General Market News

From a technical perspective could the market be following the path of past sentiment cycles? This post details technical and fundamental data that attempts to detail where the market is relative to past cycles.

The current economic recession is expected to have a major impact on the way that Americans live for at least a generation. A fundamental shift appears to be underway with individuals seeking to reduce leverage and consume less. 70% of our economy is based upon consumption. For as long as I can remember we have always spent freely and saved very little.

About one month ago, readers of Gurufocus.com were given the opportunity to ask Joel Greenblatt anything that was on their minds. A total of 60 questions were asked, most of them related to the Magic Formula.The questions ranged from post graduate work, favorite investment books, to any book deals in the feature.

In the wake of Michael Jackson's death, brand expert John Tantillo comments on how the strong emotional reactions to the artist's death are a testament to the incredible strength of his personal brand: "You know a brand is strong when people would rather that none of the scandal had ever happened to it."

Could it be the U.S. House of Representatives is getting closer to proposing taxes on stock trades? This post contains a screen shot from my Sitemeter account detailing a search earlier today. The search phrase was "taxing stock trades." The search landed on one of my earlier articles, Congress Proposing Transaction Tax On Stock Trades, written in early March.

The end of quarter “window dressing” party is likely to disband over the next few days. If sellers do arrive, as we expect, be sure you respect your stops. Our best guess is that after posting one of the best quarters ever, July will be a down month due to funds taking profits.

This week we discuss the economic forecasting ability of the World Bank over the last decade, which, despite access to mountains of grassroots data, under-estimates growth in good times, over-estimates it during crises, sometimes misses crucial turning points and only occasionally gets things right.

This morning, Exobox Technologies announced that its highly anticipated SaaS (Software-As-A-Service) data leak detection software product, ExoDetect, is now commercially available. Although many organizations heavily invest to protect their enterprise, significant data leakage still occurs at an estimated cost of $1 million per incident.

LIGATT Security International announced today the intent to purchase Cyber Defense Systems, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: CYDM), a company whose focal point is international homeland defense. This purchase will aid in the distribution of computer security and cyber crime products and services.

Reading the victim's testimonies makes my jaw drop. Yes of course Madoff deserves what he got and yes of course there really are no words to capture the degree of despicableness. But, there is another critically important question seemingly being completely overlooked.

The Dark Side of investing beckons like a Siren's song, luring the majority of professional advisors away from the safety and simplicity of The QDI. Institutional propaganda, projections, predictions, and hype have the same affect on unsuspecting boatloads of speculators who most often become shipwrecked on the derivative rocks.

2009 World Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch and CapGemini finds that the number of millionaires declined drastically in 2008 and is now below the 2005 levels. Sputtering economy has a great role to play in the declines. It also funds that the locus of wealth is slowly shifting away from North America and Europe towards more emerging economies.

A Reuters article on Saturday highlighted a pair of failures in U.S. “wars”. One of those failures was its abysmal folly in dealing with the Afghan poppy/heroin trade. For years, Afghan drug lords have been using the U.S. Army as a tool to eliminate competitors. They give the U.S. a “tip” about a poppy-producer who is not part of their own cartel, then let the U.S.

Regardless which type of derivatives you speak about credit derivatives,financial derivatives,futures derivatives or options derivatives these weapons of mass destruction are STILL OUT OF CONTROL. For all of those that say green shoots are growing, they to forget that unemployment has been increasing as well as foreclosures are increasing.

I look back at the week that was, poke a big stick at the joke that is Congress, have some good-natured fun at Bernie's expense, and glance over earnings results for the week.

Also a discussion of the newly-passed Energy bill and its short-term consequences

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