response by the russian military. To me, it was the height of craziness. What sort of response did he expect???
There’s no way one can compare the more moderate response of russia these days to the way they were last time. Of course they may get worse, I don’t know.
Like McCain said in the debate, when Bush looked in Putin’s eyes, he saw his soul, and felt this guy was not excessively dangerous. But when McCain looked into Putin’s eyes, he saw 3 words: K-G-B. But then again, when McCain looked into Obama’s eyes, he saw a “decent family man that americans need not be frightened of”.
I have to question that judgement because when I looked into Obama’s eyes, I saw 4 words:
M-A-R-X.
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On China building up its military, I have been out of the loop for a long time. It doesn’t need to be said that the chinese are the only race/culture that has been able to fight off the american military in the last century, albeit at a huge cost in lives.
I would say that the chinese want to project greater power outside their borders, but are doing it in a way that isn’t very hostile. First of all, the chinese have lent half a trillion dollars plus to the US and have probably many hundreds of billions of investments in the US and around the world. Going around threatening people with their military seems logically counterproductive to how they have structured their investments. It would be like burning our own wallet.
Even the chinese yuan(CNY) is pegged/linked to the US dollar. Thus the chinese have arranged it so that american monetary policy affects their own economy. It is thus clearly logical that the chinese accept the mostly american-dominated financial global system and mostly would have an interest in its continuity.
Because of these factors, I really can’t see the military being much of a threat except over the taiwan issue, which is mainly used by militaries of both sides to get more money in their budget and to justify their worthiness to society.
The taiwanese don’t have it in them for a military battle against the mainland, and the mainland knows that if it tries anything, if it fails or lotsa soldiers get killed(chinese family–one child allowed only), the backlash will get the generals concerned jailed or executed, at the very least losing their power and privileged positions.
In the meantime we get lots of shouting at each other, many expensive weapons being ordered and everybody is happy.
By the way, I served in the military and hold a low-level officer’s rank as a reservist.
Anyway, maybe what is more interesting to discuss is how Obama’s plans to stimulate your economy with massive spending on various projects and alternative energy are playing out.
On your Fox News, I see he also wants to take off the Bush tax cuts(ie: RAISE taxes at the same time). This seems rather contradictory to me, unless we are looking at it from a marxist angle, then it makes perfect sense.
Create a welfare system under guise of stimulating the domestic economy by building unnecessary things and maniacally promoting unproven alternative energy industries. Then finance it partially by taxing the actual productive part of the economy, those companies that actually make viable products and provide viable services that actually compete and win against the rest of the world.
Under Obama, america will end up wasting money if cannot afford to(since it is all borrowed) like the japanese did in the 90s with their crazy bridges to nowhere, while well-run and viable companies will also be hurt by his taxation regime.
Well, they could say, Obama can see a marxist paradise from the Whitehouse!!!!!
“Like McCain said in the debate, when Bush looked in Putin’s eyes, he saw his soul, and felt this guy was not excessively dangerous. But when McCain looked into Putin’s eyes, he saw 3 words: K-G-B. But then again, when McCain looked into Obama’s eyes, he saw a “decent family man that americans need not be frightened of”. I have to question that judgement because when I looked into Obama’s eyes, I saw 4 words:M-A-R-X.” (Sigmundringeck)
That’s a good observation. I agree with you about Obama: M-A-R-X. I was stunned when McCain said Obama was a decent family man that Americans need not be frightened of. And then we wonder why he lost… lol
McCain wanted to look like the “good guy”, the moderate, the bi-partisan one. These are all losers’ attitudes. Sarah Palin wanted to be Sarah. She said she was coming to the White House to serve people not for the MSM’s favorable opinion of her. That is a winning attitude. We need strong politicians like her.
I also agree with your Chineese opinion, they would not want to ruin their relation with the USA, they have too much to gain from it. The only ones we should fear is the islamist terrorists countries.
P.S.: China is wise. They know that to avoid war, they have to be ready. With their huge Army, nobody feels like attacking them. Israel is alson wise, they did the same thing.
Post-Scriptum: China is wise. They know that to avoid war, they have to be ready. With their huge Army, nobody feels like attacking them. Israel is alson wise, they did the same thing.
Correction: the Yuan isn’t pegged to the US dollar as of now(couple of years ago it was), it is actually managed like the singapore dollar, that is weighted to a basket of currencies. I don’t deal with the Yuan much and usually think in singapore dollars when I am working.
However what I said still is largely valid, because up to 2005, the mainland had linked its domestic monetary policy to that of the US dollar.
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Craig, I must agree with you.
Well, maybe I am biased when I say China is no threat, but I can tell you those chinese that live near to western assets were bit scared after 911. In many SEAsian countries, the local police managed to round up these groups of jihadists, and the group nearest to me got caught because they had sent a video to afghanistan, where it was found by the american military, about wanting to bomb american assets in Singapore. I watched the video, it was something like a holiday video of some city, except that the jihadi guy was talking in a matter-of-fact tone about where to put the bomb to get the best effect to kill those americans, instead of where to eat the best food. They also had grand plans about hijacking airliners and crashing them into the airport.
These guys are really dangerous and need to be all killed and defeated completely.
Again I agree with you on Obama’ economy plan. He want to destroy capitalism and he will. Look what Rupert Murdoch thinks of it:
NEWS Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch says B. Hussein Obama’s economic solution is “crazy.” His tax policies are not at all logical.
His projection to “hand out tax rebates to most Americans and to increase taxes for people earning more than $250,000″ is not on target at all per Glenda Korporaal’s “Barack Obama ‘could worsen crisis’: Rupert Murdoch” per The Australian Business with the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch stated that B. Hussein’s promise to give tax rebates to 95 percent of Americans was “rubbish.”
That’s strong language. But it’s time that reasonable voters get the truth-in-the-face or our Republic will soon be destroyed by the arch deceiver, B. Hussein.
B. Hussein is off the charts on most of his agendas because of the bottom line — he’s not experienced in anything but style and glitz. He’s all showmanship and connections with terrorist ties and the Islamic underground.
As Sarah Palin stated simply, B. Hussein is “dangerous.”
“Americans are exceptionally concerned about their wallets right now. Rightly so. Therefore, on that front, when an expert like Mudoch speaks “crazy” and “rubbish” concerning the mask Muslim who wants to sit in the Oval Office, that warning should be shock enough to knowledgeable Americans.
Murdoch “rejected suggestions that Tuesday’s US election could act as a circuit breaker for the current crisis of confidence in world financial markets.
“‘To some extent it is beyond the power of politicians,’ he said. ‘You are going to find that the politicians are very limited in what they can do: they can make it worse but they can’t stop it.’”
Making it worse is exactly what inexperienced B. Hussein and cadre will do to the Republic. They simply don’t have the know-how. They are jesters. They are shadow boxers. They are superficial to the limit.
The are devilment in the flesh. Not good for the USA.”
Read “Barack Obama ‘could worsen crisis’: Rupert Murdoch” at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24584219-643,00.html
This post got stuck in spam and another one is in moderation… so I hope I am not duplicating these posts.
Sigmundrinkeck, I have to agree with you one more time. Obama’ economy plan will ruin America. He wants to destroy Capitalism. Read what Rupert Murdoch says about him.
BARACK OBAMA COULD WORSEN CRISIS
NEWS Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch says B. Hussein Obama’s economic solution is “crazy.” His tax policies are not at all logical.
His projection to “hand out tax rebates to most Americans and to increase taxes for people earning more than $250,000″ is not on target at all per Glenda Korporaal’s “Barack Obama ‘could worsen crisis’: Rupert Murdoch” per The Australian Business with the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch stated that B. Hussein’s promise to give tax rebates to 95 percent of Americans was “rubbish.”
That’s strong language. But it’s time that reasonable voters get the truth-in-the-face or our Republic will soon be destroyed by the arch deceiver, B. Hussein.
B. Hussein is off the charts on most of his agendas because of the bottom line — he’s not experienced in anything but style and glitz. He’s all showmanship and connections with terrorist ties and the Islamic underground.
As Sarah Palin stated simply, B. Hussein is “dangerous.”
“Americans are exceptionally concerned about their wallets right now. Rightly so. Therefore, on that front, when an expert like Mudoch speaks “crazy” and “rubbish” concerning the mask Muslim who wants to sit in the Oval Office, that warning should be shock enough to knowledgeable Americans.
Murdoch “rejected suggestions that Tuesday’s US election could act as a circuit breaker for the current crisis of confidence in world financial markets.
Making it worse is exactly what inexperienced B. Hussein and cadre will do to the Republic. They simply don’t have the know-how. They are jesters. They are shadow boxers. They are superficial to the limit. The are devilment in the flesh. Not good for the USA.”
Read “Barack Obama ‘could worsen crisis’: Rupert Murdoch” at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24584219-643,00.html
Let’s just say that instead of a threat, China’s massive military buildup is a “concern.”
I’m looking ahead 10 or 20 years to when petroleum resources are scarce and competition for them becomes a life or death struggle. In the 20th Century we saw what happens when the dominant power (in that case Japan) demanded more energy supplies.
I am not saying China has the same imperial ambitions as pre-war Japan, but if the U.S. decides to give up it’s superpower status and let the balance of power in the region slip it would invite conflict.
Altho I am betting that oil will go up in price, I don’t subscribe to the peak oil theory and I think it will not be that difficult to find and extract an increasing supply of oil. I just think that demand, during growth periods, will be more than the supply coming out. I don’t see shortages or countries fighting each other over oil assets.
I am also not very sure about the fossil fuel theory of oil. The abiotic theory seems to be coming back into fashion in some places. If there is any truth to this theory, then basically our oil will never run out.
If it really gets that bad, I still don’t see the large countries fighting each other, even thru proxies. The threat of wider warfare is just too costly, and there are other sources like cheap brazilian ethanol(which is the only viable biofuel) that can be brot in once the politics allow.
However, I’m not a military person either by interest or training, I’ve just gone thru the basics like most other people…..
So if u feel that china is a threat, that’s your opinion and I respect it. I could be wrong myself also. Given the horrible battles the chinese have had against the americans in vietnam and korea, I can well understand it. But I honestly think things have changed.
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Incidentally, today I managed to get a real laugh out of the guys in my trading room, which sometimes is like a tomb when we see the market go down and we are caught the wrong way.
One guy was complaining he had to kill a black cobra in his garden last nite. At that point I was reading about Obama wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts, so I said, “Why kill it??? Why not just call it ‘Obama’ and keep it as a pet???”
That really got everyone laughing…..no PC in a trading room of 200 chinese.
Lightbringer, no I am speaking to the bs involved in the whole argument to blame Obama one way or another. Bush is president and he is responsible for the actions of this government which has been a sleep at the switch on 9/11 and again for the financial crisis. Oh, and it is just like I did not blame Bush for economic problems he had after the Clinton tech bubble burst… but Bush has been president for nearly 8 years, so he owns this.
Blast: Perhaps you would like to go back to the posts at this site where the good economic news from the last few years was chronicled and give us the links to the comments you left praising Bush?
If not, then get ready for some payback.
You Bush haters wrote the rules and we are merely playing it accordingly.
I think we have to place the bulk of the blame for this crash mostly on the democrats.
1)subprime lending started under the CRA(community Reinvestment Act) under Carter. Well meaning, but later it became a political monster. Banks were forced to loan to various communities with poor credit history and poor earnings, as part of political welfare.
2)Subprime mortgages were allowed to be securitized and sold as mortgage-backed securities under Clinton. This allowed unhappy banks to pass the risk of default of the subprime mortages they were forced by democrats to make, onto other parties. Suddenly banks realized they could make mortgages out of the air and sell them away for a nice profit. Find a vagrant on the street, give him a 100% mortage, then securitize it and sell it into the market. Easy money.
3)Fannties and Freddie went wild buying trillions of mortgage-backed securities, creating a huge market for them. Fannie and Freddie are democrat supported and directed institutions, their boards packed with Clinton-era advisors and supporters of the DNC. When others tried to regulate Fannie and Freddie to stop their insane buying of bad mortgage-backed securities, such efforts were blocked in the House by democrats.
4)Fannie and Freddie busted, triggering a knock-on effect on the swaps held by AIG, the other mortgage-backed securities held by investment banks, everybody got burnt.
As Mccain said, My Friends, even from SEAsia we know who is to blame……that’s why we think rather poorly of Obama and his gang of cronies.
This subprime crisis has hardly anything to do with Bush. Fannie and Freddie went wild during the last 2-3 years, and by then dems controlled the House and nobody could stop Fannie and Freddie from imploding because the dems were protecting Fannie and Freddie from efforts to regulate them.
A classic case of political stupidity on the part of your democratic party.
What’s even more sad after I see all these clowns like Barney Frank(this guy really looks weird, like some outraged gay owl), Chris Dodd, etc, who were the very people whose corrupt defense of Fannie and Freddie eventually caused the housing and financial bust, now walk around freely in even greater power, with no accountability at all.
How stupid can Obama voters get????
Even Nouriel Roubini, the guy whose prediction of a subprime housing bust came true after getting his timing wrong by 3 years, says Obama is so intelligent, has great vison and is so capable, and america is so fortunate to have him. It was after reading Roubini in early 2007 that I started to get defensive in the markets, but obviously Roubini isn’t that smart and has been taken in by this cunning liar with a silver tongue(to some gullible people).
I really think you americans are in deep now.