For year 2009 (ox) - water industry is bad
For year 2010 (tiger) - earth industry is bad
For year 2011 (rabbit) - earth industry is bad
For year 2012 (dragon) - water industry is bad
That means property is going to be fucked in 2010 and 2011. Gamblers going to the 2 casinos lose until got to sell properties?
8 comments:
一命二运三风水，
四积功德五读书，
六名七相八敬神，
九交贵人十养生，
十一择业与择偶，
十二趋吉要避凶。
译解：
会影响人的一生的主要因素：
首先是命中注定，
其次是要看运气，
第三是风水问题，
第四是积德行善，
第五是读书识理，
第六是看名字的好坏，
第七是看面相的好坏，
第八是敬神的态度，
第九是交往的出众的朋友，
第十是自己的生活作风，
第十一是所选择的职业和妻子的好坏，
第十二是懂得趋吉避凶。
US Auto Sales Drop Shows Depth Of Consumer, Credit Woes
By Jeff Bennett
November 03, 2008
DETROIT - (Dow Jones) - The steep decline in U.S. auto sales in October underscores the extent of the deterioration in consumer confidence as economic uncertainty mounts and credit availability remains tight.
U.S. auto sales fell 32% last month from a year earlier to their lowest annualized rate since February 1983, according to Autodata Corp. The declines were seen across the board, for all product categories and all companies, despite lavish incentives.
The big declines pose additional threats to U.S. manufacturers that have been forced to step up their restructuring efforts amid growing concerns that cash could run short as soon as 2009. But the problems aren't limited to the domestic companies, as sales in markets around the globe show increasing signs of weakness.
"The one thing we are pleased about is that October is over," said Chrysler LLC President Jim Press. Chrysler reported a 35% drop in its sales for the month.
It is still anybody's guess if auto sales have actually bottomed out. There will be a rash of incentives to once again spur sales so the true test of where the industry stands may not come until the first quarter of 2009, said Ford Motor Co. (F) sales and marketing chief Jim Farley.
Ford, which posted a 30% sales decline for the month, hinted at more production cuts to come to once again align supply with demand.
General Motors Corp.'s (GM) vice president of North America sales, Mark LaNeve, said that no auto maker could continue to survive if auto sales stay at the levels they are now for an extended period of time. GM posted the biggest decline in sales last month, a whopping 45% drop versus the year-ago month.
GM sales analyst Mike DiGiovanni said the U.S. government, combined with banks, must do more to help the consumer so they will buy vehicles.
"We are in a very challenging situation where shrinking consumer spending and credit market are feeding on each other on a downward spiral," he said. "It is critical for the governments and the banks to progressively help us to provide the credit necessary to facilitate lending."
The U.S. government, like those of other regions around the world, has provided financial support to banks, absorbed bad loans and bolstered financial markets. The Bush administration is planning to provide $25 billion in loans to the auto industry to help facilitate production of more fuel efficient vehicles, but the industry is angling for additional support.
In October, all of the global auto makers reported big decreases in their U.S. sales despite big incentives that included zero-percent financing from the likes of Toyota Motor Co. (TM), which traditionally offers little to no deals on its cars and trucks.
Toyota Motor Co. (TM) sales dropped 23%, Honda Motor Co.'s (HMC) fell 25% and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.'s (NSANY) slipped 33%.
How Disciplined Traders Measure Risks
By Kurt Eckhardt
October 31, 2008
The recent volatility in stocks, currencies and commodities has certainly caused most traders, even investors, to focus increasingly on self-discipline. Seasoned traders are long aware that success is less predicated upon what the market is doing than what we are doing.
Individually we hold little control over future economic events. Even the best of us have little prognostic capability to anticipate those events. Further, even when we correctly forecast aspects of the future, we never know for sure how the market will respond.
For example a few months back, I posed this question: If you'd known 3 years ago that gold would be $1000 an oz, oil at $140 a barrel, corn at $6 a bushel and the Dow at 12,000, what yield would you expect from 30-year Treasury Bonds?
Naturally all agreed that a sub 5% long bond yield would have seemed VERY unlikely. Perhaps even 8-10% would have been in the ballpark. The point is even if we know, we still know very little.
Hence it's foolish to over bet on something both uncontrollable and unknowable. We're here though to make money and only through risk can gains be achieved. So first let's examine ourselves and identify how much risk we can afford.
Each of you must ask yourselves pertinent, probing questions. What do you want economically? Do you want or need money for something that's missing in your life? Are you trading speculative capital or retirement funds? Is your goal to earn undramatic yet steady returns or are you trying to turn a small stake into a small fortune? Are you trading/investing in the right products? Are the strategies you're employing the correct mix for your skill set?
Because this is perhaps a book in the making we're going to take some extra time working on these issues together. We've all heard the old adage, "don't wish too hard for what you want, you might just get it." If you're trading for money to buy something that you really can't cope with attaining, you'll eventually lose...miserably.
Most of us fail in various arenas because of self-sabotage. Now you all know me better than to think I'm just going to throw some pop-psycho babble at you without fully explaining. None of us should confuse a conscious want (money) for a sub-conscious desire (change). Believe it or not some of the best available research is on dieting. Think about it. Isn't a boom-bust trader pretty similar to a dieter who sheds unwelcome pounds only to binge them back on? Why do we do that?
Let's say you're a shy girl who's always been uncomfortable with attention from men. Perhaps you subconsciously put on weight to hinder your attractiveness as a defense mechanism to ward off those unwelcome advances. Finally you may get to a point where for health or business reasons you decide to diet. You perform research, decide on a plan of action, execute it and the pounds disappear. Eventually though you'll be "rewarded" with those unwelcome glances or social pressures of engagement and retreat back into the safe shell of obesity.
The relationship between men and money isn't much different. We may think we want to be rich but if we perceptively anticipate how money will change our lives we can easily bristle at the thought. Many of us are trading to get the right girl or lose the wrong one. To impress our family or to get even with them. To show our friends, former classmates, teammates or workmates that we've graduated to the major leagues of speculation. I'm not the first to remind you - it's usually about more than money.
For the rest of you - those grounded, committed souls who're trading for more noble pursuits like your kid's education, your retirement or to stay diversified in an anything can happen socio-political-economic environment - your discipline problems are easier solved. One of the traits I noticed of the most successful floor traders was an almost imperceptible confidence not just in their trading ability but in their personality.
Traders like athletes need an inner belief system convincing them that they're the "go-to" guys in the clutch rather than chokers. The mortals among us may still huge unresolved conflicts inhibiting our habits. What we're going to do is break down our analysis into a few sub-groups of market participants. Depending on capital, goals, available time dedicated to trading - us traders come in a myriad of sizes. We'll look at a few common individual "profiles" and I'll throw some ideas at you. As in athletics method breeds confidence.
The Under Capitalized, Over Leveraged Short Term Trader:
When you don't have a lot of money you can't help but to be over leveraged. I can hardly suggest to a one lot trader that he trade smaller. I can tell a two lot trader though to trade only one contract or a ten lot trader to trade only 3 lots. In this environment, cut it down. Way down. Money is bullets. You're in a shootout against an opponent better armed than you. You need to make every shot count. No longer can you safely risk 1.5 E-mini points trying to make 4. Wider stops mean smaller size and less frequent trading.
Ok, now you're going to be small and selective. That's half the battle. Next, where are you wrong? I'm sure more than a few of you have painfully realized that positioning without hard stops but instead waiting for a contrary system signal to be generated is a poor discipline choice in big range markets. Hourly bars are now larger than the ranges in previous years. If your crossover or divergence system doesn't allow for hard stops then you better either figure out how to incorporate stops or trade smaller than usual.
Here's how two different traders approach the same idea. Bill and Ted both fade short term volatility. Each will tell you that they're the type who "buys when everyone else is panicking." Each has enjoyed success in choppy, mean reversion markets. While Bill is methodical and technical in his approach Ted considers himself more of an intuitive gunslinger.
On a sharply lower open both Bill and Ted become buyers. Bill though has analyzed prior gap down opens and knows his thesis is violated if prices break down more than a few ticks below the opening range. Bill then places a sell stop at an appropriate level. Bill is merely playing the odds. He realizes you "win some lose some" and he's confident enough in his methodology that no matter the result of any individual trade, over a wide enough sample he'll be profitable. Bill also knows that a single huge loser can wipe out weeks of small, steady profits.
Ted on the other hand lacks a cohesive plan. If the market goes lower after his purchase he'll rely on anecdotal observations. "Yes I'm stuck long higher but the markets already had a historic break. A rally is certainly due. If we plunge further I'll just buy a bit more. Besides the Fed could ease at any moment."
While Ted is hoping an unpredictable event will still bail him out, Bill is flat after taking a small inconsequential loss. Bill is now in a detached frame of mind allowing him to wait for another measured opportunity.
In real life we know that at the end of the day it's quite possible that Ted's wild adventure will work out to his short term advantage. In fact Ted may even console Bill, "Sorry you took that loss off the open. I knew this stuff was over done so I added to my longs. I don't let bad prices drive me out of a position." The seeds of further problems have been sewn. While Bill views his loss philosophically - he wouldn't do anything different, even in hindsight, Ted also isn't going to do anything different. He is emboldened by his experience.
So a few days later when the market gaps lower once again both Bill and Ted will be buyers. This time Bill treads lightly. He'll recognize that buying dips is no longer the strong odds play it had been and accordingly he'll cut his size back and tighten his stop. Ted though may even trade bigger this go around. After all the last session it worked beautifully. This time is different though.
As the Dow trades at -500 or -600, Ted is thinking "no way does the Fed or they allow the market to close at -800. If I sell now for certain I'll be selling the low of the move." Ted continues to buy and hold as the market closes on its low of the day, down 750 points. That night Ted's brokerage house informs him that he's on margin call and that his positions will be sold out for him on the next day's open. Because of the heavy forced liquidation by Ted and his ilk the market once again opens sharply lower.
This time instead of being a buyer when "everyone is panicking", Ted is forced to sell his holdings. Who buys them? Bill! Bill will once again do as he always does. He'll fade the open with a prearranged stop loss. This time instead of being stopped for a quick loss like the prior couple of times the market does indeed make its low on the open and Bill not only recoups his two small previous losses but makes a good deal of money on the subsequent rally. Two traders, two similar methodologies but a world of difference in strategy.
The lessons we all need to learn is anything can happen. As I write this the price of Volkswagen has just risen fivefold in Frankfort and for a brief moment Volkswagen is the biggest company in the world! All on the back of short covering by funds who've lost billions of Euros on the move.
Every trade no matter how innocuous must have an uncle point. Be it a stop on equity or a technical level at some point you must enter survival mode. A few days from now we'll examine how longer time frame participants can stay disciplined even though they're already less leveraged.
Kurt J. Eckhardt has been trading since 1982 when he began his career as an active floor trader in the CBOT Treasury Bond pit. Kurt is President of Eckhardt Research and Trading and its subsidiary Agility Trading. Agility offers both individuals and funds cutting edge technical strategies along with high performance instruction. For more information go to agilitytrading.com.
German withdrawals may mean trouble for UK offices
By Greg Morcroft
Nov. 2, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Investors withdrew about 30 billion euros from Germany-based property funds recently, sparking the funds to freeze redemptions and likely spelling big trouble for U.K. commercial real estate, a published report said Sunday.
A series of "open-ended" property funds -- which allow investors to withdraw their money whenever they choose -- were temporarily shut down, including those run in Germany by AXA SA, UBS AG and Morgan Stanley according to the report in Britain's Independent newspaper, which cited industry sources.
The 11 funds involved suffered from a string of major investors pulling their cash to raise liquidity. In order to redeem the money, the funds have to sell assets in their property portfolios, which is costly as the real-estate market is in freefall, the report said.
The funds responded by not allowing redemptions for three to six months, the report said.
The report cited a commercial real-estate analyst who said that German funds are big buyers of London offices and that they would have had to shut down unless they froze withdrawals.
The report quoted Stefan Seip, director general at German fund industry group BVI, who said this was the worst week he had ever seen for fund closures.
"We have never had a situation comparable to this," he said.
Will America’s pain be China’s gain?
by John Delury
November 3, 2008
In their efforts to pass a bailout plan for America’s financial system, Bush administration officials invoked the specter of the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But, for most Asians, economic Armageddon is far more recent.
The Asian financial crisis of a decade ago brought banks, corporations and governments to their knees. The bonfire was sparked by the collapse of the Thai baht in the summer of 1997.
Contagion soon spread across East Asia, with the ripple effects of serial currency devaluations reaching as far as Russia and Brazil. The long-running “economic miracles” of South Korea and Hong Kong ended, as did surging growth in Indonesia and Thailand.
The central lesson taken from that crisis was to maintain large foreign-exchange reserves. This became a virtual article of faith among East Asian governments.
Back in the 1990’s, Asia’s fast-growing economies maintained small reserves, despite booming exports and foreign investment. Once the tailspin began in 1997, governments’ lack of reserves hampered their ability to rescue failed banks, forcing them to appeal to international institutions for relief.
But the International Monetary Fund’s bailout came with strings attached, including demands for more of the rapid capital market liberalisation that induced the crisis in the first place.
Indeed, what the West calls the “Asian financial crisis” is known in Asia as the “IMF crisis.” The political humiliation and economic frustration of dealing with IMF imperatives confirmed the central importance of maintaining large reserves, as an issue not just of currency stability, but also economic sovereignty.
One Asian economy emerged from the 1997-1998 crisis relatively unscathed: China. There were many reasons for this, but foremost among them was that China had already amassed more than $100 billion in reserves, and refused to revalue its currency, when the crisis hit.
Since then, China has aggressively pursued a fast-growth, export, and investment heavy model of economic development. By capping the exchange rate and producing far more than it consumes, China’s reserves grew into a Leviathan, hitting the $1 trillion mark in 2005.
Even after China (under pressure from US Treasury officials) let the yuan partially float in 2005, the Leviathan kept growing by about $200 billion annually. Over the past year and a half, China’s reserves skyrocketed to $1.8 trillion, far and away the world’s largest.
The Chinese state probably hasn’t sat on so much lucre since the halcyon days of the Qing Empire, when insatiable European demand for porcelain, tea and silk flooded the central coffers in Beijing with silver bullion.
But the paradox is that today’s reserves are not real wealth that can be pumped back into the domestic economy. Instead, China’s reserves mostly underwrite America’s debt.
Even before Wall Street hit the skids, there was growing consensus in China that its reserves had grown far beyond what was necessary to avert another 1997-style crisis. Calls for a more diversified investment strategy intensified. Investing in US Treasuries, after all, was a sure loss-maker, given the gap between their modest yield and the steady appreciation of the yuan.
With the creation one year ago of a $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corporation, Beijing positioned itself for more equity investment (although its early investments, in the Blackstone Group and Morgan Stanley, were widely criticised). But many in China, from nationalist bloggers to social justice activists, advance a deeper critique of the Leviathan reserve.
Why bind up Chinese capital to finance America’s debt-consumption economy, they ask, when so many needs go unmet at home? China was one of the world’s most egalitarian societies as late as 1985.
For years, the central government has talked about creating “social harmony”—with a “new-type rural cooperative medical services system,” by increasing spending on education to four per cent of GDP and eliminating school fees, and implementing “sustainable development” models.
The challenge for China in the years to come is to divest itself of American debt, and begin investing in the health, education and environmental well-being of its own people. Growing the economy at an average annual rate of 10 per cent, it turns out, may have been the easy part.
Mr Delury is director of the China Boom Project at the Asia Society, New York.
Concern over shipping derivatives losses
By Robert Wright
November 3 2008
Fears are growing in the shipping industry over the potentially big losses that could emerge this week on derivatives triggered by the October collapse in rates to charter dry bulk ships.
Since short-term dry bulk charter rates fell 71.9 per cent in October, traders and shipowners have worried that traders might be caught out by the speed and severity of the fall.
Traders in forward freight agreements – derivatives based on short-term charter rates – could owe significant sums if they were betting on a rise in charter rates for ships carrying coal, iron ore and other commodities.
The sector’s Baltic Dry Index of charter rates started the month at 3,025 points and closed on Friday at 851. The 80 per cent of trades made through clearing houses were being settled on Monday, while traders who bought cash-settled products through private transactions, known as over-the-counter trades, have until Friday to settle.
The many shipowners participating in FFA markets could also face losses if their market positions went beyond simply covering the market exposure of their actual ships.
London-based, New York-listed Britannia Bulk, which has been hit by its exposure to speculative FFA trading, put its British operating subsidiary into administration on Friday. It is the first quoted shipping company to suffer such a blow during the current downturn.
Duncan Dunn, senior director in the futures division of London’s Simpson, Spence & Young shipbrokers, said the market’s rapid fall would have left anyone betting on upward movements needing to make substantial payments.
He said“If they’re under strain, then that’s only going to increase their problems”.
Market participants’ concerns have been heightened by the possibility of knock-on effects from failures of investors affected by FFA market losses.
If investors facing FFA market losses hand back ships they had chartered early to owners, the ships’ owners will earn considerably less than they expected. They could face problems servicing debt related to the ships.
Michael Bodouroglou, chief executive of Paragon Shipping, a Nasdaq-listed dry bulk shipowner, said that, even if a company had not participated in FFA trading itself, counterparties such as ship charterers might have done so. He said: “Company failures may cause a domino effect,” .
The market uncertainty stems partly from the complex chains of transactions in the market and the lack of clarity about different companies’ FFA trading.
It is widely expected that hedge funds could be particularly badly hit.
However, Philippe van den Abeele, managing director of Castalia Fund Management, a hedge fund specialising in FFA trading, said he expected hedge funds to experience bigger problems over speculative charters of actual ships.
NOL warns of severity of shipping downturn
By Robert Wright
October 29 2008
The container shipping industry faces a deeper, longer downturn than expected, Ron Widdows, the chief executive of Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines warned, as the line announced reduced third-quarter profits and said that it would lose money in the final three months of this year.
Mr Widdows said the outlook for the industry had grown harsher since September 30, the end of the third quarter, when world financial turmoil worsened after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In the three months to September 30, net profit fell to $35m from $191m in the same quarter last year, in spite of an increase in revenue to $2.35bn from $2.03bn.
However, even that profit fall was minor compared with the reduction seen in the past two or three weeks, Mr Widdows said.
“You will see the impact from that in volumes over the next three months and into the early part of next year,” he said.
The company said in its statement it expected to make a loss in the fourth quarter.
Neptune’s view of its prospects had been behind its decision to slash its capacity on the Asia-Europe route by 25 per cent, announced on October 21, Mr Widdows said.
He added: “Our challenge is: how can you shape your company into a form that will allow you to weather what probably will be a deeper and certainly a bit longer downturn than what was forecast not very long ago?”
“The truth is nobody knows the full impact on trade flows that will come from companies that are global businesses that are under stress and consumer spending which has dropped precipitately.” Volumes carried by APL, the group’s container-shipping subsidiary, were 10 per cent up on the same period last year, and fuel surcharges pushed up average revenue per 40ft container by 8 per cent. However, freight rates on the Asia-Europe trade and longer intra-Asia routes had fallen.
Since then, in the Asia-Europe trade, the fees lines could charge had “dropped off a cliff”, Mr Widdows said.
“The rate environment now is truly horrible in Asia-Europe,” he said.
NOL has not invested in the largest ships and signed up the huge orders that other lines have made.
Mr Widdows said the company was one of the best in the industry at managing capacity – and pointed to the company’s average utilisation rate of 90 per cent – against 99 per cent in the year before – as evidence of its ability to withstand difficult circumstances.
APL’s earnings before interest and tax fell 95 per cent to $9m, on revenue up 22 per cent to $2.04bn. The drop was offset by a 42 per cent increase in ebit in logistics to $17m, on revenue down 1 per cent to $315m and ebit in terminals up 5 per cent to $23m, on revenue up 1 per cent to $146m.
Lending rates fall to pre-Lehman levels
Interbank borrowing costs fall to five-month low as government initiatives to ease credit crisis take hold. Bonds hold steady as Americans head to the polls.
By David Goldman
November 4, 2008
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Lending rates fell Tuesday to levels not seen since before Wall Street's credit crisis erupted in mid-September.
The 3-month Libor rate dropped to 2.71% from 2.86% on Monday, its lowest point since June 9. This is also the first time it has sunk to a pre-credit crisis level for the first time since Lehman Brothers announced its bankruptcy on Sept. 15.
The overnight Libor rate fell for the seventh-straight day to 0.38% from 0.39% on Monday, according to Dow Jones. It was overnight Libor's lowest level since the British Bankers' Association began calculating the rate in 1997.
Libor rates have been trending downward since mid-October, when the Fed took the unprecedented move to flood 13 central banks around the globe with unlimited amounts of dollars. Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, is a daily average of what 16 different banks charge other banks to lend dollars in the U.K.
Less than a month ago, 3-month Libor was at 4.82%, and the overnight rate was at an all-time high of 6.88%. Lower rates are a major boost for the strangled credit market because more than $350 trillion in assets are tied to Libor.
A number of U.S. programs aimed at easing funding concerns for banks and encouraging lending between financial institutions have also helped lower Libor rates. Such initiatives include lowering interest rates, injecting capital into banks and providing insurance on all non-interest bearing accounts.
As rates fell, two key indicators of risk sentiment showed that confidence in the market was improving, but credit still remains tight.
The Libor-OIS spread fell to 2.11 percentage points from 2.23 points on Monday. The spread measures the difference between actual borrowing costs and the expected official borrowing rate from the Fed. It is used as a gauge to determine how much cash is available for lending between banks. The bigger the spread indicates less cash is available for lending.
Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan has said that the Libor-OIS spread will serve as a good gauge of when credit has returned to normal. Though the indicator has fallen from a high of 3.66 points set last month, it is still far above the 0.11 percentage points from before Sept. 15.
Another indicator, the "TED spread," fell to 2.22 percentage points from 2.42 points on Monday. The TED spread measures the difference between the 3-month Libor and the 3-month Treasury bill, and is a key indicator of risk. The higher the spread, the less willing investors are to take risks.
The TED spread has fallen from an all-time high of 4.63 points set in mid-October. It was at 1.04 percentage points just days before Wall Street's crisis.
Bonds sit tight as America votes
Treasurys were very slightly lower as voters headed to the polls Tuesday. With new economic policies on the line in a close presidential race, investors awaited the election's outcome.
The benchmark 10-year note fell 5/32 to 100-17/32, and its yield rose to 3.94% from 3.91% late Monday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The 30-year bond sank 12/32 to 102-17/32, and its yield rose to 4.35% from at 4.34% on Monday.
The 2-year note was down 12/32 to 100-1/32, and its yield rose to 1.49% from 1.44% late Monday.
The yield on the 3-month bill rose to 0.50%, up from 0.47% on Monday. The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill is closely watched as an immediate reading on investor confidence. Investors and money-market funds shuffle money into and out of the 3-month bill frequently, as they assess risk in the rest of the marketplace. A lower yield indicates that investors are less optimistic.
Treasurys were higher Monday as stock prices fell on fears that the economy will continue to weaken, and is likely already mired in a recession.
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