Morning all,

For all those of you who thought the US Fiscal Cliff solution promised peace in our time, think again..with only a month to go before the US runs out of money again unless they raise the debt ceiling, we are looking once more at the ineptitude of the US Political system..even Uncle Ben has urged the Pollies to sort it out and that’s before VP Biden talks tough in guns..this is the same week that the National Rifle association released its latest first person shooter app…well done..Charlton would be proud..

So back to the markets…treading water again today with not much to get excited about…TLS bore the brunt of yesterday’s selling back down to 443..not sure why especially with news that Vodafone is closing Crazy Johns as they are losing too many customers ..good for TLS I would have thought ..anyway the mighty TLS do look like they have hit a brick wall at 4.50!

Expect a slow down again today with confidence in short supply..expect us to give up a little more today…RIO numbers were ok but maybe the big boys will underwhelm with their profit numbers..expect to see BHP and Rio hemmed in for the time being and with it our market…

Idea of the Day

Won’t mention LYC again until they are a dollar promise..but struggling today I must admit…so won’t make it up just for the sake of it!!

Things to make me go mmmm!

1.Germany is being urged by Spain to do more to grow the Zombie economies….not sure anyone listens to Spain…still figures from Germany last night showed the economy is going backwards there..not a good look for the Paymasters of Zombieland.

2.Apple collapsed last night to $485…new Ipads to come in March..looks like a company rattled..I think the glory days are over for this baby..the rest of the World has caught up and on!

3.Interesting to see that Germany has asked for its ball back..news that Germany is retruning its gold from the US to Germany…even they don’t trust the US Central Bank…and in a World where the Central Banks don’t trust each other its significant!

The Bundesbank will announce on Wednesday that it intends to relocate the gold to vaults in Frankfurt, said by insiders to include parts of the old archive library. Germany has 3,396 tons of gold worth roughly £115bn, the world’s second-largest holding after the US. Most of the reserves were stored abroad for safety during the Cold War.

4.looking forward to Lance ‘Liestrong’ ducking and weaving and owning up to drug cheating…reminiscent of the Bill Clinton defence of Monica …’I did not have sexual relations with that women’..suspect he will say that he never took drugs as they were all naturally occurring just not usually in those quantities…

5.The Bid for Billabong is starting to gain some credibility…finally…suspect that this has a long way to go yet but hopefully someone will finally put this dog out of its misery and try to turn it around…I think that BBG are a buy at some point you just have to weigh up the risk reward..usually in any bid process there is a day when all the hedge funds who are long see something they don’t like and bolt for the hills…I love those days..happened in AUN if you remember ..got sold down to 90 even with a bid of 1.40 on the table..it will happen with BBG be assured of it..when it does pounce like a tiger! Buying under 90 is the go…1.10 will not be upped for some time so risk reward is the key..

6. Building products maker Boral is cutting 700 jobs as part of a company-wide restructure aimed at reducing costs and increasing its competitiveness. The company says it will make 700 redundancies from all levels of its business – from executive level down to its manufacturing businesses. And others to wield the knife last night also included Renault in France looking at 17% of its workforce out on its derriere.

7.AGL is looking at fracking its wells in SW Sydney….I am sure there are other things that should be done with SW Sydney but it looks like a broken pledge and Government seems to be happy to go along with it..expect backlash!

8. The United States faces a “material risk” of losing its AAA status if there is a repeat of the wrangling seen in 2011 over raising the country’s self-imposed debt ceiling, credit ratings firm Fitch said on Tuesday.

9. RIO Tinto has defied the pricing tremors that struck the iron ore sector over the past year to produce, ship and sell record amounts of the bulk commodity in 2012.Rio Tinto’s systems produced a record 253 million tonnes of iron ore in 2012, with about 79 per cent of those volumes owned by Rio and the remainder owned by joint venture partners like Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.The stellar result from the company’s flagship division was slightly better than guidance, and means Rio is on track to meet analyst expectations for a full-year net profit in the region of $US9.2 billion next month…good news indeed.

10.World Bank has cut its 2013 growth forecasts to 2.4% from 3% …won’t worry equity markets just yet as the wall of money continues to plunge into stocks and push up the p/e’s…for now….

11.And Tesco beef burgers in the UK found to contain 29% Horse Meat…think some of my bets have been given a second chance then..

And finally…..

Mickey Mouse wakes up one snowy day. He looks outside and in the snow, written in pee, it says, “Mickey sucks.” He calls the police and they come and take samples of the snow. He gets a call the next day from the police and they say “We have good news and bad news. The good news is that we know who’s pee it is. It’s Goofy’s. The bad news is that it’s Minnie’s handwriting.”

 

Have a good day

Clarence

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