Today's surprise....

[_nova]

...will be US GDP out at 15h30. Estimates range from -4.0 to -5.6 (Prev was -0.5, Median is -5.4 and Range -3.0 to -7.0). Consider the following "The cost of restoring confidence in U.S. financial firms may reach $4 trillion if President Barack Obama moves ahead with a "bad bank" that buys up souring assets." whereas "At $4 trillion, that would be the equivalent of nearly 1/3 of U.S. gross domestic product." and that folks refers to good times GDP, not the GDP going forward. The figure may be more in the order of 50% going ahead... so let's see what comes out. If this number is worse than forecast there will be pandemonium.

[john_1]

Nova.. I always expect the market to do exactly the opp of what everybody thinks..it keeps me from trying to second guess the market and to wait for the entries to present themselves.

[dookie]

Mmmm. I think I should try doing the opposite of what everyone thinks. My only problem is that half tend to think the market is going up, half think it's going down and the remaining half can't decide :-)

[#4]

I read an article yesterday that proclaimed hyperinflation is the next big thing to hit the US ( and thus the world). But what really struck me was the following: The US has now spent enormous sums of money (can't remember the exact figure) on bailouts etc. since the start of the recession trying to stimulate the economy, and they have nothing to show for it. If there are 125 million households in the US (there are actually less) and the government devided all stimulus money equally among them, they'd each have recieved a cheque for $40,000. That's excluding the lates Obama stimulus package. Makes you thinks about how bad things really are, can we really grasp it?

[_nova]

Excellent article by George Soros explains the bad idea of a 'bad bank': http://www.georgesoros.com/the-right-wrong-bail-out

[john_1]

Imagine the benifits to the household if they had payed off 40 000 dollars of dept for each house hold Dirrectly into their home loans.

[SimonPB]

most of the money spent thus far was not on stimulus .. in fact none of it has been, it has all been bail out money ..

[_nova]

BIG GREEN ... GDP only -3.8% much better than expected