[copious.abundance]

As I said, the conspiracy theories are alive and well here.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'y')ou don't bet $5 Billion on a bank that may or may not exist in a week. You don't even risk 10% on $5 Billion

[AlexdeLarge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'A')s I said, the conspiracy theories are alive and well here.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'A')s I said, the conspiracy theories are alive and well here.

[pup55]

Interesting. JP Morgan did exactly the same thing in 1929.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')eporters learned that an important meeting was taking place at the office of J.P. Morgan and Company, involving many of the most important men in banking. After the meeting broke, Thomas Lamont, senior partner at Morgan – a company founded by a man who had help stop a panic in 1907, made the following statement to newspaper reporters: “There has been a little distress selling on the Stock Exchange… due to a technical condition of the market” and that things were “susceptible to betterment.”

The market moved up a bit after Lamont’s statement, but the real recovery came at 1:30 pm, when self-confident Richard Whitney, vice-president of the NYSE and floor broker of J.P. Morgan and Company, walked into the exchange floor. The crowd went silent. Everyone expected an announcement that the NYSE would be closed. Instead, Richard Whitney surprised everybody…

Whitney asked for the latest bid on U.S. Steel. “195” someone shouted. Then he promptly announced that he was buying 10,000 shares of U.S. Steel at 205. He immediately received 200 shares and then left the rest of the order with the specialist. He continued to make similar orders for over a dozen more stocks. Fear evaporated as investors became worried that they would miss the new boom. The market would have closed much higher if stop loss orders from earlier that day hadn’t been triggered during the upward surge. Needless to say, the recovery on Black Thursday was impressive, but so was the massive sell off earlier in the morning that gave it its name.

[Pretorian]

There is one thing I fail to understand with this dude. he is an overweighted 78 yo, how much does he have left to live? 3, 4, 5 years? How many of them will be worth living? Now I would understand if he needed money for whatever reason (making a puppet president somewhere, empregnating every miss universe, saving pola bears, whatever) but he doesnt. The guy eats cheap steaks and drinks cherry coke and every meal or drink can be his last one. He will die, and all that money eventually will go to thousands of different people who deserved none of it. They will eat his fortune like ants and worms eat a dead elephant. Is that what he worked for for 64 years or so?

[smiley]

There are two things which I don't understand:

1) Buffet usually buys companies, or at least a controlling stake in his companies. He doesn't like someone other than Berkshire managing his investments.

2) 10% sounds like a lot, but Buffet normaly doesn't invest in things which yield less than 20%. These yield are hard to come by at the moment, but normally he would just keep sitting on his cash. The reason they have so many cash available at this moment is because he hasn't been able to find such sweet deals in recent years.

Maybe, and I am out on a limb here, there are other interest playing. In his annual letters he mentioned a couple of years ago that he had a sizeable toxic derivate position via one of his holdings, which he wasn't able to offload.

From his letter:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut closing down a derivatives business is easier said than done. It will be a great many years before we are totally out of this operation (though we reduce our exposure daily). In fact, the reinsurance and derivatives businesses are similar: Like Hell, both are easy to enter and almost impossible to exit. In either industry, once you write a contract – which may require a large payment decades later – you are usually stuck with it. True, there are methods by which the risk can be laid off with others. But most strategies of that kind leave you with residual liability.

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') see conspiracy theories are alive and well on this forum.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') see conspiracy theories are alive and well on this forum.

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')et real folks. The Money is ALL in the hands of the ARMY now, and those who control the army.

[AlexdeLarge]

SEC will be probing possible insider trading due to a $5.00/share bump right at the end of trading, before Bershire broke the news later that night.

[Cid_Yama]

A guest on Worldwide Exchange on CNBC said Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be nationalized this weekend.

The talking head quickly stated this was one man's opinion.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'A') guest on Worldwide Exchange on CNBC said Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be nationalized this weekend.

The talking head quickly stated this was one man's opinion.

[Cid_Yama]

GS down 13%

MS down 28%

[Gebari]

GS down 21%
MS down 36%

They could well be doomed. What shockwaves that would send...

[RdSnt]

I would like to see both of them sink into a black hole. These two entities, particularly GS are leading agents for this mess. H. Paulson is a prince of thieves on Wallthief and should be in jail.

Here's what should be done, before any global plan is considered. All the elite thieves must put their entire personal wealth up as collateral to back whatever ideas they wish to put forward.
If their plan works, they may get to keep at least some of their wealth.

[Delphis]

I pledge allegiance to Goldman Sachs...

Interesting read...

[bratticus]

Well...maybe the price didn't hit $250 or $200/barrel but it sure looks like a SuperSpike in hindsight.



[hr]$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Goldman "super spike" analyst cuts oil forecast

Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:30pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs energy equities analyst Arjun Murti, one of the first to predict $100 a barrel crude, cut his 2009 oil price forecast to $110 from $140 a barrel this week due to global economic weakness.

[seldom_seen]

I think what we've seen so far would be better classified as a speed bump, compared to what could happen when a significant supply drop has a head on collision with the printing press.

[zoidberg]

I think this is what he meant. I don't know what he envisaged happening afterwards, seems to have lost his touch with this last bit of volatility, but really this is unprecedented in human experience. Its got everyone off balance, in all markets including the oil one. I'd bet the next spike happens 3q 2009, but hell I didnt see $70 either so who knows.

[bantri]

The most important part it´s not the spike, it´s the exponential growth observed in another similar chart:

Oil Price Chart Too Big For This Website.