Good morning, investors and traders! You are reading the Daily Download (”Daily DL”), which includes summaries and links to the day’s selected economic and stock investing news. The Daily DL is maintained by Chain Bridge Investing (“CB”), which is a financial blog at www.chainbridgeinvesting.com. Chain Bridge Investing is constantly improving and adding new financial and investing content to the website. Please let us know if you have any suggestions at the following email address: .

General News & Headlines Summary

News items not covered below are as follows: (1) Corel Corp. announced that it was reducing its work force by nearly 20% or 200 employees ; (2) in 2009, Toyota’s Prius was the leading selling car in Japan; (3) Intel’s new Core chips, which are the first to use tiny parts that average a width of 32 nanometers, demonstrate a clear advantage over AMD’s chips; (4) Boeing’s orders for commercial planes totaled 142 for 2009, a dramatic drop from the 1,413 orders in 2007; and (5) Gas prices for 2010 are already passed the highs of 2009.

Upcoming Economic Data for the Day (all times EST)

8:30 AM Employment Situation

10:00 AM Wholesale Trade

3:00 PM Consumer Credit

Initial Public Offerings (”IPOs”) for the Week of January 4- 8, 2010

Data from the WSJ Market Data Group

For Daily Market Performance Data, Please Visit the Daily Market Sheet

News

Fed Warned on Interest Rates – Financial Times

Summary: Tom Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed, warned that keeping interest rates low for too long may lead to financial excess, economic volatility and even worse unemployment. Furthermore, Hoenig stated that maintaining extremely low interest rates after the tech-bubble crash contributed significantly to the housing and the credit bubbles. Such a statement goes against Ben Bernanke’s argument that low interest rates were not a material contributing factor to these bubbles. There appears to be much debate within the Fed regarding whether to leave interest rates at near zero or to increase them, thus implying that there is no simple clear cut interest rate target.

CB: There is no doubt that the economy is an incredibly complex system, and the current debate between Fed officials regarding the interest rate target levels further supports this fact. It is very hard for Fed officials to understand the full consequences of any monetary decision until it has played out in the actual economy. There are too many variables and unintended consequences associated with each decision. If it was a simple task, then there would be no current debate regarding future deflation or inflation amongst market participants. Nevertheless, CB found it interesting that Hoeniq went out of his way to attack Ben Bernanke’s argument that the Fed had a very small role in the housing and credit bubbles. In the Daily DL for 1-4-10 CB states a case against the Fed for its role in contributing materially to both the housing and credit bubbles.

Chinese Demand Drives Regional Export Recovery – Financial Times

Summary: As China continues its recover, it appears that its aggregate demand is very strong as other Asian countries are significantly increasing their exports to China. For instance, South Korea and Taiwan reported that their exports to China rose 94% and 91.2%, respectively, in the month of December from a year earlier. Meanwhile, Malaysia stated that its exports to China increased 52.9% in November from a year earlier. The rise in exports to China are helping to offset the falling exports to the U.S. and Japan. Consequently, China’s growing consumer demand could be triggering a recovery in the Asian region. However, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia all suffered overall year-over-year drops in exports.

Heavy-Metal ETFs Get All-Clear – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: After receiving regulatory approval on Thursday, the ETFS Physical Platinum Shares (“PPLT”), which will initially be able to own up to 478,000 ounces of platinum, and the ETFS Physical Palladium Shares (“PALL”), which initially will be able to own up to 1.288 millions of palladium, will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange’s Arca platform on Friday. These are the first two exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) for these metals and allows a much wider trading market to access them. Due to the small size of the platinum and palladium markets compared to gold and silver, these ETFs are likely to significantly push the price of these metals higher, which will be good news for investors and producers. Yet, the rising prices of these metals may not favor auto makers. Roughly 60% of the palladium and platinum produced is used in the auto industry as components in catalytic converters. Furthermore, these metals account for a significant percentage of the cost of the automobile.

CB: With auto sales drastically down from their pre-crisis levels, demand for both platinum and palladium is expected to be at reduced levels; however, these two ETFs will help to offset some of that loss in demand. There is the possibility that these funds will be able to grow and hold more of each metal than listed above, which would be very beneficial if the prices of the metals manage to rise and interest in the ETFs increases. Nevertheless, investors have been expecting the emergence of these two funds for some time, thus the price effects on platinum and palladium may not be large and already accounted for in the market. If one is banking on an economic recovery, especially a recovery within the auto sector, it may behoove them to give these some thought. Be warned that in recent months there have been questions regarding the integrity of the holdings for the silver and gold ETFs. The following is a brief commentary from Jim Rogers:

“If you want to buy precious metal, I’d rather buy silver or palladium. Both are very depressed. I continue to be more optimistic about agriculture than some other commodities.”

Related Reading: Platinum, Palladium ETFs to Hit U.S. Market Today – Commodity Online, How New Palladium, Platinum ETFs Will Change Supply and Demand – SeekingAlpha, Johnson Matthey Platinum 2009 Interim Review

Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China – The New York Times

Summary: James Chanos, the investor who foresaw the collaspe of Enron and other popular companies, believes that China’s economy is moving towards a crash. Among his beliefs are: (1) the real estate sector, which is being supported by speculative capital, is much worse than Dubai; (2) the Chinese officials are faking the economy’s figures especially the roughly 8% growth rates; (3) the extreme credit excess that currently exists in China makes it ripe for for a downturn; and (4) the country is producing large quantities of goods that it will be unable to sell. Meanwhile, most economists and governments expect Chinese growth to continue this year with the support of the remainder of the $586 billion government stimulus program from last year. Since foreigners cannot invest in stocks listed inside of China, he is looking at construction- and infrastructure-related companies that sell cement, coal, steal and iron ore. Some investors state that Chanos knows relatively little about China and only began looking into it last summer. Yet, Chanos has a tendency to find excesses and then profit from them.

CB: In December CB covered the interview Chanos did with CNBC on China, definitely worth watching.

S&P: 2009 Worst Year Ever for Dividends; Expects 2010 to Show Steady Improvement

Summary: Of the roughly 7,000 publicly owned companies that report dividend information to Standard & Poor’s (“S&P”), 74 decreased dividends during the fourth quarter, compared to the 288 companies that reduced dividends a year earlier. Meanwhile, during the same period 484 companies increased their dividends, compared to 475 companies a year earlier. S&P believes that the worst is now over for dividends and a full recovery in dividends to 2007 and 2008 levels won’t occur until 2012 to 2013. In 2009, not only did dividend cuts cost investors more than $58 billion, but also investors experienced 36.4% fewer dividend increases than in 2008. 2009 represented the fewest increases and the most decreases since S&P began collecting data in 1955.

Retailers See Holiday Sales Rebound from 2008 – The New York Times

Summary: Although store traffic was light for most of November and December, stores managed to avoid deep discounting by keeping tight control over their inventories and the consumers made the purchases they needed to at the last minute. On the whole, according to Thomson Reuters, the industry saw year-over-year sales increase at stores open at least a year by 2.9%, while nearly 75% of the retailers beat analysts’ estimates. Several retailers such as Macy’s, Nordstrom, Aeropostale, TJX Companies, Ross Stores, American Eagle Outfitters, and the Limited increased earnings estimates. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, the industry posted a 1.8% increase in same store sales from the previous year for the combined months of November and December.

CB: There are several thoughts CB has on this data. First, the only data being revealed publicly in the article are same-store sales, CB would like to see total sales numbers compared year-over-year for the whole industry. That data must be available and may just require some searching through industry statistics. CB wants to see if the numerous closures of small stores across the nation shifted more customers to those stores that survived, thus increasing same-store sales but perhaps not the overall sales levels. Second, treasury documents show unusual increases in unemployment and other stimulus payments in the last part of the year, which could have provided extra money for spending. Third, CB still suspects a lag effect is occurring between the unemployed and their spending habits. The original theory stated a few months back was that the unemployed do not change spending habits immediately and it would take six to 10 months, at minimum to witness significant changes in spending habits. Given the lack of reliable research, admittedly, this is more of a hunch than a research backed theory. Fourth, if gas prices continue to rise, that will eat the consumer’s budget. Fifth, CB just does not believe the consumer has returned and expects retail sales to drop in the first and second quarters. There remains too much uncertainty and if the stock market drops and housing falters , then the wealth effect will begin to kick in again. Furthermore, the consumer still has not been deleveraged and one should not underestimate the power of that effect. Does this mean that CB is not looking at retail stocks? No, there is one, in a niche market, which will be disclosed in the near future that looks to have a good potential upside with limited downside for the next six to eight months.

More Links of Note

Are Earnings Estimates Too High? – PragCap

U.S. Debt Scolds Can’t Be Ignored Much Longer – Bloomberg

Follow the Money — Into a Double-Dip – Barrons

Its Not Our Fault – Peter Schiff

Interest Rate Observations from Morgan Stanley – ZeroHedge

China Reacts to Credit Boom Fears – Telegraph

Geithner’s Dubious AIG Cover Up – NakedCapitalism

Full Stifel Nicolaus Note on Employment and the Grand Illusion

New York Fed Told AIG to Shield Payouts – The Wall Street Journal

China Acts to Rein In Its Economy – The Wall Street Journal

Good morning, investors and traders! You are reading the Daily Download (”Daily DL”), which includes summaries and links to the day’s selected economic and stock investing news. The Daily DL is maintained by Chain Bridge Investing, which is a financial blog at www.chainbridgeinvesting.com. Chain Bridge Investing is constantly improving and adding new financial and investing content to the website. Please let us know if you have any suggestions at the following email address:  .

Today’s news tended to be either (1) very political in nature or (2) shallow in the depth of the topic.  Thus resulting in a  generally uninteresting day regarding market news.  The main news of this morning and yesterday was the decline in housing starts, which raised more data fueled questions regarding the strength of the recovery.   Some of the topics mentioned in the news not covered below are the following: (1) there is speculation that online broker TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. could be making a bid for E-Trade Financial Corp.; (2)  Aetna stated that it will cut more than 1,000 jobs through this year and into the first quarter of 2010; (3) Wells Fargo has agreed to buy back $1.4 billion in auction-rate securities to settle a lawsuit; (4) Campbell Soup has decided to increase its dividend 10% to 27.5 cents per share for the second quarter; (5) the Carrier Corp. has acquired three building management control businesses from i2S Group; (6) Kenneth Griffin, founder of Citadel Investment Corp., is having trouble regaining investors trust and raising money critical to the growth and operations of Citadel; (7) hedge fund manager John Paulson has decided to start a gold themed investment fund that will invest in gold related securities with the goal of outperforming the gold commodity;  (8) companies, in general, are taking advantage of the generous market climate and issuing more debt, which indicates that they believe the debt markets might become weaker in the near future; and (9) the lumber market has surged recently as (a) market participants were expecting continued growth in housing and (b) people that were shorting lumber had to cover their shorts, thus helping to further increase the price.

Upcoming Economic Data for the Day (all times EST)

8:30 AM         Jobless Claims

10:00 AM      Leading Indicators

10:00 AM      Philadelphia Fed Survey

10:30 AM       EIA Natural Gas Report

4:30 AM          Fed Balance Sheet

4:30 AM          Money Supply

Initial Public Offerings (”IPOs”) for the Week of November 16-20, 2009

11-17-09       Fortinet – Network security and IT security (“FTNT”)

11-18-09      HealthPort – Healthcare technology (“HPRT”)

11-19-09      7 Days Group Holdings – Company of hotel chains in China. (“SVN”)

11-19-09      Archipelago Learning – Online eduction company (“ARCL”)

11-19-09      Cloud Peak Energy – coal mining (“CLD”)

11-20-09     Global Defense Technology  Sys. – Engineering service provider (“GTEC”)

Source: WSJ Market Data Group.

For Daily Market Performance Data, Please Visit the Daily Market Sheet

List of Selected Companies with Third-Quarter Earnings for 11-19-09

News

Fear of Double Dip in Housing – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: According to the Commerce Department, new-home starts dropped 10.6% in October from September, while starts of single-family houses dropped 6.8%.  Some analysts believe this drop in housing starts results from uncertainty regarding the extension of the home-buyer tax credit.  Home builders such as Pulte Homes believe that difficulties will continue through 2010.  Separately, nearly 3.4% of U.S. households are 120 days or more overdue on their payments, which is an increase from the 1.5% of last year.  This data indicates that more foreclosures will be occurring in the future, thus increasing the already large supply of homes on the market.  Although the number of homes listed for sale in September was 3.63 million, or nearly 8 months of inventory, some analysts expect another 7 million houses to be foreclosed and added to the market during the next couple years.  Such additional supply would likely keep pressure on home prices.  As a result of the decline in housing data mentioned above, some firms like Macroeconomic Advisers have reduced their GDP estimates for the fourth quarter. Finally, in October approximately 12.4% of American households with mortgages were 30 days or more delinquent or in the foreclosure  process, an increase from 12.3% in September and 8.6% in October 2008.

CB:Other economic news for the Wednesday included the Labor Department reporting that the Consumer Price Index rose .3% , driven primarily by higher fuel and vehicle costs.  When the cost of food and energy were excluded from the Consumer Price Index it rose .2%.

Related Reading: U.S. Home Building Unexpectedly Slumps in October – The New York Times

Hershey, Ferrero Face Obstacles – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: The details behind the potential Hershey and Ferrero offer for Cadbury  are in yesterday’s Daily DL.  The potential offer faces the following headwinds: (1) a number of large hedge funds have taken positions in Cadbury and pushed its price beyond the offer by Kraft Foods, thus indicating the expectation of a bidding war and a higher price per share payout; (2) Hershey would have to issue another £4.7 billion of equity to raise £2.4 billion in debt and maintain its investment-grade rating; (3) Cadbury owners will probably not accept the non-voting Hershey shares, thus forcing the Hershey Trust to create a single share class and cede control rights over Hershey; and (4) it is unknown which company would gain access to Cadbury’s high margin chewing-gum business, which is valued at nearly £5.3 billion

CB: As discussed yesterday, leverage was always going to be an issue in this  potential offer.  Hershey doesn’t have the cash and the operations to support the leverage required by the deal, while maintaining its investment grade rating.  The issue of the large-hedge funds taking positions is important primarily due to the fact that if the next offer is not higher than the share price, then the hedge funds could use their newly acquired shares to urge the board to reject the offer.

Japanese Bank Plans $11.2 Billion Share Sale – The New York Times

Summary: Despite improving earnings, Japan’s largest bank, the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, stated that in order to meet potentially stricter capital regulations, it plans to raise as much as $11.2 billion in a jumbo share sale.  Earlier in the year the company raised $4.5 billion.  Other Japanese banks have been raising money in the markets throughout the year.  While the Japanese banks did not have the large write-downs experienced in the U.S. and Europe, they were exposed to an anemic economy with ultra low interest rates, thus making them less profitable and financially stable than the banks in other countries.

Luxury Stores Trim Inventory and Discounts – The New York Times

Summary: Luxury retail stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus are intentionally keeping inventory levels low to create a scarcity of supply for their goods.  The goal of the strategy is to shift consumer expectations from buying luxury goods at a discount to buying luxury goods at full price.  With low inventory levels and the inability to frequently restock, these stores are forcing consumers to buy the product they want on the spot, instead of risk waiting for it to go on sale when it might no longer be available.  This is one of the reasons the stores are advertising to consumers to do their holiday shopping early this year.  Consequently, these luxury stores are noticing that the total quantity of items sold has decreased compared to last year, but sales look to be increasing due to customers paying full price than last year.

CB: This strategy is an interesting one, but these luxury retailers may simply be shifting their increased sales numbers to October and November, while December suffers.  With the focus on advertising early, these retailers run the risk of depleting supply early, then their competitors  are bound to benefit.  Also, one does not know if consumer sentiment takes a turn for the worst come December.   The retailers have also capped their potential gains by limiting their inventory.  If there is a surge in demand, they will not be able to capture it.  Yet, the strategy is compelling because it keeps prices high, thus when a recovery occurs these stores will not have to worry about increasing prices to where they normally would have been.

Mutual Funds’ ‘Buy’ Streak Hits 35 Consecutive Weeks – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: The following figures are reported weekly by the Investment Company Institute regarding the flow of  money amongst various funds for the week ended November 11 (”this week”):

(1)  Mutual funds witnessed net inflows for the 35th consecutive week, with total inflows estimated at $8.42 billion during this week and $357 billion for the entire streak.

(2)  The stock funds experienced outflows of $1.24 billion this week, compared to outflows of $4.78 billion in the prior week.  However, U.S. stock funds had $2.7 billion of outflows this week, while foreign funds had $1.46 billion of inflows.

(3)  Bond funds had estimated inflows of $8.88 billion this week, an increase from the $7.5 billion inflows from the prior week.

(4)  Hybrid funds, funds that invest in both equity and fixed income, had estimated inflows of $782 million this week, an increase from the $358 million inflows from the prior week.

(5)  Money-market funds saw their assets decrease by $8.01 billion for the week ended Tuesday, for a total of $3.292 trillion in assets.

More Links of Note

Societe Generale tells Clients how to Prepare for ‘Global Collaspse’ – Telegraph

Goldman on the Dollar Carry Trade – ZeroHedge

Forget $100 Oil.  $80 Oil is a Problem – Fortune

SocGen on Gold Mania, and Why Gold is Very, Very Cheap – ZeroHedge

Good morning, investors and traders! You are reading the Daily Download (”Daily DL”), which includes summaries and links to the day’s  selected economic and stock investing news.  The Daily DL is maintained by Chain Bridge Investing, which is a financial blog at www.chainbridgeinvesting.com.  Chain Bridge Investing is constantly improving and adding new financial and investing content to the website.  Please let us know if you have any suggestions.

Upcoming Economic Data for the Day (all times EST)

7:00 AM      MBA Purchase Applications

8:30 AM       Durable Goods Orders

10:00 AM    New Home Sales

10:30 AM    EIA Petroleum Status Report

1:00 PM        5-Yr Note Auction

Initial Public Offerings for the Week of October 26 -30, 2009

10-27-09       Addus HomeCare – Provider of home social and medical services.

10-27-09       Vitamin Shoppe – Health and wellness products.

10-28-09       AEI – Provider of electricity and natural gas.

Source: WSJ Market Data Group.

For Daily Market Performance Data, Please Visit the Daily Market Sheet

News

Consumers’ Malaise Weighs on Shares – The Associated Press

Summary:  On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, which monitors home prices in 20 major-metropolitan markets, reported its third-consecutive gain with a 1% gain in August from July.  However, home prices remain down 11.3% from a year earlier.  Furthermore, economists believe that the expiring home-buyer tax credit, rising unemployment, and potentially rising interest rates could cause recent gains in home prices to be reversed (Related Reading: The Washington Post Article).   Separately, the consumer confidence index posted its second-lowest reading since May as it fell to 47.7 in October, while analysts had expected the index to post a figure of 53.1.  Such a result in consumer confidence may indicate that consumers will not be ready to spend for the holiday season.  Furthermore, the disappointing consumer confidence report may reduce the positive impact of third-quarter earnings for on the stocks of consumer-based companies.  Market participants believe the next few days could be rough in the markets, as investors look for positive information to propel the rally forward.  While profits have been growing at many companies, the revenue line has not.

CB: Yes, while consumer-based companies have been exceeding earning expectations, they have not been growing their revenue – generally speaking.  Companies have flexibility over their reported profits.  This flexibility is displayed every time a company’s profits meet or exceed consensus estimates.  Usually larger companies have greater flexibility due to (1) more cost pools to cut from and (2) more potential accounting manipulations.  Increased profits on declining sales are not a good indicator of the current state of consumer spending.  In fact, depending on the job cuts made to achieve those profits, increased profits may not bode well for consumer spending.  Yet, investors will have to wait and see how consumer confidence and spending play out in the next few months.  Retailers have already indicated that they are expecting to offer large discounts and smaller inventories for the holiday season.  Such actions may indeed help to limit the potential growth in consumer spending.  In regards to housing prices, it is hard to imagine them remaining propped up after the tax-credit goes away and other government support is withdrawn from the market.  Looking at the trend in Weekly Mortgage Applications could reveal if interest rates will continue to increase as they have over the last few weeks, and if mortgage applicants will decrease.  If interest rates increase, then there will likely be less applicants for refinancing, which is usually done to save money, thus potentially placing additional downward pressure on consumer spending.

Related Reading: Home Prices up Slightly for Third Straight Month – The Washington Post, Home Prices Rise, Yet Confidence Fades – The Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Slips on Recovery Fears – Financial Times, U.S. Economy: Consumer Confidence Down on Job  Concern – Bloomberg

Draft Law would Extend Fed Powers – Financial Times

Summary: The following are some of the provisions in the draft law released on Tuesday regarding future regulation of the financial system:

(1)  The creation of a council of regulators charged with the duty of searching for systemic risks.

(2)  If this new council of regulators finds a company where “material financial distress at the company could pose a threat to financial stability or the economy” that company will be considered systemically significant.

(3)  The Fed would be able to enforce liquidity rules, leverage limits, and the creation of a resolution plan for those companies that are systemically significant.

(4)  The Fed can force any systemically significant company to “sell or otherwise transfer assets or off-balance sheet items to unaffiliated firms, to terminate one or more activities, or to impose conditions on the manner in which the identified financial holding company conducts one or more activities.”

(5)  If the company cannot be saved by items three and four, then the government has the right to seize it.  Furthermore, any bank with more than $10 billion of assets can be forced to repay the government for any of the costs to seize its competitor.  As a note, there are currently 120 U.S. banks with more than $10 billion of assets.

CB: As a shareholder CB is not quite sure what it thinks of this law.  These regulations give the government significant power to interfere with a bank’s operations.  As many readers know, CB is all for regulation; however, CB would prefer to see more preventive and passive regulations than these where an unforeseen action by the Fed or a rival bank can negatively impact a bank’s operations and value.  In fact, CB much rather see the Second Glass-Steagall Act reinstated, which would separate investment banks from commercial banks and help reduce systemic risk.

Related Reading: Deal Reached on Bank Crackdown – The Wall Street Journal , Bill Seeks to Shift Rescue Costs to Big Banks – The New York Times

GMAC Asks for Fresh Lifeline – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: Since December 2008, GMAC Financial Services has received $12.5 billion from the government and is now likely to receive between $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion of additional capital in the form of preferred stock.  This capital injection would firm up GMAC’s balance sheet and allow it to continue to provide the majority of wholesale financing for GM dealerships across the country.   Furthermore, to ensure the company’s operational stability the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (the “FDIC”) is guaranteeing $2.9 billion in debt to increase its attractiveness to investors. The government’s willingness to help GMAC reflects its perceived importance in the recovery of the automotive industry.  At present, GMAC has $181 billion in assets and is a primary financier for 15 million borrowers.  In the second quarter, GMAC reported that its new-car loans are down 55% from a year earlier.

CB: CB is sure that CIT stakeholders, who the government has refused to aid, love reading about GMAC being bailed out for the third time.  Such actions may also provide a glimpse into the perceived importance of the automotive industry compared to the small and medium-sized business-loan industry.

Related Reading: Big Lender GMAC Asks for More U.S. Aid – The New York Times

India Starts to Tighten Monetary Policy – Financial Times

Summary: On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India (the “RBI”), amid worries of maintaining price stability, began to tighten its monetary policy by (1) increasing reserve requirements to 25% from 24% and (2) stiffening the requirements for bank loans to property companies.  The RBI projects that the Wholesale Price Index, the inflation gauge for India, will reach 6.5% by the end of March, compared to its earlier estimate of 5%.  Yet, the RBI is hindered by the current Congress’s wish that a loose policy be followed in order to continue support growth over inflation.  The current government is very focused on returning to 9% annual growth, which has resulted in the largest fiscal deficit in 20 years.

Related Reading: U.S. Treasuries Retreat ahead of Sales – Financial Times

Reflation Trade Shifting into Reverse? – Barron’s

Summary: Since summer, the rising tide of liquidity, primarily driven by a virtual zero yield in the dollar-denominated money-markets, has helped to boost prices in stocks, gold, currencies, commodities, and bonds.  The  main question in the air is: do these liquidity tailwinds still exist to keep the markets buoyant?  According to TrimTabs, the recent rally has been supported by institutional investors rebalancing their portfolios and performance chasing.  In support of this claim, the leading 100 institutional investors have increased their equity holdings by $570 billion over the rally’s time period.  TrimTabs believes that these institutional investors do not have much spare money left to further support the rally.

FCC Considers Shifting TV Airwaves to Net – The Wall Street Journal

Summary: At present, the Federal Communications Commission (the “FCC”) is seeking to resolve the issue of there being a lack of available airwaves for future wireless broadband services.  One potential plan is to compensate TV broadcasters for their digital TV airwaves, and then auction those airwaves to wireless companies that intend to augment their wireless Internet services.  Yet, some broadcasters want to keep these airwaves so that digital TV can be viewed on specially equipped wireless phones and other portable gadgets.   On Friday, the Consumer Electronics Association (the “CEA”) reported that if the government were to take back all of the airwaves reserved for TV broadcasters, then the government could receive as much as $62 billion for those airwaves.  However, the CEA reported that the government would likely have to pay $12 billion to purchase the discussed airwaves and another $9 billion to convert all households to subscription services.

More Links of Note

Fed Self-Evaluation: Making Monetary Policy to Model – Naked Capitalism

A Visual History of the Federal Reserve System

A Diary of the Great Depression

Soros: Market at Risk of Downturn – PragCap