Economics

   This Week’s Data

   Other

    More good news on the recovery (graph):
    http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/ecri-great-recession-is-history.html

    And from Europe (short):
    http://econompicdata.blogspot.com/2009/08/european-new-orders-above-forecast.html

    Another look at the problems the US economy faces in its recovery (medium):
    http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0907/opinions-david-malpass-current-events.html

    Barry Ridholtz tears apart Friday’s existing home sales number (long):
    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/08/existing-home-sales-not-as-advertised/

    A depressing outlook for China (long):
    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/08/boom-and-burst-dont-be-fooled-by-false-signs-of-economic-recovery-its-just-the-lull-before-the-storm/

    More bad news on the banks (short):
    http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/08/bove-sees-150-200-more-bank-failures.html

    Roubini now thinks the ‘U’ shaped recovery will be ‘W’ shaped (short):
    http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/08/roubini-concerned-about-double-dip.html
       
Politics

  Domestic

    Anecdotal evidence on the relative effectiveness of the US versus Canadian healthcare systems (short):
    http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/canadians-visit-us-to-get-health-care.html

    “We are God’s partner in matters of life and death” Barak Obama (short):
    http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/A_call_with_the_rabbinate.html

    The New York Times on Obamacare (medium):
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/health/policy/21seniors.html?_r=3&ref=politics

    On a more philosophic plane (short):
    http://cafehayek.com/2009/08/power-corrupts-and-incites-hypocrisy.html

  International War Against Radical Islam

The Market
    
    Technical

    This is scary (chart):
    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/08/chart-of-the-day-sp500-pe-ratio/

    The latest from TraderFeed:
    http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2009/08/indicator-update-for-august-23rd.html

   Fundamental
   
     Thoughts on Investing--Excerpts from ‘The Money Game’.

    When I was a pup in this business, a professional money manager authored a book called “The Money Game’--which was a look at how money gets made in this business.  Not how do you value a security ala Graham and Dodd; but how do make money when thousands of analysts with billions of dollars of computer software and hardware are slicing and dicing companies and stocks using Graham and Dodd and every other system for valuing companies. 

A subscriber recently sent me a copy which I am now re-reading.  In the next series of Thoughts on Investing, I will be serving up excerpts which bear contemplation.  This week’s:

“..if you stop and think about it, here is one authority saying there are no formulas (i.e.  Graham and Dodd) which can be automatically applied.  If you are not automatically applying a mechanical formula, then you are operating in this area of intuition, and if you are going to operate with intuition--or judgment--then it follows that the first thing you have to know is yourself.  You are--face it--a bunch of emotions, prejudices, and twitches, and this all very well as long as you know it. Successful speculators do not necessarily have a complete portrait of themselves, warts and all, in their own minds, but they do have the ability to stop abruptly when their own intuition and what is happening Out There are suddenly out of kilter.  A couple of mistakes crop up, and they say, simply, “This is not my kind of market”. Or “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, do you?” and return to established lines of defense.  A series of market decisions does add up, believe it or not, to a kind of personality portrait.  It is, in one small way, a method of finding out who you are, but it can be very expensive.  That is one of the cryptograms which are my own, and this is the first Irregular Rule: If you don’t now who you are, this is an expensive place to find out.’ “