Settling In

We drove all over the place last night in the rain getting stuff for the house--naturally we got home and thought of all the things we forgot. The good news is the Red Sox are down 3-1.

So the economic data seems like it was crappy (did the the network have Jack Bouroudjian on and did he say it was the best of all possible worlds?) but earnings seem to be carrying the day.

I think an argument could be made why either one (data or earnings) is more important so for now we can just accept that today is starting higher...but it has faded a tad since I first signed on.

Emerging markets appear to be en fuego yet again today lead by the Chinese stocks. At the conference the other day I brought up the fact that the market cap for a lot of the older Chinese stocks that everyone has heard of is huge. Quite a few are over $100 billion which is watch out item. PTR is at $455 billion, CHL (a name I own for literally a couple of people only) is at $392 billion, SNP ( a name I used own across the board) has a number that does not even make sense, several bank are above the figure and that one resource company that just listed in Shanghai is supposedly bigger than BHP (was it called Xenua of Shenua Energy?)

This idea is not to predict anything as I sold China several months ago but to hopefully create some awareness of the water you swim in if you own China. My first purchases of SNP were below $40 several years ago and I sold the last of it just above $100 earlier this year. A few months after my sale SNP is at $172. While I was clearly too early this is a blow off. Maybe it goes to $344 before doing anything else but I think someone is going to end up in tears over this.