Tidbits on a Thrusday

RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, beats estimates for its EPS and revenues and guided earnings and revenues for Q1 up, too. Hmmm ... revenues were up 102% year over year. Uh, that familiar question come to mind.

The ADP and Challenger-Grey jobs numbers were OK, consistent with a mid-cycle slowdown. Today's unemployment claims number will be interesting, too. Anything close to 350,000 is fine. Recent increases were due to the strikes in the auto industry, so we need to pay attention to the details here.

Soros says this is the worst since Great Depression. Sheesh ... is he senile or delusional or just stupid and ignorant ? I know he's a serial America hater. Or maybe he just likes the headlines from the press that he gets from these silly pronouncements that he's made for years. I guess he was on another planet in 1973-5 and 1979-1981. By any objective standard, economic conditions were much worse then than now. What an old fool !

Alitalia might go bankrupt ... uh oh ... I've got business class tickets for Rome for a May vacation for Mrs. B and me. I see Luftansa might take them over. Or Air France. I think I'll be OK as someone will take over those operations and my tickets.

More beefer ping-pong occuring. This AM in Europe, miners are up, fins are down. Yesterday's US markets were mostly beefer ping-pong, too. As I said yesterday in the comments, real buyers show up on dips. So when a move shows buying at higher prices, that's usually beefers trying to get on a momentum trade, even for a few days. We know they are a non-thinking, emotional lot, hence my animal metaphors. Most beefers can't think more than a few days ahead, let alone buy some stocks based on where the prices will be in a year. All they want to do is rip off some gains and collect their fee at the end of the quarter or month.

So don't get "buck fever" and buy on rips up. Wait. Be patient. The beefers will "rotate" soon and sell you some shares at a low price for a long term hold.

Word of the Day

"Epigone" - noun [$10]; also the adjectives, epigonic and epigonous. The "o" is pronounced long, as in "bone".
Epigone means an imitative follower especially an inferior imitation of a creative thinker or artist.
Sentence: Of the 7,000 hedge funds, perhaps 50 managers are truly worth the management fees paid. The remainder are mere epigones. Most hedge funds are provide worthless value for their investors compared to the Krypto Fund style. Their epigonic managers simply sell hope for the rich, and provide good country club chatter on the gold courses.