Here’s what I’m reading today and what I’m thinking about each topic…

Here’s what I’m reading today and what I’m thinking about each topic.

Wall Street All-Stars on Netflix – I’m kicking myself for not having gotten short this thing after it cracked last week. The newsflow had turned negative, the stock chart was busted and that stupid letter from the CEO was the kicker. And I’d written about how I’d turned from bull to bear for you guys here yesterday, but didn’t pull any triggers. Darn it.

Early Look: Italy Downgrade Priced In – I’d been mocked when I’d repeatedly mocked the unimportance of the Italy/Greece-contagion fears.  Turns out, as the headline reads, that the markets had indeed already priced in the Italy/Greece-contagion fears.  Indeed, it had more than than priced it in back during those August panics when we’d been buying tech common and calls. Take a look at a chart of the SPY, the DIA or especially the QQQ and you’ll see some very nice rallies.

Like the sign says, speed is just a question of money – Which leads me to this link, a link to my article here on Marketwatch today — I’m trimming and selling after having been a buyer during those panicky August lows.

AT&T Launches Ad Blitz in DC to Push T-Mobile Deal – I don’t believe for a minute that this deal isn’t going to get done. The entire pushback from the DoJ looks like one big charade to me.  I guess AT&T doesn’t want to take any chances though.

U.S. Probes Rating-Cut Trades – The ratings agencies are riddled with a conflict-of-interest business model in which they’re paid by the banks to rate the junk the banks create.  The ratings agencies have no credibility among anyone with a brain cell but because they’ve gotten stamped by the government as credible, they reap billions in fees.  And it sure looks like a lot of really rich people made a lot of really big money with the inside information that this ratings agency was going to cut the US debt.  People want to break McGraw-Hill up. I say just shut S&P down already.