Fasten your seatbelts.
We'll see $10 silver within 6 months. JMO.
Whoa!... And a salesman from Refco just called me last week trying to get me to start trading with them again. Should've known they were getting desperate calling me, lol.
The real question in my mind is, what's this going to do to prices in specific markets?
Consumer mood falls to 13-year low
NEW YORK (Reuters) Oct 14- U.S. consumer sentiment fell unexpectedly in early October to its lowest level in 13 years, as high gasoline prices and the fallout from hurricane damage continued to take their toll, a report showed on Friday.
The University of Michigan's preliminary October index of consumer sentiment fell to 75.4, according to sources who saw the subscription-only report. That was below a final September reading of 76.9 and much below Wall Street's median forecast of an increase to 80.0.
"We were anticipating that we could see a little bit of an improvement in October because the rebuilding after the hurricanes appears to have started and energy prices have stabilized, but it appears that it will take a little longer for consumers to feel better about things," said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards and Sons in St. Louis, Missouri.
The survey's expectations component eased to 62.4 from 63.3, also defying Wall Street forecasts for an increase to 67.0. The early October expectations reading was the lowest since March 1992.
The index of current conditions fell to 95.7 in early October from 98.1 in September. That also went against Wall Street forecasts for a slight rise to 99.5.
Confidence measures are used as an indicator of consumer spending, which makes up about two-thirds of overall U.S. economic activity. Consumer spending in turn is seen as an indication of strength or weakness in economic growth.
This article came out 10/14 in Britain, which means that if it were really a big deal, the US markets would have been down Friday, but they were up.
If there's a hedge fund crisis keep your eye on gold
Ping for after coffee.
Ping
Refco's woes worry markets
But analysts downplay risk of broad meltdown
By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
Last Update: 8:04 PM ET Oct 14, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Before this week, Refco Inc. wasn't a household name.
But now the possible collapse of the largest independent commodities and futures broker in the U.S. has top investment banks, regulators and exchanges scurrying to save a company that's quietly become an integral part of the nation's financial markets.
Experts said Refco's failure won't threaten global financial markets in the way Enron's collapse did in 2001 and the demise of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management did in 1998. Still, the company's troubled tentacles stretch far and wide, from pork bellies to futures on stocks and bonds.
"Refco's big enough and it owes enough money to major financial companies to raise doubts about markets at a time when we really don't need it," said Randall Dodd, director of the Financial Policy Forum in Washington D.C., a non-profit research institute that studies markets to try to make them work better.
Read the rest at
http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/earthlink-net/mw-news.asp?guid={0B92DA83-6451-47DD-B86E-0637914AC8DA}
An absolute HYPE title to this article. MOST hedge funds
are not affected by this.
Wasn't Sarbanes-Oxley supposed to protect us from this kind of thing?
ping
Economic bump
Somebody's hedges are getting trimmed.
It could lead to a depression if anybody else joins in and a panic starts. That would be classical theory. But, so long as the consumer side of the equation doesn't change, this is unlikely to snowball.