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Get your surfboard and ride the Blackstone wave.

Tags: Blackstone Group LP, IPO, Initial Public Offering
22 Jun 6:01pm
Posted by makemerich
1 Comments
Today will be the IPO debut of Blackstone Group (BX), one of the most successful private equity investment firms in the history of modern finance. Anyway, I'm still undecided whether I'll take a shot at any upside today. It's a highly speculative bet to get into after the open. What I can easily predict is that the price will skyrocket immediately above the initial offer price of $31/share. The IPO is overprescribed by 6-7 times at this point, ensuring a deluge of buy orders at the outset. If ...
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Will This Week Be Another Bear?

Tags: Consumer Confidence Index, Housing Stats, Housing Markets, Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, US Economy
28 Mar 9:51pm
Posted by makemerich
0 Comments
It seems like it.  It's Wednesday and another third consecutive drop. And this is because Monday was bad housing stats, yesterday was bad consumer confidence stats, and today Ben will give a congressional testimony about what he and his gang over at the Federal Reserve thinks about the economy.  Last week, this same chairman gave markets a rally when he suggested possible reductions in interest rates during the next meet.  This was all dampered away already.  For manufactur...
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Down With Home Sales...Again.

Tags: Home Sales, Economics, US Economy, Federal Reserve, Housing Markets
27 Mar 1:37pm
Posted by makemerich
0 Comments
In January we saw a drop in new home sales.  Earlier today this story carried over to February as well, dropping by 3.9% to 848,000 units - what economists claim to be the lowest in seven years (January's drop was 15.8% was the largest in 13 years).  Funny thing was that the market was expected to open higher given that most thought there would have been a rebound after January - which was not the case, and once again dimming hopes of a stable good economy.  Down with home sales...
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All Eyes and Ears on the Fed

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Fed Reserve, Morgan Stanley, Oracle Corp., FedEx Corp., Interest Rates, Ben Bernanke, MS, FDX, ORCL, ADBE
22 Mar 8:19pm
Posted by makemerich
0 Comments
Today all eyes and ears will be on what Fed Chairman Bernanke will say after a two-day meeting.  The market will trade mostly mixed, but most if not all are expecting for the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged.  This is not the primary determinant which direction the markets will go today, more like it’s what Bernanke will say the next time that will drive the market.  A hint on a decrease in rates or any suggestions that it will be left the same will keep the markets staying...
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So Why Didn't Ben Raise Rates?

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Interest Rates, Fed Fund Rates, US Economy
22 Mar 8:17pm
Posted by makemerich
0 Comments
Imagine you're driving a car with a blacked-out windshield and a loose steering wheel. Now imagine that your car is the $13 trillion U.S. economy. That should give you some idea of what it feels like to be Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. Yes, in a word: scary.Bernanke and the other members of the Fed's Open Market Committee pleased the stock market Mar. 21 when they voted to keep the federal funds rate at 5.25%, and slightly softened their anti-inflation stance in the accompanying st...
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