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Afternoon roundup

Markets are down today as the economic uncertainty is increasing. Personal spending is slowing, inflation is increasing its pace, car sales are softening, and the manufacturing sector is weakening. I guess the Fed faces a dilemma regarding the federal fund rates. The off for rate increase climb to 50% from 35% yesterday. For more discussion, see Financial Rounds, and Abnormal Returns.

Toyota passes Ford to rank as the second largest auto retailer in the U.S. for the first time. Both GM and Ford posted sales declines above 20%. Toyota sold 241,826 vehicles in the month, a 12 % increase, leading Asian automakers to a record share of the domestic market. Ford dropped 34 % and General Motors fell 23 %. Energy efficiency obviously pays.

SEC’s Cox plans to look further into protecting Baby Boomer assets, which is a good idea considering the assets Baby Boomers have amassed during the last 50 to 60 years.

In his first speech since becoming Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson voiced support for a strong dollar and said America “must welcome competition, not run away from it” if the country wants to maintain a competitive advantage. He also argued for the overhaul of the social security system and warned for the foreign energy dependence. He  seems to follow the general GOP dogma.
In the political arena, Charlie Cook sees November rout and Al Sharpton blasts Lieberman.

Sadly, the Swiftboaters have set sights on Murtha. Clearly, truth has nothing to do in politics any more and there are many who have sold their integrity to the lowest bidder for scraps. At least Dr. Faustus sold his for eternal life and not a few cheap and meaningless political points.

Integrity seems to be ebbing all around in PA. Republicans have financed a Green Party candidate’s entrance into the Senate race, hoping to syphon off voters from Casey. Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli, making his first bid for statewide elective office, acknowledged Monday that Republican contributors probably supplied most of the $100,000 that he said he spent gathering signatures to qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot. Santorum must be very, very and very afraid.  He is running one of the weakest Senate campaigns in this cycle.

Nothing more about Joementum this afternoon, but I can tell you that there will be more news about him.

The 5 minute news cycle

Wonkette is at it again.  In two posts, it makes fun of Fidel and Cathrine Harris.  Read the story and enjoy.

Just a few hints and ideas

Anybody who has ever looked for work knows that interviewing is a rather intimidating experience.  We think what we do is right, but according to WSJ we do not.  Here is the advice.

Change is painful.  Thus, lifehack.org makes suggestions to lazy (and not so lazy) people on self help and personal development.  Their advice includes

• Relax
• Take regular physical exercise
• Eat a balanced diet.
• Sleep well
• Socialize
• Keep a journal
• Help other people
• Keep close to nature
• Develop a spiritual life
• Laugh
• Watch less T.V.
• Listen
• De-clutter your life
• Get organized
• Think for yourself

For additional advice, see. 

Also, according to the US Surgeon General 1 in 5 in the US is mentally ill.  The surveys estimate that during a 1-year period, 22 to 23 percent of the U.S. adult population—or 44 million people—have diagnosable mental disorders, according to reliable, established criteria. In general, 19 percent of the adult U.S. population have a mental disorder alone (in 1 year); 3 percent have both mental and addictive disorders; and 6 percent have addictive disorders alone. Consequently, about 28 to 30 percent of the population have either a mental or addictive disorder. That’s only 90 million people.

I have just started using ZuluPad a notebook cum wiki.  So far, it has bveen quite useful to keep research notes and ideas.  More about the trial as the world turns.

Tuesday news roundup

It is unbelievably hot here in Central PA and the temperature is expected to hit 100F.

• WSJ and BBC both report that Fidel Castro undergoes surgery. Castro is 79 years old and transfers power to his 75 year old younger brother, Raul. This is not surprising, he has been in bad health lately. The question now becomes, when can I smoke a Cuban legally. I am willing to take bets.
• Jomentum is cool. Both the Daily Kos and Wonkette sacrifice serious binary resources into the analysis of Joementum, or rather the lack of it. If the Colbert Report is discussing Joementum, clearly there is something to talk about. BTW, Mitt Romney is out. No link’s necessary …
• CNN is taking on www.youtube.com and allows now users to post content. The White House is updating its pressroom, which originally was built atop a filled in swimming pool. These new changes will help the pressroom to communicate more drama.
• Smut stinks. Howard Stern is not working out for Sirius. It posts wider loss, but the subscriber base is increasing. According to Sirius it added 600,460 subscribers; it has 4.7 million at the end of the quarter. The company expects to have 6.3
  million subscribers by the end of 2006. Previously it expected 6.2 million. Last week, XM posted a wider loss for Q2 and cut their subscriber estimate. XM, which has seven million subscribers, expects to end the year with between 7.7 million and 8.2 million.
• Cingular and Verizon start charging their customers with old phones a monthly service fee.

Market news

• The appeal of ETFs is shifting to Main Street. This is a positive and very interesting development, which in the long run changes the structure of both the mutual fund and the private financial advisor industries.
• The question of maturity is always relative. New web-start ups lure executives away from eBay and Yahoo. Only 7 years ago, staid old economy companies – GE, IBM, CA – lured lost people to the upstarts. Does this new development mean that eBay and Yahoo are both old economy companies now?
• And the Beirut stock market reopened for trade today. One of Beirut’s main indexes, the BLOM, closed 4.1% lower at 1,230.22.

Blogosphere

• Political Calculations discusses Greg Mankiw’s perspective on the Federal Funds Rate. Mankiw’s method is attractive in that it incorporates two of the economic factors that the Fed is chartered to influence through monetary policy: the rate of inflation (measured as 12-month change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban consumers, less food and energy) and the rate of unemployment.
• Voluntary exchange discussess the economics of World War I.  A book edited by Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison for specialists and folks interested in history discussess the economic factors behind the war.  The reviews are interesting here and here.

Education

• SmartEconomist talks with Stanford GSB professor Paul Oyer about management education and corporate executives. Also, an excellent review on MBAs and Investment Banking Education.

The retirement boom

In today’s WSJ report on a report by the GAO. According to the GAO, when baby-boomers retire and sell their assets, a sharp and sudden decline in financial-asset prices is unlikely. “The bottom line is a market meltdown is unlikely,” said Barbara Bovbjerg, director for education, work force and income security at the GAO. “Assets are fairly concentrated among the very high earners.”  For the interested, the US Census Wealth Distribution data is fascinating reading.  The latest data is from 2000 when there were twice as many households with zero or negative net worth than households with a net worth exceeding $500,000.  A helpful report explains.

• Link to the WSJ article (subscription required).
• Link to the GAO-06-718, published on July 28, 2006 ::Abstract :: Highlights-PDF :: PDF

The last trading day in July

Stocks ended July down, burdened by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, the uncertainty of direction of market interest rate, and the general direction of the economy. July 31 ended

• On the New York Stock Exchange, 646 stocks advanced and 1,639 declined. The volume was 2.3 billion shares. DJIA was up 0.3% for the month and is 4.4% year-to-date.The S&P 500 finished July with a 0.5% gain. The Nasdaq ends the month with a 3.7% loss.
• The 10-year note saw a decline in yield to 4.967% Monday, and the 30-year note dropped to yield 5.070%.
• The euro was at $1.2774 from $1.2751 late Friday, while the dollar was at 114.65 yen from 114.77 yen.
• Light, sweet crude rose to $74.40 a barrel on the NYMEX .

The market seems to fear the Fed meeting coming Tuesday; weak economic data in GDP for 2Q 2006 seem to reduce odds for another increase. According to the fed-futures contracts, the probability of increase is 35%. Of course, there are opposing views. But the weakness is tangible and the decline in real estate prices coupled with the high energy prices clearly have put a damper on economic growth.

Academic vocabulary

When writing or reading a research paper, the Dictionary of Useful Research Phrases comes in handy, through lifehack.org at Flyzhy.org.