Merrill Lynch & CO (MER) News

Dog of the Dow.

Kucinich Grills Ken Lewis on Fed Emails

I'm just watching the fins at the moment ;)

anybody else thinking about the September 19.00 calls?

MER (Merrill Lynch) Chart ~

Amazing close today

Amazing close today

Watching and waiting :)

Second week of May Gold will move back up..........later

Remember its long term ----- $1,650 by January 2011.....

Holding up ok.

Northgate is a public mining co in the gold sector. I like it if Gold goes to $1500

What does I am in Northgate imply/mean?

I am very patient. I am in Northgate.

In Gold it is not an everyday event...it is in a solid uptrend Bull market.....it will outperform everything in its own time.....to play Gold you either buy physical Gold and or quality gold shares (gold companies without forward sales attached in great gold mining districts) then forget about them .... they will pay off handsomely when Gold gets to $1650 and the US dollar hits .52......that is the up side for Gold and the current bottom for the USD....the problem is the OTC dirivative exposure still out there (approx. $500+ Trillion) that is being hidden for now but will come out in spades...then the market will take a crap of gigantic proportions but gold and its shares will go up like a missile to the moon exceeding what happened in the late 70's and 1980......the difference this time is how far past $1650 will it go up and how much lower will the USD fall below .52......

There is even the theory that the DOW and Gold will meet at a level which will be scary....

The other thing that will be different this time is gold will not drop like in the 80's but hold its value at a much higher value and the US Gov't may once again hold Gold as it did in the past to back up the USD.....

So daily events in gold are just noise.....2011 or sooner is the time frame....do you have the patience?????

Cheers

Slipped a bit today

BSC news going to push Merrill higher???

I think it could rally to 50. That would give 20% return.

Very nice, screamingeagle. Glad to hear you are making bank, given these market conditions.

I bought this one and it is moving faster than my pinks :))))

46.85 :)

Agreed.

Crazy moves.

MER ~> 2 Day Hourly Chart.

What a close. Nice.

NGX in Toronto?

Here....watch this daily and you'll learn something.....get yourself into a good gold company that is a mid tier producer with no forward sales and wait it out .... it should make 10 x your investment ... but remember no deriatives attached ... solid yearly production in a safe country ... then wait it out ... it will pay you out handsomely....later

http://www.kitco.com/

Sick. Rolling over.

You will see... watch gold ... it retraced ... then it will shoot back over a $1,000 and fight its way past $1,050 on its way to $1,650 .... Gold always tells the tale of a sick economy.....correct, you will see!

We will have to see.

Let me know in 30 days what it looks like ... its a temporary smoke screen for the big players to get out at a higher pps.....later

Looking better today.

Closed @ 41.50. Not bad, all things considered.

Looks ready to roll over :(

This is scary stuff

This is IT!

http://jsmineset.com/

Posted On: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 3:26:00 PM EST

Market Panic Forces Governments Into Action

Author: Monty Guild

Dear CIGAS;

We are watching the biggest panic in global financial markets that has occurred in my 65 years of life and 50 years of stock, bond and commodities investing.

It’s the Saint Patrick’s Day weekend and old Saint Patrick would probably be fascinated to see all the rich and worldly people running around in a panic.

Yesterday, JP Morgan and the U.S. Federal Reserve began a credit lifeline to Bear Stearns. This is a long and complicated story but I will attempt to summarize.

Bear Stearns had a run much like the bank runs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It had something to do with Bear Stearns itself but not as much as you would think if you were an average, fairly sophisticated citizen with some understanding of how the financial markets work.

I believe that most financial professionals may not completely understand what is happening. The lifeline and financing was done not to protect Bear Stearns alone but to protect the entire global banking system.

Bear Stearns is a PRIMARY DEALER IN U.S. GOVERNMENT BONDS. This is a very small and very important club. They have also been a leader in the business of prime brokerage and in the field of trade settlement and clearing - two very profitable mostly fee-based businesses that have been the envy of many other financial institutions. These have been their cash cows and very attractive businesses that have long been sought by other buyers.

Although Bear Stearns is quite large, it is the smallest of the top U.S. government bond dealers. So if someone wants to attack the system they will attack the smallest of the truly powerful bond houses. Bear Stearns, like all major mostly bond dealers and traders, also trades in mortgage bonds and derivatives and this is where its problems arose.

Bear Stearns' CEO said on Wednesday that the company was well capitalized and that its balance sheet is strong. I believe he was telling the truth. However, they are not immune to a run on the bank. IN FACT, NEITHER IS ANY OTHER MAJOR BANK OR INVESTMENT BANK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

BEAR STEARNS AS A PRIMARY DEALER CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO FAIL WITHOUT UNDERMIINING THE CONFIDENCE IN THE U.S. AND THE WORLD FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

BEAR STEARNS WAS PROTECTED FROM FAILING TO MEET ITS COMMITMENTS TO COUNTERPARTIES BECAUSE TO LET A PRIMARY DEALER FAIL WOULD MEAN A RUN ON EVERY MAJOR BANKING AND INVESTMENT BANKING INSTITUTION IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD. AND THAT WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY LEAD TO A MASSIVE GLOBAL DEPRESSION. THIS IS MY CONSIDERED AND FIRM OPINION.

CONCLUSION

Events seem to be validating the opinion that Jim Sinclair and I have been propounding on these pages for a long time.

NO MAJOR U.S. BANKING INSTITUITON WILL BE ALLOWED TO FAIL TO MEET ITS COMMITMENTS TO DEPOSITORS AND COUNTERPARTIES. To do so would be an admission of defeat by the governmental agencies and institutions that exist to prevent events like these from happening including the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

CENTRAL BANKS EVERYWHERE HAVE NO OPTION BUT TO REFLATE AND SUPPLY LIQUIDITY TO THE WORLD FINANCIAL SYSTEM. FURTHERMORE, THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THAT SINCE THE CRISIS BECAME OBVIOUS ABOUT 6 MONTHS AGO.

All of the themes that I said had to be fulfilled to solve the problem are not yet finalized. But congress is working to create an agency to buy bad loans and the U.S. Federal Reserve has been doing it for months now.

Some countries have been slower than others to recognize the problem. But now all do and they will make haste with liquidity, government bail out programs for banks, bank nationalizations if necessary, government aid to mortgage holders and many other programs designed to get the problem behind us as soon as possible and to buy votes in the process.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

THE SHORT ANSWER TO WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS IS MORE INFLATION, HIGHER GOLD PRICES, HIGHER COMMODITY PRICES AND A LOT LOWER PRICES FOR BONDS.

If you review the statements by Jim and by myself in the past several years all of the events currently taking place have been predicted and explained.

Are you still in?

The domino effect is running wild

Litigation is going to bring all of these banks, lenders and brokers to their knees and will last a whole big bunch of years........pps will reflect this to the negative and stockholders will be left holding the bag..........Later

This is just crazy. These guys call pennies risky. Nutz.

This stuff is spinning out of control

Is this the next one to go?

Bounce coming... price target is in the $80's.

Cash infusion strengthened balance sheet.

ITS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT.............

HE KNOWS OF WHAT HE SPEAKS..............


http://jsmineset.com/

Posted On: Saturday, October 27, 2007, 8:16:00 PM EST

The Story Of The Week

Author: Jim Sinclair

Dear CIGAs,

Ounce upon a time (last week), there was a Wall Street Icon firm, a household name in every financial home. Its name was so famous that it eclipsed the “Buttonwood Tree.”

This firm found a great Golden Hen (over the counter derivatives) that earned them billions of dollars. Then along came the Grinch of Reality, and it was required that this Icon firm properly value the product of their Golden Hen (OTC derivatives) which when no market was found laid a giant rotten egg. You see, there is no market for these special performance contracts named OTC derivatives, nor has there ever been. Therefore they have been revalued, yet not properly valued, as the value is still value-less. The loss was Icon firm shaking.

The CEO of this Icon firm knows that there is another mountain of OTC derivatives in the firm that will eclipse the meltdown cost of the discredited credit derivatives. They are called Default Derivatives. He opened talks with a firm made up of Wall Street kids with significant capital, but not an Icon of Old Blue Blood Wall Street. He knows that the next wind that blows will take the Icon firm into a net deficit capital entity, which equals broke.

The Board of Directors of the derivative blasted Icon firm was very, very upset that the CEO would open takeover talks with some street kids. They would never approve of these less than blue bloods. You see, the trophy board of directors knows a lot about many things, but less than nothing about OTC derivative as they have been praised for years by a parade of professors and mathematicians as the mother and apple pie of profit centers.

The Board of Directors in their self righteous New England religious fever of a group of wronged people fired the CEO, not realizing his attempt was to save at least the name of the Icon firm. The now unemployed CEO knows that in time the Default Derivatives exposure way exceeds the remaining capital of the Icon firm. For all intents and purposes this Icon is busted, but the Blue Blood Trophy Board has no clue. If you tried to explain why there is risk to the blue bloods of the trophy board their eyes would glass over. Some of the older members of the blue blood boards of directors of the Icon firm would not be concerned as they would be asleep before the explanation, only waking up as the Chairman declares the meeting concluded, for that is what old blue bloods do.

So the snobs have thrown out a man who never created the problem, probably didn’t understand the risk, and got blamed after the fact.

This trophy board of directors is quite satisfied with themselves this weekend. They have no idea they blew it and there is a short fused financial nuclear event about to appear in this Icon firm’s blue blood board of director’s room, because they would never let some street kids take them over, and have thrown out the man who tried to save their bacon.

Now if Icons of Wall Street finance can go belly up, what is to say that your bank or broker cannot?

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!

cHEERS

I heard rumors the losses are closer to $14 billion, rather than the $7 billion or so they wrote down. Don't know if that's true or just exaggeration somewhere. Anybody else hear anything different?

Bob

Merrill Lynch could be a hot buy if Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani is elected in 2008. More on that here: http://electionstocks.com/2007/08/14/a-look-at-the-donors/

Discuss these candidates and others here: http://electionstocks.com/sf-forum/

MER charts for you...my girlfriend works at a hedge fund that is thinking about buying some MER, and she asked me to draw up some charts...

6-month MER chart:



3-year MER chart:

ML Online has done well in bringing in the clients otherwise unobtainable. They also have an unlimited trade "wrap account" framework that has achieved the same feat.

Going forward, the online capabilities of MER will bring more clients to the table, but I can't fathom it separating itself from Momma Merill. It is the value added of Momma Merrill there to help which makes people want to trade there as opposed to E Trade.

Who knows, perhaps the semiannual MER takeover rumor could come to fruition and then all hell breaks loose. Interesting thought, however. Stay long.

Mino

Nice thread!

I haven't followed MER in a while...How is their online brokerage business doing?

I think the true internet plays are the ones with some kind of offline operations...

Imagine the value of MERonline if they were to spin off..WOW

FM

Looking to hear from MER players...

Seems like a great place to be with the Fed hopefully done for the year, and with a stream of takeover rumors. Buckled up and ready to continue this great ride so far.

Long and strong

Minorcan