Tuesday Musings- April 2nd Week

• Webinar last Saturday had a few glitches but otherwise was up and over in about 40 minutes. Some people missed it or had technical problems so repeat performance on Inflation will be May 8th, Saturday at 10 AM.  Go to my web site and register. Or, send a friend. 
• MarketWatch reports this is the year of the angry investor. More corporate boards will be coming under fire. It’ll be interesting to see how boards handle this uprising and I’ll report it here.
• Three auctions of two, five and seven year Treasuries flopped a week ago – Foreign investors sat on the sidelines. Not that they don’t like us- they just want more bang for their buck. This could be the beginning of rate increases without inflation.
• Nasty- Bond Buyers demand premium if company downgraded by ratings firms. The brewer of Bud and other brews agreed to 25 basis point increase to existing bonds if company downgraded one notch up to a max of 200 (or 2%!) basis points. Ouch!
• Ahh, anyone tell me how these rating firms are still being taken seriously after their most recent muck-up? Anyone? Hello?
• I love gadgets but trying to figure out what I’d do with an iPad. You, too? 
• Seems when Barron’s gives a stock a thumbs-up it goes up.
• Kelly Evans’ essay in the WSJ exposed the awful truth: The markets are always assuming the Fed will raise rates today while the Fed won’t until late 2011 and even then it’ll only be to 1%. (There, now you know.)
• You had to love Monday’s action. It was across the board a little bit here and there and nothing exciting just a good day to be in the market.
• No buying opp on home builder stocks quite yet.  Industry hard pressed, according to Barron’s, to outperform market.
• Gold breakout for short-term trade? MKM Partners in Greenwich, Conn advising clients there is a likely rally. Wednesday down, but what wasn’t?
• Is it my imagination or does it seem like there is a serious earthquake somewhere almost every week?
• Best team in any sport? Congrats to women’s BB UConn winner of NCAA last Tuesday.
• Bernanke speaks and the markets dive 75 points on Wednesday. 10-year auction a success. Monsanto profits off 19%. Bernanke said as a nation we must demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility (As I write this I have tears in my eye- lol- surely the man is speaking of another peoples!)
• Bernanke wound up talking about the choices we face: raising taxes, cutting entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, or less spending on everything from education to defense. (I thought of that, too. Didn’t you think of that?)
• Greek bonds and the euro under pressure all week by hedge funds and ‘traditional banks’, along with businesses such as Dole Foods, protecting their interests. Just ugly how everyone is piling on.
• SEC has charged Morgan Keegan & Co and their star manager of inflating value of subprime securities in order to hide losses. 2009 Wells Fargo’s Evergreen Investment Management was accused of overstating same & did ‘No Mas’, paid $40 million-basically said, Go away- with no admission. (We’ll see more as SEC works its way through). More than two funds did this, you betchum.
• Thursday- worries about Greece, jobs and finally someone said the heck with it and bought something and the markets ended up- barely.
• A new crop of IPOs is on the horizon: Toys ‘R’ Us, HCA, Inc., a hospital chain and Dutch semi-conductor NXP. I like 2 of the 3.
• Banks hid debt levels from investors to prevent stock losses. The previous five quarters saw most of the majors reduce debt by over 40% at the close of the quarter and then subsequently release true numbers simply to prevent runs on their stock. (There is something so wrong with this.)
• If you followed Fast Money on CNBC the following bet they offered several weeks ago, short gold-long oil, was a loser. Gold had a rally and while oil moved some it finally gave up some Friday. Like the Sarge on Hill Street Blues would admonish, ‘Be careful out there.’
• Aloca downgraded, Ambac Financial one day increase 70%.
• EU over the weekend bailed out Greece. This coming week earnings with worries over profit taking as the numbers prove better than expected.
• Finally, last week ended with the Dow closing a tad under 11,000 for the first time since the markets collapsed. This only added another wound to those investors who went into cash 13 months past and have stood on the sideline as the markets continued their march upward.