That's the old economy. How are the sales of derivatives and lattes?

Local Cat laying off workers:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/18/3....

You mean like this?

http://market-ticker.org/archives/256-Wh....

http://www.thestreet.com/funds/smarter/8....

Douchebag wrote..

You want winners? You want me to put my Cramer Berkowitz hedge fund hat on and just discuss what my fund is buying today to try to make money tomorrow and the next day and the next? You want my top 10 stocks for who is going to make it in the New World? You know what? I am going to give them to you. Right here. Right now.
OK. Here goes. Write them down -- no handouts here!: 724 Solutions (SVNX), Ariba (ARBA), Digital Island (ISLD), Exodus (EXDS), InfoSpace.com (INSP), Inktomi (INKT), Mercury Interactive (MERQ), Sonera (SNRA), VeriSign (VRSN) and Veritas Software (VRTS).
We are buying some of every one of these this morning as I give this speech. We buy them every day, particularly if they are down, which, no surprise given what they do, is very rare. And we will keep doing so until this period is over -- and it is very far from ending. Heck, people are just learning these stories on Wall Street, and the more they come to learn, the more they love and own! Most of these companies don't even have earnings per share, so we won't have to be constrained by that methodology for quarters to come.
There, now that that's done with, can we talk about the methodology that produced those top 10 so that you can understand how, in a universe of a gazillion stocks, we arrived at those, so you too can figure it out? I hope we can because I have another 10 and still another 10 and another. They all do the same thing: They make the Web faster, cheaper, better and easier to access anywhere, anytime. They allow you to get on the Web securely anywhere in the world. They make the Web economy the only economy that matters. That's all they do.

I'm sure it will pick back up when dozers are needed to bury all of the broke taxpayers in mass graves.

CAT is the only long I held onto long term (and still own) from March 09 averaging into around $23.50.
I bought largely based on this discussion and never got a sell signal:
If you HAD to buy one stock today to hold for 10-25 years...
http://tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-w....
I wonder if this is still the case? Will CAT be around in 25 years? The table in ticker looks bruuuutal.

No worries. We'll make up for it with granite countertops and steam washing machines.

Who needs the real economy ?

/sarc

CATS a bit pricy. Lots of other choices. And theres a big market of re-sale/used overhang, so why buy new overpriced CAT.


http://www.rbauction.com/index.jsp


We sold US$3.5 billion of used and unused equipment at 325 unreserved auctions in 2009, including a wide range of heavy equipment, trucks and other assets for the construction, transportation, agricultural, material handling, mining, forestry, petroleum and marine industries.

Guess ALL that stimulus money that was going to be used in 2010 has started to move into the States coffers to buy votes for Obamacare as well as save the jobs of several SEIU & AFSCME gov't-labor-union-lovin'-paper-pusher bureaucrats!

Who needs roads when you can save a gov't job by eliminating State Governments' debts! Like ALL those Electoral Votes in the Liberal Meccas of California, New York & Illinois as well as Chicago City Government!

They expect revenue to rise between 10-20% this year, not off to a good start.

i was hoping to pick some up in the teens at the lows but obviously it never got there. i live in CAT-land. the contracts with the unions are helping CAT out in the longer term financially. the flip side is that the younger generationers will get absolutely nothing like the long term employees have gotten in all their years of employment with CAT. in fact, i think if you were start out on the floor now, you'd get less $ and total compensation than you would if you had started out back in the 70's/80's. from what i gather they have and continue to run the show so as to NOT hire new full-time floor employees...just use supplemental/temps as needed...been the game plan for the last several years that i'm aware of.

Jake, maybe they think they think they will offset decreasing sales with higher prices.

If the foolish govt is doing all this make shift work, why not raise prices on the idiots who will pay it.

This is worse than it sounds...the Stimulus bill had a lot of money going to infrastructure projects. You would think that CAT would have benefited a bit more.

Sweet Baby Jesus, those are big down numbers!

Locally we have a company(LB White)that is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of propane, natural gas and kerosene heaters for agricultural, construction, tent and greenhouse environments.

Well they layed off 33 production workers about a year ago, then called back 31 of them. Now they just layed off 17 of them again because of reduced orders. Can you say double dip.

I read a comment the other day, that Geitner was hinting at bailing out the states. The market has been climbing a wall of worry since last march. Also, the other day, i heard a comment that there was concern about a double dip recession. The market ended up on the day anyway, jumping over another wall of worry.

All this stuff i keep reading, which is making my eyes glaze over, due to the sheer volume of it, is going to matter- the question is when. Greece is a daily ping pong ball and i just sit here waiting for the EU to blink and bail Greece out, despite all the huffing and puffing about PIIGs wanting to fly.

To me, the market looks like it is a fifth wave move from march 2009. Last year 1,245 was bandied about as a major resistance point for the market to run up to. Maybe some of this stuff i have been reading, is about to matter. The question then becomes how much in the near term, to the market? The Nikkei went sideways for a long time. How much of the run up from 666 does the market give back? What is the next FED/government intervention and when does it take place, to goose the market again?

Unemployment is 12% in the general area, but when i go to the mall or drive around town, things still seem relatively busy. It seems a contradiction.

Only 17, well I guess that will take us to about 8500 on the dow.

R2J,

Well, the States - and especially your own there in California - have to pass a balanced Budget BEFORE July 1st which is the beginning of the next Fiscal Year.

YET, most likely there will be major political fighting because the revenue is down this year as it was last year. There is, for the most part, no rainy day funds, or cheap money to borrow. Spending Cuts will have to happen - major public uproar; Maybe someone will again try to raise taxes on an overtaxed public - more public uproar. Very few if any will lend money - more public uproar. Feds most likely choice to fill thi money gap - even more public uproar.

I'm thinking this summer will be even more exciting than last summer. I'm sure several States won't pass their budgets until AFTER JULY 1. That will cause more gov't shutdowns with only a skeletal crews doing gov't work until budgets passed.

I thinking something like some huge riots similar to the sixities when some gov't services are cut. Some large protest gatherings of Tea Partiers - heck they may even be attacked by these freeloaders who have had their free lunch cutback by some State, etc....

It's well known that, despite the optimism on the news, the real economy is not recovering. It also appears that how the stocks move has nothing to do with Main Street.

Yes, some shopping areas appear busy, but it depends on location. The Wal-Mart in my town always has cars in the parking lot but I can tell that volume is down and inside there are fewer people. My area of NE PA has always been depressed in terms of jobs so we haven't been hard hit. But the people spending money have come here from more expensive areas; they are looking for cheaper homes for retirement or to get away from big-city violence.

In the states where unemployment is horrendous, it looks like a war zone. Since nearly every state is having revenue problems, the stimulus has been used to try and maintain the semblance of the status quo. I expect that to change soon; in fact, I'm already seeing increases in school and property taxes. So my prediction is that it will just get worse for Main Street. If you think we're not buying now, just wait.

Been by the Cat dealer here for filters and misc parts to service the 246B 2007 skid steer I picked up on eBay for $13,500, and the place is very slow. That was last month, will swing by again soon.

Here's a pix of one, not mine. Only $13.5k! Nicer. Don't think we're having deflation??

It is all good
Looked at cat only down .5%
From close at 52 wk hi
You better be damn certain at end of day will be green
of course economy is recovering, can't you see it, is green every day
u.s economy is the equity market, what part of it you have problem comprehending

EDIT: unreal it even went positive during this morning trading.
google the mind

I will say that my biz is booming - but we provide professional svcs. to Energy companies as well as various government entities.

Our gov't biz will slow way down in the Summer-Fall 0f 2010 when all these State Budget cuts are implemented.

BUT, the Energy side of the biz is expected to keep on rolling along!

Here's an ugly graph worth considering.

so then... is machinery down something like 50% over the last two years??

This started about the 2nd week in Dec for me. Things were ok up to then in that I was not laying flat on the ground like in Jan 2009 but no where near Q1 of 2007. By January 2010 , I was talking to other small business people in my area. Tentative at first because I didn't want to hear I was the only one experiencing it. Man , I got an earful. A number of them were hitting doughnuts , as in zero sales for the month. Most of us are B2B.

I saw blow out earnings for Q4 in January but none of the stocks were reacting so the CC calls were probably negative as CEOs were starting feel this too. Now I see today's ticker ( Thanks Karl) and see huge drop offs from last year. I think mass lay offs won't be far behind. My guess is if Q1 ends like it started we'll lay-offs that will overwhelm the census hiring.

I knew this economy wasn't in recovery. It seems like a stock in that they never go straight down. They pop up a little , plateau (Cliff edges) then start sliding down in normal times, not when the visible hand is propping it up like the dead Boss in Weekend at Bernies ( http://is.gd/aNzal )