A BRIC Bubble?
In my own small way I benefited from the dot com boom by selling articles about stratospherically high priced Internet companies (which are now defunct) to the likes of CBS MarketWatch and The International Herald Tribune. Of course, I was too dumb to see the crash coming.
In theory, I should be wise enough now to know a bubble when I see one, keep quiet about it, and ride it while the going is good. But I always seem to act against my self interest, hence the need to work on a blog that brings in net revenue somewhere in the low two figures each year.
The aforementioned tech bubble was followed by a housing bubble, a commodity bubble, and now, in my own personal view, a BRIC bubble.
What do I base that on? Oh, nothing concrete per se, other than the fact that Brazil, Russia, India and China bear little in common other than being linked in a nifty sounding acronym.
I could be wrong.
A Central European bank, one of those which offered mortgages to clients based in Swiss francs, and whose clients are now swimming in debt due the relentless and rapid rise of the franc this year, now has BRIC-related investments postered on its windows.
$43 of LinkedIn’s $4.3 Billion Market Value Is Because of Me
LinkedIn, the social network where everyone seems to be a founder, manager or leader of some sort, is slated to go public today.
The company’s market value on its opening day of trading will be in the neighborhood of $4.3 billion or, as there are roughly 100 registered LinkedIn users, $43 for everyone who has signed up since the site went live eight years ago in May 2003.
According to the Associated Press, IPO shares of LNKD will kick off at $45. Most expect the stock to rise significantly from there before the crème de la crème of the investment world pass their shares to the rest of us — ergo my personal contribution to LinkedIn’s worth will likely wind up being quite a bit more than $43.
So, get ready to party like it’s 1999. Darn, wouldn’t you know the New Yorker beat me to that one.
Are Commodities Rebounding or Are the Big Guys Looking For Suckers?
Will silver shine again? Photo by photos8.com
And this state of perpetual amazement did not wane last week when it was reported that the financial deity that is Goldman Sachs predicted a commodity comeback after a recent rise in the US dollar that coincided with a decline in silver, oil and gold.
As financial channels have been wont to remind us on occasion: for every trade there is a buyer and a seller. Why would Goldman or any other huge financial firm provide us with advice? Could it be that they are sincere this time?
Soon Time to Invest in Japan?
Before the horrendous events of March 11 devastated Japan, Marc Faber, the renowned publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report was quite cheery about Japan.
In fact, this March 4 piece in Barron’s labels him as “bullish” on the Japanese market.
Read more…
How Low Will Options Trading Go?
Like long-distance telephone calls before it, the price of trading option has been reduced to levels not many would have anticipated a few years ago.
OptionsHouse and TradeKing are both offering packages that hover around the ten-dollar mark for up to ten contracts.
OptionsHouse is advertising trades at five bucks for five contacts, ten bucks for ten contracts.
Meanwhile, TradeKing is offering options trades at a $4.95 base plus $0.65 for up to eight contracts. For more than eight contracts, there is a $8.95 base plus $0.15 per contract.
