R-I-M
As in worse than people thought
As in 5,000 jobs lost
As in delaying the introduction of technology that may not be relevant if and when they get around to it.
As in time to ditch the Blackberry and switch to Android or Iphone
As in Sha na na na way hey goodbye
What do you think?
The markets today? Broke even.
What will the markets think tomorrow?
What do you know the markets were up a bit today but traders are still very cautious with the EU summit just around the corner.
Numbers at Close:TSX — 11,410.94 +76.52 0.68%
S&P 500 — 1,331.85 +11.86 0.90%
Dow — 12,627.01 +92.34 0.74%
Nasdaq — 2,875.32 +21.26 0.74%
Tomorrow; Rim Q3 earnings. Analysts expect 1 cent per share,we will see!
TD Bank says without steps toward fiscal integration the crisis will not be contained.( Think we kind of knew that)
Lets see what tomorrow US and Friday’s Canadian economic numbers say as we head into the weekend.
Stay tuned!
Turmoil in Europe as German Chancellor Angela Merkel Shot down the possibility that Europe would share debt liability ” as long as she is alive”
That comment no doubt helped the Euro continue it’s down trend and some experts are now warning that the upcoming EU summit will be a fiasco!
Billionaire George Soros comments on the video below.
george-soros-warns-of-summit-fiasco-uni0POV0QXi1Bo1dAdVXCw.html
The Markets today; they more or less broke even.
Stay tuned ,lets see what tomorrow has to offer.
I know the market has been down 8 of the last 9 Mondays so no big deal right?
Uh no? Economists around the world think we are on the way to a depression never mind a recession.
After the market got hammered on Thursday, it more or less broke even on Friday. This was probably because most traders headed for the hills and regrouped over the weekend?
The market today lost anywhere from 1-2 % depending on where you live.
Factors to watch tomorrow:
1) Moody’s said after closing that last week changes to mortgages are good but maybe to little to late.
2) Moody’s downgraded 28 Spanish banks due to increases debt risks.
3) Greece’s Finance Minister resigned due to ill health. He had been on the job a whole week and suffered abdominal pain, nausea and dizziness.( How else would you feel after looking at their books)
Lets see what happens.
What do you think?
The freight train known as a world-wide recession hurdled itself into on coming traffic in North America today with our own TSX dropping nearly 3% today.
Speculation abounds that at some point later this afternoon Moody’s will Down Grade 17 banks around the world including our own RBC .
In addition,Bank Of Canada Governor,Mark Carney reminded us that our economy has been running on the fumes the fumes of borrowed money.
Oil also dropped to $78.20 per barrel.
Manufacturing around the world also hit lows although you can’t always believe figures from China until the goods are on the boat.( It’s probably worse than they say)
The Big Elephant in the room? Spain? No that’s tiny compared to Italy!
What do you think will happen?
Stay Tuned!
Update: As expected Moody’s cut ratings including RBC.
The Pro Bailout forces have prevailed in today’s Greek elections.
However there are still a couple of things to watch for:
1) Will they be able to form a coalition that lasts ? ( Unlike the last one that didn’t)
2) Will the New Democracy part back off their idea of trying to re-negotiate the bailout agreement?
If they don’t and the folks in Berlin don’t like what they see and hear all bets are off. ( This relates to any monkeying around of deficit targets the Greeks might want to change)
So keep your hand basket at the ready.
What do you think?
Will cooler, saner heads prevail or will today’s result no matter what happens just prolong the inevitable?
Tomorrow, Sunday, the good citizens of Greece go to the polls while the whole world waits out the calamity that it will be, should the left leaning Syriza win the election.
This party has been surging in the polls with the depressed Greeks considering casting a protest vote over the bailout deal that has been worked on for awhile.
With their apparent surge coupled with the strength of the New Democracy party there will probably be no clear cut winner.
This will lead to a coalition.( Horror of horrors where have we heard that word before).
Should the Syriza somehow win you can expect very quickly the markets will go to hell in a hand basket.
This also will cause major economic mayhem that will not only affect Spain and Italy but have far reaching affects across the ocean.( Canadian and US banks for example hold bonds on those countries so if they default we start down the slippery slope of recession)
So in this country,when the pollsters call and when you cast your vote,remember the mess that socialists cause and think at least twice if not more before you vote BCNDP or Federal NDP.
My prediction the Greeks will screw up and vote a shaky coalition thereby causing mayhem in their country and force another election anyways.
Why will the coalition not work? One wants a bailout the other doesn’t. They will never get along.
The end result: We reached the end of the runway ( Stole that from PM Harper) and 2008 will likely seem like a walk in the park!
What do you think?
Once again the BC Liberals and in particular Rich Coleman have opened the door for Adrian Dix to look more like a Premier than inept Christy Clark.
In a move that even former Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s advisors would have trouble topping, Coleman fumbled away the opportunity to help BC winesellers with the opportunity to sell their product on-line.
The BC Government should have been aggressively trying to get a deal with the provinces before the legislation was passed rather than passing it off as a “I’ll contact so and so to see what we can do approach”
They didn’t and left the door open for Dix.
He quipped “Last year I was writing to the other premiers to move on the issue of online sales – that was always the key part of it,” he said. “Either Mr. Coleman doesn’t understand that, or the government is not as supportive of the industry as they ought to be.”
So much for the BC Liberals being the defenders of Free Enterprise, that job seems to have been left to Dix.
Where was the Premier through all of this? As usual she was off defending more lousy poll results instead of showing leadership on issues like this.
Jim Shepard, two days ago, in his comments about sleepwalking to an election loss, should have directed them at Richie C and incompetent Premier Clark.
At this rate not only are they sleepwalking, they are handing Dix and the socialists the election on a silver platter!
What do you think?
Christy Clark and Margaret MacDiarmid will interrupt the Vancouver Aquariums daily schedule for a photo-op advising British Columbians the chosen day in February for the new costly holiday.
As if anybody really cares which day it is.
In fact Vancouverites are more concerned with gas prices,coast guard closings and the like to waste a lot of time caring which day the holiday falls on.
There will likely be a lot of BS about having it at a different time that The US Presidents day long weekend.
With all the recent April 1st tax increases,coupled with the hidden BC Hydro increase you will get hammered with( after the election),people will be to scared to spend what little money they have.
Clark won’t speak about the Coast guard closing. ( She’s waiting for a study)
She won’t talk about where she stands on the pipeline. ( She’s waiting for a study)
The press and the penguins will be there. One has no choice the other will waiting for Clark to go off message and say something stupid as she usually does.
About the only thing fitting about tomorrow’s photo-op is the location in that it will further remind people that Clark and her BC Liberal team are vanishing species just like some of the Aquariums inhabitants.
What do you think?
Is this photo-op one great big waste of time?
I used to work for a small polling company back in 2000-2005.
When I was there this is how polling worked.
The company would get hired to poll customers or voters relevant to a specific question,product service or idea.
A script would be written,approved by stakeholders and loaded into a computer so that those trained in a call center environment would phone and ask a question.
They did not browbeat people into answering but rather were instructed to be overly nice as the competition for the consumers time was unbelievable.( It’s worse now even with do not call lists)
The caller would enter the data into the computer and from there a report was generated and sent out for statistical analysis.
The person doing the analysis was an experienced statistician who had analyzed data for a number of years for a number of different polls.
From there reports were present to clients and released to the news.
Lately we have seen polling done on the BC political climate with the pollsters telling us what people think today. The most obvious question they would have asked would have been” If an election were held today,who would you vote for?”
The most recent result on a poll done by Angus Reid showed us that 50% of the people would vote BCNDP if an election were held now.
The current BC Liberal government polled at 23%.
This means that as of today, Christy Clark and the BC Liberal Government are not connecting with 77% of the electorate.
It was reported that when asked about this, Premier Clark blasted the polling company.
I can tell you from experience that it is hardly the polling company’s fault that Ms Clark and her government is not connecting with the electorate.
Had she come out and accepted the blame ( or at least some of it) she would have taken leadership of the situation.
She didn’t and once again missed a glorious opportunity to connect with the people she needs.
I recall years ago another politician missed a chance to do the same thing.
His name was Stockwell Day. He made a grave error in a speech in Niagara Falls.
You may recall he said Canadian Jobs were flowing south like the Niagara River. When it was pointed out to him that the river actually flowed north,he lashed out and said he would get the person who wrote the speech with the wrong facts.
As you know by now he went on to lose the election because of this and other gaffes. Had he taken leadership of that,the result might have been different.
My point is that through lashing out, politicians like Day and most likely Clark lose because they don’t know how to lead.
In Clark’s case she has 12 month’s to learn.
Do you think she will? ( A clue might be that Stockwell Day is one of her mentors)
What are your thoughts?