Blogs well written - Minds as sharp as a pen

There are some intelligent blogs outside. I like the nakedcapitalism.com blog. And I like Tyler Durden or even better Cassandra. These are highly skilled people or groups of people producing so much interesting high quality information not available say one year ago.
This one is from Cassandra:

So hearing Mobius, Cohen, and other pundits speak of bull-markets and greenshoots is predictable. But I reckon that Mssrs Schilling,and Roubini, will in time - once again - more likely be correct insofar as I believe continued recession and mild deflation will predominate longer than optimists (and inflationists)- and in particularly longs, can bear once the shorts have sufficiently covered and the intermediate term optimism rolls over with the continued bleak news flow. Then, the trend-followers will mechanically bail, and reverse positions, prescient programmes and specs, too, will re-establish their shorts, until finally the squeezed-in will, once again get squeezed-out, and those amongst us with weak constitutions will be forced to hide the pills and sharp objects to avoid .... tragedy.

But also this one from Adam (Option Armageddon) where he quotes David Rosenberg, chief economist of Merrill Lynch:

You know it’s a low quality rally when the top 50 most heavily shorted stocks are the ones that outperform the most – up 28% in April, an 1,860 basis point spread over the broad equity market.

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Best places I know...

Brussels is boring, states an OECD report.
Well, maybe. Though you can wine and dine as nowhere else and taste more beers than you can dream about.
Even the same OECD report states that the best dining city is Paris – it’s clear that these officials don’t have to pay the bill themselves...
But more about the French in this report:

The French spend more time sleeping than anyone else in OECD countries. They also devote more time to eating than anyone else and nearly double that of Americans, Canadians or Mexicans. The Japanese sleep nearly an hour less every night than the French and also spend longer at work and commuting than they do indulging in leisure activities.

I happen to know some French people in Dublin.
Nice folks and so very … French.
Always in for a good night at Lillie’s Bordello.

Et maintenant, des nouvelles concernant la région bordelaise et le récolte de 2008.
It’s the Live-ex index of fine wine prices which is tracking the price of French finest. Take a look to the price of a crate of 2008 Lafite.

Now this is called a parabolic price rise.

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Bankers...

From 2006 through 2008, the 10 largest financial companies in the US awarded their chief executives a cumulative total of more than 560 million USD in cash, stock and options.

We lean back for some seconds, close our eyes and reflect on this.

Those firms – some of which are no longer among the 10 biggest – have lost a total of nearly 1 trln USD in market value since the end of 2006.

We lean back again.
The guy who published this in the WSJ then makes a personal remark:

…something is dangerously wrong with a system that showers riches upon good and bad leaders alike.

Are bankers on in the US or in Europe so much different? Yes, in terms of the amounts they are rewarded. No, in terms of earning much more than John Doe for no reason. These people are not more intelligent or more capable neither do they work much harder or are they more creative or innovative. On the contrary, they have to rely heavily on other people to know and/or recognize what’s going on in their own bank. Most of the time they don’t have a clue what their alchemists in the dealing room are brewing.

And when it start to storm they are not capable to guide their company for more than five minutes.

For starters: look to the Irish bankers…

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Mortgage rates in the US are going higher. They are up to 5.20% from 4.70%. Will this hurt the refinancings? Or even more: the entire home industry?
Difficult to say.
Only thing: all rates are climbing.
Why didn’t Bernanke address this last week during the FOMC meeting?
Or is het confident that rates will come down again?
The 10-year US benchmark yield rose Friday to its highest point of 2009.

Is this a sign that inflation is already coming?
Is this the V-shaped recovery?

Or just sector rotation
Elsewhere we see the DBA has taken off since the last FED meeting. This ETF is wheat, soybeans, corn and sugar.

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An odd couple

What’s this?
It’s a very odd relationship.
What could be the relation between the ratio of long term yields versus short term yields and between gold and silver?
On a monthly basis - and maybe this is a complete coincidence – we observe that as the yield curve is inverse, silver is rising more quickly in price than gold. And vice-versa.

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