Hope all goes well. Packed a lot into a short wk. Lots of traders reaching for air-sickness bags. It’s Summer. Getting busy in sleepy Santa Barbara. Lots of new friends stopping by. Must be the open invite and good weather. Overall: Major brain damage this wk. UBS cut yr-end call for S&P 500 from 1,350 to 1,150, Barton Biggs sold his tech shares, JP Morgan called for declines in EM stocks, Investors Intelligence

One of my boys runs product mgmt for a cloud computing start-up, few yrs old. Amazon.com realized they had enough servers to handle Christmas orders and too many for the other 49wks of the yr. Figured they could earn a buck leasing their spare capacity. Obvious and smart. But my boys’ company figured out how to build the pipes and interfaces to connect users and capacity faster than Amazon could, so they let him do i

Overall: Global purchasing manager indexes roll-over from strong growth mode. Biggest-ever decline in US pending home sales, drop in Chinese LEI, austere G20 communiqué, and fears over a sequential decline in stimulus spending prompts continued risk-aversion. Weak job growth caps a terrible run, with S&P’s -12% in Q2, at new lows for ’10. Analysts/strategists reluctantly revise forecasts lower, Goldman softening

Global purchasing manager indexes roll-over from strong growth mode. Biggest-ever decline in US pending home sales, drop in Chinese LEI, austere G20 communiqué, and fears over a sequential decline in stimulus spending prompts continued risk-aversion. Weak job growth caps a terrible run, with S&P’s -12% in Q2, at new lows for ’10. Analysts/strategists reluctantly revise forecasts lower, Goldman softening and Merri

A Mon rally on China’s FX flexibility failed miserably, setting a “sell-rallies” tone for wk. Ozzy presented an austere looking budget — said the right things. Japan’s Kan pledged to cap spending for 3yrs, the German cuts thru ’14 look to be 80bln Euros. Austrians in; Keynes out. Soros warns Germany leading EU down deflationary funnel (The Economist, Krugman and his ilk agree). US housing data collapsed, sparki

My Dad fought in Korea, engineering PhD on GI bill, designed spy planes and spaceships. Raced the Reds most of his life. He moved on. Designs Predators to hunt cavemen. We have fun talking economics, he finds the theories amusing, and no one dies. I explain Ricardian Comparitive Advantage Theory and the shift of labor overseas. He says sounds great, then drives me through the Hartford ghetto, once a gem of US manufac

Moody’s downgraded Greece and BP 3-4 notches, as always, ahead of the curve. S&P 500 and EM equities flipped the bird and extended rally from June 7th low to 6.4% and 7.2% respectively. Spain bond auction went fine, spread to Germany tightened from 212 to 186. CDS on European junk bonds fell to 1mth low of 521. $2.5bln EM equity fund inflow is 2nd highest of yr. No real changes to earning expectations in the US l

Few mths back, Obama sent Mara an email blasting “greedy bankers”. Took ‘em to the woodshed. My leftie friends gave me an earful. Few days later the SEC launched the Goldman investigation to leftie applause. Hard not to connect the dots. Two wks back, MoveOn.org sent Mara an email raging over the $1trln we’ve spent in Afghan/Iraq. This wk General Petraeus told the NY Times we’ve found $1trln of mine

Overall: Moody’s downgraded Greece and BP 3-4 notches, as always, ahead of the curve. S&P 500 and EM equities flipped the bird and extended rally from June 7th low to 6.4% and 7.2% respectively. Spain bond auction went fine, spread to Germany tightened from 212 to 186. CDS on European junk bonds fell to 1mth low of 521. $2.5bln EM equity fund inflow is 2nd highest of yr. No real changes to earning expectations in

Volatility of both prices and sentiment rule the day. Papers and mags starting to call this a trading range, they’re exhausted like everyone else. The Economist ran “Hope at Last” 6wks ago and then ”Fear Returns” last wk. Israel is now the mag’s cover (much easier to deal with the Middle East than stocks). Blackrock’s Fink gives the all-clear for a bull run on Wed; on Thurs Hungary’s new PM says he may default. Echo’