Review of Barron's, Dated 12 March

This review comes late because of the nature of my weekend.

MISSING is news or commentary on Molycorp's buying of Neo Materials, a rather important piece of news. Perhaps the news came in after deadline...

The Cover Story is about new services and apps (spurred by the runaway success of Apple's iPad) from the online brokers.  I do not buy and sell stocks that way, and so I did not bother reading the story.

Alan Abelson notes that none of the four running for the "R Team" nomination have done anything to influence stocks, or really anything else either.  He then goes on to write that while the markets were apparently relieved over the weird deal with Greece (and the ISDA calling Greece's push-down re their debts a "Credit Event") that a couple of more "names" (or "investment pros" if you will) have come out bearish.  He then writes that others are encouraged by the rather good February jobs report, but others (including Dave Rosenberg, who's views are often highlighted there at Zero Hedge).

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Michael Santoli writes that teh Feb. jobs report is a plus for Obama.

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Randall W. Forsyth writes an article ("The Worst of Times to Buy Stocks?").  He refers to John P. Hussman who points out several indicators (including a lot of bullishness among investors) that might mean a nasty tumble.  He also writes of Walter J. Zimmerman, Jr. who also believes (from a technical analysis standpoint) that the market might be about to be in a "perfect storm."  Also discussed are high gas prices (again), problems in Europe (again) and tax hikes looming...

Good article.

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In three separate articles, Ann Taylor (ticker: ANN), Harman International (HAR) and Motorola Solutions (MSI, the radio related business in the Motorola split up) all get bullish reviews.

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Gene Epstein ("Economic Beat") writes more about the numbers going up, but at a weak pace.

*****  Sidebar


Your congenial host / editor would like to chime in here.  For WEEKS (months?  years?) I have been hearing positive, but oh so muted news about the recovery.  Yet, much of what I read conflicts with all the happy talk...  My personal hunch is that all of the happy talk is mostly BS (as I also hear negative stuff from people I know), but I really do not KNOW.


Resume regular programming...


*****  End Sidebar


The Cover Story has extensive tables on this online broker vs. that.  Bottom line, it depends on what services you want and what is important to you re choosing an online broker.

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Canny political observer Jim McTague ("D. C. Current") writes that Mitt Romney has it all wrapped up.  Unless something happens anyway, which appears unlikely.

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"Technology Week" author Tiernen Ray writes of a new technology ("long term evolution" aka LTE) that will speed up wireless connections.  LTE is built right in to the new iPad (of course).  Verizon is leading the roll-out, LTE will become something like a "4G" service.  But, it may be expensive to start downloading all those movies...

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Mark Veverka ("Plugged In") writes up the "new iPad" (not the iPad 3).  It apparently is a nioce step un in technology, faster this and that, higher resolution, etc.  But, it also retains its impressive 10 hour battery life.

On the same page is the "Our Gadget of the Week" which is the toaster-sized Drobo FS, a 10 terabyte backup device based on "RAID" technology.  You can pull out one of the hard drives and put some hollow-points  through it and not lose your data...  And it's supposed to be easy to use.  You can increase the storage capacity to 20 terabytes if you need to.

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Brendan Conway ("ETF Focus") writes that a new ETF on DIAMONDS might soon be coming. The thing that interested ME that Conway did not mention is the HUGE SPREADS in the retail diamond business.  Let's say you buy today a 1 carat diamond (for $10,000 for example), oh, but then tomorrow you need to sell it: you will only get about 1/3 of the retail sales price!  I know this because it was explained to us in our "diamond district" in the city near where we live. This ETF would be a way to invest ("paper diamonds!") that would avoid the outrageous spreads in real diamonds.

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CEO Spotlight this week is about Peter Loesscher, the head of Germany's industrial giant Siemens.

Siemens was apparently a mess whne he took over in 2007 (bribery scandal among other problems).  The serious minded Loescher has fixed Siemens back up by taking out layers of management and more accountability.  He had an interesting comment about the developing world markets beyond the BRICs mentioning second-tier countries like Vietnam, Mexico, Peru (I'm telling ya guys, Peru is an up and coming place!), Colombia, South AFricxa and Nigeria.

Worth a read!

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"Other Voices" author this week Alex J. Pollock offers up the idea of taking a 17% haircut in Social Security benefits.  Everyone knows that the math does not add up for Social Security to keep its promises...  Why not offer 83 cents on the dollar (now I presume) rather take your chances on what changes will happen?

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Editor Thomas Donlan suggests that the Greece fix is not.  Also, that Apple has created jobs HERE in the USA (writers of apps, for example) as well as the more notorious jobs farmed out to make iStuff in China.

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In the Market Week section Jonathan  Buck ("European Trader") writes that the ISDA ruling Greek debt a "credit event" will not shake the markets, as it was expected.

It sure did not affect them on Friday...  Nothing cratered.  And last I saw (9:00 PM ET or so) Asian stocks were up and gold down.

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"Current Yield" author Michael Aneiro writes that junk bonds may be at or near their highs, having moved up nicely since investors started piling in in December.

High yield junks bonds for me?  No, thanks.

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Matt Day at "Commodities Corner" writes that steel prices have been going down, in large part due to lower construction demand.  He thinks that steel prices may bottom and go up soon.

[ed. complaint: when steel prices were going up, our suppliers raised bearing prices, since steel prices have evidently been coming down, how come we did not get better prices on steel bearings?]

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The Classifieds this week had items of interest.  Two Caribbean properties are up for auction.  An Alaskan gold mine is for sale.  Chabazite (for radioactive cesium adsorption) is on sale, 25,000,000 lbs (info@zeosorb.com).

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Typically I do not comment on Short Interest (number of shares being short-sold by speculators) nor the 144 Filings (something that insiders should do before selling their companies stock).  In the 144 Filings, the largest $ volume I typically see in any given week would be some $20 million, and a few more from $10 - $20 million range.  This week I see that four American Express (AXP) insiders, including Ken Chenault (written up in CEO Spotlight not long ago) are unloading some $67 million in AXP shares...


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Is the Fed trying to irk me deliberately?  Somehow the Fed reduced its "Total"  by a bit over $43 billion, taking that Total even further than the psychologically important threshold of $3 trillion...  The Total now stands at $2.925 trillion, so we are $75 bn away.

Today's only other money matter is the continued observation of the Mighty Peruvian Sol, which is UP yet again vs. the US$, up about 0.3%.  That means my haircut in Peru (while there, I always get a haircut, you'll see why in just a sec) which would was about $4.25 last time I was there will now be about $4.50!  Ouch!