Quotable Quotes From Soros, Bernanke, Buffett, Obama, MJ, and Fabio?

After another news-packed week, we thought it might be a good idea to again review some quotes related to the stories of the week, with most sobering and some a bit amusing, but all real. A bit tougher this week to find a lot of uplifting newsmaker quotes, but here goes anyway.

“Everyone has opinions. We have convictions.” --As Barron’s, the WSJ and other media outlets have pointed out, this could be one of the worst-timed ad headlines in financial services history, having run recently for MF Global, whose senior management in facing the possible threat of a variety of regulatory charges .

“Mr. Papandreou lies with an unbelievable ease. If he understood that I want to co-govern with him, he’s wrong." --Antonis Samaris, Greek opposition party leader in mid-week, making for perhaps a bit of tension to come in the formation of a new Greek government, as breaking news today has it.

“Unless you have found a way to predict news flow before it happens, it is almost impossible for even the smartest traders to effectively trade this market. It is clearly a renter’s market, not an owner’s.” --Bloomberg TV guest.

“Groupon is getting the valuation of a tech company and the valuation of a growth company and they really are neither.” --Bloomberg West host Cory Johnson, outspoken critic of Groupon, especially their accounting for subscribers, which allegedly includes even those receiving unsolicited and even blocked e-mails. Another comment from the Groupon IPO commentary on Bloomberg, “If I were selling dollar bills for fifty cents I might be very popular also, but doubt I would make much money in the long run.”

“The medium-term outlook relative to our June projections has been downgraded and remains unsatisfactory. Unemployment is far too high. I fully sympathize with the notion that the economy is not performing the way we would like.” --Ben Bernanke, FOMC press conference.

“Right now we are at the crisis point and what they are doing is again too little too late.” --legendary investor George Soros at CEU forum on the Eurozone debt and bank rescue efforts.

“The world faces challenges that put our economic recovery at risk. But we’ve come together and made important progress to put our economic recoveries on firmer footing.” --Pres., Obama at G-20 news conference.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee." --David Darnell, co-COO of Bank of America on dropping the proposed $5 monthly debit card fee for BofA, in the understatement of the week, as the BofA debit fee plan was buried in online customer protests called “electronic quicksand.”

"Because the GOP is not engaged at all on revenues ... more time won't matter. In short, it's not a matter of time -- this could go on forever and they would still stand there offering a giant middle finger." --Huffington Post, quoting anonymous Democratic Hill staffer on the Congressional Super-Committee debt plan impasse.

"It’s unconscionable. It’s been proven time and time again that Fannie and Freddie are synonymous with mismanagement, waste, outright corruption and fraud, and their federal regulator has the audacity to approve $12.9 million in executive bonuses to people who make $900,000 per year.” --Sen. John McCain on recent Fannie and Freddie exec bonuses, citing especially their continued losses and taxpayer bailouts.

“Tobin’s Q Ratio is at its 40-year average and has only been lower in the past 20 years during the 2009 market lows.” --Barron’s this weekend, commenting on a relatively obscure but supposedly telling market metric which tracks “equity market valuation” versus “corporate net asset values” and is giving a theoretically intermediate bullish signal.

“The ‘Excess Volatility Index’ is registering at 109, the highest level since 2009.” --The NY Times business section this weekend, commenting on another obscure measure, which essentially tracks volatile swings in the market versus actual market “progress/decline” over a specified period, making the obvious point that although the market is essentially flat for the year, it has registered huge swings on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. (…thanks for letting us know that!)

“Berkshire Hathaway reported a smaller third-quarter profit then expected after losing more than $2 billion on derivatives related to stock market performance. That was nearly three times what Berkshire lost on the same derivative instruments a year ago.” --Reuters news article, once again referring to Warren Buffett’s now-famous line, “Derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.”

“If you can’t make money running an NBA team, you should sell it.” --Michael Jordon quote of many years ago as a player, reflecting a bit different attitude than his hardliner stance as a current NBA owner on revenue-sharing.

“My tax plan would be so simple even Tim Geithner could get his taxes in on time.” --Republican Texas Governor and Presidential candidate Rick Perry, in remarks from two weeks ago, which have gone viral as some have speculated he was perhaps ‘well-lubricated’ at a New Hampshire campaign speech.

“If you want to come to America, we will give you a green card with no strings attached if you commit to buying a foreclosed home.” --Bloomberg radio guest, partially but not wholly tongue in cheek, on how to address the housing backlog.

“America is debt man walking.” --Bill Gross, PIMCO founder and managing director, on the U.S. $12 trillion debt and $60 trillion in liabilities.

“The eggheads at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the brainiacs at Harvard Business School were no match for the IBM Watson supercomputer in a demo game of Jeopardy this week.” --Boston Herald, which reported the results as Watson, $53,601, HBS, $42,399, MIT, $100, which they allowed was a pretty fair showing by the Harvard students.

“This is the only country on the face of the planet where still things work. We don’t want to ruin it, we want to keep it the way it is. It’s called the American dream. It’s not called the European dream.” --Fabio, Italian model, actor and 80’s icon, criticizing U.S. and Euro politicians.

Ok, when Fabio starts weighing in on the global economic and political situation, we know it is time to call it quits for now. Here’s to a hopefully more stable and less volatile news week to come, although for some reason we kind of doubt it.

Good Trading!
David W. (aka The Underground Trader)

 

David W’s FlashTrading Service Is Now Live! The service is unique in its approach to trading options: low capital at risk, frequent market commentary based on the futures markets and real-time options trading, not to mention the options insights you can't help but pick up! Try It Today

 

Remember, you are in control your email alerts! You can receive alerts for more than 25 free research report alerts including: The “10.0” Report, The Insiders Report, ETF Leaders Report, and The Focus List.