Suitably Flip: June 2008

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CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 6

If you're looking for answers to the December 22 Bonus Bucks, you're in the right place, just on the wrong page.

Click here for today's answers (including the one about Darren Rovell's greeting cards.)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Color Me Disillusioned

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men.

That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.
...
On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. ... The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91.

It's almost like he has one set of standards for you, and another for himself...

It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't out patting himself on the back on this issue just days ago.

Obama spoke in Albuquerque, N.M. last week about his commitment to the issue and his support of a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination.

"Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer," Obama told the audience in New Mexico, a voter-swing state. "It starts with equal pay. Sixty-two percent of working women in America earn half or more than of their family's income. But women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2008. You'd think that Washington would be united it its determination to fight for equal pay."

Adds interesting context to the Sweetie kerfuffle, no?

(HT: Matt Lewis)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 8

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's updates, picks, and reallocation methodology.

Criminy. How about that Robbins & Myers (RBN)? Halfway through the seesion, it's up 21% on a Street-crushing third quarter earnings report and fourth quarter guidance.

That's not just good. That's David Brent good.

The RBN boost endows our Group 2 allocation from Friday with an imposing one-day gain of 7.8% (8.1% after adjusting for Bonus Bucks and currencies). Not a bad way to kick off this abbreviated Week 8.

We only had 3 groups on Friday, so anyone with at least 3 participating portfolios ought to have this allocation somewhere. Stay tuned for today's reallocations...

Update: 5 groups today, including some of our favorite airlines and oil stocks, as well as 4 companies that report earnings this evening or tomorrow morning, namely Russian telco Rostelecom (ROS), Investors Real Estate (IRETS), Standard Microsystems (SMSC), and MSC Industrial Direct (MSM).

Let's allocate according to the last digit of your phone number, as follows:

1-2: CLR, CHK, GMXR, GDP
3-4: CAL, LCC, UAUA, AMR
5-6: UAUA, AMR, SMSC, MSM
7-8: CLR, GMXR, SMSC, MSM
9-0: SMSC, MSM, IRETS, ROS

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, kindly allocate the first portfolio according to the birthday scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all participating portfolios.

For example: If your phone number ends in 8, and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

7-8: CLR, GMXR, SMSC, MSM
9-0: SMSC, MSM, IRETS, ROS
1-2: CLR, CHK, GMXR, GDP

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%. Don't forget to enter your trades by 4 pm ET.

Consider all of the above to be for entertainment purposes and not meant to be used as real-world investment recommendations. The goals and strategies of the Portfolio Challenge are not to be confused with those of sensible investing.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 8: Monday
Week 7: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Monday June 30th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In his blog, Darren Rovell paid tribute to the late George Carlin. Which of Rovell's terms refers to options trades?"

Answer: Long straddle

Squawk On the Street: "Question: According to the blog post, "Air Products: Cutting Edge of Alt Energy?", how does Jim Cramer describe the U.S.?"

Answer: Saudi Arabia of coal

The Call: "Question: In the CNBC.com video "Go Short" how does Options University strategist Ron Ianieri define a "speculator"?"

Answer: "Everyone in the market"

Power Lunch: "Question: According to the CNBC Stock Blog "Powering Your Portfolio: Uranium" what is uranium miner Cameco's other business?"

Answer: Mining gold

Street Signs: "Question: In Fast Money's Web Extra video "Najarians Sweet Trade" which home builder rated the opinion, "I'd stay away"?"

Answer: Lennar

Closing Bell: "Question: Which U.S. airline announced on Monday June 23 that it plans to lay off 950 pilots?"

Answer: UAL

Weekly Bonus Quiz:

Squawk Box: "Question: In shorting, the difference between where you sell a stock and where you buy it back is called _____."

Answer: Profit

Handcrafted by Flip on June 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Guest Blog: Inside the Angry Mind Of a New York State Senate Staffer

Last week, New York State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno unexpectedly announced his retirement. Bruno, 79, will be succeeded by Sen. Dean Skelos as the leader of the razor-thin GOP majority (and the only superlatively-ranked elected Republican in the state).

In the days since, there's been plenty of speculation as to Bruno's motives for stepping down - his age, his health (which, by all accounts, is fine), his having lost his wife of 57 years in January, the ongoing FBI probe into his private business affairs, and (perhaps most dauntingly) the possibility that he expects Democrats to seize the Senate majority this November and is simply not keen on sticking around when that final retaining wall gives way and New York's Democrats arrogate absolute control of the state.

One displeased anonymous Republican Senate staffer joins us for a rather lyrical guest post on Bruno's sudden departure.

Inside the angry mind of a staffer...
June 30, 2008

Is it Karma?
Payback for snickering at a Governor and his hooker?
Penalty for praising the Lord my boss didn't have a secret family?
It seems simple. Albeit abruptly, he retired.
And, like a break up, there are many unanswered questions.
Politics is a passion. A game of loyalty above all else.
Staffers mold their lives around their elected.
It's the power that intoxicates them and the job that becomes them.
An incestuous relationship by nature of shared passion.
Lobbyists, consultants and coworkers are friends, playmates and lovers.
The office, receptions and event venues are all extensions of home.
We are comfortable at home, we are ourselves at home.
The electeds rely on us to make them look good at home.
Content, policy, strategy, a pocket full of mints and directions to the loo.
Preparation is often cumbersome but it shows commitment.
The capacity for knowledge shows growth, and loyalty is proof of the commitment.
Electeds thrive on our diligence, instinct and foresight.
While they selfishly wrap in position, perception, and "service."
But what of those who serve them?
Years of dedication rewarded with.. not a phone call, an email.. but news reports.
We continue to make guesses and speculate on our own futures.
For the devoted staffer, like Katherine of Aragon Queen of England, in the end it was both love and loyalty... to a fault.
Life is full of surprises.
RIP faithful staff, take care of yourself b/c you are on your own...

Handcrafted by Flip on June 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBack

WALL·E: Great, If a Bit Lecturey

Wall*E --- No spoilers herein (beyond what's revealed in the trailers), other than the specifics of some political preening. ---

The early buzz on Pixar's latest has been extremely positive (IMDb users rank it the 110th best film of all time and Rotten Tomatoes scores it 96% fresh) and having just seen it, I'd say the praise is justified. Not too surprising, since all Pixar movies are sensational, but it's nonetheless marvelous.

From a technical perspective, it might be Pixar's best. Since the Earth has been abandoned by humans and there are no fish or monsters in leading roles, they're able to fully flex the true photorealism they're now able to achieve among non-organic characters and environments.

My only complaints surround the heavy-handedness of the Director's Message. Or in this case, Messages. The lectures can be summed up as follows: 1) You're fat and lazy, 2) you watch too much TV, 3) you generate too much trash, and 4) Wal*Mart is evil.

In WALL·E world, Wal*Mart is called Buy n Large, but the metaphor is unsubtle and referenced in nearly every scene (both on and off the planet).

The evils of Wal*Mart are such a central theme that one can be forgiven for wondering if the titular robot's name (and unconventional punctuation - that's a bullet/asterisk, not a hyphen) wasn't chosen to reinforce the identity of the corporate villain. It is, after all, a fairly cumbersome acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter · Earth Class).

Despite the preachiness, the movie delivers magnificently. As was clear in the previews, the mechanical lead is terribly endearing (moreso than Boo and Nemo put together), despite having almost no dialogue. Pixar's technical prowess in 3D animation and photorealistic rendering is exceptional, but its ability to draw an emotional connection between an audience and a character (in this case using nothing but the mechanized movements of a scrap heap robot) is even more remarkable.

Ultimately, I'm glad Pixar larded it up with the lectures. The fact that it remains a terrific movie despite clubbing you over the head with political messages is a more powerful testament to its quality. It's kind of like making a great movie with Scarlett Johansson or Maggie Gyllenhaal (which I'm convinced is why Chris Nolan chose the latter to replace the wayward Scientologist as Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight - now he'll be able to say he's accomplished both feats, thus making him the greatest director in cinema history).

Handcrafted by Flip on June 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Knee Jerk Hyperecotism Comes Full Circle, Kicks Back Of Own Knee

Whether due to the renaissance of pop environmentalism or the huge increase in oil prices (or more likely both), the previously financially untenable mass construction of solar power plants is finally about to get its time in the... well, sun. But while the current fashionability of alternative energy likely contributed to this solar tide shift, the very same phenomenon is now poised to thwart it.

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Ridiculous.

The one consolation of surging oil prices (or surging prices of any good) is that they bring more expensive substitutes (in this case, alternative energy sources) closer to financial viability. I know next to nothing of the science of solar power generation, but I'm relatively confident that this preemptive moratorium is a manifestation of undue government overreach, needless bureaucratic interference in the name of environmental protection. The irony of the construction stoppage is enjoyable, of course, in a "Gee, aren't lawmakers boneheaded," kind of way. But whatever your thoughts about the environmental movement, evil oil companies, Manbearpig, etc., this is probably an instance when we can all agree the learned planetary custodians at the Bureau of Land Management are out of step with, well, sanity.

I'll stipulate that - since we've never embarked on solar plant construction on such a large scale - we don't know precisely what the environmental impact of such construction will be. But is the best way to suss that out (taking into account the various costs of such sussing) to summarily forbid it for two years, while a federal bureaucracy sets up panels and committees and other hierarchical delights to commission procedural guidelines for establishing standards and practices to investigate the feasibility of zzzzzzz...

How about we don't squander the consolation of potentially financially feasible energy alternatives while we've got it? If people want to build the plants, let them build the plants. Study them as you go, if you like, but quashing it on the vine - based on the mere supposition that lots of mirrors in the desert might dwindle the numbers of some already dying species of cactus, or whatever the chief concern here is - seems exquisitely irrational.

What are the ostensible concerns, anyway?

The manager of the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact study, Linda Resseguie, said that many factors must be considered when deciding whether to allow solar projects on the scale being proposed, among them the impact of construction and transmission lines on native vegetation and wildlife. In California, for example, solar developers often hire environmental experts to assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel.

Okay, so because ~~so many turtles and squirrels have been killed by solar plants in the past~~ developers have hired experts in the past to assess the potential impact on squirrels and turtles, we should summarily prohibit future development of such projects until we've affirmatively proven that said rodents and reptiles won't be inconvenienced.

Water use can be a factor as well, especially in the parched areas where virtually all of the proposed plants would be built. Concentrating solar plants may require water to condense the steam used to power the turbine.

Also, we need to ensure that we've invented irrigation, apparently.

(HT: Gizmodo)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 7

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

See updates below for today's reallocations (the initial allocations for Week 8).

So, yesterday was, to put it mildly, a fugly one. Of our 4 allocations, one did manage to register a pre-Bonus Bucks gain despite the massive market sell-off, putting our best-performing subgroup at roughly 18% week-to-date. Unfortunately, it appears we may not have many folks in that subgroup, since only one player in the whole contest had reached 18% as of Thursday's close. Still, readers of this site currently account for at least 3 of the top 10 spots on the board.

Khaled Helmi is in 2nd place with 16.0% and Pam Pandeline has two portfolios on the board, at #3 with 15.3% and #10 with 12.7%.

If yours is one of the other names up there and you've been participating in the crowdsourcing experiment (or if you've just been reading the site), go ahead and sound off so we can cheer you on with mild envy. Our goal of course is to dominate that board with as many site visitors as possible (and ideally to see folks grab a few of those weekly prirzes). And I have a feeling David Barton is toast. (Unless of course he's one of our own, in which case, go David Barton!)

And for anyone on the board, please let us know which allocations you're in today, so we can follow the horserace in real time, rather than waiting several hours for the hamsters in the giant CNBC wheel in Jersey City to power the adding machine through its daily figurin'.

Check back later in the day for updates and for the first set of Week 8 allocations (which need to be submitted by 4 pm today).

If you'll be joining in for the first time in Week 8, drop us a line to let us know so we can keep a rough count of participating portfolios.

Update: Looks like Pam's #3 portfolio is in the airlines (LCC, CAL, UAUA, and AMR) and Khaled's is in solar (CSIQ, FSLR, SJR, and ESLR).

Update: In case anyone's looking to skip out early this afternoon, let's go ahead and put the first set of Week 8 allocations on the board now.

Between Friday evening and Monday morning, the ranks of U.S.-listed companies reporting earnings is pretty small, so primarily we're just dividing into two groups and taking opposite sides of the oil bet (via oil operations companies and airlines).

The one contest-eligible earnings reporter on the slate is Robbins & Myers (RBN), a manufacturer of engineered equipment for the energy and industrial sectors. Based on its historical volatility, thin analyst coverage, and track record of beating expectations, it looks potentially interesting. Since its price movements tend to correlate somewhat with oil stocks, we're going to keep it away from the airlines (unlike rational, real-world investors, we need to shun diversification when all that matters are steep, concentrated moves). So we'll have a single airline allocation and two oil allocations - one with RBN and one without.

For these three, let's allocate according to birth month, as follows:

Jan-Apr: CAL, LCC, UAUA, AMR
May-Aug: RBN, KWK, CHK, GMXR
Sep-Dec: OXY, KWK, CHK, GMXR

For example: If you were born in September, and you're using 2 portfolios, your allocations would be:

Sep-Dec: OXY, KWK, CHK, GMXR
Jan-Apr: CAL, LCC, UAUA, AMR

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%. Don't forget to enter your trades by 4 pm ET.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 7: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Friday June 27th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: Print's not dead at CNBC! Name the editor of CNBC.com's new "Bullish on Books" blogger."

Answer: Gloria McDonough-Taub

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In Fast Money's Web Extra segment "Najarians Sweet Trade" which food & beverage purveyor did Pete Najarian praise?"

Answer: McDonald's

The Call: "Question: In the CNBC.com feature "Shorting Stocks Could Be Way to Play This Market" which strategist predicted "one ugly decline"?"

Answer: Kathy Boyle

Power Lunch: "Question: In the slideshow "Lifestyles of the Super Rich" how much do the swank Christian Louboutin pumps go for?"

Answer: $2,500

Street Signs: "Question: In the Web video "Inside Look at Offshore" which firm's oil rig did Janet Shamlian report from?"

Answer: Chevron

Closing Bell: "Question: On The Money blog: In the post entitled "Cheap Is Sexy" which phrase is the blogger's own advice?"

Answer: "Vote with your wallet"

Handcrafted by Flip on June 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

With Edges Like These, Who Needs Landslides?

What a squeaker.

[A]ccording to a new TIME Magazine poll of likely voters ...

McCain, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, edged out Obama on national security issues. When asked who “would best protect the U.S. against terrorism,” 53% of respondents chose McCain to just 33% for Obama.

I only have ten fingers, so I need to count them multiple times to crunch these numbers, but I'm coming up with a margin in the neighborhood of 20 points.

(HT: Patterico)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Super Adventure Club" About To Get Its Own Family-Friendly Hip Hop Jingle

With lots of ha-has and wooos!

Life & Style spies claim Will [Smith] was chatting up the unorthodox religion to anyone who would listen on the set of his new film, Hancock, opening July 4th.
...
“He gave out Scientology-like pamphlets at the end of the shoot,” says biographer Andrew Morton, who published an unauthorized biography on Kooky Cruise last Winter.

“It’s also been said that he and Jada are homeschooling their children in Scientology methods,” Morton insists.

Of the fruity little club that scrambles good people's brains, WWTDD aptly notes:

Will Smith seems smarter than this, but he’s an actor and actors are idiots so I guess it's not surprising. Actors will fall for anything. If you can get really one big one the rest will follow and do what he does. You could get a Moose costume and tap dancing shoes, then all you need to do is convince George Clooney that TapaMoose can tap, tap, tap away your insecurities with tophats and razzmatazz, and by the end of the week you’d be rolling around in mountains of money like Scrooge McDuck.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 7

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's updates, picks, and reallocation methodology.

Since we've been having such a fine week so far, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at what's actually happening to all of these sub-sub-subgroups as the week progresses.

By yesterday's closing bell, we had carved up Week 7's participating portfolios into 56 groups. On Friday, we split the group in half to go into Monday with just 2 distinct allocations. We subdivided into another 4 groups on Monday and another 7 groups on Tuesday (2*4*7=56). Yesterday, we subdivided again into 4 new allocations, but we won't be able to see that impact until the end of the day, so for now, we're looking at just the 56 permutations in effect at yesterday's close.

The cumulative week-to-date gains of those 56 possible portfolio paths is illustrated below. (Note: percentage gains include Bonus Bucks and assume an initial stock portfolio value of $1 million. Actual results may vary, depending on Bonus Bucks participation and initial portfolio value.)

If you tilt your head to the left, it's a little like Plinko. (And so is our strategy.)

You'll notice our best performing subgroup is enjoying a week-to-date gain of roughly 16%. There are actually two subgroups with nearly identical performance effectively tied for that lead. Both of these groups are well ahead of the average pace (in lime green) required to hit the typical weekly winner's score of roughly 25% by Friday.

The blue and red lines represent the week-to-date performance of the S&P 500 and the Dow Industrials (also adjusted for Bonus Bucks), respectively. The bold black line represents your hypothetical performance if you'd left your entire portfolio in cash and only collected your daily bonus cash.

While 2-in-56 are not spectacular odds (though presumably a fair bit better than you might find in the wild, with nearly 1 million portfolios in play), it's worth noting that if you're participating in the experiment with at least 4 portfolios, you have about a 15% chance of finding yourself in that top group, with a week-to-date gain of roughly 16%.

The weekly leaderboard on the contest site seems to be blinking in and out, but last time I was able to get it to load, it showed a top score of 17.1% belonging to Lance Baker. Dennis Mantel held second place with 16.9% and Mark Deren was in third with 14.4%. The rest of the top 10 fell between 13% and 14%.

Given that we've got at least a few hundred portfolios participating (many belonging to players using at least 4 portfolios), I'm assuming that multiple folks on that leaderboard hail from our ranks. If the actual week-to-date gains booked by participants in our highest-scoring subgroups are coming in at 13-14%, rather than 16%, it could be that people have missed a bonus question here and there, and/or that their portfolio values at the beginning of the week were significantly above $1,000,000 (which serves to reduce the percentage gains offered by the bonuses).

Assuming you can get it load, have a look at the leaderboard and let me know if you find yourself on it. I know we've got at least one up there - #6 Khaled Helmi (with 13.6% week-to-date) sent me a note when we kicked off the experiment to let me know he was participating. And there's a tight cluster of top players showing 13.6%, so hopefully some of those are ours too. Khaled is likely carrying the airline basket today (last name beginning with G-L) and the airlines were mostly higher in after-hours trading yesterday.

Check back this afternoon for an update on today's performance and our final Week 7 reallocation scheme. If the dynamite earnings turned in last night by Herman Miller and Bed, Bath & Beyond (and their big after-hours gains) are any indication of how the rest of our fresh crop of picks will do today, one of you could be one step closer to boarding your private jet to the Caribbean.

Update: Turns out Khaled's leading portfolio is not one that's participating in the experiment and is currently positioned in energy stocks, not airlines. That's another smart play (one of our four allocations for today is also an oil basket), in that it's bound to swing significantly one way or another, assuming continued volatility in energy prices.

Oil Update [11:00]: My, what a hideous day. OPEC and Libya are playing the boogeymen, pushing oil higher and everything else lower. As such, our only group with its intraday head above water at the moment is Group 1 (the oil basket), despite a number of nice upside earnings surprises among yesterday's picks. Still a lot of session left, though. Should oil prices pull back, any of the other three groups could be in the running for best daily performance. So at your leisure, go ahead and throw any participating portfolios into the following allocations (the last reallocation of Week 7), according to the last digit of your phone number:

0-3: MU, PALM, SJR, TIBX
4-6: OXY, DVN, CLR, GMXR
7-9: LCC, CAL, UAUA, AMR

Note the slight change in the airline basket from yesterday (DAL replaced with CAL).

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, kindly allocate the first portfolio according to the phone number scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all participating portfolios.

For example: If your phone number ends in 8, and you're using 2 portfolios, your allocations would be:

7-9: LCC, CAL, UAUA, AMR
0-3: MU, PALM, SJR, TIBX

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%. Don't forget to enter your trades by 4 pm ET.

For reference, in addition to the 4 names in the "0-3" group, 5 other contest-eligible companies will also report earnings either after today's close or before tomorrow's open (ACN, KBH, PAYX, SCS, and SNX).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 7: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Thursday June 26th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In the CNBC.com video, "Fed Expectations" what was Robert Podorefsky's reaction to talk of a Q3 Fed rate hike?"

Answer: "I don't see it"

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In the Fast Money blog post "Are Options Accurate?" Jon Najarian called ORCL & RIMM earnings with what tracking system?"

Answer: Big Thunder

The Call: "Question: Warren Buffett told CNBC that U.S. inflation is "exploding." He joked to Becky Quick that if he were Fed chairman, he'd:"

Answer: Resign

Power Lunch: "Question: In Sharon Epperson's blog post, "Shorting Oil The Way To Go?", she cites "a very large energy trader." Who?"

Answer: None of the above

Street Signs: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: On June 23, Longbow Research's Lee Klaskow said Midwestern floods had done one good thing. What?"

Answer: Pullback for rail stocks

Closing Bell: "Question: In the blog post "Fertilizer Stocks: Room To Grow" which stock did Michael Judd call "a great long-term holding"?"

Answer: MON

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Palin Aces 2nd Round Veep Interview

More of this, please.

Kudlow: All right, drill, drill, drill! Nobody does it better than Alaska, if only Congress would let it. So here to tell us all about it, Alaska Republican Governor Sarah Palin.

Governor Palin, thank you ever so much for coming on. We appreciate it. I want to start with this, it’s an oddball question. I mean, Senator McCain says it's too pristine to drill. Senator Obama says the drilling won't work. What is your response to this? How do you fight back?

Palin: Well it will work. And Senator McCain is wrong on that issue. He’s right on a whole lot of other issues, so thank goodness that he’s understanding and evolving ...

(Amen.)

Kudlow: Why don’t we just liberate, and decontrol, and deregulate the whole bloody energy business – whether it’s oil, gas, shale, nuclear, coal, natural gas, as well as wind and solar – why don’t we just decontrol, deregulate, go for an America first energy policy? Get independent of Saudi Arabia? America first. Create all of these millions of high paying jobs. Why isn’t anybody talking about that in this race? That’s the natural, Reaganesque thing to do. Isn’t it?

Palin: Yeah absolutely! You’re hitting the nail right on the head. That’s what so many of us normal Americans are asking. The same thing. Why aren’t the candidates talking like that? Where we can secure America and we can be more independent when we talk about energy sources if we could drill domestically.

Here's how she handled The Question (excluding the political boilerplate about being fulfilled by her current job, not expecting to be asked, etc.):

Kudlow: If [McCain] asked you to be his vice-president, would you accept in light of your disagreement, apparently, over ANWR drilling?

Palin: Well I’d like the opportunity to get to change his mind about ANWR, I’ll tell you that. ...
Kudlow: Well okay. You’ve got a lot of work to do drilling up there to help the rest of America. But let me ask one final question. In your judgment, is it time for the Republican Party to put a woman on the ticket?

Palin: Oh, we’re overdue for that. Absolutely. I would love to see that happen.

I have to say, I'm still crossing my fingers that Mitt gets the nod, as I think he can help McCain "understand and evolve" on a whole raft of economic issues where he'd benefit from a little evolution, whereas Palin's primary policy impact would presumably be limited (at least for the time being) to energy policy alone. Plus, Romney's exquisite CV enables him to check the "ready to assume the Presidency" box better than any of the other short listers. Plus, there's the hair. Admittedly, there's also the YZF Ranch. And millions of voters too ~~nuanced~~ disingenuous in their thinking to grasp the difference between Mormons and FLDS.

From a pure electability perspective, I'm not sure McCain could do better than Palin. If the polls conducted toward the end of the Democratic primary (showing a meaningful segment of Hillary's supporters planning to defect) were any indication, even if they overstated the percentages 2- or 3-fold, moderate McCain has a legitimate poaching opportunity. And in a cycle when identity politics is all the rage, one can be forgiven for assuming that some non-zero incremental percentage of Hillary's female-skewing support base might be swayed by a McCain-Palin ticket.

Update: Allah's got video of the full interview. Eight minutes of free-market red meat. Delicious.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

From the Frontlines: Tonight, 4 pm-Midnight

Starting at 4:00 this afternoon, Michelle Malkin and Melanie Morgan will host an 8-hour web event "to sponsor the largest care package shipment to U.S. troops in history." Guests will include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin, and Five For Fighting's John Ondrasik.

You can watch it live below (or at the From the Frontlines Ustream channel or at Michelle's blog or at Move America Forward or wherever you feel coziest).

.TV online : provided by Ustream

Incredibly, the event has already raised a quarter of a million dollars in one day, more than an hour before it even kicks off. You can sponsor a care package (from $15.99 to $899.99) here.

(If you do, just use your billing address as the shipping address. It'll get to the right place.)

Update: Wow, the special guest list is a lot more special that I realized. Hot Air has posted a complete hour-by-hour line-up and it's busting at the seams with just about everyone in the would-be crosshairs of Son of Fairness Doctrine. Notably absent from the list is John Gibson, who I assume is being kept in an undisclosed location to ensure continuity of (profitable) American talk radio in the event of an emergency.

Update: Grand total: $1,055,719! Seems like that ought to reach the "largest care package shipment ever" threshold without a problem. Enough for 50,000 or so troops, judging by the package prices.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Good News: Robots To Colonize Moon By End of Summer

In 2007, the Google Lunar X Prize offered $30 million to the first private sector team to land a robot on the moon. The 2014 deadline seemed ambitious, but not unreasonable.

But suddenly, the ARCA team (Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) says they're ready to light their privately funded candle.

The robotic vehicle used by ARCA will be the European Lunar Lander (ELL), which is a rocket powered, pressure fed, restart-able cold rocket engine weighting 42 kg. Pressure-fed refers to the ability of this liquid-propellant rocket to force fuel into the combustion chamber under pressure.

The launch will be made from sea, and according to the plan, the STABILO booster rocket will be carried to an altitude of 18 km by a balloon. At this point the rocket's engines will be ignited and the ELL will be taken to space to an altitude of about 100km. Later, the rocket will dispatch from the space vehicle and will drop into the ocean. Then the ELL should soft land on the moon surface after 116 hours. The vehicle will then run some tests on its systems, make measurements, take pictures, and broadcast live video back to Earth.

(HT: Marginal Revolution)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

With Shambles Like These, Who Needs Booms?

While it wasn't enough to offset the oil-driven market sell-off inspired by spooky comments from OPEC and Libya, today's final revision of first quarter GDP growth warrants a little acknowledgment. First estimated at 0.6%, it was revised upward to 0.9% a month ago and up again to an even 1.0% today.

The increase matched economists' expectations, but it's still a cause for incremental celebration. GDP grew by just 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2007, so the first quarter growth estimate has gone from slow-and-unchanged at 0.6% to slowish-but-nearly-doubling-the-previous-quarter's-pace at 1.0%. What's more, the year-over-year growth rate (1Q08 over 1Q07) clocked in at 2.55%, swifter than the full year 2007 growth rate of 2.2%.

The fact that the economy is not only growing, but accelerating, should come as welcome news to pretty much everyone, save Obama and the Associated Press. Recall that it was during the first quarter that Obama so often defamed our economy as being in shambles. And as we've explored time and again in our "Lies, Damn Lies" series, good economic news tends to ulcerate the AP into fantastical canards and distortions.

Today is no different. Have a look at the AP story inspired in part by this upward revision to the growth rate of our clearly non-recessionary economy.

Stocks tumble as more bad economic news piles up

The great fear on the Street has been that rising prices and worries about their finances will force consumers to further curb their spending, sending the economy into even more of a decline.

The latest reading on the gross domestic product Thursday backed up that fear. The Commerce Department said the economy as measured by GDP rose at 1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, a slight improvement from the previous estimate of 0.9 percent, but still quite anemic. Moreover, the number does not reflect the impact of higher gas and oil prices that shot up further during the second quarter, which ends Monday.

This story makes me puzzle until my puzzler is sore. Stronger real GDP growth backs up inflation fears? Real means inflation-adjusted, professors. And the nearly doubling growth rate since the prior quarter somehow supports the idea that the economy will pitch into "even more of a decline"? The economy's not in decline to begin with. It hasn't seen a single quarter of decline since the shallow recession we entered during the final months of the Clinton administration.

Clumsy, disingenuous work, AP. Even for you. And you want to charge people $2.50 a word for quoting this rot?

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

This Should Make Liberals Happy

Despite attempts by movementarian politicians to selectively quash it, the Bill of Rights was upheld today by the Supreme Court.

Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Although times have changed since 1791, Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority, “it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

Examining the words of the Amendment, the Court concluded “we find they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weaons in case of confrontation” — in other words, for self-defense. “The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,” it added.

The individual right interpretation, the Court said, ”is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment,” going back to 17th Century England, as well as by gun rights laws in the states before and immediately after the Amendment was put into the U.S. Constitution.

What Congress did in drafting the Amendment, the Court said, was “to codify a pre-existing right, rather than to fashion a new one.”

It's a little frightening that 44% of justices dissented, but this is still a nice win for fans of the Constitution.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 7

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

See updates below for today's updates, picks, and reallocation methodology.

To recap, yesterday was a solid follow-up to Monday's fine start to Week 7 for our crowdsourced strategy. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq are all down week-to-date, but our best performing subgroup is up nearly 9% through Tuesday.

Even better - at least two of yesterday's four picks (Jabil Circuit and 3COM) are poised to gap up today, having posted results well in excess of analysts' expectations last night. Based on after-hours trading, they were suggesting Wednesday jumps of 7.8% and 6.3%, respectively, which ought to be another shot in the arm for many of our participating portfolios today.

As for the other two picks in the new crop (HB Fuller and Monsanto), the former came in a penny shy last night, while the latter reports this morning.

Among the 7 subgroup allocations we split out yesterday, the above pairs (JBL/COMS and FUL/MON) were each paired both with airlines and and with oil stocks, so whichever pair does better (presumably JBL/COMS) could enjoy an additional boost, as long as oil moves decisively in either direction.

That ought to leave our surviving portfolios with a sufficiently enviable 3-day performance to remain strong contenders for that $32,500 private jet jaunt to Turks & Caicos.

This afternoon around 2 pm, once we know which subgroup is prevailing, we'll post today's reallocations.

While we're waiting, let's play Fed Policy Pick'em.

The Federal Reserve will announce the results of its June meeting at 2:15 this afternoon. Trading in fed funds futures implies the market sees roughly a 90% chance that they'll leave the target rate unchanged at 2.0%, roughly 10% that they'll hike it to 2.25%, and a tiny chance that they'll cut it to 1.75% or 1.5%.

What do you think?

Update: Poll closed. 82% of you got it right - no change to the fed funds target rate.

Update [10:00]: More good news. No one seems to mind HB Fuller's narrow earnings miss, perhaps because they reaffirmed their full year guidance. Shares jumped 6% right out of the gate.

Monsanto beat expectations, but guided toward the lower end of its previously issued forecast. Shares were down 4% shortly after the open.

Jabil Circuit, meanwhile, is a rocket - now trading 17% higher. Participants in yesterday's Groups 1 and 5 (Sunday and Thursday birthdays, plus anyone using multiple portfolios who played either the Sunday or Thursday allocations) are having a blowout day thus far. Both groups (whose allocations were LCC/DAL/COMS/JBL and COMS/JBL/FUL/MON) are up more than 6% intraday, including bonus bucks.

Update [11:00]: Sweet fancy Moses. Thanks to a much better-than-expected crude oil inventories report (showing stockpiles swelling by 830,000 barrels, compared with the 1,700,000 barrel drawdown expected), oil prices have fallen several dollars per barrel and our airline stocks are off to the races (LCC: +5.3%, DAL: +8.8%, UAUA: +5.3%, AMR: +7.2%). That leaves Groups 1 and 6 with astounding 10% intraday gains (with Groups 2 and 5 enjoying very respectable 6% gains). If the session were to close at these prices, our best performing subgroup would be looking at a week-to-date gain of nearly 20%.

Update [1:00]: The race is still on between Groups 1 and 6 for the biggest one-day gain, but 5 of the 7 allocations are up solidly, so if you've got portfolios in any of those groups, by all means keep on rolling.

For today's reallocations, let's go with the first letter of your last name, as follows:

A-F: OXY, DVN, CLR, GMXR
G-L: LCC, DAL, UAUA, AMR
M-S: MLHR, LEN, BBBY, CAG
T-Z: CAG, WOR, XRTX, DFS

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, kindly allocate the first portfolio according to the surname initial scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all participating portfolios.

For example: If your last name is Spitzer, and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

M-S: MLHR, LEN, BBBY, CAG
T-Z: CAG, WOR, XRTX, DFS
A-F: OXY, DVN, CLR, GMXR

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%. Don't forget to enter your trades by 4 pm ET.

Seven of these names (MLHR, LEN, BBBY, CAG, WOR, XRTX, and DFS) are selected earnings reporters. For reference, seven other contest-eligible companies will also report earnings either after today's close or before tomorrow's open (MKC, PKE, RIMM, RHT, ORCL, NKE, and CKR).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 7: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Wednesday June 25th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: The CNBC.com video "Underweight on China" Erwin Sanft says BNP Paribas downgraded a raft of Chinese stocks. How many?"

Answer: 10

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In Tuesday's edition of "Lightning Round OT" What was Cramer's exact take on Dominion Resources?"

Answer: "A real good one"

The Call: "Question: Kiplinger's issued a list of stocks that "Warren Buffett would love." Name one. (Hint: You'll find the list on our site.)"

Answer: Tiffany

Power Lunch: "Question: On June 24, Melissa Lee sat in for Maria Bartiromo in "Maria's Market Message" Web video. What story did she lead with?"

Answer: Fed meeting

Street Signs: "Question: In his auto blog, Phil LeBeau mocked Jim Cramer! Finish Phil's phrase: "While Cramer may know stocks, I think he's...""

Answer: Crocked

Closing Bell: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: Neil Hennessy is a frequent CNBC guest and master stock picker. What was his Web Extra pick for Tuesday?"

Answer: ARG

Handcrafted by Flip on June 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Hundreds Of Healthy Ground Zero Workers Exploiting Colleagues' Real Medical Issues To Scam NYC Out Of Money

Sick.

The first detailed review of the medical records of nearly 10,000 ground zero workers who are suing New York City and its contractors suggests that many are not as sick as their lawyers have claimed, attorneys for the city say.

The city’s review, based on medical records submitted in federal court by the workers and their lawyers, found that as many as 30 percent of the workers reported nothing more than common symptoms like runny nose or cough. Their records, according to the review, did not indicate that doctors had ever diagnosed a specific disease.

In fact, more than 300 workers admitted in court documents that they were not ill at all.

Not only does this particularly lurid display of hyperlitigiousness threaten to drain resources that could be directed toward workers who are genuinely sick, but it serves to cast undue doubt on those workers' claims.

All of these folks were on the scene on 9/11 and/or during the dangerous rescue, recovery, and cleanup that followed. It's a little troubling that some of them now appear to be falsely cashing in on the suffering of others.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ralph Nader Tries To "Talk Sane"

And fails.

In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader says the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is trying to "talk white" by downplaying poverty issues.
...
Asked if he thinks Obama is trying to "talk white," Nader said, "of course….The number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," Nader said. "Haven't heard a thing."

Below is a clip from a joint press conference with Nader and Obama.

(HT: Hot Air)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jon Stewart Does Battle With Clapter Monster Of His Own Creation

Over the years, "The Daily Show" has cultivated a large and loyal following for its increasingly reliably leftist brand of political humor. The 30 minute parade of mostly banal jabs at the unhipness and/or evilness of Republicans is usually peppered with approving (if not always genuinely amused) rounds of what SNL's Seth Myers coined "clapter".

In a rare departure from the well-worn template, host Jon Stewart recently spent four minutes endeavoring, in vain, to pry laughs from his audience with a fairly tame (by Daily Show standards) razzing of Barack Obama for his recent missteps, including the Great Seal of Obama fiasco and the candidate's decision to reverse his pledge to participate in public campaign financing.

It didn't go well. A commenter at the Hot Air thread whence I've swiped the video observes, "That’s my favorite part, the nervous, hesitant laughter. You can almost hear the audience thinking, 'Is this okay? Will people think I’m a racist?'"

Handcrafted by Flip on June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Toddler Intuitively Grasps What Most Federal Lawmakers Cannot

“We traded for it.”

Handcrafted by Flip on June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pelosi: Sexism Sunk Hillary's Campaign. But Actually It Helped Her. Net Net, It Had No Effect. But It Definitely Gave Her an Edge.

See if you can follow along in this rhetorical equivalent of three-card monte.

Clinton “got the benefit of being a woman because women are wildly enthusiastic about her candidacy,” Pelosi said at a breakfast Tuesday with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Being a woman had “a positive upside in the campaign, probably offset by more sexism, I don’t know,” she said. “I am a victim of sexism myself all the time…My impression is, yes there is sexism. My knowledge is yes, there is sexism…but I find myself, I get a tremendous upside from being a woman.”

Handcrafted by Flip on June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 7

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's updates, picks, and reallocation methodology.

To recap, yesterday was a great start to Week 7 for our crowdsourced strategy. Generally speaking, stocks ended the day mostly lower, but half of our participating portfolios (the oil baskets) wound up with one-day gains of 5.6%.

Today, we remain poised to capitalize on oil volatility in either direction, by keeping half the portfolios in oil stocks and half in airlines (which received yet another unholy trouncing yesterday), and we've mixed in two companies reporting earnings before the opening bell - Symmetry Medical (SMA) and Kroger (KR).

This afternoon around 2 pm, once we know which of our subgroups is prevailing, we'll post today's reallocations.

Update [10:00 am]: Good news: both KR and SMA turned in strong results this morning and are trading up 5.9% and 12.8%, respectively. So-so news: neither the airlines nor the oil stocks are able to get off the ground so far this morning, what with oil prices being stubbornly steady. Lots of day left though...

Update [3:30 pm]: It's still not clear which group will finish in the lead, but all 4 are positive on the day, so let's have all participating portfolios execute today's reallocation. For this one, let's go back to the day of the week you were born to determine your allocation:

Sunday: LCC, DAL, COMS, JBL
Monday: LCC, DAL, FUL, MON
Tuesday: CLR, FTO, COMS, JBL
Wednesday: CLR, FTO, FUL , MON
Thursday: COMS, JBL, FUL, MON
Friday: LCC, DAL, UAUA, AMR
Saturday: CLR, FTO, CEO, GMXR

For example: If you were born on a Friday and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

Friday: LCC, DAL, UAUA, AMR
Saturday: CLR, FTO, CEO, GMXR
Sunday: LCC, DAL, COMS, JBL

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 7: Monday, Tuesday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Tuesday June 24th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: Cramer Flashback: On May 27, the Mad Money guru called SPX the ultimate New Tech stock. What does it leverage?"

Answer: All of the above

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In her Monday blog post on foreclosures, what did Carmen Wong Ulrich say "matters most"?"

Answer: Home expense/salary ratio

The Call: "Question: In the CNBC.com feature, "The Future of Oil: What the Experts Are Saying," who is Peter Beutel paired with?"

Answer: Addison Armstrong

Power Lunch: "Question: According to CNBC.com’s video report “Foreclosure Tour Hits Manhattan” how many Q1 residential foreclosures were there?"

Answer: 23

Street Signs: "Question: In Diana Olick's post, "Harvard and Housing: A Silver Lining?" Eric Belsky cited a "significant amount" of this:"

Answer: Immigration

Closing Bell: Question: In the CNBC Stock Blog, "Brokerage Stocks: Go Long," what did Ryan Lentell call "probably the best set-up firm"?"

Answer: Goldman Sachs

Handcrafted by Flip on June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Newsweek: Rick Astley Most Qualified To Be President

Sometimes it's hard to know when the media establishment is being sarcastic.

Political Perceptions: Obama Really Is Experienced

Alan Ehrenhalt, writing as a special guest columnist for Newsweek, argues that we shouldn’t dismiss or denigrate the most important piece of Sen. Barack Obama’s political resume, his considerable time in the Illinois state legislature. While not refuting that Sen. John McCain has more experience, Ehrenhalt writes: “But here’s something I bet you didn’t know: If Obama becomes president, he will have spent more time serving as a state legislator (eight years) than anyone who has occupied the White House since Abraham Lincoln.”

Does that really qualify as a superlative distinction? Surely, Newsweek recognizes the even more impressively seasoned Presidential resume of internet-born again British pop sensation Rick Astley. In the late 80s, Astley had some 13 hit singles. While that's not as many as some of his peers in the music business, it would almost certainly make him the most accomplished British-born singer-songwriter to be elected President since Thomas Jefferson.

Since Jefferson preceded Lincoln, one has to assume Ehrenhalt would've written the article about Astley if it weren't for the natural born citizen requirement.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

God Lucky Is Neither

Clearly this is a sign of... something.

A man named God was arrested Saturday near a Tampa church for selling cocaine, police said.

Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police said he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood.

(HT: HA HL)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Vero Non Possumus

Obama_seal That didn't take long.

Last week, Barack Obama unveiled a new campaign seal -- and not the kind that swims, barks and balances balls on the end of its nose. Rather, it was the kind that has a big old eagle on it and some Latin (Vero possumus, which translates very loosely to "Yes we can").
...
And Mickey Kaus predicted it would be disappeared over the weekend. His exact words were: "But unless David Axelrod is insane, the thing will never be seen again." Kaus was right. While we don't have full details, someone at Obama's press center, when asked if the seal would be used going forward said simply, "No."

The swift retirement of this startlingly arrogant display was probably smart strategy on Obama's part. Having to campaign from federal prison would've been a serious style cramper.

Is the Great Seal of Obama even legal?
Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

As illustrated at The Weekly Standard, the Great Seal of Obama bears a substantial part of the likeness of not only the Presidential Seal, but the Vice Presidential Seal and the Great Seal as well.

Any federal officials out there want to do the honors?

A violation of the provisions of this section may be enjoined at the suit of the Attorney General, in the case of the great seal of the United States and the seals of the President and Vice President, upon complaint by any authorized representative of any department or agency of the United States.

Previously: Absentee State Legislator Who Gave a Speech Finally Ruptures His Britches

(HT: Alarming News)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Feel Like Making $300 Million? Take the John McCain Battery Challenge

Forget the gas tax holiday. What's that going to save you - fifty bucks, tops? The new GOP standard-bearer has an even juicier ~~gimmick~~ incentive for you.

John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

To help fuel interest in McCain's 300X Prize, we at Suitably Flip are pleased to host the 3.98X Prize, with a slightly lighter burden on those of you who may have lost the lease on your electrochemical laboratories. To participate, simply submit your best photoshopped concept battery. The winning submission, as determined by readers, will net the submitter two (2) handsome Barack Obama special edition 57-star American Flag lapel pins (retail price: $3.98).

Battery Sarcastic and sardonic entries are welcome. Something about harnessing the electricity coursing through our country's most gluttonous power centers, for instance.

More commentary on McCain's battery bounty after the jump.

This is just part of a suite of *managed capitalism* measures McCain proposes, including "stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol. In addition, a so-called Clean Car Challenge would provide U.S. automakers with a $5,000 tax credit for every zero-carbon emissions car they develop and sell."

I know economics isn't McCain's longest suit, but he really needs to start moving away from this constant drum beat of incremental regulation and market meddling. It may be hard for such a long-tenured creature of government (of the legislature, no less) to curb the reflexive impulse toward more government involvement to solve every problem, but this is a reflex he needs to get under control.

Incentives, bounties, fines, credits, etc., all in the name of guiding market forces on a government-determined optimal trajectory, just screams unintended consequences. Granted, his proposals are nothing compared to the pseudo-socialist tripe spilling out of the Obama campaign and his political allies on Capitol Hill, where windfall profit taxes would be just the first misguided step in the march toward socialized energy, if some of the barmier lawmakers had their way.

With energy digging in its heels as this cycle's top election issue (and with Obama on record opposing domestic production and refinement at every turn), McCain has a golden opportunity to deliver devastating electoral blows in the name of prosperity through common sense free market principles. He's got a few self-imposed impediments on that front, thanks to certain of his anti-exploration positions in the past (when, admittedly, oil was a lot cheaper and the need to expand exploration, while still genuine, was nonetheless lesser), so he certainly doesn't need to further handicap himself with convoluted, doomed-to-backfire interventionist policies, even if they strike temporary chords with voters as "creative" solutions.

This would seem like a wonderful time to tap a running mate, and let him (*cough* Mitt) or her (*ahem* Palin) spearhead energy policy. An accomplished political executive with a remarkable private sector resume (or perhaps with an Alaskan heritage) could credibly shift the campaign's energy focus towards a "Drill Here, Drill Now, Save Money" mindset.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 7

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

To recap, on Friday we split our portfolios evenly between the two following allocations, which will determine the first day of performance in this 7th week of the contest, during which we're competing for the fabulous Turks & Caicos getaway.

FTO, CLR, CEO, NOA (oil operations)
UAUA, LCC, DAL, WAG (airlines)

Update: Even before the opening bell, Group 1 appears poised to be the victor. Walgreen's (WAG) earnings missed expectations slightly, while North American Energy Partners (NOA) trounced theirs and was up nearly 15% in pre-market trading.

Oil was also trading higher, despite some give from the Saudi government during this weekend's oil summit, which should also favor Group 1 over Group 2.

Update [11:15]: Mid-morning, we've got Group 1 showing an intraday gain of 5.4% (including bonus bucks), while Group 2 is wallowing in a 4.7% loss. Come back around 2 pm for today's reallocation for any participating portfolios you've got in Group 1.

Update [1:20]: There are two contest-eligible companies reporting earnings tomorrow before the opening bell: Symmetry Medical (SMA) and Kroger (KR). Both could be interesting, Kroger as an oil-sensitive proxy for the consumer economy generally (which may be further jounced tomorrow by the Consumer Confidence report) and Symmetry as a stock that's been beaten up lately, in the wake of its unexpected Fiscal 2007 loss. SMA is not widely followed and the analysts that do cover it have drastically reduced their expectations (i.e. the bar for an upside surprise has been significantly lowered) and these forecasts are pretty well scattered. These two stocks are also negatively correlated, so for our strategy it makes sense to play them both, but keep them separated.

Let's add each one separately into both our airline and oil baskets, resulting in the following 4 groups, designated by birth month.

Jan-Mar: FTO, CLR, CEO, SMA
Apr-Jun: FTO, CLR, CEO, KR
Jul-Sep: UAUA, LCC, DAL, SMA
Oct-Dec: UAUA, LCC, DAL, KR

For example: If you were born in August, and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

Jul-Sep: UAUA, LCC, DAL, SMA
Oct-Dec: UAUA, LCC, DAL, KR
Jan-Mar: FTO, CLR, CEO, SMA

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 7: Monday
Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Monday June 23th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In the June 20 Kudlow Caucus, which panelist called the $300 billion housing bailout bill a "boondoggle"?"

Answer: Stefan Abrams

Squawk On the Street: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: on June 20, what did Jeffrey Frankel cite as an element in an investment brainstorming process?"

Answer: The Hulk

The Call: "Question: How does Sharon Epperson's blog post, "Big Oil Heads Back To Iraq," describe the oil majors' Iraqi deals?"

Answer: Unlikely to depress prices

Power Lunch: "Question: The article "Picks for Banking Bloodbath" praises Banca Transilvania. Where is the financial firm based?"

Answer: Cluj

Street Signs: "Question: In the Web video report "Staubach's Real Estate Deal" what is the "biggest compliment" to ex-Dallas QB Roger Staubach?"

Answer: The real estate guy

Closing Bell: "Question: In the Fast Money blog, "Post-Washout Rally?" which indicator did Jon Najarian look to first for a pro-rally case?"

Answer: VIX

Weekly Bonus:

Question: "What tool did 17th century rice traders contribute to the financial markets?"

Answer: Candlestick charts

Handcrafted by Flip on June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Absentee State Legislator Who Gave a Speech Finally Ruptures His Britches

Obama Seal Every elitist worth his salt needs his own coat of arms.

At a discussion with a dozen Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday morning, each of the governors was identified with a small name plate but Senator Barack Obama sat behind a low rostrum to which was attached an official-looking seal no one had seen before.

It is emblazoned with a fierce-looking eagle clutching an olive branch in one claw and arrows in the other and is deliberately reminiscent of the official seal of the president of the United States.

In case you couldn't guess, vero possumus translates to si se puede. And replacing the eagle's American flag shield from the actual Presidential seal with a shield bearing the Obama logo is a nice touch.

Do we even need to bother with the election? Obama has clearly ascended to role of de facto defender of American liberty. We should probably just let him have it and save everyone the headache.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 6

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Remember yesterday, when I said something like, "Tomorrow is a quadruple witching day, so it could be a volatile one"?

We split the participating portfolios into all-airlines and all-oil allocations, and thus far, today is not disappointing from a volatility standpoint. Our airlines are down nearly 11% overnight. (The oil stocks are up modestly.)

The good news is that this week had begun to crumble already (our crowdsourced strategy falls down when all the volatile stocks conspire to move downward on the same day... all the ones we picked anyway). And the better news is that Week 7 begins today. Remember that the first day of a given week's performance reflects the allocations you set by 4 pm on the previous Friday. So while it may not be a member of our crowd that goes to Annika Academy (which was the second-least popular prize anyway), I have high expectations for the Turks & Caicos getaway.

As for this first day of allocations, let's harness the insanity underway in the energy sector and maintain a bifurcated set of oil and airline-heavy portfolios. If the market continues to freak out about energy on Monday, the oil stocks should move higher. If people settle down and/or if oil pulls back, this latest plummet in airline valuations may begin to look comically out of whack.

There are only two changes I need you to make:

For any participating portfolios holding yesterday's oil allocation (FTO, CLR, GMXR, CEO), replace GMXR with NOA.
For portfolios with yesterday's airline allocation (UAUA, AMR, LCC, DAL), replace AMR with WAG.

NOA and WAG are North American Energy Partners and Walgreen, both of which report earnings Monday morning and should tend to move directionally with their respective portfolio-mates, adding a little extra juice to both the upside and downside come Monday.

Update: Not that it particularly matters, but the airlines have recovered quite a bit, and are now trading down only 6.7%.

For posterity, if prices were to close out the day at their current levels, our best-performing subgroup would score a weekly gain of 13.0%. Decent, but well shy of our high-water mark from last week of 19.9%.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Friday June 20th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: According to Darren Rovell's June 19 Sports Biz blog, Notre Dame will start a series vs which team in 2010?"

Answer: Army

Squawk On the Street: "Question: CNBC.com Web video: In "China Fuel Prices" (June 19) Peter Boockvar called this a "major problem" for China:"

Answer: Food inflation

The Call: "Question: Two-Way Street blog: In "Reader Response: Let's Drill!!! (Mostly)" what non-human animal anatomy does a reader mention?"

Answer: Panda's head

Power Lunch: "Question: In Bob Pisani's "Regional Banks Stage Rally" which bank anticipated "some increase in the cash dividend during 2008"?"

Answer: BB&T

Street Signs: "Question: In "Lower Crude Bad For Stocks?" Carter Worth tells the Fast Money team how he'd trade if crude pulls back. How?"

Answer: Long technology

Closing Bell: "Question: "Investing in a Tough European Retail Environment" mentions one optimistic "recovery" in UK retail. Which company?"

Answer: Kingfisher

Handcrafted by Flip on June 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Olbergrandeur

Pop quiz: What's the most efficient way to kill the longest-running television show in history?

TIM Russert's body wasn't even cold in the ground before MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann started jockeying for his job, sources claim.

Matthews was heard loudly discussing what seemed to be his strategy for landing Russert's "Meet the Press" show at Wednesday's memorial reception for the NBC Washington bureau chief at the Kennedy Center in DC. After Brian Williams, Carl Bernstein, David Gergen, Barbara Walters and NBC brass eulogized their friend, Matthews huddled with an unidentified "agent type" and seemed to be plotting.

Gross.

But even more asinine than the prospect of installing Ol' Tingly Legs behind the vaunted desk is that of considering his profoundly deranged colleague for the job.

Meanwhile, Matthews' MSNBC cable cohort Olbermann, who was also at the memorial, is "threatening to quit if he isn't installed as Russert's replacement," another insider said. "I know, it sounds ludicrous, but, then, Keith Olbermann is ludicrous."

A rep for MSNBC said, "All of this is utterly untrue."

Russert himself wanted Chuck Todd, the NBC News political director he hired, to succeed him, said one source, who added that MSNBC hosts don't stand a chance of landing "Meet the Press." The insider said, "They're cable. They're far too partisan. They have no gravitas. If gravitas is eight letters, they're about seven letters short."

If the past is any indication, MTP would stop booking actual guests and Olbermann would spend the whole hour screaming with trademark spittle-flecked indignation about Chris Wallace.

Previously: Olberlogic

(HT: JWF)

Update: Heh. Via Ed Morrisey, here's Olby last night, preemptively branding Paula Froelich the "worst person in the world" for preparing to run the story about his and Matthews' unseemly jockeying for Russert's job.

Update: WWTDD has the quote of the day.

Olbermann is a f***in creep. I never missed a show when he and Dan Patrick did Sportscenter, but today he’s an insufferable jackass. And he looks like a pervert. Mark my words, one day you’ll wake up and there will be sketches of him on flyers and you’ll see the FBI confiscating his home computers.

He also claims she's lying, and claims it exuberantly, using impressively long sentences with lots of parallel construction. So, you know... point Olbermann, I guess.

He also laments Froelich's (and, by extension, NY Post parent company chairman and Olbermann's Great Tormentor Rupert Murdoch's) decision to trample Russert's memory by whacking a couple of petulant MSNBC employees for trampling Russert's memory in their frenzied bids to replace him.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Let the Fund Begin

Obama's announcement that he'll decline federal campaign financing assures him of a hefty warchest for the general election and makes it very difficult for Sen. McCain to keep pace. While many news outlets are focused on his pledge breaking, how does this impact the McCain campaign, especially in its search for a Vice Presidential candidate?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Sen. McCain hosted (read: interviewed) three Vice President candidates: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty were also evidently invited, but the three in attendance are widely seen as the front runners.

Charlie Crist is a popular governor, and is seen as the key to delivering a highly sought-after swing state. However, while Florida is still a prized state, it is no longer the key to the electoral math (as it was in 2000 and 2004). As such, the Obama public financing decision does not cause a rise in his VP stock.

Mitt Romney would be a significant asset in delivering the conservative base and would add valuable economic credentials to McCain's ticket. In addition, Romney is loaded. He has already demonstrated that he's more than willing to access his personal wealth to get into the White House. He's the only viable GOP VP candidate that could level the campaign finance playing field. Romney would appear to benefit from Obama's move.

Bobby Jindal wouldn't deliver a swing state nor would he bring a mountain of cash to the table. Jindal just may make the dash for cash less relevant. He would undercut the significant advantage that Barack has among minorities and the youth. If Americans think that Barack is living proof of the quintessential American Dream, wait until they hear Jindal's story. Jindal also benefits from Barack's announcement.

So if McCain's short list consisted of five before, I'd say it's now down to just two: Romney and Jindal. The selection process will be multi-faceted but expect Obama's financing decision to weigh heavily in the selection.

Handcrafted by Gindu on June 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 6

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's updates, picks, and reallocation methodology. [See updates below]

In the mean time, let's take a quick poll on the June Business Outlook Survey, due out from the Philly Fed at 10 am. The index, which measures business sentiment among manufacturers, increased from -24.9 to -15.6 last month. Economists expect it to rise again, to an estimated -10.0, which would be the highest reading this year

Business Outlook Survey - Current Activity Index

What's your prediction?

Update [10:00]: Wa-waa.

The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, decreased slightly, from -15.6 in May to -17.1 this month.

Looks like the pessimists (25% of you) were right.

Update [10:45]: Onto the business at hand. Anyone with Pier One (PIR) is yesterday's allocation is getting murdered today, as the retailer posted a quarterly loss 2/3 larger than Wall Street expected. It looks like we may only have 1 or 2 groups (out of yesterday's 6) who wind up adding to their gains today, but there's only one reallocation left in this ~~atrocious~~ challenging week anyway, so everyone's scores get reset tomorrow (for purposes of the weekly prizes, anyway).

Alas, there aren't any contest-eligible stocks reporting earnings after today's close or before tomorrow's open anyway. So for those of you with PIR-less portfolios, let's just split them down the middle and go all in with our airline and oil baskets.

Tomorrow is a quadruple witching day, so it could be a volatile one. And no matter which way it shakes out, one of these groups ought to do quite nicely, while the other equally suffers (which - it can't hurt to repeat - is how the crowdsourced strategy is supposed to work).

Last Friday, the boys got the oil and the girls got the airlines, so this week, let's switch it up.

Girls: FTO, CLR, GMXR, CEO (oil)
Boys: UAUA, AMR, LCC, DAL (airlines)

Of course, if you're using more than one portfolio, you get to play both. Just split your participating portfolios evenly between the two allocations, with any tie going to your gender. Make sure to enter all trades by 4 pm (Eastern) today.

Update [2:30]: Indeed, it's looking like 2 of yesterday's 6 groups will enjoy net gains today, with the best performing group being #6 (CCL, PRGS, DVN, IHS), which is looking at a respectable intraday gain of 2.4% (3.4% including bonus bucks).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Thursday June 19th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: CNBC.com managing editor Allen Wastler enjoys a stogie in his byline photo. What brand of cigar?"

Answer: Cuvee Blanc Churchil

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In "Health Care Stocks: Schwab's Rx" why did Paul Alan Davis praise Express Scripts?"

Answer: It's "part of the solution"

The Call: "Question: In the story, "Crude? So What? These Characters Still Find Work in Ads", which figure is called a "contemporary...icon"?"

Answer: Stewie the baby

Power Lunch: "Question: In "Energy Plays: How to Profit From the Oil-Price Boom" Jordan Kimmel offered his "excellent" stock picks. Name one."

Answer: MCF

Street Signs: "Question: Web video hunt: In "LeFrak's Stock Picks," Richard LeFrak joked that FedEx should shift from what to what?"

Answer: Airplanes to smart cars

Closing Bell: "Question: In Fast Money's "Web Extra: Nat Gas Plummet?" the traders also discussed solar energy. The following stock(s) were mentioned:"

Answer: Intel

Handcrafted by Flip on June 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Obama's Negative Rating Nearly Quadruples McCain's

Not Barry and John, mind you. Michelle and Cindy.

A new Pew Research poll of about 1,000 finds that 78% of respondents knew something about Obama's wife and 26% said it was negative, while only 54% knew something about McCain's wife and a miniscule 7% said it was negative.

Of course, this poll was conducted before Michelle's one-day stint as a co-host on The View, during which she chided Americans as sexists who are afraid of strong women. So that favorability ought to start improving shortly.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Legend Of Barack Obama

In the market for some leather bound books to complement your apartment's rich mahogany smell?

Handcrafted by Flip on June 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U. Chicago Whizzes On Its Own Legacy

Later this week, the same economists plan to exhume Friedman's body and run it up the flagpole naked to impress some coeds.

Last month, the University of Chicago announced that it was establishing an economics center honoring the late economist Milton Friedman. Not everyone on the faculty is pleased.

The Chicago Tribune reports today that over 100 professors have signed a letter to University president Robert Zimmer objecting to the establishment of the new center. “[W]e are all disturbed by the ideological and disciplinary preference implied by the University’s massive support for the economic and political doctrines that have extended from Friedman’s work,” the professors write.

Mr. Friedman, who worked at Chicago from 1946 until retiring in 1977, was best known for his work on monetary theory and his fierce advocacy of small government and free markets. ... “It is a right-wing think tank being put in place,” Chicago history professor Bruce Lincoln told the Tribune.

Uh huh. It can't be a simple tribute to the massively influential economist who graced the university for over 30 years.

As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once said of Dr. Friedman, “There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization. Milton is one of those very few people.”

Friedman led the very economic movement known as the "Chicago school", but even that doesn't warrant his name on a building at the actual school. After all, there are liberal economists currently in residence who oughtn't suffer the indignity of knowing their employer chooses to memorialize (and *gasp* to continue the groudbreaking work of) exceptional achievers with whom they might differ politically.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 6

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

As of yesterday's close, our best performing subgroup is up 11% week-to-date. Nothing to sneeze at, but a little disappointing after our Best Buy and Goldman Sachs picks both panned out marvelously (insofar as both companies soundly beat Wall Street expectations when they reported earnings yesterday), but then proceeded to trade lower anyway in what turned out to be an ugly day in the markets.

Even so, nearly everyone's portfolios should be up for the week and a bunch have already crested double digits. With three days of performance yet to hit the books, I'm liking our chances of poaching that golf package.

Update [9:30]: Okay, well FedEx and Morgan Stanley didn't work out precisely as hoped. Both failed to impress Wall Street with their earnings this morning and promptly began pointing lower. Of course, that's exactly what the crowdsourcing strategy is here to insulate us from and we've got a significant number of portfolios holding neither stock. Those same portfolios (yesterday's Group 1 - holding LNN, IHS, APA, DVN) also happen to be heavily oil-concentrated, so keep your eye on the crude inventories report, due out at 10:30.

Update [9:35]: Bah. Lindsay Corp's earnings fell short of expectations too, sending the shares plummeting. So much for Group 1. On the bright side, Group 4 has no LNN or MS; its only holding among these three turkeys is FDX, which has actually begun to rebound. As the package delivery business is very airlinesque (and since Group 4 also holds United and American), we're now pulling for the crude inventories report to go the other way (to show a smaller-than-expected drawdown).

Update [10:30]: There it is. The weekly drawdown in both crude oil and gasoline was 1.2 million barrels (versus an expected drawdown of 2 million barrels). Distillate fuel inventories rose by 2.6 million.

Update [2:45]: All groups are floundering today, so let's everyone go ahead with the following reallocations in all of our participating portfolios. Make sure to enter all trades by 4 pm (Eastern) today.

Today's segmentation methodology: day of week of birth.

Sat/Sun: DVN, KWK, HK, APA
Mon: CCL, PIR, CC, DVN
Tue: CCL, PIR, CC, UAUA
Wed: CCL, PIR, PRGS, IHS
Thu: CCL, PRGS, CC, IHS
Fri: CCL, PRGS, DVN, IHS

Carnival (CCL), Progress Software (PRGS), Circuit City (CC), IHS Inc. (IHS), and Pier One (PIR) are earnings reporters, while the others you may be starting to recognize from our go-to pile of oil operations and airline stocks.

For reference, it looks like there are three other eligible earnings reporters at your disposal: Healthways (HWAY), Actuant Corporation (ATU), and J. M. Smucker (SJM).

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, kindly allocate the first portfolio according to the day of week of birth scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all involved portfolios.

For example: If you were born on a Thursday, and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

Thu: CCL, PRGS, CC, IHS
Fri: CCL, PRGS, DVN, IHS
Sat/Sun: DVN, KWK, HK, APA

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 6: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Wednesday June 18th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In her blog post, "Foreclosures: What You're Asking About," what did Carmen Wong Ulrich offer Steve the Angry Renter?"

Answer: His own blog post

Squawk On the Street: "Question: Cramer prefers gold to silver. So why did he say he likes Pan American Silver, in June 9's Lightning Round OT?"

Answer: "A winner" among peers

The Call: "Question: Warren Buffett Watch: According to Adolphus Busch IV, how big a stake does Berkshire Hathaway's CEO hold in Anheuser?"

Answer: 5 percent

Power Lunch: "Question: The slideshow, "Which Costs More?" (June 10) says Budweiser is pricier than crude oil. How much IS a barrel of beer?"

Answer: US$447.25

Street Signs: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: In "Two China Solar Energy Stocks" Gerald Jordan praised, yes, energy plays. Which one(s)?"

Answer: All of the above

Closing Bell: "Question: In "'Non-Toxic' Financial Stock Picks" which bank did Ben Steverman call "the anti-Countrywide"?"

Answer: Hudson City Bancorp

Handcrafted by Flip on June 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Unbefreakinglievable

From Roll Call (HT: K-Lo):

Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) announced Tuesday that he will run for re-election in November despite being the target of federal bribery charges.

Previously: A Picture's Worth 90,000 Dollars

Handcrafted by Flip on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Olberlogic

Keith Olbermann is a truly extraordinary intellect. His ability to retain basic powers of speech under conditions of cognitive dissonance so profound as to lobotomize any normal brain removes any doubt that he is indeed qualified to pass daily judgment on the "worst persons in the world."

Tonight, he fell into a disjointed fugue about John McCain's proposal to lift the 27-year-old moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling. McCain's support for the ban during his 2000 Presidential run has earned him rightful rebuke, but his reversal on the issue is only part of Olbermann's beef.

(For the record, while McCain's original position on the issue was inexcusably foolish, this reversal doesn't quite warrant the pejorative "flip-flip" label. It's not inconsistent to favor more aggressive energy exploration with oil at $130 per barrel than when it was $27 per barrel.)

But as Olbermann teed up the segment, he explained a couple points of economics that nicely showcased his capacity for magical thinking. Despite the hue and cry over rising energy prices and reliance on foreign oil, Keith assures us that exploiting our own enormous and forbidden reserves will have dreadful results. By tapping these oil and gas sources, we will only serve to "increase our reliance on [them]!"

Egad!

By the same logic, if large caches of delicious sandwiches are discovered in sub-Saharan Africa, starving children should steer clear, lest they succumb to an increased reliance on nourishment. And Cohaagen wasn't trying to kill the Martian rebels when he cut off their air, he was just trying to reduce their reliance on oxygen.

When demand outstrips supply (and when additional supply is available, but for governmental prevention), Olbernomics teaches us that the answer is not to increase supply, but rather to convince people to make do with less (or to substitute inferior or more expensive alternatives).

For the consumption of only his most advanced pupils, Olbermann goes on to explain that increasing the supply of oil and gas can only increase prices anyway. He substantiates this refutation of the most basic principle of economic theory with the central maxim of liberal energy policy: oil companies are evil.

QED.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Insectivorous Centenarian Dragon Discovered In Iraq

Um... what?

A group of persons accidentally found a 100-year-old rare animal, according to deputy rector of Duhuk University for scientific affairs on Tuesday.

"The animal, found accidentally this week in Bajiel region in Aqra district, western Duhuk, is unlike any other animal. It feeds on reptiles and bugs," Hassan Amin told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI).

"After watching the short movie made by a group of ordinary persons, we can say that the extinct animal is more than 100 years-old and is related to the Dragon family," Amin explained.

"We have discussed the issue with two specialized centers in Germany and Britain to know more details about this animal, which was discovered in the country for the first time," he noted.
Duhuk is located 460 km north of Baghdad.

(HT: Gateway Pundit, via Hot Air Headlines)

Handcrafted by Flip on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 6

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

We're off to a good start this week, with 100% of participating portfolios in the black and half of them returning 6.7% or more on the first day. If a couple of yesterday's picks pan out today (earnings reporters BBY, TCL, and GS, with some oil and airlines on the side), many of you should be looking at double-digit week-to-date gains by today's close.

The average weekly prize winner has managed 26.1%, so anything above 9.7% by Tuesday is potential Annika territory.

Today's new allocations and subgroup segmentation methodology are available below.

Update: Looks like we're 2 for 2 so far today, with BBY and GS both beating Wall Street expectations and moving higher in pre-market trading. Mumbai-based TCL hasn't reported yet.

Update: Despite Best Buy's beat, persistent retailer-wariness dragged the shares lower during the regular session. Even so, all 5 groups remain positive for the day (as of 1:20 pm), even before bonus bucks. None too shabby on a day when all major indices are moving lower. At this point, the best performing subgroup is Group 3 (GS, TCL, HK, UAUA), with an intraday gain of 5.0%, including bonuses. If we were to close at these prices today, our best performers would realize a week-to-date gain of 12.2%.

The leading group could well change by day's end, so I'd again encourage all participating portfolios to go ahead with today's reallocations. Make sure to enter all trades by 4 pm (Eastern) today.

Today's segmentation methodology is brought to you by the first letter of your last name.

A-F: LNN, IHS, APA, DVN
G-L: MS, LNN, FDX, UAUA
M-S: MS, LNN, IHS, APA
T-Z: IHS, AMR, FDX, UAUA

For example: If your last name is Vorshtein, and you're using 2 portfolios, your allocations would be:

T-Z: IHS, AMR, FDX, UAUA
A-F: LNN, IHS, APA, DVN

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%.

Four of these names (MS, LNN, IHS, and FDX) are earnings reporters; the others constitute that airline/oil pairings.

For reference, there are at least three other eligible earnings reporters on deck (CLC, KMX, and CMC), but they seem somewhat less suited for our purposes.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 6: Monday, Tuesday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Tuesday June 17th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In Bob Pisani's blog post "Using Analysts As Contrarians?" which financial firm's employee is mentioned by his full name?"

Answer: Merrill Lynch

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In Monday's "Stop Trading!" segment, which stock did Jim Cramer say "suffers from a lack of momentum"?"

Answer: Nokia

The Call: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: On June 16, Jonathan Vyorst offered CNBC his stock picks. But which one was an exclusive "Web Extra"?"

Answer: American Financial

Power Lunch: "Question: Full disclosure: In "Stocks Your Dad Would Love," which of Brent Wilsey's picks is in his portfolio?"

Answer: Harley-Davidson

Street Signs: "Question: In "Take Your Position: Financials" Fast Money's Guy Adami says "take at least half your position off the table" for:"

Answer: Lehman Brothers

Closing Bell: "Question: In Vince Farrell's "Raising Rates Would Spark a Rally" he quotes Stefan Abrams on the worst thing for stock prices:"

Answer: Rising rate of inflation

Handcrafted by Flip on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Is the Pump Really That Painful?

With oil prices hitting new highs on a nearly daily basis (having soared hundreds of percent higher over the last few years), lament over energy costs has taken center stage in the political fracas. Now that the average price per gallon has crossed through $4.00, it's nearly impossible to get through an evening newscast or a Presidential stump speech without hearing about the devastating cost of fueling up.

$100 fill-ups are bound to leave motorists sticker-shocked, but has the fuel component of the real cost of driving really changed all that much?

Nominally speaking, yes. From 1990 to 2008 (the period over which the government data is readily available), the average price per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline increased 159% (blue line). But over those 18 years, average fuel efficiency improved by about 11%. So the average cost per mile driven would have increased not by 159%, but closer to 134% (red line).

But that increase refers to nominal (non-inflation-adjusted) dollars. Adjusting for nearly two decades of inflation, the real fuel cost per mile has increased just 43% (green line).

Driving Costs

By those estimates, if your family drives 15,000 miles this year, your annual fuel bill will be $677 higher (in 2008 dollars) than if real, efficiency-adjusted prices had remained constant since 1990, when gas averaged $1.30 per gallon.

For comparison, the average family received roughly $800 through the 2008 tax rebate, more than offsetting the effective increase.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 6

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's picks and contest updates.

Unfortunately, we didn't quite win Week 5 after all. After Friday's rebalancing, our own Hugh Daniel slipped from 1st to 4th. His 19.9% return made for a terrific week, but it wasn't quite enough to take home the TAG Heuers.

Annika This week's prize is a 4-day trip to Annika Academy in Orlando, including nine holes with Annika herself.

The allocations we set on Friday will be the first to count toward this week's performance. See updates below for today's picks and subgroup segmentation.

Update: So far, things are looking good for Group 1 (MMR, REXX, DPTR, LEH), which is enjoying an intraday gain of 4.4%, thanks to another increase in oil prices and a favorable market reception to Lehman Brothers' earnings release.

Update: Spoke too soon. Airline stocks are staging a bit of a late morning rally, leading Group 2 (LCC, AMR, UAUA, LEH) to pull nearly even with Group 1. At 11:30, all 4 Friday groups were trading higher, despite the Dow and S&P 500 moving lower today.

Update: Pulling into the close, Friday's Groups 3 and 4 are vying for the best finish, with both showing an approximate one-day gain of 6.8%, including bonus bucks. All 4 groups are doing nicely, so let's have everyone proceed with the next reallocation and keep as many portfolios alive as possible.

We've got 5 subgroups today, assigned according to the last digit of your phone number, as follows:

1-2: BBY, TCL, HK, UAUA
3-4: GS, BBY, HK, UAUA
5-6: GS, TCL, HK, UAUA
7-8: BBY, TCL, GS, UAUA
9-0: BBY, TCL, GS, HK

Best Buy (BBY), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Tata Communications (TCL), all report earnings tomorrow morning, while Petrohawk (HK) and United (UAUA) are part of our ongoing oil/airline pairings.

Remember to enter those trades by 4 pm today.

If you're looking for additional potential founts of volatility, at least two other contest-eligible companies will report earnings after today's close or before tomorrow's open: Adobe Systems (ADBE) and FactSet Research (FDS).

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, kindly allocate the first portfolio according to the phone number scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all involved portfolios.

For example: If your phone number ends with a 7, and you're using 3 portfolios, your allocations would be:

7-8: BBY, TCL, GS, UAUA
9-0: BBY, TCL, GS, HK
1-2: BBY, TCL, HK, UAUA

In all cases, each position should be set at 25%.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 6: Monday
Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Monday June 16th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: Where did "Managing Asia" blogger Christine Tan get her Masters degree?"

Answer: University of Auckland

Squawk On the Street: "Question: On June 5, Cramer sang the praises of Yum! Brands. How high did he say the stock would go?"

Answer: Past $45

The Call: "Question: "Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century" told of toon & toy updates. What was "the industrys nightmare"?"

Answer: Earring Magic Ken

Power Lunch: "Question: The May 27 Fast Money University segment had bad news for some -- but possibly good for others. What was the topic?"

Answer: Natural disasters

Street Signs: "Question: Darren Rovell called Kimbo Slice the fiercest athlete since Mike Tyson. Whom did Rovell see Slice fight on May 31?"

Answer: James Thompson

Closing Bell: "Question: In "Utility Stocks Hotter with Deregulation," which stock was Dan Eggers' "top idea right now"?"

Answer: PEG

Weekly Quiz:

Question: "A series of higher highs and higher lows signals what kind of trend?"

Answer: Uptrend

Handcrafted by Flip on June 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

"The Happening" Review [Choc Full o' Spoilers - Look Away]

With reservations, I'm going against 80% of the critics and giving M. Night's latest a somewhat ambivalent thumbs up.

More (with plot spoilers) after the jump, in consideration of errant eyeballs.

Well, what can you say? It was an M. Night movie that wasn't The Sixth Sense and true to form, it was okay.

Better than Unbreakable and infinitely better the Lady In the Water, but a notch shy of The Village and Signs. It was the director's first R-rated movie and it definitely earned it. There were people crying within the first several minutes of the film, in reaction to suicide scenes like the ones they've shown in the previews. And it wasn't that half-laughing, boy-that-startled-me kind of nervous whimpering you hear after a BOO moment in a slasher film. People were upset.

I'm posting a spoily review primarily because there really isn't much to spoil. No big twist. No big reveal. No big payoff. But knowing there's no twist in a Shyamalan movie is something of a spoiler in and of itself and I didn't want to prevent anyone from going in fresh unless they asked for it, so here we are down in the extended entry.

To the extent there's anything to spoil (i.e. plot points not revealed in the trailers), I'd been spoiled before seeing it. A friend of mine who'd read some plot details in advance told me a couple weeks ago (with my blessing) that the *thing* causing the *happening* is... wait for it... plant life. Plant life that's angry at mankind for its unGreen treatment of mother earth.

Yes.

I wasn't sure at the time whether this detail was Premise or Secret. Since it wasn't revealed in the previews, I'd assumed it was Secret. Turns out it's merely Premise. Via interspersed newscasts, they briefly toy with the idea that it's terrorists who've released some airborne toxin that's causing people to calmly (if gruesomely) do themselves in, but a slightly crazed botanist quickly assures us it's the plants vengefully releasing some unspecified kind of suicide-inducing spores to protect themselves from the ravages of man.

It's this plot vein that makes the movie simultaneously unsatisfying and obnoxious. Through some vocalized solitary musings of Marky Mark the science teacher and a few clarifying details from the aforementioned plant lover, we learn that not only is there totally scientific evidence that such neurotoxins could develop naturally, but that the sudden and very organized attack pattern is simply the result of the trees and bushes and grass communicating with one another and coordinating their attack.

Maybe this theme takes on heightened relevance in this age of killer tomatoes, but it's such a preposterous explanation (and it spilled out so early) that I was wholly convinced it was a red herring, right up until the end credits rolled.

As if recognizing (but neglecting to fill) the plot holes surrounding the ability of vegetation to reason, communicate, and rapidly self-evolve new biological defenses (offenses) upon deciding to do so, a news cast during the epilogue shrugs, "We may never fully understand it."

And in an afterthought that I'm fairly sure Night scrawled impromptu on a cue card while filming that final newscast and held up behind the camera for the actor to read, the anchor also offers the possibility that maybe it wasn't the plants, but instead... the government!

The government conspiracy theory (the CIA, to be specific, in a generic government conspiracy kind of way) is floated a couple times earlier in the movie as people are flailing to figure out what's happening, but
only in thowaway fashion. Unless I missed some very subtle clues, I'm virtually certain there's nothing more to that chin-stroker other than to deflect your attention from the plant nonsense. One gets the impression that Night wanted you to be thinking about something - anything - other than the anticlimactic way the movie ends.

So the movie delivers both an unsatisfying resolution and a heavy-handed message. And the lecture isn't a particularly novel one either. "Man mistreats nature. And payback's a bitch."

All that said (and I know it sounds fairly harsh), I was still pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the movie was. That's in part because I'd seen the Rotten Tomatoes score and had low expectations. But it's also because the movie is simply well made, despite the plot deficiencies. Those scenes that brought some moviegoers to tears were genuinely and uniquely creepy. And there are a lot of them.

The movie is something of a one trick pony in that sense, but it's a good enough trick to make it captivating from start to disappointing finish. What's most frustrating is that you've got 3/4 of a genuinely good movie. It didn't require a Sixth Sense-style megatwist to finish the job, but it desperately needed some semblance of an ending. It's not that the ending is flawed; there simply isn't one. It's the cinematic equivalent of a pop song disappearing into a repeat-and-fade chorus. That works for Police tunes. It doesn't work for scary movies. In the end, you're left with the ridiculous theory posited in the first act proving to be accurate and the menace passing without anyone needing to figure out how to thwart it. No one needs to grow or repent or make peace with any inner demons in their struggle to survive, other than Marky and Mrs. Mark, who just need to be reminded that they love each other while they wait for the spores to blow away.

You can still go see this movie knowing all this and still enjoy it to its fullest, because all of its redeeming qualities are completely unrelated to the particulars of the plot. And who knows - maybe they can whip up some kind of retroactive director's cut for the DVD and splice in a more fulfilling ending. Like having Zooey Deschanel break out into a Christmas song.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

RIP, Tim Russert

Tim From NY Post:

Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of "Meet the Press," has died after collapsing at NBC's Washington news bureau, a source said. He was 58 years old.

NY Times:

Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of NBC Nightly News, came on the air at 3:39 p.m. that Mr. Russert had collapsed and died early this afternoon while at work. He had just returned from Italy with his family.

Lots of updates at Hot Air, including this obituary from NBC News.

Check here for additional coverage.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 5

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Pow! The ladies are in charge today on this 5th and final day of the crowdsourcing experiment, with their all-airline allocation showing a whopping one-day gain of 11.4% (as of an hour or so into the session). It's looking like a fine ending to the week, but bear in mind things could change dramatically by the end of the session (as they did yesterday for airline stocks).

The men's allocation (oil operations stocks) is up around 1.0%.

How are both of our negatively correlated portfolios trading higher? WSJ's MarketBeat credits the menacing date.

Stocks (unlike some people) apparently favor Friday the 13th, at least when the spooky date falls in June.

There have been 11 incidences of Friday, June 13, since 1928, and nine were up days for the S&P 500, noted Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. On Friday, June 13, 1941, the S&P fell 0.2%, and Friday, June 13, 2003, it fell 1%.

On the whole, there have been 1,108 up days and 9,798 down days in June for the index since 1928, “so it’s unusual” that those Friday 13ths in June would so often work out well, Mr. Silverblatt said. The S&P is up by more than 1% as of this writing, which is now freaking us out.

If prices were to close at these intraday prices, it would bring our leading subgroup up to an approximate gain of 24% for the week (including bonus bucks through today). The weekly leader was up 17.7% through yesterday, so we just might pull this off. [See update below...]

I don't know if we've actually got any participants who fell into that final sub-sub-sub-subgroup (we started the week with about 100 participants and 300 portfolios involved, so maybe), but anyone who bought yesterday's airline portfolio (which should be anyone using at least 2 portfolios, male or female) ought to be having a good day. More than enough to make up for some early-week ugliness.

Picks for Day 1 of Week 6 are listed below. Golf with Annika is on the line, so let's stay focused.

In the mean time, please drop us a line if you were participating in the experiment and you've got a portfolio that might be in contention for the Week 5 prize.

Update: Even more good news. This is my bad for not recognizing the name sooner, because he e-mailed last week to let us know he would be participating, but it turns out the current weekly leader (the one with the 17.7% gain through yesterday) is SF crowdsourcing experiment participant Hugh Daniel.

Hugh was using all 5 portfolios in the experiment, so he was able to use both the oil and airline allocations yesterday afternoon, but alas, the chart-topping portfolio wound up getting the oil stocks. Still, this means that if crude stages another afternoon rally and wrecks everyone's huge airline gains, Hugh's oil allocation ought to improve enough for him to hold the top spot.

Update: Here we go - the first batch of allocations for Week 6. Bear in mind these are devised with the crowdsourcing experiment in mind, which is to say they're best used in portfolios you don't believe can catch up to the overall leaders by the end of the contest. Together, we'll coordinate the stock allocations across these few hundred portfolios in order to maximize the chance that one of the participants wins the weekly prize.

And given the tentatively promising way the experiment's inaugural week is turning out, it's worth repeating a point I mentioned in Wednesday's pep talk, after a lot of our portfolios suffered some hideous losses: This strategy will necessarily result in big losses for many of the portfolios. The daily allocations are designed to be volatile and to move in opposite directions. So ideally, on any given day, half the group will be up big and half will be down big.

But given that only one player can win the weekly prize, big losses are no worse than moderate gains, since your score effectively resets every Friday. (Plus, if you're starting from a smaller base, your daily bonus bucks give you a larger percentage bonus.) Recognizing this, and steeling yourself against the brunt of the steep declines is what enables us to execute this strategy, which might give you a 1/100 chance of winning a weekly prize (a lot better than 1/250,000 in the general population).

With all that said, here's today's lineup.

Let's go back to square 1 and run the first segmentation by birth month again:

Jan-Mar: MMR, REXX, DPTR, LEH
Apr-Jun: LCC, AMR, UAUA, LEH
Jul-Sep: MMR, REXX, DPTR, SBR
Oct-Dec: LCC, AMR, UAUA, CAL

Each allocation is either heavily oil- or airline-weighted, with one of each spiced with a bit of Lehman Brothers (LEH), which reports earnings Monday morning and, well, has been in the news lately. The only other eligible earnings reporter (that I'm aware of) is ~~Adobe Systems (ADBE)~~, but Lehman seems a little more prone to post-earnings hyperactivity right now, which is exactly what we're looking for.

Important: If you're using more than one portfolio for this project, allocate the first portfolio according to the birthday scheme, the next portfolio to the allocation directly beneath it, and so on, until you've reallocated all involved portfolios.

For example: If you were born in November and you're using 2 portfolios, your allocations would be:

Oct-Dec: LCC, AMR, UAUA, CAL
Jan-Mar: MMR, REXX, DPTR, LEH

All stocks should be set to 25%. Make sure to get your allocations set by 4 pm today.

And if you're a new participant (or didn't check in last time), it'd be helpful for purposes of budgeting the daily segmentations if you can give us a shout and let us know how many portfolios you'll be using in the experiment. You don't have to do this to participate, of course, but a more accurate count will enable us to better optimize the the strategy.

(Correction: Adobe reports after the close on Monday, not before the open, so it was never a good candidate for today's picks to begin with.)

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Friday June 13th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: In CNBC.com's Earnings - Highlights section, what is the first tab that readers see?:

Answer: Expected Announcements

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In May 29’s Sell Block, which telecom stock(s) did Cramer suggest to sell on “any strength”?"

Answer: Vimpel Communications

The Call: "Question: In May, Warren Buffett told a Madrid audience what his "three bedrock ideas" are. Which did he mention first?"

Answer: Stock = piece of a business

Power Lunch: "Question: According to Diana Olick, how many U.S. construction jobs were lost between the 2006 sector peak and May 2, 2008?"

Answer: 457,000

Street Signs: "Question: Which CNBC anchor also writes the "Managing Asia" blog?"

Answer: Christine Tan

Closing Bell: "Question: In his June 5 blog, Phil LeBeau said this automaker matched Toyota's efficiency -- but not its public perception:"

Answer: Chrysler

Handcrafted by Flip on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

All Of Krugman's Records Are Broken

(Records, as in vinyl, not Guinness.)

Around here, we've spent some time contemplating New York Times columnist and professional downer Paul Krugman's abysmal record (as in track record) of predicting economic recessions. In each of the last six years, he's prophesied recession, and in each of the last six years (including this one), he's been dead wrong.

But the economic End of Days isn't the only doom Krugman finds himself repeating ad nauseum. Nor is it his only strain of chronic alarmism that has proven laughably unwarranted:

From Marginal Revoluation:

Paul Krugman is attacking Milton Friedman (again) for rotten tomatoes. Here's Krugman in 2007:
These are anxious days at the lunch table. For all you know, there may be E. coli on your spinach, salmonella in your peanut butter and melamine in your pet’s food and, because it was in the feed, in your chicken sandwich.

Who’s responsible for the new fear of eating? Some blame globalization; some blame food-producing corporations; some blame the Bush administration. But I blame Milton Friedman.

...Without question, America’s food safety system has degenerated over the past six years.
and here he is today repeating himself:
Lately, however, there always seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines — tainted spinach, poisonous peanut butter and, currently, the attack of the killer tomatoes.

How did America find itself back in The Jungle?

Krugman writes for the Paper of Record, so it's a fool's errand to impugn the analysis that surely backs up his claims of degenerating food safety since 2001 (for those keeping score at home, that's right around the time these annual recessions started plaguing us too).

But just for laughs, MR decided to look at the actual incidence of foodborne illness in recent years and finds a distinct net downward trend. Amazing, right? Especially when Krugman's analysis determined, in high-sciency fashion, that "lately... there seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines."

Which hurts your head more? The cognitive dissonance or having to listen to Krugman endlessly insisting that a world that doesn't suck sucks?

Handcrafted by Flip on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Schumer Channels His Inner Winehouse

This is what's known as raising the level of political discourse.

Having tried charts, speeches and even all-nighters to protest what he sees as Republican obstructionism in the Senate, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer took to quoting British songstress Amy Winehouse Thursday, hoping to drive home his message.

“It’s sort of like that song,” said Schumer speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, "Democrats say, 'Let’s legislate,' and [Republicans] just say, 'No, no no.'”

Winehouse — whose struggles with substance abuse caused a media firestorm — won six Grammy’s last year on the strength of her song “Rehab,” which containes (sic) the hook Schumer took such glee in repeating.

“They need rehab, I guess,” said Schumer with a laugh before turning serious to decry what he sees as constant filibusters from the GOP, which is preventing serious issues like energy independence from being debated.

Senator Schumer prescribes a hasty ouster for filibuster addicts:

Although he later corrected himself to say he was referring to "political rehab" and not anything more nefarious, Schumer warned that by refusing to vote to debate bills, "Republicans are filibustering themselves out of their seats" and would pay a price in November.

No stranger to the condition, Chuck's been open about his own struggle with filibustaholism in the past. Much like his pop idol Ms. Winehouse, Schumer spent some long, dark years in denial, during which his habit was so strong, he blamed his own failings on his inability to get that next fix.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared that his decision not to lead a successful filibuster in January 2006 of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's nomination was one of his "greatest failings" as a senator.
...
"Every day, I am pained that I didn't do more to try to block Justice Alito."

The born again legislative teetotaler has come a long way since he was in the Senate minority, when he used to glorify filibuster use as a "good American tradition."

This is a much healthier message for the kids.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 5

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Watch this space for today's picks and contest updates.

Meanwhile, let's take a quick prediction poll on this morning's unemployment report (due out at 8:30). A week ago, initial jobless claims clocked in at 357,000, a decrease of 18,000 from the previous week. This week, analysts expect an increase to 370,000.

What are you expecting?

Update: Poll closed. Actual number: 384,000.

Smart crowd. That was in the range of your second most popular answer. And 69% of you correctly guessed that the number would surprise to the upside.

Update: Shortly after the open, it looks like Groups 1 and 4 (last names beginning with A-F and T-Z) will be vying for the biggest gain today:

A-F: NDN, CASY, LCC, CAL: 6.3%
G-L: NDN, CASY, KWK, GDP: 2.0%
M-S: ENS, KWK, GDP, CHK: 1.3%
T-Z: LCC, CAL, AMR, UAUA: 4.9%

Happily, everyone's looking at gains so far amid a market rallying retail sales data, but a nice rebound in airlines (whose stupefying recent declines we looked at last night) and a solid earnings surprise from Casey's General Stores (CASY) are contributing to the bookend groups' big moves.

If everyone's been following along, our best performing subgroup should be looking at an approximate week-to-date gain of 14.7%, including bonus bucks through today. Weekly leader Paul Dorell was up 12.3% through yesterday, so we've got a decent shot at this.

And for the first time during the contest, there are no eligible companies reporting earnings after today's close or before tomorrow's open (that I can see anyway - if you come across one, let me know). So for the 5th and final reallocation of this week's crowdsourced TAG Heuer poaching experiment, let's simply bisect the surviving portfolios into oil operations and airlines. As long as oil prices move tomorrow, one of these two ought to have a good day.

Boys: EAC, OXY, WLL, CLR (oil)
Girls: LCC, CAL, AMR, UAUA (airlines)

If you're using multiple portfolios, just divide them up evenly (or however you want) between the two.

Update: Reader Dominic notes that Synutra (SYUT), a Chinese baby formula manufacturer, is set to report earnings tomorrow and the company is indeed contest-eligible. I'm unable to confirm the timing of the release (if it's after 4:00 pm, it's not of much use to us today), but assuming it's some time tomorrow morning, this could be an interesting play.

Almost no analyst coverage, only recently came public, hugely volatile, etc. If your gameplay involves what would ordinarily be an irrational negative risk tolerance (which it should), you may consider swapping this into one of the slots in your oil and/or airline basket. No guarantees it moves higher, but there's an awfully good chance it's going to move big.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Week 5: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Week 4: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 3: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 2: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Week 0: Pre-game

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Thursday June 12th

Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.

Daily Trivia:

Squawk Box: "Question: Web Video Hunt: On Wednesday's "Squawk Box," Sequoia's Mark Kvamme discussed bringing a Web site to TV. Which one?"

Answer: funnyordie.com

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In "Stocks Could Be Hostage To Oil Prices All Summer" which defensive play did Richard Sparks recommend?"

Answer: PetroQuest

The Call: "Question: In the Two-Way Street blog post, "Missing Ron Paul: Readers Respond", which CNBC.com reader used the phrase "corporate lapdog"?"

Answer: Frosty
(Specifically, it was, "Blow it out your a**, you corporate lapdog." Got to love the Paulnuts.)

Power Lunch: "Question: In "The Surest Sign It's Time to Sell" (Feb. 19) Cramer gave timeless stock advice. What was his "rock solid" sell sign?"

Answer: Heavily shorted & hyped

Street Signs: "Question: In Bob Pisani's blog post, "Global Theme: Inflation Worries" how many nations does he specifically name?"

Answer: Six

Closing Bell: "Question: In "Surging Crude Means Picking Shrewd" why did Christopher Zook praise Applied Materials?"

Answer: Solar growth opportunity

Handcrafted by Flip on June 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Kos Tries To Pass Off Obama's Birth Certification As Birth Certificate

... without any attribution or mention of how it came into his possession, it should be noted. He divulges only that it is a scanned image, the edges of which he trimmed.

Unfortunately, he's more careful with document grooming than with authentication. It certainly appears genuine, but doesn't Markos at least want to bolster the document's credibility by describing the manner in which he got hold of it? Hawaii won't release birth records to non-family members, so it was either authorized and furnished by the campaign (mention of which would go a long way toward supporting its authenticity), obtained without authorization from a third party (which calls the document's integrity into doubt), or created from scratch.

Assuming the document is legit and obtained with the campaign's blessing (which I do), why wouldn't he say so? Sloppiness and/or a request by the campaign, I suppose.

But there's a bigger problem here than the document's chain of custody. It involves the difference between a "Certificate of Live Birth" and a "Certification of Live Birth". This is the latter, despite Kos' identification of it as the former.

Per the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (a state agency that happens to detail the difference):

In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

Indeed, the Kos document offers scant details, limited to name, gender, date, location, and names and races of parents.

To recap, the now mildly famous three speculations about why the Obama campaign was refusing to release this document were:

Obama was born in Kenya and is not Constitutionally eligible to be President
He was born Barack Muhammad Obama
He was born Barry Obama

But while the summary certification disproves the Geraghty speculations, it says nothing about what I previously offered as a more plausible scenario - namely, that the full-length document might indicate Obama's parents were avowedly unmarried at the time of his birth (which would contradict Obama lore that they were in good faith married, but only later dissolved the marriage upon the revelation that Obama Sr. had never divorced his first wife in Kenya).

The abbreviated certification document eliminates information about parents' marital status, while the actual birth certificate (as specified in 1961) includes it. If the full certificate documents Obama's parents as knowingly unmarried in 1961, it doesn't make the candidate unfit on account of his parents' marital status, but the direct contradiction to what Obama has said in the past would fray yet another thread in his ever-unraveling backstory.

Previously: Wired: Obama's Birth Certificate; Tired: Whitey Video; Expired: Closet Muslim

Update: Pressed by his readers for some answers about how he got hold of the document, Kos simpers, "I asked the campaign ... This 'journamalism' thing actually works sometimes."

Nice to know that's campaign policy. Accordingly, I've asked them to provide a copy of the actual "certificate" (with secure information redacted), so the matter ought to be resolved shortly. You can go ahead and hold your breath.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (98) | TrackBack

Hedging Is Good For You

Just ask Southwest Airlines. A couple weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece questioning why Southwest is the only major U.S. airlines to hedge the bulk of its exposure to oil prices.

Southwest has locked in more than 70% of its jet-fuel requirements this year at a price equivalent to $51 a barrel for crude oil. By contrast, other big carriers have hedged 30% or less of their fuel needs this year. Those carriers generally expect to pay the equivalent of $85 to $100 per barrel of oil under their hedging programs.

Part of the answer involves restrictions by airlines' creditors, particularly for those that sought bankruptcy protection post-9/11. But a lot of the resistance seems to be psychological or PR-driven (based on some anecdotal evidence turned up in the article, anyway). And that's somewhat unsatisfying, given the scope of the damage wrought upon unhedged carriers during oil's recent run-up.

In the last three months, the combined market cap of American, Continental, U.S. Airways, Northwest, United, and Delta has fallen more then 50%. Over that same period, Southwest's stock has appreciated 11%.

And over the last 12 months, the combined value of the Unhedged 6 has fallen nearly 75% (representing the destruction of roughly $21 billion in shareholder value). In the wake of this industry-wide value obliteration, Southwest (LUV) is now - astonishingly enough - worth more than these six competitors combined.

Handcrafted by Flip on June 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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