LTNs and MTNs

Even though only five or six people will read this, it's worth mentioning. One never knows. Coincidence is one of the secrets of life so, if just by pure dumb chance, the right person were to stumble across this blog post, we could end up with something worthwhile to do. Be that as it may, I have a buyer ready to purchase LTNs (which MUST be on Euroclear) or MTNs. Of course, I am just the intermediary but you cannot get to the buyer without me. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. 

BWMG stock

REMEMBER, I am NOT a licensed commodities trader or stock seller or certified financial adviser or anything of the sort. ONLY invest if you can afford to lose every penny you put in the stocks you buy, whether they are Microsoft or BWMG. The stock I have been pushing here (BWMG) is available at a very, very low price. It is so low that almost anyone can afford to buy 500,000 shares.  The price (as of 11:30 this morning EST) is holding steady at .0008 per share.  That's a good thing. Depending on which broker you deal with, 500,000 shares will set you back about $420 dollars. If the price were at 2 cents, it might be too risky for most of you since you would be shelling out $10,000 for the same number of shares (500,000) and that is a very long shot for spur-of-the-moment speculation. Most of you can't shell out $10,000 just for the sheer hell of it. HOWEVER, at .0008, BWMG is still too attractive to pass up, even for the very smallest investor. Good luck. 

Recession and cynics

From the New York Times: “Speaking at a conference in New York in December, Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele, said there were no immediate plans to do much with the $154 million it received from the Treasury. “With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.” The report on the TARP concluded that the Treasury’s top priority seemed to be to “stabilize financial markets” by simply giving healthy banks more money and letting them decide how best to use it. The report also said it was not clear how giving billions to banks “advances both the goal of financial stability and the well-being of taxpayers, including homeowners threatened by foreclosure, people losing their jobs, and families unable to pay their credit cards.” For Mr. Hope, the Whitney National Bank chairman, “the main motivation for TARP” was not more loans, but rather to safeguard against the “possibility things could get a lot worse.” He said Whitney would continue making loans “that we would have made with or without TARP.” “We see TARP as an insurance policy,” he said. “That when all this stuff is finally over, no matter how bad it gets, we’re going to be one of the remaining banks.” WHAT UNBELIEVABLE CYNICISM. Isn’t this the same kind of greediness that got us here? Now, thanks to the bailouts, China and the Middle East hold the mortgage on the entire country – first and second lien, as it were. The higher ups don’t care – they will just go live in Europe. 

Saxo Bank

There’s this bank in Denmark called the Saxo Bank. It was founded by two men who only have a high school education. Since they have done very well, they can now afford the best talent in the field so that they really don’t need to know anything other than how to motivate their people (they have 1000 employees) and read the bottom line, where it reads “net income.” They have come out with a ridiculous list of prognostications for 2009. Here it is: 1. There will be an Iranian Revolution, 2. Crude oil will hit $25 a barrel, 3. The S&P 500 will hit 500, 4. Italy will drop the EURO, 5. The Aussie dollar will slump, 6. The U.S. Dollar will outstrip the Euro, 7. China’s GDP will go down to zero, 8. Eastern European currencies will fall, 9. Commodity prices will plunge, 10. The Yen will become a currency peg for other Asian currencies. All of this is way off base, but Saxo Bank (an online broker like Scottrade and Etrade but with a banking license) is putting it out to generate some publicity. I shall refer to this list every month to see how their projections are going. I think the woman at left is Danish but that's really irrelevant.

Don't panic

A few ideas that parallel mine - from people who know a lot more than I do. Enjoy!!

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud: Some call legendary money manager Jeremy Grantham a "superbear." Back in 1998, when stocks were soaring, Grantham made a prediction: Stocks will lose 1.1% a year over the next 10 years. Investors, expecting 20%+ returns a year, took their money out of his fund. He wasn't promising enough compared to his peers. In hindsight, Grantham was exactly right. (It took 10 years and three days to equal his prediction.) Whenever Grantham writes something or grants an interview, I pay attention. He's one of Wall Street's few independent thinkers. I think guys like Grantham are always worth reading. I may not always agree. But I value their opinions because I believe they're not sugarcoating anything. Grantham has been quite vocal lately, in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The Economist, and most tellingly in his quarterly letter to shareholders. In his letter, Grantham explains he's optimistic about stocks: "For an unparalleled 20 years, global equities, especially U.S. equities, have been overpriced. Now, finally, they are cheap and likely to get cheaper. Likely, I believe, to set up a once-in-a-lifetime investing opportunity (or maybe twice in a long career)." Ever humble, Grantham says he suffers from the Value Investor's Curse: "I said as far back as 1999, while suffering from selling too soon, that my next big mistake would be buying too soon." Grantham thinks the economy still has a ways to fall. In a Wall Street Journal interview, he said, "We are in the teeth of the biggest financial crisis since the Depression and the early days of the broadest economic slowdown since 1982."
But Grantham is quite OK with being a bit early buying stocks. He's a long-term investor. Every quarter, Grantham publishes his seven-year forecast for the investment returns on all major asset classes. In this quarter's forecast, Grantham expects high-quality U.S. stocks and stocks in emerging markets to return more than 10% a year over the next seven years, under a good manager. While everyone was bullish a decade ago, independent thinker Jeremy Grantham was practically the lone superbear – to the detriment of his firm. But he was right.
Now, "the crowd" is scared. And Grantham is nearly alone (except for Warren Buffett) in buying stocks. I'll put my money on Grantham and Buffett over the crowd any day. At current prices, stocks could earn you double-digit annual returns over the next seven years if Grantham is right. Here's hoping he is..." END OF STORY

I don't think the market can go any lower, considering it's been hovering around 8500 for two months or so. Just make sure you invest conservatively then take the rest of the day off - go to the beach - but take your cell phone with you.