Flashy and fashionable retailers are getting hammered in the current economy. That was driven home when I opened up my news reader this morning and scanned through the first 10 headlines.[More...]

Late on Tuesday, ADC Telecommunications Inc. (NASDAQ: ADCT) announced that its net loss widened to $442.8 million or $4.45 per share compared with a loss of $27.3 million or 23 cents per share in the prior year quarter.[More...]

First, let me say I'm a big Apple (AAPL) fan from the perspective of their long term prospects. But this infatuation with all things technology by market bulls is silly - aside from large cash hordes there is nothing to see here in my opinion other than "thesis trading". Hewlett Packard (HPQ) was not impressive, Cisco (CSCO) was not impressive, Dell (DELL) looks dead - etc. The Wall Street Journal reports that even Apple (AAPL) is getting hit by this consumer, with January sales down 6% year over year. Apple relies on the old[More...]

... is getting increasingly difficult at the moment. Take Hungary for example. I take it that most economic commentators and analyst know that it is bad in Hungary and together with Ukraine I would submit that these two face the largest risk of sporting the next global macro blowout (assuming that Russia does not suddenly collapse prematurely). Hungary's biggest problem at the moment is how on earth to stay worried about a dropping Forint while at the same time realizing that the country is headed towards the worst recession in several decades. As some readers will remember the reason that the Forint today is subjected to full force of currency punters is to be found one year ago. Back in February, <a[More...]

As someone who has spent more years than he cares to remember trying to figure out the mysteries of the markets, I freely acknowledge that I don't only focus on hard data like statistics and trendlines. I also think about the human element. That is because, like most of those who have actually bought and sold securities using real money understand (and unlike many of the TV pundits or academic "experts" who think they know how markets work), there's more to trading and investing than the numbers alone. The same goes for economic data. Statistics like GDP and industrial production aren't just cannon fodder for Wall Street paper-pushing and house-of-card building. Indeed, in one of yesterday's posts, "Behind the (Bad) Numbers," I think I[More...]