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Thursday, May 1, 2008

Financial Ninja Favs: April

In case you missed them, here are YOUR favorite Financial Ninja posts for the month of April:

1) Really Scary Fed Charts: MARCH
2) Really Scary Fed Charts: APRIL
3) The Race to the Bottom Accelerates
4) World Recession and the Perfect Short Squeeze
5) Bull Markets and Busted Banks

I can’t help but notice that 4 of the top 5 posts are related to the Fed and various Fed actions. It would appear that the current desperate measures enacted by the Fed to save the financial system from collapse are hitting a nerve. A new month also brings new scary Fed charts straight from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The economic data continued to deteriorate over the last month while equities rallied. The Fed rate decision yesterday was widely expected. Equities tried to rally. The S&P500 tried to stay above that 1400 area and the DOW tried to stay above 13000. After a brief struggle, equities ended the day down, losing these key levels.

In anticipation of just this kind of tired last gasp, I commenced building my short positions early in the week. I’m calling a top here and putting my money where my mouth is. The month of May will belong to the Bears.

April was another record month for The Financial Ninja with 35 000 unique visitors and 80 000 page views. That translates into over 1000 unique visitors a day and 2000 pages views a day.

Not bad considering I envisioned that my financial ranting and raging would interest about 5 people.

Thank you all for your time and interest.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome Site! Thanks for keeping it free and real.

pl

Anonymous said...

Good to see you looking for deflation through the use of FED Charts. People can talk helicopter drops all they want, but there has been no drops, nor will there be.

The Monetary Base Graphs prove the point better than thousands of words. The system is vaporizing credit/debt faster than it can possibly be originated. Classic Deflation scenario.

Anonymous said...

As always...great blog. i am 100% short right now and underwater but this range bound action can not continue as the banks bleed out.

what is the fed going to do when it no longer has funds to pump the slosh and keep rates at 2%?

Blastum said...

Your work is appreciated.

People need to know the facts, so that they can prepare for the worst.

It is a moral thing.

scott said...

i get the impression that there may be a number of people looking for deflation on this blog. we all must be eye-ballin' the money supply figures. I don't see a reduction in the money supply in the cards for the US. The monetary base figures over the last year don't appear to be in decline. Also, i view the recent actions and facilities by the FED and other major central banks as having a nuetralizing effect on an otherwise perhaps deflationary environment. These actions by our money managers don't suggest that they are willing to go down the deflationary path. Looking forward, speculating, when the FED and other central banks begin to have trouble financing the obligations they have absorbed onto their balance sheets they will do something...not nothing. there will be a period of deflation, but not until the great INflation, directly ahead.

Brian said...

Now that we may *finally* be seeing early signs of your Dollar Smile theory, how about an update post? :)

Ben Bittrolff said...

Brian,

Yeah. Dollar Smile Theory indeed. I was actually thinking about a post on the subject. I've been shorting the Euro/USD from 1.58 to 1.60. For a while I was actually sweating the potential break of 1.60...

So, the next post shall be about FX.

Anonymous said...

Great site Ben. Somebody has to keep these bulltards in check. If it wasn't for the blogs, the bulltards would run rampant.

Anonymous said...

Great site Ben. Somebody has to keep these bulltards in check. If it wasn't for the blogs, the bulltards would run rampant.

Occamsrazors said...

I found this blog a few months ago and its one of the first I read each day. Simple and straight forward and, as you say, putting your money where your mouth is. Love the chart analysis.

I'm in Australia, but I follow Ninja's comments because, although we apparently have a 'decoupled' economy, our stock market is following the US markets like clockwork.

As George Bush says, its about the fundamentals. Each time I read this blog it reminds me that the fundamentals can't suddenly change overnight. Its taken years to get to this position and it's not pretty. Unfortunately George has hold of the wrong end of the fundamentals stick. The fundamentals aren't sound, they are very very sick.

Keep up the good work Financial Ninja!