You know it's time to sell when. . . you are getting stock tips from CFC!

[Kaitzilla]

So the first peek at 2nd quarter U.S. GDP comes out Wednesday.

The 1st quarter GDP was +0.1% until it got revised down a few times over the months to -2.9%

Any betters for the 2nd quarter GDP printing negative?
How about the revisions?

Don't forget, 2 negative quarters in a row means we are back in recession.

 

[Hygro]

And yet the economy is sort of booming. It must be terribly regional right now.

 

[Kaitzilla]

And the positives have it.

+4% in the 2nd quarter.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/second-quarter-gdp-expands-at-4-0-rate-1406723867


The most it ever gets revised downwards is around 3%, but even then it would still be positive so no recession this time.

 

[Farm Boy]

And yet the economy is sort of booming. It must be terribly regional right now.

It's working if asset values and cheap consumer goods instead of median labor on down are one's concern. Soooo, pretty much globalism?

 

[Harv]

And the positives have it.

+4% in the 2nd quarter.

Hmm. Maybe there was some merit in blaming an exceptionally cold winter on the first quarter economy. It was so darn cold and snowy nobody wants to get out, no matter how much the coin is burning a hole in the pocket.

Cabin fever effect?

The most it ever gets revised downwards is around 3%, but even then it would still be positive so no recession this time.

You are using the two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth as a definition for a recession. I thought in the USA, a recession is when some economists say so.

And yet the economy is sort of booming. It must be terribly regional right now.

Signs are mixed. Is that correct? People do not feel secure and confident and flush?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Argentina appears to have defaulted on some of their bonds today.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...cording-to-s-p-as-debt-meetings-continue.html

Standard & Poor’s declared Argentina in default on its foreign-currency obligations after the government missed a deadline for paying interest on $13 billion of restructured bonds.

There appears to be some wiggle room though:

A top Argentine banker and former Economy Ministry official arrived in New York today to make a last-minute proposal aimed at solving the dispute. Argentina may be able to undo the default in the next few days if an accord is reached over the missed $1.5 billion interest payment, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said before the default was declared.

“An Argentina default is expected to be short-lived at this point and shouldn’t have any major implication for the country,” said Mauro Roca, a senior Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs in New York. “There’s the expectation that a deal with holdouts will be worked out soon.”

The bankers still think they will cave in and pay

 

[Cutlass]

Argentina's best move is to default and stick to it. Not that either way will really help them in the long run. But full default will hurt less. Ultimately those lenders need to know that they can't lend to someone with no ability to repay, and have no consequences when they can't repay.

As it stands there's no risk on the part of the lender for being irresponsible.

 

[Harv]

So when are we going to see the fallout from Argentina's upcoming default show up in the banks? Who is stuck with the bill now and who is stuck with the bill in the end?

 

[Mise]

My investment strategy is predicated on the assumption that nobody has any idea of what the best stock is, much less me, so I try to get a diverse portfolio and drip feed on a monthly basis to hedge in time too. I'm equally weighted (in terms of money I put in) in UK, US and Emerging market indices. Within the UK and US, I'm equally weighted between small, medium and large cap indices. I pick the ones with the lowest fees. I don't know who's going to win so I bet on all of them equally, withwhat I call a nominal weighting towards domestic stocks and small caps (i.e. by weighting 1/3rd towards small caps, i'm investing disproportionately to the stock value of those companies; by weighting 1/3rd towards UK i'm investing disproportionately to the value of that stock market). In my head this looks like a 3D graph/heat map - hopefully you can see it too.