The End of The Heyday

[wndysrf]

Some of you old stoolies might remember my riffs about the normal and typical yuppie couples in Orange County.

 

Remember the guy featured, the "top closer" from New Century? The immigrant with limited education who became an instant millionaire?

 

Drove a Ferrari and purchased a giant oceanfront home?

 

Well, here he is, featured on today's New York Times

 

By JULIE CRESWELL and VIKAS BAJAJ

 

Even in affluent Orange County, Calif., the growing wealth of executives and brokers in the booming mortgage industry was hard to miss.

 

For Kal Elsayed, a former executive at New Century Financial, a large lender based in Irvine, driving a red convertible Ferrari to work at a company that provided home loans to people with low incomes and weak credit might have appeared ostentatious, he now acknowledges. But, he says, that was nothing compared with the private jets that executives at other companies had.

 

?You just lost touch with reality after a while because that?s just how people were living,? said Mr. Elsayed, 42, who spent nine years at New Century before leaving to start his own mortgage firm in 2005. ?We made so much money you couldn?t believe it. And you didn?t have to do anything. You just had to show up.?

 

Orange County was the epicenter of the boom in subprime. Five of the 10 biggest providers of subprime mortgages last year had their headquarters in the region.

[LeeWhee]

Some of the tinfoil-hat, web-bot sites were predicting a major earthquake in the O.C. this spring.

 

Looks like it's already happening.

[jabba]

what comes up...

 

go long gold, here comes $3000

[elh]

A cliff-hanger for sure. We didn't know if the Spooz would take out its opening LOD, and Da Boyz tried to fake us out with their predictable AM Spooz blasts.

 

But sure enough, they sneaked it in at the close .... or 5 minutes right before.

 

Thanks Guys.

[Roger7485]

Looks like the machines are staying on past 4 again....too many GTMFO orders clogged in the pipe says pissonme.

[I_Am_Madness]

Oh boy!

Let them out!!!

[DrStool]

Let's just call him Pissant. It's so much more aylegahnt.

[LeeWhee]

LeeWhee: Do you think 1360 will be the support for the first S/T bounce? Closing under 1376 kind of violates the "chance that we see a bounce at the late Nov low of 1377-1378. A move to 1360ish is 3% lower." theory right?

565366[/snapback]

 

Well, we did see a bounce today at 1377, short-lived though it was.

 

So, yes, the most obvious bounce point for a multi-day rally would be 1360 (5 pts either way).

 

That's the level I've been targeting since we cracked the trendline last Tuesday. And from the looks of the action, that might be where girlebullz take a stand.

 

Wouldn't surprise me to see a gap-up tomorrow to forestall what appears to be the inevitable, but we shall see. Remember that there's a date-specific "newsnoise" event coming up Friday (jobs blather). It is often used by the Pigsters? to reverse the market.

 

The next "day of destiny" would be Mar 21 and the FOMC hootenany. Also the first day of spring. Or the first day of fall in the Southern Hemisphere.

[DrStool]

Camptown ladies sing this song doodah doodah

Camptown ladies all night long,

 

Who's da doodah now?

 

:lol:

[elh]

NEWS FLASH - Leading investors submitted a resolution to keep the stock symbol (WFC), but to rename Wells Fargo to "What the F*Ck? Corp"

 

But seriously, a downgrade of WFC suggests there are fears of subprime extending into Alt-A and Prime. Against this backdrop, I just don't see XLF pulling it off even with a boner scam from the Broker Dealer segment. Might be a clue to key in on as Op Ex approaches.

 

Of course, we should keep in mind that the downgrader is "Punk, Ziegel" (no joke), and the biggest PigMen have Market Perform/Buy on this. We shall see.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=WFC

[wndysrf]

Tomorrow, the bullz might take a stand at the 200-day.

 

Maybe not.

 

Maybe another 700 point down day in Hong Kong will cause us to gap down over the line instead!!!!

 

Put/call is pretty much worthless at the point. Matched the all time record closing p/c ratio today. Another new all-time record IBD put/call ratio expected in tomorrow's paper. Its basically free money if you can find a put option that is reasonably priced during an uptick during the day.

 

 

[wndysrf]

No doubt, all time records are being broken as we speak in electronic trading.

 

Any wonder why these screamers refuse to break down?

 

 

[mdporter]

NEWS FLASH - Leading investors submitted a resolution to keep the stock symbol (WFC), but to rename Wells Fargo to "What the F*Ck? Corp"

 

But seriously, a downgrade of WFC suggests there are fears of subprime extending into Alt-A and Prime.  Against this backdrop, I just don't see XLF pulling it off even with a boner scam from the Broker Dealer segment.  Might be a clue to key in on as Op Ex approaches.

 

Of course, we should keep in mind that the downgrader is "Punk, Ziegel"  (no joke), and the biggest PigMen have Market Perform/Buy on this.  We shall see.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=WFC

565376[/snapback]

 

The implode-o-meter lists Well Fargo as the #1 subprime lender in the nation. Since three of the top five are already in trouble, it makes sense to be cautios on Wells Fargo and also Countrywide.

[mdporter]

I ran into a real estate agent today that I've known for some time. Haven't spoken to her in about two years. She's still selling residential real estate, but she rents her own residence. Says that things are going great in silicon valley still.

 

I brought up that I've been noticing more properties for sale this year compared to the last three and I just got the happy talk in return, so I didn't bother to press with additional questions. Maybe she'll change her tune in six months.

 

 

With subprime vaporizing and funny money loans getting squeezed, it's hard to imagine bay area property prices staying in the stratosphere.

[LeeWhee]

NEWS FLASH - Leading investors submitted a resolution to keep the stock symbol (WFC), but to rename Wells Fargo to "What the F*Ck? Corp"

 

But seriously, a downgrade of WFC suggests there are fears of subprime extending into Alt-A and Prime.  Against this backdrop, I just don't see XLF pulling it off even with a boner scam from the Broker Dealer segment.  Might be a clue to key in on as Op Ex approaches.

 

Of course, we should keep in mind that the downgrader is "Punk, Ziegel"  (no joke), and the biggest PigMen have Market Perform/Buy on this.  We shall see.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=WFC

565376[/snapback]

 

XLF has dropped 8% so far from the top. Last May, it dropped 9%. The prior correx were 11% and 14%.

 

On the s/t chart, it might have bounceable support at the Nov low of 34.94. That's where it closed today. Coincidence? I think not.

 

On the longer-term chart, XLF has occasionally found support at the 50wkMA, now at 34.36. And then there's the May06 high of 33.83. Note that the XLF chart shows a low so far of 34.53, but that's not correct.

 

If you pull back a number of years, you see how important the 29ish level is. That was the 2004 and 2005 highs. The XLF broke out in Nov 2005 and rose to the $38 a week ago. The 29 level was also the original ATH from back in early 2001.

 

If $33-$35 doesn't hold (not much lower), XLF might have to go all the way back towards the key $29 zone (17% lower).

 

On the upside, the key level now is 36.30 or so. That was the Nov06 top, the Jan07 bottom and the base of the broken trendline. A move above there and XLF could be out of trouble for a while. That's 5% higher.

 

I've covered 75% of my XLF short position and sold a similar pct of putz. If I were going to re-initiate shorts, I'd look for the 36.30ish level or a break of 33.82 that sticks.

 

If the finagler girlebulls ?bearman are going to make a stand, I'd imagine it would be near current levels (within a pct or three.)