Friday, June 24, 2016

Monday, June 20, 2016

Latest plan for market carnage

We just have got to get through this Brexit worry this week, so we can finish up a terminal wedge and score that elusive new high.

May of 2015 seems like an eternity ago.

SPX 06-20

Books: 06-20

While you are waiting for the market to put in final highs before imploding, you may at least do yourself a favor and buy some more books.  Keep stacking while you still can -- are the bookstores open in Caracas these days?

We do not have cable TV or a game console in our house, but we do have countless 20th Century artifacts from MAD magazine, including more than 60 paperbacks.  Here's a sample.

MAD magazine paperbacks, mostly Signet editions

My kids read MAD, do yours?  And why not?  The large format paperbacks are especially good.  I never imagined having this much MAD swag when I was a kid.  These are true relics, and practically free for the taking these days, because the youth are all strung out on internet pornography and "Grand Theft Auto" in 1080P.

Al Jaffee
Dave Berg
Don Martin
Sergio Aragonés
Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed, The Story of the
University of Chicago: 1890-1925
, Chicago, 1925 

This next book is actually really scarce and hard to find, especially with the maps included.  I've been looking for it for ages, and flipped out when I stumbled across it one day in Value Village for $2.

Rowland W. Tabor, Guide to the Geology of Olympic
National Park
, University of Washington, 1975
Murray Morgan, The Dam.
Viking Press, New York, 1954
John Manchip White, Cortes and the downfall of the Aztec
Empire
, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1971
William H. Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella,
Heritage Press, New York, 1967
Michael Prawdin, The Mongol Empire: Its Rise and
Legacy
, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1952
Michael Prawdin, The Builders of the Mogul Empire,
George Allen & Unwin, London, 1963
Georges Lefebvre, Napoleon, 2 vols
Columbia UP, NYC, 1970

This new Modern Library edition was nicer to read than my older edition.

Plutarch, Lives, 2 vols, Modern Library, NY, 1992
Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the
White House
, Random House, NY, 2008
Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy,
Doubleday Science Fiction, NY, 1951

This last one I can burn when I am finished with it.

John Vivian, Wood Heat, Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA, 1976

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

What if the Fed surprises us next week?

If the algos and everyone else insist on front-running a sure-thing über-dovish FOMC, then Yellen may have no choice but to hike while the sun is still shining.



In chart form:

SPX 2016 collapse

Worst-case scenario!  Eat your neighbors!