Tuesday Musings- April 4th Week

• Shopping for quality foreign bonds can be found across the border in Canada. Canadian banks did not participate in the mortgage foolishness and are attracting record foreign investment. Canada is being viewed as a store of value and most foreign bond buyers are Americans.
• In case you ever wondered - Best markets day Monday, worst market days Friday. Someone had spare time and analyzed this. Playing the odds I would guess you buy Friday late and sell at the close on Thursday. Of course now you have to figure out what to buy and sell.
• Monday opened lower but ended mixed after SEC charges of GS fraud settle in. Big Blue hoists big numbers and drives the Dow higher. Gold off again and oil keeps falling.
• Tuesday saw gold and oil trade higher. Apple posted big numbers. Big Blue (IBM)gave back gains from the day before. Still the big news is Goldman taking the fight to the SEC, hiring hot shot Dem insider lawyer. So far no denial of allowing the wolf (Paulson) into the chicken house to design bad product, Markets ended up nicely for the day.
• Wednesday saw markets mix. Apple moved higher on huge iPhone sales. Something’s not right with fertilizer and certain commodity stocks as they languish with little investor interest. Technical's suggest a sell off on the horizon. Gold flat, oil down.
• Americans suddenly favor American manufactured cars over Asian and European. (Does anyone else get nervous seeing a Toyota in their rearview mirror?)
• Thursday saw the President giving it to Wall Street and the markets were sluggish to the end.  He scolded traders and execs and said if their business was bilking customers he could understand their reluctance to not change current law. After being taken to the woodshed it was ‘I don’t care what happens’ type of day until AmEx popped up with double the profit and news of card spending up. Glory, good news on that turned the markets around but the party ended after the 4 o’clock bell as both Amazon and Microsoft crashed and will open substantially lower Friday. Oil made a major move and closed up. Could have been a knee jerk reaction to the oil rig, but I doubt that. Gold was off.
• Busy-busy IPO day Thursday but nothing to get excited about. Only one issue closed higher Codexis, Inc., a renewable energy firm. And that was a slight increase. Too many deals and too many with low to moderate investor interest to make anything worth writing home about.  All those waiting for GM & Facebook IPO raise your hands?
• Apple now #2 on S&P 500 behind Exxon in market cap. (That can’t be right!? They make dandy products but #2 ? Folks, you will be seeing some traders shorting Apple. Still others see it unstoppable.
• If you haven’t shopped Amazon you haven’t shopped. Cheap and quick. It’s like you click the mouse and the UPS truck is ringing your door. You still need to do your homework on certain items but for books, games, toys, cds, the site is great. No wonder I like and so do millions as profits rose 46%. Stock gave up some on Friday as it gave cautious guidance for the current quarter.
• Friday new home sales racked up sales up 27% as new home buyers started snapping up bargains. Oil surged as a huge rally to over 85 a barrel caused the markets to move late in the day. Positive comments from Schlumberger fed the positive move. AmEx up on carryover from Thursday. For the week markets up. Worries continue into the new week but it is the nature of the beast.
• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire lobbied for grandfather rule on derivatives. Seems Warren doesn’t follow his own fatherly advice has a $63 billion derivative portfolio. Warren once said of derivatives, ‘financial weapons of mass destruction.’ Say it ain’t so, Warren.
• If you like last week’s markets you should love the coming week, according to many traders. This looks to be the best quarter in more than two decades.
• Finally, FDIC shuttered 7 Illinois banks bringing the total year to date 57.

If you have questions on this blog call Paul at 877 783 7080 or write pstanley@westminsterfinancial.com and share this with anyone who cares about their money.