A lot of my data is messed up (this drubbing obviously strained the system), but it looks like the worst intraday “tone” since July 2002. I don’t have much time to blog this morning, but here are ten “notable” intraday (15-minute) charts. The plunge had a lot more to do with the psychology of the market post-NovaStar than with China, in my humble opinion.

VIX: +64.22%

SPY: -3.91%

DIA: -3.75%

QQQQ: -4.11%

QID: +9.5%

GLD: -3.95%

TLT: +1.26%

EFA: -4.03%

EEM: -8.13%

FXI: -9.87%

Noticed iRobot on the new lows list. Looks like it has been all downhill for IRBT since they came public in November 2005. Might be interesting to look through some of their SEC filings, figure out how quickly they’re burning cash, etc.

Just noticed that under the News & Info section on Yahoo! Finance there’s a link titled “Financial Blogs.” (Maybe it has been there awhile and I haven’t been paying attention.) Looks like Seeking Alpha articles are the only ones listed there now, but they must intend to include more contributors than SA alone, no? Anyone know what Yahoo’s plans are for carrying more financial blogs?

Just stumbled across this in something called Manas Journal from 1965:

[Travis] McGee is an ultramodern Robin Hood who disdains adjustment to the established order of things, seeking neither status, financial security, nor conventional comforts of any other kind. Though the plots in which he becomes involved pit him against one or another criminal exploiter to regain expropriated moneys for his clients, his real dedication is to resistance to routinized living.

…

[The McGee character] is MacDonald’s way of opposing the Orwellian horrors of 1984 and the humdrum confinements of W. H. Whyte’s Organization Man. Who is responsible? Not a league of capable demagogues who plot the submergence of individuality; the real offender is the inertia of so many citizens of the ‘affluent society.’”

This is why the McGee character appeals now more than ever.

I saw the new Bond movie, Casino Royale, a couple of weeks ago with one of my girlfriends. Movie tickets cost 70 RMB (just over US$9) a pop here in Beijing so it’s not a cheap date.

I like the fact that the new Bond is kind of homely, but I didn’t like much else about the movie. It was too violent for me and the story was idiotic. Oh, I also liked the villain, Le Fish or whatever… he had a great face and the slashed eye was a nice touch (but drop the asthma inhaler next time).

Various Bond girls: yawn. And what’s with Bond wanting to settle down with Vespa, sheesh! Is he going to wear a fanny pack and drive a minivan in the next movie?

Um, even the SEC in all their enormous incompetence would probably flag the miraculously well-timed purchase of 100 million dollars worth of puts (you’d have to see the movie to get this). What’s with the continuous product placements? I wear an Omega! I fly Virgin Atlantic! Yuck.

Deeply amused by the prominent role that Texas Hold’em played — hasn’t the Hold’em craze passed by now? Note to Bond: 75s is a terrible starting hand, even in heads-up. Political correctness alert: M is a woman and Felix Lighter is black.

RottenTomatoes score: 94% WTF?!? This movie is not recommended. (Jessica liked it.)

MacDonald briefly frees his inner rebel, and is especially acerbic toward the inhabitants of “Santa Rosita”:

“I am not a nine to five animal. I cannot swallow the myths which say that nine to five is a Good Thing because that’s the way nearly everybody else gets stuck. I cannot be an orderly consumer, with 2.3 kids and .7 new cars a year, and an after-hours secretarial arrangement. I am not properly acquisitive. I like the Busted Flush, the records and the paintings, the little accumulations of this and that which stir memories, but I could stand on the shore and watch the whole thing go glug and disappear and feel a mild sardonic regret. No Professional American Wife could stomach that kind of attitude.”

“I get this crazy feeling. Every once in a while I get it. I get the feeling that this is the last time in history when offbeats like me will have a chance to live free in the nooks and crannies of the huge and rigid structure of an increasingly codified society. Fifty years from now I would be hunted in the street. They would drill holes in my skull and make me sensible and reliable and adjusted.”

“The incomparably dull tract houses, glitteringly new, were marching out among the hills, cluttered with identical station wagons, identical children, identical barbecues, identical tastes in flowers and television. You see, Virginia, there really is a Santa Rosita, full of plastic people, in plastic houses, in areas noduled by the vast basketry of their shopping centers. But do not blame them for being so tiresome and so utterly satisfied with themselves. Because, you see, there is no one left to tell them what they are and what they really should be doing.

The dullest wire services the world has ever seen fill their little monopoly newspapers with self-congratulatory pap. Their radio is unspeakable. Their television is geared to a minimal approval by thirty million of them. And anything thirty million people like, aside from their more private functions, is bound to be bad. Their schools are group-adjustment centers, fashioned to shame the rebellious. Their churches are weekly votes of confidence in God. Their politicians are enormously likable, never saying a cross word. The goods they buy grow increasingly more shoddy each year, though brighter in color. For those who still read, they make do, for the most part, with the portentous gruntings of Uris, Wouk, Rand and others of that same witless ilk.”

Related: Selected Excerpts from The Quick Red Fox (Part I)

Things flip flop a bit as Semiconductors, Energies, Gold, Materials (again) and Utilities were the best relative performers last week…

… while REITs, Big Pharma, Financials and Healthcare were relatively weak.

Baby T recently turned two. He’s a big, strong kid. (I don’t know how big exactly — I’m not one of those parents who pays attention to percentiles.) He still has a remarkably sweet disposition (not entered the “terrible two’s” yet, I guess).

He doesn’t talk much, but he understands everything: English & Mandarin (parents), Shanghainese (grandparents), Shandongese (nanny), Sichuanese (cook), Beijingese (driver), and a slew of Yiddish swear words (Uncle Morty). He has an excellent memory and appears to be sharp (takes after his mom, obviously). He also has great balance. ;-)

Related: Baby T Turns One

Following my recent post about NEW and last December’s post about LEND, let’s look at the latest catastrophe: NFI. (Kudos to Herbie who has been critical of NFI for years — A for persistence, F for timing.)

Aside to Herb Greenberg: Please stop underlining text in your blog posts that isn’t a link - this is horrible netiquette - and quit using bold and italics so much while you’re at it, thanks.

You can see from the chart below that NFI blew up back in 2004, did the textbook Fibonacci retracement bounce, muddled along for a couple of years, and then imploded. Clearly, like the other subprime lender victims of late, the market has been signalling trouble for a long time… no smart money (trend follower) was hurt here, that’s for sure.

Here’s a look at the intraday chart, all sessions, since the blow up — lots of spots to get short (assuming there are shares to borrow).

Best bit from an interview with David Herro in this week’s Barron’s:

“Longer-term, I’m very bullish on global economic growth. The theme I’ve been preaching about for 10 years is finally happening: When you have three-fifths of the world’s population finally becoming consumers, that is going to have an impact. The second biggest market for the BMW 7 Series outside the U.S. is China. If China or any of the emerging markets could add 100 to 150 basis points of growth to the top line of, say, a Diageo, a Nestlé, a BMW, that is significant to its valuation in the long haul and that’s exactly what’s happening.”

BMW locally manufactures the 3- and 5-series in Shenyang.