Scared yet? Should you be?
Here’s what I was reading about and thinking about this morning when I wasn’t sleeping off the family reunion we had at my house for the holiday.
Amazon Said to Be Developing Smartphone – I predicted this just this week in my Revolution Investing newsletter. Do you know all you need to know about the Amazon-as-a-Platform concept and what it means for AMZN?
Yes, Virginia, the Real Action in the Libor Scandal Was in the Derivatives – We all are being scammed in so many ways by these darn TBTF banks and I think this LIBOR scandal, because it’s so public and everybody knows what LIBOR is, has the potential to really spiral down on top of these banks.
One chart that best summarizes the debt problem….and no one at the Fed acknowledges it…. AND Debt and Economic Growth – Must-read, thought-provoking commentary. Two very successful investors with very different styles from one another slugging it out about the pending collapse of the Western Culture and our markets as we know them.
And on that note, there were a lot of economic-based headlines on the business pages this morning, so let’s play a new game called: “Does it matter? Yes or No?” I’ll put a Yes or No after each headline and I’ll put a few other comments in there too.
June Employment Report Preview No. 80,000 jobs instead of 120,000 jobs in a country of 300 million people? That’s called statistically meaningless in my book.
Economists React Nope, still meaningless even if all these guys pontificate otherwise.
Jobs Report Revives Fears for Recovery No.
Non-Farm Payrolls Report for June 2012 Still no, although this is the best analysis of today’s jobs event that I’ve read.
Italy Approves $5.6 Billion in Cuts – No. The headline reads fully: “Italy’s government approved €4.5 billion ($5.58 billion) in spending cuts for 2012 aimed at slashing the size of Italy’s bloated public sector and delaying a new tax increase until after the first half of 2013.” Apple’s profits alone for this year? Should be about 10X that number. Just saying.
Portugal Suffers Budget Blow No. How many times have you seen this headline in the last two years? Do you even bother to click on this stuff anymore? I can’t believe anybody in the US still believes that they should be panicking about Portugal after two years of PIIGS panic?
Greece Pledges to Speed Up Overhaul No. Come on.
Spain to Set Deadline for Town Shake-Up No. Ooooh, scary code word, “Shake-Up”. Oooh, scary.
Cyprus Minister Laments Greek Impact No. Cyprus? Isn’t that a tree? I bet the US tree industry is bigger than the Cyprus nation’s GDP.
Live: Europe’s Debt Crisis No. Let it go already. The markets and the economy have sucked since the EU was founded in the late 1990s. The markets and the economy were booming for the 50 years prior to the founding of the EU. Just sayin’.
U.S. Stocks Retreat as Job Data Trail Forecasts – No. Did you sell stocks back in 2002 and in 2008 because the jobs reports were so bad? Did the markets go up a bunch and then the jobs data got better? Do you think maybe you should stop buying and selling because of the macro-economic headlines?
Back in a bit with a list of my positions and a list of trades of the week.