Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

From Instapundit:

CONSTANT-DOLLAR DOW: Today’s 10,000 is really 7,537. Or, in another metric: “It cost about 30 ounces to buy the 10,000 Dow last time. Now it costs less than 10.”

And here’s an interesting Bloomberg screen cap of the Dow over CPI –

(Link du jour Prasenjeet)

What do folks think the next big market bubble to burst?

Here are some choices that I’ve heard floating around –

1. Debt bubble (bonds) — A friend recently commented that at a recent investor meeting, this was raised as the next bubble that could burst. On one hand, some folks think that the fed could do negative interest rates, and on the other, a lot of European investors are supposedly preparing to to short the U.S. government bond market in anticipation of much higher interest rates in the coming months. If you want to see signs that bonds have jumped the shark, look no further than State Street’s new offering, first convertible bond ETF of its kind.
2. Gold — This has been a long time coming. The sooner the better, I feel. It is a commodity that has been overvalued beyond measure, and the current market isn’t helping. And just have a look at the number of gold ETFs out there.
3. Sovereign default –To quote PD, while it is unlikely that the Fed, ECB and the BOE will let this happen, we are on the precipitous edge.
4. Fall of a big bull – Another friend who’s a hedge fund manager quoted that bear market will not end until one of the big bulls of this era gets run over, and until a new bull takes the place. He thinks it could be Warren Buffet.

Personally, I’m more concerned about 1 and 2 (2 is a great shorting opportunity and 1 is a scary thought).  3 is unlikely, and 4 — well, let’s say I’m holding back on 4.

I recently discovered CNBC’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker, which keeps track of the publicly traded stocks held by BRK or its subsidiaries.

I recently stumbled upon a really good introduction to technical analysis by Recognia.

Good material that would be quite useful for someone who is new to technical analysis.

And in the interest of full disclosure, while I’m certainly not associated with them in any way, my broker does provide me access to their technical analysis tools which are rather awesome.

Interesting technical analysis patterns from the past week:

This happened earlier in the month, when the markets were sorta bullish.

Me: Bloody markets are up.
Friend: Yeah, don’t know why. Freaking annoying.

Of course, this was long before the current carnage.

Does anyone have any recommendations for good brokers for online options trading ?

I’m looking for low rates/commissions, and quick, effective and consistent execution.

And ladies and gentlemen, we are there. My predictions? We are likely to hit the low 8,000s; however, if we ever go below 8000, the chances of going below the 2002 low of 7784 is unlikely.

And if it does, I’m moving to a farm in Bhutan.

Forbes/Starmine are out with their list of the top stock brokerage analysts (sell-side) from last year. Also included is their “rare-bird” list of analysts who not only successfully picked stocks but also accurately predicted profits.

For those interested, Forbes has also gives a brief overview of their methodology used for shortlisting and selection.

Among the top pickers, Atlantic Equities’ Chris Hickey and Stanford Group’s Erik Olbeter have software and IT in their portfolio while Wachovia Securities’ Jennifer Fritzsche and Janco Partners’ Donna Jaegar have wireless and telecom in theirs.

Surprisingly, none of the top earnings estimators seem to have software or IT in their portfolio. However, there were two that looked at wireless and telecom — Stifel Nicolaus’ Christopher King and UBS’ John Hodulik.

And oh, I expect the Cydonian to be fully shocked (or pissed – take one) at one of the companies the pickers have listed.