I decided to pick up 500 shares, but only could get filled for 300 at my entry price. Small potatoes.
I think that I may regret this, but I unloaded my MIND position. I had a 12% gain that I wanted to lock in. It may just break out without me. I wanted to lighten up. I'm doing a little handwringing over the "stuff" going on with Iran/Russia.
5 comments:
They are sending the guard over early on their redeployment to Iraq. Although the press has said it is related to the "surge," it is fairly obvious that the guard units could be used to free up regular units for operations on/ protection off the Iraq/Iran border.
HGRD is interesting. Why has their "other current liability" number been so large?
I read through their SEC filings, a week or so ago. They have some litigation that may have been accrued here (legal fees likely).
I was really expecting their stock to go down over their earnings report. It retreated a bit and then began again its upward trend.
Oil over $61 today. Cannot be good for the market or the transports.
Any thoughts on the U.S. Economy. Although I do not see it falling off a cliff, I do get the feeling we are starting to slow abit, and this will continue going forward.
banker:
My opinion:
Let's ignore the big elephants in the room (housing, sub-prime lending, Iraq-Iran). Their swing potential is huge, but to chaotic to really "know."
The general signs of a very gradual slowing (really a slowing of the acceleration) keep popping up. The most noteworthy is the cutbacks in banking employment.
I live in NC and get lots of banking news (we are 2nd to NY in banking). I also through the normal course of life events know a variety of people placed in the industry. Although not all have been in the press, most of our in-place major banks have been having small layoffs, and hiring freezes. Some of the freezes have been in effect since at least last fall, but the trend really accelerated in the last few weeks.
Banks get to see lots and lots of data that nobody else sees. I have been told by (very highly placed) people in the industry that banks tend to go into hiring freezes when they see a slow up coming. It has been a normal procedure for the NC banks for a long time. The layoffs are probably more a result of pruning as a result of the many big and small mergers that have occurred.
As a side note, the Charlotte Observer Business section can be subscribed to on-line, and is an excellent source of "small" banking news that doesn't make the national press.
I hope I am not telling you something you already know (for all I know you work in uptown Charlotte at Wachovia or BofA - LOL), but there are lots of different types of bankers in lots of different places.
I've been confounded by the various and sundry opinions by "experts" on the economy. So reading the tea leaves has to work. Those !@$#%%^ NC banks--1/2 of them used to be resident in Richmond (at least they moved southerly rather than northerly!)
I did see this a.m. that the railroads are seeing a drop off in traffic. I personally think that the transports have to be topping and that the "confirmation" is really a last gasp rather than a confirmation.
I think that until the jobless claims and unemployment numbers start to move off their mark materially, we'll be in a period of economic stasis--meaning we're probably going to grow, but below trend. Once the construction numbers--and that of other industries--begin to percolate into those economic stats, I'm predicting that will be the smell of smoke that sends folks out of this farcical propped up market theater to the exits.
(But I don't know a damn thing, and I'm not sure that I could dress my opinion expressed above as an informed opinion).
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