Skip to main content

Obama - is democratic nomination fight over ?

Normally I have limited myself to blog on markets and stocks. However this week's events could be historic in terms of next presidential elections.

With North Carolina and Indiana's primary results in favor of Obama and super-delegates finally declaring their support to Obama, looks like he is all but set to seal this nomination. With May 20 primaries, Obama would become democratic party nomination and potentially make an history since winning elections in Nov should be relatively easy (considering that majority of country has been fed up with Iraq war and associated policies)

At home front, myself and my son Yash are supporting "Yes, we can" Obama while my wife and daughter Isha are supporting "Yes, we will" Hillary.

I like both candidates but Hillary sounds too much like same type of politician while Obama sounds inspirational and we need leader like him to pull country out of current mess. I don't know what people felt during Kennedy campaign but I can relate him to Rajiv Gandhi when he became India's prime minister in 1984

Now coming to my commentary on markets:

- Yahoo/Microsoft saga seems to be ending and folks have given up on deal getting re-resurrected at least in short run
- Sprint results would be out on Monday May 12 - would be quite important to set the stock direction. If results are not as bad as previous quarter, it could cross $10 next week
- With AIG's warning, financials were again on shaky grounds this week
- With oil at $126, overall markets are showing signs of tiredness. Is this oil rally sustainable ? IMO, this rally is largely driven by all the financial instruments like ETF, derivatives and actual supply/demand is playing small role. Unless the vicious cycle of upward trajectory is broken, oil could keep on going up and as Goldman Sachs analyst reported, could reach $150 in 12 months. One can consider FSESX or FSNGX as investment vehicles if you want to benefit from oil rise

That's all for now

/Shyam

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2025 = Is it going to be 1997 or 2000?

Happy Holidays... After 5 months of hibernation with no real reason than writing block, I decided to use quiet morning of Christmas day to start writing again. Lot has happened in last 5 months - in particular release of Animal Spirits with Fed starting interest rate reduction cycle and historic victory of President Trump for 2nd term. As the year turns into 2025 and stock markets at all time high, one would wonder, what's next?  To answer this, one needs to look back at 1920s and 1990s to give us some context on where markets may be headed. 1920s saw invention of televisions, radio, wider adoption of cars, vacuums, penicillin and many other which we consider household items now. These inventions created roaring 20s with markets going up by 500% eventually leading to crash of 1929. However during mid-20s, markets keep going up due to excitement of these inventions and end of World War-1 and Spanish Flu Pandemic. 1990s also saw many inventions - the key being launch of Netscape in 1...

And the Oscar goes to...

It's Oscar Sunday and time for predictions for few categories - before I digress into talking about drama in DC or markets.  First of all, I want to recognize the damage LA fires have done to the beloved areas of Los Angeles and impacted families across all spectrums. My heart goes out to them and wish them recovery and rebuilding of their lives... This year's Oscar nominees and post nomination period had been interesting to say the least. Due to this, the field is wide open in almost all categories and that's what makes prediction game so interesting. Just to set expectations, I would consider a win if I get even 50% predictions correct given the dynamics of nominees this year. So here are my predictions - "And the Oscar goes to..." Best Picture - Anora (surprise could be "The Brutalist") Best Director - Sean Baker for "Anora" (Surprise could be Brady Corbet for "The Brutalist") Best Actor - Adrien Brody for "The Brutalist"...

The Politics and Gamesmanship of TikTok!

TikTok is less than 3 hours from going dark on USA's east coast if TikTok owner Bytedance (and Chinese Government) follows thru its "bluff" to honor the law " Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" which goes into effect on Jan 19, 2025. And suddenly there is lots of politics and gamesmanship around TikTok.. Let's look at the players and their positions US Congress: The " TikTok Ban" law was passed by congress with bipartisan support and coincidently it goes into effect one day before new administration takes charge. Everyone knew the exact date and time of oath taking ceremony of new President...but maybe the congress did not think that there would be change of President and did not bother to put effective date post new government taking charge...that created a window of 36 hours of "law being in effect" unless... President Biden: Biden himself did not think that he won't be President for 2nd term. S...