(Another in the TGIF series)

Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).

As of 31-Aug-2007 at 9:39:44 (Beijing time):

1. U.S. Stocks Retreat, Led By Banks; Goldman, Merrill Shares Fall

“Freddie Mac fell the most in four years after the second-biggest U.S. mortgage finance company said the housing slump cut profit by 45 percent … Freddie Mac owns or guarantees about one in every five U.S. residential mortgages.”

2. Bernanke May Hear Call for Fed Activism on Regulation

“Aside from considering a greater focus on asset prices, the Fed needs to explore whether it should coax or require additional disclosures from banks and hedge funds.”

3. Hamptons Helicopter Gridlock Stirs Up Air Rage on the Ground

“Flyers [paying $400-$800 one way] avoid a drive that can take over three hours or a Long Island Rail Road commute that’s, at best, 2 hours, 16 minutes.”

4. Unsafe at Any Rating, CDO Speeds to CCC From AAA

“You left the office Tuesday owning a AAA rated security. By the time you got back to your desk on Wednesday morning, it was eight steps below investment grade in a category S&P defines as ‘currently vulnerable to nonpayment.’ Try explaining that to your pension-fund trustees … ‘The [structured investment] vehicles are not structured to forcibly liquidate assets in times of crisis,’ Moody’s said. Their ability to access several sources of finance ‘obviates the need to liquidate large buckets of assets at potentially the worst period in the life of the vehicle.’”

Sounds like Moody’s risk assessments and methodology require further “refinement.”

5. Seeking Sex Is Now a Crime, Senator Craig Learns

“If homosexual conduct is even alleged against a closeted man, he has to either choose the quickest and quietest resolution possible or risk revealing the truth. That would probably mean losing his job, his family, the respect of his community.”

Or he could issue a statement similar to Sir Norman Fry’s

Decent morning of buying, a little shakeout after 2PM, but a positive day all things considered.

Notable New Highs: Raytheon (RTN), Biogen (BIIB), Vimpel (VIP), Nokia (NOK), and Sigma Designs (SIGM).

Notable New Lows: Mueller Water (MWA), InfoSpace (INSP), Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), Chico’s (CHS), and Coldwater Creek (CWTR). Readers may recall my post from just about a year ago: Chico’s Outlook Turns a Little Bleak-o.

I’ll feature a monthly chart of Nokia (NOK) showing its ups and downs lo these many years. I have a RAZR which my fashion-conscious young friends find hopelessly out of date — cellphones by Samsung, Sony Ericsson and yes, Nokia, are very popular here. (Be interesting to see what the ratio of men to women is with the RAZR — I bet very few women bought one.)

Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).

As of 30-Aug-2007 at 9:25:02 (Beijing time):

1. Worst Is Yet to Come for U.S. Housing Market: Chart of the Day

I don’t think this story is available on the web; maybe I’ll replicate the chart later if I have time. Update: The Chart of the Day column (NI CHART [GO]) is exclusive to the Bloomberg, I believe — don’t worry, it’s often lame. Here’s today’s chart.

2. U.S. Stocks Rally; Technology Paces Rebound on Seagate Outlook
3. Fed Underestimated Debt Impact, Focused on Inflation

“… financing remains costly or constrained for riskier securities and loans. Interest rates on jumbo mortgages, or those greater than $417,000, have soared to 106 basis points more than the cost of smaller mortgages, from 39 basis points at the start of the month.”

4. Cheyne May Liquidate Commercial Paper Unit on Losses

“More than 20 companies, including San Francisco-based Luminent Mortgage Capital Inc. and Thornburg Mortgage Co. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, have been unable to roll over asset-backed commercial paper. Thornburg said earlier this month that it sold $20.5 billion of securities at about 95 cents on the dollar to pay down commercial paper it couldn’t refinance.”

Borrowing short to lend long is a good trick until you lose the ability to borrow short.

5. U.S. MBA’s Mortgage Applications Index Dropped 4%

“The average rate on a one-year adjustable mortgage surged to 6.51 percent, the highest since January 2001, from 5.84 percent the prior week. The rate also surpassed the cost of a 30-year fixed loan for the first time … The average rate on a 30-year fixed loan fell to 6.41 percent last week, from 6.49 percent. At that rate, monthly borrowing costs for each $100,000 of a loan would have been about $626, little changed from a year ago. … Banks ‘are being very cautious in the volume of prime adjustables they are putting on their balance sheets….’”

Great caution only appears after years of throwing caution to the wind, of course.

Buying from the get-go, very strong, solid day not unlike August 8 … not as strong as August 17 but still accelerated buying all afternoon with a strong close.

Notable New Highs: Sigma Designs (SIGM), Onyx Pharma (ONXX), Nokia (NOK), and Superconductor Tech (SCON) continues to continue.

Notable New Lows: Progressive (PGR), Triad Guaranty (TGIC), and SourceForge (LNUX).

I’ll feature an hourly chart of Superconductor Tech (SCON) since it began its run around seven days ago. SCON’s float is only 12.4 million shares so crazy moves can happen.

Great quote (among many in this video series) from Buffett:

“I was very fortunate because I picked up a book [Graham & Dodd’s Security Analysis] when I was nineteen … I got interested in stocks when I was about six or seven and then I bought my first stock when I was eleven, but I was playing around with all this stuff, you know I had charts and volume and I’m making all kinds of technical calculations and everything, and then I picked up a little book and it just said that you’re not buying some little ticker symbol that bounces around every day, you’re buying a part of a business. As soon as I started thinking about it that way, everything else followed.”

Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).

As of 29-Aug-2007 at 9:08:40 (Beijing time):

1. U.S. Stocks Fall Most in Three Weeks; Lehman Leads Banks Lower

“Citigroup Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. led all 93 financial companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower….”

2. Who’s Advising on ABN? Only 19 Insist `I’m Spartacus’

“A handful of the firms will get the lion’s share of what New York-based Freeman & Co. estimates to be as much as $459 million in M&A fees because most are providing limited services for their clients…. Bankers may collect another $170 million for underwriting the stocks and bonds needed to finance the acquisition.”

3. Fed Put Inflation Skepticism Above Credit Concern

“‘For the present, however, given expectations that the most likely outcome for the economy was continued moderate growth, the upside risks to inflation remained the most significant policy concern.’ … They noted that ‘mortgage loans remained readily available to most potential borrowers,’ and the ’supply of credit to finance real investment did not appear significantly diminished.’”

Channeling Jim Cramer: THEY’RE NUTS! THEY KNOW NOTHING!! THE FED IS ASLEEP!!!

4. European Stocks Decline; SocGen, Deutsche Bank Pace the Retreat

“National benchmarks decreased in all 18 western European markets except Greece.”

5. U.S. Home Prices Fell by Record in Second Quarter

“Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 3.5 percent in June from a year before, the most since S&P/Case-Shiller began compiling the index in 2001 … S&P/Case-Shiller’s 10-city composite index, which has a longer history, declined 4.1 percent from June 2006. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange last year began offering futures contracts based on that index.”

How liquid are those contracts? (I’ve never looked.)

Selling from the get-go, never let up all day long with a very weak close. On the bright side, even though the tone was very bad, it wasn’t as terrible as those days earlier this month (Aug. 1, 3, 9, 14, 15, 16, etc.).

Notable New Highs: PolyMedica (PLMD).

Notable New Lows: dELIA*s (DLIA), Borland (BORL), Timberland (TBL), Barclay’s (BCS), Cnet (CNET), Chico’s (CHS), Tenet Healthcare (THC), and every homebuilder out there: DHI, CTX, LEN, HOV, etc. (You may recall this post on Lennar.)

I’ll feature a weekly chart of the Homebuilders ETF (XHB) about which I’ve been wrong, wrong, and wrong (well, not all that bad if you read all the posts ;-)). Picking the point of “maximum pessimism” is a tricky business.

I think I’m genetically predisposed to suffer from some serious body odor (B.O.). One thing I do to keep the stink down is watch what I eat. Garlic and onions obviously kick things up a notch, but the number one culprit I’ve found is dairy products: milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and butter all contribute to taking me to B.B.O. (Beyond Body Odor — an old Seinfeld joke), so I studiously avoid eating them.

I used to play poker with a guy in Atlantic City who was 57 years old but he looked 27 (I swear it). When I asked him the secret of his youthful good looks, he said NEVER EAT DAIRY. (He was also extremely fit.)

I’m interested in my readers thoughts on how to limit B.O. through diet, what are the best and worst foods to eat, and confirmations that dairy products are best avoided if you want to smell pretty. Do you stink? Please share!

From Jim Grant’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, The Fed’s Subprime Solution:

“Ben S. Bernanke is said to be resisting the demand for broadly lower interest rates. Maybe he is seeing the light that capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich … Jiggling its interest rate, the Fed can impose the appearance of stability today, but only at the cost of instability tomorrow. By the looks of things, tomorrow is upon us already.”

- via Barry Ritholtz -