From CNBC: Government ‘Out of Bullets,’ Consumers in Trouble: Whitney Primary among her concerns is the lack of credit access for consumers who she said are “getting kicked out of the financial system.” She said that will be the prevailing trend in 2010. … “You’re going to get a situation where you revert from a consumer standpoint,” she added, R Read More...

Zero Hedge The FTSE chart is identical to what happened over Thanksgiving (absent the 5 hours of downtime of course): FTSE 100 down 1.6%, FTSE Eurofirst 300 down 1.7%, And as if having all its bankers depart and its CT office look like a ghost town, RBS is now getting freshly clobbered. In US futures, computers with massive REIT positions are short circuiting. The reason: that long-buried (in the Read More...

After Friday’s surprising jobs report, there has been a glimmer of hope that the U.S. won’t be stuck with 10% unemployment for years. Perhaps, like the stock market, the job market will come roaring right back, in a terrific v-shaped recovery. Unlikely, says Asha Bangalore of Northern Trust. Since the peak, Asha says, the recession has wiped out 7.2 million full-time jobs.  2 million Read More...

Evan Lazarus of T3Live.com A trading strategy that many traders use for locating momentum trades is to watch when the Bollinger Bands for a particular market or stock “pinch” together. In this instance, one of the factors relevant to the change in character is a period of lower volatility prior to the establishment of a new trend. The price consolidation in the stock should result in Read More...

The year-end issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast couldn’t be more on-target: It debunks two widespread myths about investing in the stock market then expands the myth-busting to the flawed assumptions so common in other markets. Inside, you’ll discover timely analysis for gold and the U.S. dollar, a crystal-clear forecast for junk bonds, valuable observations and technical re Read More...

MISH In the wake of last Friday’s miracle job performance with unemployment dropping by .2% (see Jobs Contract 23rd Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Drop to 10.0%) let’s take a look at unemployment scenarios offered by the Fed to see how realistic they are. Dave Rosenberg mentioned those scenarios in Breakfast with Dave on November 30, 2009. Range OF Macro Outcomes is Extremely Wide Read More...

Zero Hedge The latest Federal Consumer Credit update was just released. Consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 3-1/4 percent in the third quarter of 2009. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 7-1/4 percent, and nonrevolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 1 percent. In October, consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 1-3/4 percent. Total borrowings declined by 3.5 b Read More...

The conventional wisdom has been unanimous: Mainstream analysts support to-the-moon forecasts for gold and death-star-calamity forecasts for the dollar. Friday morning (Dec. 4), before the dollar’s biggest rally since June and gold’s biggest decline since last December, the brand-new December Elliott Wave Financial Forecast was released. It uncovered critical details on these two Read More...

Vince Veneziani of Clusterstock TARP-embattled banks Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are in a heated debate with the U.S. government over how much capital the banks will be required to raise in order to exit TARP relief: WSJ: Officials at Citigroup and Wells Fargo have prodded U.S. officials to let them proceed under similar terms, according to the people familiar with the matter. Bank officia Read More...

Scott Redler of T3Live We had a lot of interest in our position management post and how to tier into positions. Tier management provides us an opportunity to minimize our risk and push our reward when we have confirmation in our idea. Today on CNBC’s Squawk Box, I outlined a strategy on tiering back into the long Gold trade. Between Friday and today, we have seen a sharp pullback in the pric Read More...

Add ING analyst Rob Carnell to the list of folks that just refuses to believe Friday’s shocking unemployment report. His basic contention, via FT Alphaville, is that the report was too good to be true, ergo it must not be true. In our view, the only potential fly in the ointment of this labour report is how believable it is. Payrolls has been making very, very slow progress in recent months Read More...

Joe Weisenthal of Money Game Jeff Saut, the Raymond James strategist whose bullish notes we’ve highlighted several times, is starting to sound nervous. He still sees upside to the market, but like many, he didn’t like what he saw on Friday. If we could distill his message into a sentance it would be: you have to keep buying the rally, but make sure you’re not holding the bag whe Read More...

Zero Hedge comments that you would think that insiders would finally change their tune after almost a year of straight line gains in the market. Think again. The most recent insider trading data from finviz indicates that insider sellling outpaces buying by a ratio of 82! In the most recent data set, $11.6 million in stock was purchased by insiders, while a whopping $957 million was sold. And some Read More...

Lawrence Delevingne of Business Insider Looming reform from Washington has the financial industry nervous. Draft rules, lots of money and skittishness means one thing: lobbying. Securities and investment players — banks, hedge funds, industry associates, etc. — are showering money on federal candidates and parties via employees and political action committees. OpenSecrets has the num Read More...

Keryx Biopharma reports updated Phase 1/2 data, including new survival data, on KRX-0401 in the treatment of advanced mltiple meloma (KERX) 3.10 : Co announces announced updated efficacy and safety data as well as new survival data on the clinical activity of KRX-0401 in combination with bortezomib in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. Data from the study entitled “A Multice Read More...