Back from the Beast

New York City seems to be coping quite well ... so far. Of course the bears are talking gloom, but the bar was packed, as were the lunch rooms at the clubs. Even the dining room was quite busy.

Fashions seemed alive, too. I saw fewer men in "undertaker" uniforms, and less black in women's fashions. No 1970s era "earth -mother" fashions were in sight. Fashionable tailored pants or skirts several inches over the knee was the rule. The Apple store on Fifth Avenue was crowded at 3PM on a weekday. The fashion indicator is NOT 'flashing" a depression or even a severe recession.

I'll read more about Timmy's financial regulation reforms, but so far, it's OK. He included regulations for hedge funds and all derivatives - both good. I have some problems with relying on these agencies like the SEC. It's still obviously on the take from the Street, as it continues to approve these fraudulent ETFs designed solely for day trading. But I need to read more and will comment more fully later.

Hmmm ... the index of leading indicators is up again. The Philly Fed - for what that's worth - was OK. I guess that cancels the recent poor Empire State number. Net zero, I'd say.

US News & World Report (online): "The Labor Department reported today that the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits fell for the first time since January, a sign that the economy is slowly recovering. Total unemployment rolls declined by 148,000 to 6.69 million in the first week of June, the largest weekly drop in more than seven years. The decline also breaks a streak of 21 consecutive weeks in which the number of people collecting jobless benefits for more than a week increased."

Sounds like the recession is over and growth is occurring. It's a long way back up, but ... up is up.

I suppose I'll be accused of "data mining". But gold nuggets found when mining are gold and up is up.

The recession ends when growth returns from whatever absolute level. That's the meaning of the terms. A "recession" has to have "recessing" - i. e., declines. Period.

An astute commentor suggested I look at RIMM for a buy. I had deferred for awhile, looking & thinking. I like what I see and plan to buy it for Fido Fund today. From my point of view, the Apple iPhone gets the business of the young and music/entertainment oriented consumer, while RIMM's Blackberry gets the business of the email oriented person. The markets are huge and both can do well. I like the revenue growth and new product innovations. Mrs. B has AAPL in her Sky Fund, so I'll put RIMM in Fido Fund.

Today is triple witching day so volatility could be large. If we get a pullback to the S&P 900 area, I'll probably add to many positions. Otherwise, I'll go over the Obama positions today to see what has had good dips.

Word of the Day

"Geminal" - adjective [$10]
Geminal means 1. of or relating to germs or of the nature of a germ; 2. in the earliest stage of development; 3. productive of new ideas.
Sentence: My language skills in French are rather developed, but for German, Polish, Italian and Spanish, they are much more geminal.

[In the spirit of a multilingual blog, I am switching to a penta-lingual "Word of the Week" for French, German, Polish, Italian and Spanish. I'll try one or two words of each a week and write a sentence using them. For some languages in which I have less skill, the words and sentences will be rather simple for awhile. Important words like drink, beer, wine and similar crucial concepts for humanity will be foundation for awhile.]

Das Worte der Woche

"Trinken" - verb, strong.
Trinken means to drink. The simple past Stem is trank. The past participle is getrunken. One can quickly recognize the common proto-Germanic roots of English and modern German. Compare drink-drank-drunk to trinken-trank-getrunken.
Der Satz: (A) Ich habe drei Biere gestern getrunken. OR (B) Gestern habe ich drei Biere getrunken. OR (C) Ich trank drie Biere gestern. OR (D) Gestern trank ich drei Biere.
Sentence: (A) I drank three beers yesterday. (B) Yesterday I drank three beers. C translates the same as A but uses the simple past tense instead of the conversational past. D translates the same as B, but also uses the simple past tense. German word order is quite sensitive. Putting the adverb, "yesterday" requires significant changes in verb-subject positions in German, versus no changes in English.