Baltbear on Finance markets are like marshmallows

here are 2 dialogs to answer that ever popular question:

how do you give quantification to the future?

A day or 3 ago, isco.ob concluded a deal. the deal has terms. they are readable….but not yet filed with the sec (isco is draggy on that…)

the deal involves $10mm. to which i commented: so what?
the deal appears to value isco’s i/p at this moment at $40mm…to which i said, that’s a large “what.”

a sometimes intelligent person asked me:

:”Are you for real balt??????”

very much so…

:”(during these particular times), ”
u mean when capital is buying junk paper at rates that ensure the double dip???
are u watching the spread between t-bills and corporate junk?? that tells the prudent speculator that cash inflows for speculation are masssive. (people who think of tv as a news source get confused by the dow not being 18ooo or whatever, and think that means that there’s no capital to be had…but the ability of industry to float crap bonds at <6% says plenty of $$$ is chasing a home..)

:”does not dilute we shareholders,” if it had it would be negative….and not “so what”…
(people who think buying retail common shares of a puppy with no ebitda is “investing” usually end up double and triple counting any positives. “no change” = 0 …..not +.

:”comes through on it’s promise ” –if that isn’t pretty much a given, it’s worth 0.
so it gets no points for being above 0–it was already there.
(this same class of speculators and gamblers are so used to enabling mgt failure that mgt competence is read as a miracle. that is, mgt failure is the fault of a “weak market” “investor ignorance” “obama/bush/fda/reptiles from outer space, and mgt competence is a miracle who needs all our money—in spite of the obvious fact that retail purchase of common puts >>>no<<< money into corporate treasuries. it does make it much easier for insiders to raise capital by showing actual investors what the mkt is as they roll over their positions.)

:”while still being a developmental stage company”
that’s the btim koolaid on your breath…a puppy that has been “development stage” since 1992…

:”the company is pulling rabbits out of it’s hat ”
if i thought that…i’d tell clients to dump asap… there’s only so many rabbits in any given hat..

:”That is a big WHAT in my book. Bought more today.”
that’s nice. tiredof probably has a bridge in ft washington he can lease you cheap…if ak gets  a cut.
(that’s a reference to btim.amex, whose ceo holds himself out as the world’s #1 expert on stem cells, regardless of harvard, warf, etcetcetc… )

:”I would like to hear some of the directors that are responsible for closing these deals speak. ”
i want them to keep their mouths shut and keep working…but be able to do better than have i/r brag about minimal compliance on date of a 10q…

:”As far as ip goes, not possible to put a price on it yet”
that’s compleat nonsense. if u can;t put a price on something, the price is 0.

:”but 40 million? Ridiculously low. ”
well then, isco got screwed, didn;t it????
and all the ydydyydaaa smoke u said first means nothing.
(btim, frinstance, trades in part based on a putative valuation of a patent estate it >leases<, and of patent applications that are years from approval..and therefoire value @ ??? $.0.00 ..until cash flow from those patents is measurable.

:”You have 10 million people in need of corneas ”
that’s already been thoroly discussed..and comes down to 1 point:
that’;s nice–how much $$$ do they have?

:”it looks like we are there already” not to anyone who knows the drill. (actual IND, phase i,ii,iii, etc will require…2 years? 4? how many millions in paperwork??? enough for another tranche of funding to be necessary. but..in my analysis, isco can get seriuous and have the next tranche be > 1 7/16–which makes any buying now at retail the equivalent of “insider prices.”)

:”I could go on and on as I did before regarding all the other potential.”
yes…as you have, many times, without even beginning to do any actual dd…

:”The ip is likely worth much more then 40 million.”
whatever….then scream at aldrich how the krauts shafted him….

i am working from the data at hand:
somebody is excecuting a biz plan.
somebody who knows the biz says full access to 20% of the i/p is worth $10mm..

prudent speculators will note that this is a solid deal…and run their numbers, and run their voodoo.
and will be accumulating hard.

is the difference between these 2 pov obvious?? yeah. and yet, that poster is long isco, and i have clients long isco.

he’s long because isco management miraculously found $10mm.
i;m long because intelligent people ran a valuation, and thast valuation supports a price closer to 1 1/2 than 1…

he’s long isco because they’re going to growing eyeballs any day now.
i’m long becuase isco is steadily closing in on actual prodict and praxis that will lead to sales higher than overhead.

each decision i am making is based on a quant. that quant may be difficult to see—but if it can;t be seen, it’s worth 0.

no matter what the talk.

story stocks are about the odds of walking the talk.

from another board, a closely related discussion…what’s the “story” and what quants are there.
this one is a high point (in re the reduction in venom from a pawn of insider $$…) that also may help clarify to the prudent speculator what due diligence is.

:”BTIM sells stem cells and takes an interest in the upside of the discovery that may be created”
btim is certainly free to make such contracts with anyone who would fall for them….
on the other hand, millipore doesn’t.
:”Had You attended the annual meeting you would have known that, ” at the last ..lol..annual meeting, 9 months prior, numerous shareholders left with the understadning of how important rgi/nih direction was–and mikey was doing dog&pony on it—just a few days before nih said no.
and then it was never the plan at all.
now it is true that anytime mikey/garfies/ak/neal want to they can give judy $35 on her debit card and another “wholly owned subsidiary to…” can appear.
:”what makes Harvard the expert? only your opinion…”
rotfl….
u forgot to dis warf….
:”when anything comes Out in the Media, Dr West is the first person”
cuase he takes the call, knows how to put on makeup and can do 8 second soundbytes.
how come when there is a real peer review conference on stem cells, mikey is always too busy hyping whatever puppy he’s doing to have actual work to present?
:”plan to be the picks & shovels supplier dictates constant predictable cash flow, thus steady long term growth, once again, ”
yup. totallllly. yup. u betcha..of course, that discounts ur opening point, unless dealing with somebody so broke that they pay for picks and shovels by offering a shares in the mine…which is not predictiable cash flow.
:”just like anything the components cost bucks and one company can get rich creating the components, to deny that is foolish…”
yes. one company can–if it has both first mover and quasi-monopoly…like 65% of potentuial mkt share… it’s sometehing i read for when i’m looking at proposals.
or–if it can be made cheap enuff, and then have a ginormous markup for convenience.
:”Millipor picked Biotime,” not in evidence as to who went to whom… even if mil initaited, yeah, they were adding stem cells to the mix..a 150 page catalog…which was 150 pages thick when btim signed on to have 2 items in it.

:”post their names,”
post urs…u impotent boytoy poser…

:”look at calculators”…yeah..go ahead..look…i watched the price of a hot handheld ti move from $1200 to $10 for the same functions over 8 years…and to $1 over the next 5.
cars? tata is on ther mkt at like $2600….

:”and Balt not all lottery tickets are a buck,” i’ll take ur word for it…not a part of my portfolio strategy…

:”and insiders continue to invest more funds,”
yup. so determining >>>>their basis<<<< is the issue.
and those who like this puppy should be trading to get a basis like that of insiders…which is close to 0.

(this cannot be stressed enough. the prudent speculator should not be lazarus at the gate, waiting for a dog to lick his wounds. the prudent speculator does not homage the insiders and grant them some natural right to more profits. if insiders will finance so that gthey are functionallly in @ $1–then prudent speculators will trade to that basis. “buy and hold” is an abomination–a false god that lets the pumpers, bucket shops, and insiders keep drawing their bonuses at the speculator’s expense, usually by telling him he is an “investor.” )

:”so he helped me make over 1000% on my money, not you.. ”
u’ve reported before being in this puppy at 4ish ion the way down…or 4ish on the way up the first time after ak came on board…

but u are in fact making the critical point again: those in this puppy <2 have reason to like it a lot.
that has nothing >>>>at all<<<< to do with it at 5 3/8…

(another example of the same problem. the most generous estimate i can give for btim prices 2 1/4. insider finance games keep it above 4. the principal insider is in close to 0. so unless this puppy were offered at <2 1/2….it’s overpriced. can you buy 5 1/2, sell 7, keeping enough shares to share a few odd lots at insiders prices? then, if you like this puppy, go for it. if not, then you’re cannon fodder for the gamers.)

:”sees upside 100 times where the stock is today”
nope…he sees 100x growth in gross revs for the sector.

(Another point that cannnnot be stressed enough. the common stock of a given equity is not the sector, and historically, about 85% of everything goes broke without affecting the sector’s long time story arc. the prudent speculator is invited to read the history of railroad industry financing…hehe)

the issue is how much of that goes to btim ebitda..

that’s “worth” 1 7/8–2 1/2… ak will keep this puppy 4 — 6 with occasional spikes..and keep getting shares at $0 net..

prudent speculators will do the same.

if its 100% your money, your ability to beleive stock board “guidance” is set at 0%.

so…yes. you can quant a fairy tale. one piece of straw at a time.

Posted under business

“In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte  — co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab — unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own.

Negroponte’s laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99.

Sibal turned to students and professors at India’s elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a “lukewarm” response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.”

MIT’s Media Lab should be one of America’s “elite technincal universities.” One upon a time it was–and still, probably, is.

In comments about this cited news release, at yahoo, the overwhelming response from Americans was that noting is made in America, this device will suck, it’ll be a cool toy. that last comment was the most intelligent, because those who made it usually said that their buying one would support the project.

Evidently, based on pure numbers, pure quant, pure “science” says that MIT made too many decisions that supported profits for the “cool people”.

The MIT  project depends on $100 per unit subsidy from taxpayers of some kind.
:”India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20.” That’s not a difference of just $85 per unit, it is a critical difference of 60% vs 100%.
There is an obvious Forex-like arb in currency conversion, but the % is what it is, and nothing else.

This device from India probably won’t have the panache and real world support of an i-Pad.
Assuming it works 1/3 as well, a retail buyer can get 5 of them, and run them til they break,
and be a full 50% ahead of buying an i-Pad.

But, without cultural changes, they won’t be “cool people.”

America is becoming a nation of “cool people” who have nothing but their self-absorption, living on borrowed money.  o, wait–it always was. the “money” was first the entire capital wealth of the first natrions people from the Quahog to the Lakota. Then it was the entire prodictive output of 100,000,000 slaves and “push” delivered “immigrants” (as opposed to the African slaves who were “pull” delivered.)

and then, in a “better” world, leaving people where they were, and importing their capital assets–neo-colonialism–and then, for the past generation, just importing their money–at interest.

What has America exported to balance this? belief systems it didn’t want. these were workable belief systems, as India, China, and others have shown. but they just weren’t cool anymore.

When the prudent speculator sees some stem cell stock going overseas to get work done, this is not because the USA can’t do it…but because the insiders at that puppy are working for “coolness”–profits on the books. the question then is where does this coolness flow: to the insiders or to common stock. The easy way to measure is whether the non-USA partners are putting skin in the game, or is the “foreign outreach” based on tax scams and buddy-buddy “cool people” partnerships.

Posted under business

Here’s a dialog that perhaps shows a large problem with online stock commenting, from yahoo threads to seeking alpha to raging bull, etc…

the issue of what in one of my disciplines is styled “vector of credibility and provenance.”
\
the remarks from a yahoo poster are styled inside :”

my added comments inside the dialog are in parens ()

:”but what is important here is the truth. and that is all i’m after”
ok.
i’m after having clients see 20% plus free shares..or better…
if i wanted “truth” i’d head for a theology thread.

(ever notice how people who want to sell at higher than their entry price try to make their hyping sound like Superman?? )

now…perhaps…by “truth” u mean transparency, liquidity, and a level playing field…. then sure…. totallllllllllllyyy….

(As noted here and elsewhere, a primary goal of this website is to knock some of the smudge off the mirror and let a transparent, liquid, and transparent process work. this will, btw, reduce the potential profits for some people. and therein lies why it doesn;t get done. next task is to identify those people, and see them for what they are.)

as a stickler for 1 or 12 things, and in the interest of commo0on ground… :”look you can dissect what i say to you and respond as you wish,”
i don;t have to look. that’s something that just….is.
on board after board, random people set themselves as arbiters of some vague “rules of courtesy” or whatever…

(that is, snake oil llc, solg.ob wants to “stop death.” therefore anybody long on that puppy is inherently noble, and in a position to tell others..something…most usually something like “if you don;t like solg.ob ur a satanic basher and an employess of the democrta/rebulcians/teabagger/alqaeda…whatever” )

:”i do believe the sec is the responsible party when it comes to policing these companies”

… ok. that seems to be the law…
but……….so what?

(indeed…so what? the point in an earlier discussion was that the poster had been told by a company’s i/r (isco.ob) that it woulfd be filing its 10q by the middle of august…on a normal calendar year…In other words this poster was bragging that the equity was engaged in minimal compliance with sec regs.

why would that matter??  because for the past couple months isco has been doing an additional tranche,m and the clearing price has tanked from 2 1/2 to 15/16, and retail spedculators aren;t getting clear answers. the short interest as perceivable has climbed like a mad dog—which tells me its being gamed on both sides, a previopusly unkown insider is dumping…all kinddsaa fun stuff…. that the prudent speculator might wanna know about…

none of those is inhererntly…”bad”…but not knowing what is going on…is.)

one might find an 8k today from btim stating that a deal it said was done in march, just got done this week, but really, it was done last year, so that this year will possibly look much better than last year, so that the ceo haws bragging rights at dog&pony shows… and u know what the sec will have said about that???
somethingt like “filing received.”

and therein lies the trouble woith thinking the existence of the sec means anything at alllll, other than there is aplace to find some documents. this exaple of btim.amex shows that these documents can lie, totally lie, like july 2010 happening during 2009–and be “fully sec ompliant.”

:”please do not solicit fees from me ”
that was >not< a solicitation. it was a statement of fact in re u being in some position to say things like :”you can dissect what i say to you and respond as you wish,”…

(evidently some people think there is a “do not call” list for the internet–except when they want to make a call. Prudent speculators are warned—to the precise point of this essay—that people continually giving away “free” information are making their money >>>somewhere<<<. and it may very well be by blowing smoke to prevent clear sighting of what is going on.)

Prudent speculators are warned:

:”but they are the ones to go to”  …yup. exactly what i have been saying…. >>>not<<< i/r….given how retchidly unreal a filing can be…how much more wiggle room can a prudent speculator afford to give away??

:”the need to hold back thought because you are not getting paid that is your right”

“A counselor’s time and advice are his stock and trade.”–said by the guy who got onto the $5  by having reallllly bad seats for “our american cousin.” If you are running your own $$$ 100%, then trust others about 0%.

do your own dd. and “don;t follow leaders, watch the parking meters”

fd: clients in isco.

Posted under business

Prudent speculators will often be accused of all kinds of things.

Here’s an example of a simple baltbear (your very own host here)  being

accused (in a 3rd person remark..that is..a lack of direct dialog)
“. I personally think he has an agenda which I have told him directly and

the negativity toward the investments of ISCO”

So what’s  with the “negative”??

readers familiar with my pov on isco will note i have 3 clients in isco.ob at

this time. They got there “because I said so.” They are all 3 >>slightly<<

in profit, becuase i got them in after the 1 7/16 support line cracked durin

the series f preferred offering.

But i expect isco to head towards 2 1/2— a near double from here… and

then drift towards 4… after it >proves< something.

Cause in actual bizness–not perpetual stock scams—mgt executes in a

way that can be proven in audited filings—it’s called “revenue.”

That gives me an “agenda.” I don’t tell people isco.ob is going to 10, or

20, or 320….or …whatever…

and there it is….

On the board where isco is being discussed there are 6 or 10 posters
muttering about prices north of 4…without having read the filings that

formed isco in the first place.

this same alleged heavy  hitter  who accused me of “having an agenda”

thought isco.ob was ipo’d on its own name. Thinking such a thing means

they have never read the filings, which show it being a double reverse

merger shell property. ….not that there’s anything wrong with that. doing

so can save more than a few $$$ getting listed.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Such a procedure can save

thousands of dollars in useless fees to lawyers and other scum and

basically, i am increasingly convinced over the past 2 years that keeping

lawyers and other scum  as far away from biz formations as possible is

prudent speculation by the entrepreneur.

reducing lawyer exposure and double talk of any kind is something clients

pay me for–and it is usually more rewarding than listening to inventors

dreams of being worth $xyz million any day now….

But since this isco formation is not exactly ancient history, and is publicly

available from the sec, >not knowing it<< is a signal of something–

specifically, lack of prudence.

prudent speculators >>>always<<< read the original s3s…

back to isco.ob: i say this is a place to start nibbling, isco.ob because

2 1/2 is coming back… and that’s “negative” in the minds of those who,

over and over, say “it’s different this time” whether this time is real

estate, the internet, stem cells, “plastics” –going back to “tulips.” (for

those who have taken their proper classes in the art of the arb, for 1k

years before tulips came along, it was usually?  ….wait for it…….
black pepper.

when everyone agrees about how great prospects are it’s time to look

for the koolaid pitcher that is feeeding the hypnotic agreement.

those who doubt this are cordially invited to read the chaerts of aig, fnm,

wamu (o wait, it’s wamu>>q<<) citibank, et al.

personally and professionally i don;t think >>anyone<< is without an

agenda.
the issue is…what >>is<< the agenda, and do you benefit or suffer

by working for/against it…

as an example of objectivity let’s take this statement about the market

size for synthetic corneas :”going blind or had vision problems that could

be rectified by a pair of corneas, I would pay just about anything.”

uhuh…so, that only says u have $$.

it is a fundamental law of econ that u cannot spend more than u have +

what others think u can pay back…unless you steal.

so, towards dd, what % of “10mm people need corneas” can get their

hands on …let’s call it, just to be as long as possible on isco….

$3000????

data? source of data?

the prudent speculator will be finding some dang way that has meaning to

him to look for such numbers.

in the course of the average week i do about 10 hours of reading ranging

from “vogue” to patent filings looking to see what active market

participants actuallly think….not what stock promoters, bucket shops, and

cult members want thought.

for instance, i  can cheeerfully see isco licensing the tech so that

somebody in bumphreakistan gets eyesight, and isco gets
~$15 per event.
that might be 3mm custoimers over 10 years @????
let’s go conservative and say 50mm o/s….. 9 cents a share >>>straight

to the bottom line<<<<…

and people get to see. and isco gets to have a reasonable “fair value” of

4-6…

but pumpers don’t get houses by the lake.

and that is why so many voices on random stock boards see me as a

“basher.”

when somebody wants you to listen to their investment strategy, ask for

their agenda. If they say they have none….run away.

mine is based on observing this item of “laws of a baltbear”
“some want to be sharks, some want to be dolphins–nobody wants to be

tuna.”

if you are nobody–feel free to see if i’m available for consultation.

fd: 3 clients long isco.
and..btw…in my professional and personal opinion the odds on isco

paying corp income taxes during my lifetime are about….zilch, but the

odds on enuff gross revs to support developing i/p without more than one

more round of dilution, and further developing i/p that makes “the story”

“worth” 4 in the next couple years 1/3–but the odds on a rebound to 2

1/2 goood enuff to load up on.
that is neither a recommendation nor an anything…
it just is.

Posted under business

Prudent speculators will often be accusede of all kinds of things.

Here’s an example of a simple baltbear being accused (in a rd person remark)
“. I personally think he has an agenda which I have told him directly and the negativity toward the investments of ISCO”

readers familiar with my pov on isco will note i have 2 clients in isco.ob at this time. They got there “because I said so.”

But i expect isco to head towards 2 1/2— a near double… and then drift towards 4… after it >proves< something.

That gives me an “agenda.”

and there it is….
new readers are invited to note a poster or 6 here and there muttering about prices north of 4…without having read the filings that formed isco in the first place….this same alleged heavy duty hitter thought isco.ob was ipo’d on its own name. Thinking such a thing means they have never read the filings, which shiw it being a double reverse merger shell property.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Such a procedure can save thousands of dollars in useless fees to lawyers and other scum. But since this is not exactly ancient history, and is publy available from the sec, >not knowing it<< is a signal of something–specifically, lack of prudence.

i say this is a place to start nibbling, isco.ob because 2 1/2 is coming back… and that’s “negative” in the minds of those who, over and over, say “it’s different this time” whther this time is real estate, the internet, stem cells, “plastics” –going back to “tulips.”

when everyone agrees it’s time to look for the koolaid pitcher that is feeeding it. those who doubt this are cordially invited to read the chaerts of aig, fnm, wamu (o wait, it’s wamu>>q<<) citibank, et al.

personally and professionally i don;t think >>anyone<< is without an agenda.
the issue is…what >>is<< the agenda, and do you benefit or suffer by working for/against it…

as an example of objectivity let’s taqke this statement about the market size for synthetic corneas :”going blind or had vision problems that could be rectified by a pair of corneas, I would pay just about anything.”

uhuh…so, that only says u have $$.

it is a fundamental law of econ that u cannot spend more than u have + what others think u can pay back…unless you steal.

so,tards dd, what % of “10mm people need corneas” can get their hands on …let’s call it, just to be as long as possible on isco…. $3000????

data? source of data?

i can cheeerfully see isco licensing the tech so that somebody in bumphreakistan gets eyesight, and isco gets
~$15 per event.
that might be 3mm custoimers over 10 years @ let’s go conservative and say 50mm o/s….. 9 cents a share >>>straight to the bottom line<<<<…

and people get to see. and isco gets to have a reasonable “fair value” of 4-6…

but pumpers don’t get houses by the lake.

and that is why so many voices here see me as a “basher.”

when somebody wants you to listen to their investment strategy, ask for their agenda. If they say they have none….run away.

mine is based on observing this item of “laws of a baltbear”
“some want to be sharks, some want to be dolphins–nobody wants to be tuna.”

if you are nobody–feel free to see if i’m available for consultation.

fd: 2 clients long isco.

Posted under business

In a day or three, depending on how the euro is doing as people begin to realise that false claims of progress will always be undone by inefficiencies and corruption, i’ll be talking about the most dangerous words in the speculator’s environment: “it’s different this time”.

recall the crazy valuations in the days of the net bubble?

at the time, it was “different this time.”

recall the “artificial blood” stocks of 98-99?

at the time it was “different this time.”

recall mortgage deals of 2005-2008 as the real estate industry sold off its assets??

at the time it was “different this time.”

i recently picked up a reasonable enough fee for explaining to a guy managing a fair chunk of other people’s money what “the big deal” is with stem cell stocks, from gern to isco.obb.

and is different about pricing them for speculation than is true about f, or ge, or mot…and what was the same, because the ojne thing always true for the prudent speculator is that it is never different this time.

Posted under business

here’s a simple rule of living, well known for 3000 years, to the point of being essential to the foundation of any fair trial: if you weren’t there, you don’t know.

granted that o’reilly, jon stuart, facebook and the entire fox network exist to convince you that you don’t need to know anything at all to have an opinion that must be respected, if shouted lodly enough.

in terms of teaching the concept of due diligence i offer this simple story: around Christmas 2005 loud signals (that is, silence on real estate agents phone lines) were being sent that the florida real estate bubble was done inflating. real estate transfers to launder drug $$, real estate transfers to hide military spending, retiring uaw/umw/etc workes with strong pensions and health care, retiring insurance/banking workers with strong pensions and health care, strong pension funds seeing good risk/reward for being general partners in reits–all that had been used up.

time to repeat walres’ law, in marshmallow easy terms:
if something changes, then something happened.
that is–if that’s too hard for you to get–things don;t grow because things grow, they grow because something is added. thus, they shrink under negative addition, called subtraction.
prices do not go up because prices go up: they go up because more money is chasing the same amount of goods. (it took arthur burns entire trip as fed res chair to even get congress to believe the statement could be made out loud, let alone believed or trusted.) thus, they go down when less money is on the hunt for goods and services.

florida, then california, then nevada, then new york, then all over the country joined in the habit of keeping housing prices going up or at least holding steady by offering kickbacks to the buyer. that is, “no, i am not selling this house for $400k. i am selling it for $450, and you are winning a $50k secret shopper prize for being the lucky buyer.”

even then, the “time on market began to grow”. by late 2006, the only way for “housing” as an industry to continue to grow was to create the >appearance< of cash flow by writing increasingly non-valid (difficult to believe) mortgages and refinancing, since, in a badly regulated mkt, just as on fox news and brittany speirs concerts, “appearance is everything.”

by early 2008 any serious investor or truly prudent speculator knew the housing bubble was imploding, and with it, the world economy. this fact was then pasted over by assuming that at any given time the bubble would deflate in small areas. the only problem with this concept is that bubbles inflate and deflate overall, and in a modern economy, there is no “local” economy to which the deflation can be localised. thus, the insurance policies on the mortgage packages, and the re-insurance, and the hedges on the re-insurance (default credit swaps) could not be seperated from the underlying reality.

the only way to maintain any kind of real cash flow planet wide was to shrink the rate of chinese growth, and squeeze every last loose dollar in a wallet into firmer hands by inflating oil prices, and diverting those profits into propping up balance sheets.

the prudent speculator may ask, “so what?” and the answer is that by january 2008 the only “institutions” capable of holding this imploding bubble on their backs, and do atlas’ job, were jpm, goldman-sachs, the us treasury (that is, the future) thru its running dogs, fanny and freddie.

jpm, whose power to bail out the american economy was so great by 1907 that the fed res was created as a proxy so that the government might have some say in the matter, began preparing to buy billions of debt for thousands of dollars, put it on its books at 0, and plan how to turn 0 into 1/4 over 10 years, thereby booking “profit”. the fdic cooperated, since for 30 years it had been being bled dry by a succession of bailouts beginning with penn state, onto continental, then general re, ad inf, ad nauseam. jpm’s willingness to eat the dominos did not cause them to fall. it kept them from falling on your head.

the real issue is not a “conspiracy by jpm and gs to take over the world” but a “conspiracy” by the entire consuming public of the so-called free world to insist that prices they receive must go up, and prices paid must go down: a free lunch.

so, whether it’s wamuq.pk or a stem cell stock ur looking at, find out: who holds the debt, who pays the rent, who gets first bite at the apple. then go on to ask, who buys this stuff, and how how can they, and how much can they buy.

imho it will be another 15 years before american housing prices and growth reach 2006 levels, and only if america keeps its swinging door immigration policy loose. it will be 5-15 years before any “stem cell” company has a penny a share attributable to common.

those who want to haul water and make $$ had better not bet much on hauling it to a bubble factory.

Posted under business

there is now more evidence for the need for the “10 cent solution.”
the president has seen the strategic requirement to open east coast offshore exploration as an emergency measure to reduce trade deficits.
the petroleum idustry sees usa oil demand as having peaked 3 years ago, based on price efficiency models.
if transportation is to remain on any growth curve, without breaking the constraints of the supply model, there remains a high requirement for improved vehicle efficiency, and a steady rate of change model.
polk has now determined that a combination of factors ranging from quality improvements to economic hardship has stretched the time vehicle owners hang on to any vehicle by 10.8% over the past year, to 49.9 months.
does the economy, “green” or otherwise depend on reducing that number back towards the 36 months that was a standard expectation during the strong growth period of 1955-1974? that 3 year metric applied to new car purchases, and driving much of anything better than a “roller” that was only useful for the 2 mile drive to the steel mill.
in the middle of breaking open the national piggybank of energy reserve, it is past time to impose a 10 cent fuel tax with the proceeds going to driving vehicle scrappage.
with a slight modification in the original plan to weight towards getting guzzlers taken out first, by sending them to the tuna can factory after 12 years, and tightening the kill point on passenger cars to 18 years from 20, the auto industry goes back to work, the wons that support them stabilise, and capital markets can have a rational expectation for funding r&d and startups that are aiming 10-15 years out.
the “cash for clunkers” program partially worked, for the little while it was in place. it creaked and rattled from gimmicky eligibility, and broke down from its lack of funding source.
Those who don’t like thinking about $125 oil need to be thinking now about taxing the fuel made from $80 oil.

Posted under business

Over and over, most recently from matt taiibi in rolling stone, and from countless others on internet stock boards, there is a resurgence of the fiction of “illegal naked shorting.”
First off, things regarding the mkts are regulated by the sec, which is a division of the federal reserve, which occasionally thru its chair reports to congress, which passes laws.
but, until e-bay starts reworking the constitution, (after meg whitman goes from california governor to ceo of usa inc,) and a constitutional convention is done through google buzz, “legal” and “illegal” have nothing to do with shorting of any kind. “scummy” “duplicitous” “screwing with walres law with the logical result”…yes. and? “well it oughta be” and other forms of jousting at windmills have but one answer: “go buy your own congressmen and get ‘er done.”
in addition, exchanges pass rules concerning their members and traffic that may be tighter than the actual regulations set by the sec.

example? sally is a secretary for greengobble partners, which is busy doing a long slow take under (at shareholder expense… ok..that’s so “well, duh” it shouldn’t be stated) of buymetimesickles, inc. while running the copyer, she notices that buymetime is putting out an 8k, restating the 4th quarter of 09, as if the 4th 1/4 was a  a separate event from the 4th 1/4 discussed in a 10k filed 3 weeks earlier, and announcing 1st 1/4 results for 2010 19 days before the 1/4 is over–unless buymetime has changed its calendar–which of course it has done before. further, the 8k states that a previously announced discount on warrant execution hasn’t really, well, yaknow…happened. cuase somebody “forgot” or something, to register it, after filing an 8k stating it was a done deal, cause buymetime wants to siphon corporate funds into an inhouse shell corp, one of 2 it has created.
sally tells this to bob, the limo driver for larry the lion. bob mentions it to larry while on the way to a brothel on the upper east side run by a dutch immigrant, who will later call her broker and tell him to short the puppy if it spikes. oddly, the open will have a 10% upsurge, 5 - 5 1/2, possibly because greengerbils llc on lasalle st in chicago (run by the son of greengobbles sr partner) is doing a placement to his private clients of some buymetime treasury stock issued in april, and approved by the shareholders in october. since the chart shows 5 1/2 as the shorts’ reasonable nibbling point, and any kind of f/a shows a reasonable price <2, and hitting 5 1/2 and covering 5ish is an easy 3/8 - 1/2 in less than a month, thereby yeilding >100% apr, being troubled with a “locate” is not really an issue. especially if the clearing house also is the owner of a million or so wts.
insider trading? yup. becuase sally has a “fiduciary duty” not to mention this to bob until the “press release” stating that the 8k will be filed some time later is “issued” by having somebody at buymetime inc, hit the internet for “free press releases” and place a few.
illegal? if it could evvver be hunted down (and fans of spiro agnew or raymond donovan will recall that it can be hunted down) there’s a 50/50 chance someby will call it illegal to keep the profit, if it came from using tax payers money (as fans of spiro agnew and raymond donovan will recall). if >sally< traded it, her action is a violation of sec rules. if she >lied< about it, that’s a felony (as fans of martha stuart will recall).
now, if somebody at phonypressrelease’r'us.com has a  server side script set (based on past results) such that whenever buymetime, inc opens their account to prime the pump his skype account starts dialling his broker in frankfort, then you would have an exchange violation on nasdaq. (on amex, it probably gets u offered a job as a floor runner.)     however, by sec rules, it’s >not< insider trading.
“regulations” do not make things  legal or illegal…. the idea of “illegal naked shorting” is a head game played by stock promoters.
was i referring to any given “real” ticker in the above examples? regular visitors to this corner will hear the bell ringing.

a day or 2 ago a number of distressed financial stocks rallyed hard on the rumour—which the sec promptly denied, but nobody cared—that there was gonnna be a rule stopping all this blahblahblah…
i often find it uttterly amasing and laffable that people won’t bet $5 on a rugby game becuase they don’t know the rules, teams, etc…but will bet their family’s wealth on a sport where they are equallly ignorant of the rules, teams, players, etc…for no other reason than when the players suit up they are wearing uniforms by allen flusser.
i am occasionallly totallly non-plussed when a matt taibbi (who can explain a default credit swap) pretends to not know what a “put” is, or tries to argue that gs’ effort to bail out housing with trading profits from oil, and bail out the fed res’ ability to bail out banks by buying notes that are so derivative as to be intangibles is seen as some “evil plot”.
i am occasionally totally disgruntled when stock board posters, hypers, bucket shops, and the running dogs of the greengobble partners of this world tell people to keep buying becuase all the chicanery is “going to be investigated any day now.”
that will of course happen the day after they start serving high tea on the playing field whenever a rugby player hits the dirt.

Posted under business

back a few motnhs ago i cleaned up a pile of hypester garbage about news vs actual business filings.

the concrete example was btim:amex.

going into 2010, with  afresh pump in place, it’s time to revisit and revise.

the plan, according to btim, as stated in its filings is:

1. license patent estates and repackage them; (being done) –still being done.
2. license software  for the building of a clearing house for stem cell info; (done); -progressing towards possible cash flow…unknown amounts.
3. develop a line of reagents and tools for biomedical research (in progress) progressing with cell lines actually actually for sale thru mil, allowing speculators to get actual numbers about 041510. this is being spun by hypsters as a separate subsidiary. a pr firm is doing the work..demonstrating that this is “news” and not events.
4. sell stock to fund the inner circle (being done more and more) and more and more, most recently with a plan to give insiders another free ride to a take under.
5. use the buzz to get listed on nasd or..lol..amex… (in progress) done. and advertised world wide by having gthe ceo ring the bell at the opening, making world tv the same day. so “under the radar” is gone as an excuse.
6. hire boiler rooms to pump (done regularly); being done afresh for 2010
7. increase financiers’ net $$ and % without risk (every year since 96) again.
8. sell stem cells (been being done for over a year without report of any sales) 6+ lines now in the mil catalog
9. cash checks from hextend license and distribute to financiers  to keep the door open,(done every year from 2000 to april this year); yup.
10. get grants, and do work once the $$ are in hand; (limited success with hextend (<$1mm since 2000, studies evidently failed since there was no follow up) $1.6mm a year for 3 years offered by california for stem cells. six month after grant authorised, no reports of money received, but a statement from btim that with $4mm in the bank thy will do no work on th grant project til cash in hand, even tho the grant is for the core of their held-out biz strategy. first check rec’d in october. $ spent hiring people who can actually do the work whiloe mikey talks about it.
11. spin off “subsidiaries) that allow the financers to profit w/o very low risk; accelerating with a paper game called “oncocyte” which was created as a paper shell for the p[urpose of giving new finance insiders a free ride. possibly progressing towards a pump&dump for 2010 autumn.
12. use warrants as a play pretty to manipulate the borrow and bring in cash to the treasury (maybe 5 or 6 times in 12 years); still seems to be happening, especially with btim executing a forced conversion as announced by one of the pumpers working on the inside.
13. paint the tape. hasn;t been done for a while…but will be a side effect of the warrant game mentioned above.

how well is this plan working??
for those who like the story and understand this puppy is about 1% as solid as fnm, i’d suggest a tonne of limit orders ~4, and get out anywhere north of 5 that makes you happy. that can now be moved to closer to 4 1/2, giving a tighter range where shares can be accumulated cheap by trading into accumulation.
that’s 25%. or, if u really like this puppy, open up the limits in a widening ram from 4 7/16, and taper i out over 5 1/4… for 25% plus some free shares. shorts can treat this puppy like a chew toy at 6+..but it appears that btim will be giving them help on getting there, during february. pumpers and hypesters will be working to get it above 2009 hi of 6 15/16. since shorts see the same pump news, they will be waiting.
…since that’s what the players here have been doing since… hmmm…. ‘96??? the pattern will stay in effect, since there will be no evidence of anything like revenues til 041510… at that point a speculation can be made about what kind of future btim can have without selling paper and hype.  the 1st quarter revs, minus anything from hextend, can be divided by 6, multiplied by 26 (that gives optimism for cell lines coming into the mil catalog) multiplied by 1.2 for a slow ramp, and then by 5–as a further pad on the ramp–giving a guess at annual revs for the next 2 years. as soon as such a speculation gets close to full g&a, btim stops being a development stage co–after only 18 years–and becomes a biotech r&d house.
what was it that happened in 96? that’s about when biotime started paying al kingsley for “advice.” that’s still going on. as a result, prudent speculators whoi like this puppy wil ltrade to get their basis as close to his as possible, since ak (as bethlehem steel and outboard marine testify) is working for himself–not the company, and not holders of the meaningless paper that is btim common. hypsters will continue to do anything they can to cloud that reality. the idea that speculators can live on the scraps tossed by predators does noty apply when the predators are hyenas with their own inhouse vultures.

Posted under business, social