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The Audacity of Hope

I am halfway through Barack Obama's book titled "The Audacity of Hope". He can write as well as he can speak. His thoughts are clear, well explained. It's good read. Being just a first time senator for 2 years (book was published in 2006), he has great understanding of politics, values, opportunities. If he becomes president (and I strongly believe he would be in Nov elections), his rise would be one of the fastest rise in American politics.

With so many things going wrong around us (Iraq war, oil at $135, subprime mess, economy stuck, unemployment at 5.5%, inflation rising across the world and rampant speculation in commodities trading), we need a fresh start and I am hopeful that Obama can provide that fresh start.

I was just watching US open and Tiger Woods is 1 behind the leader with 5 more holes to go. I bet he is going to win his 3rd US open title today

Now coming to markets - where are they headed next week ?
Here are my predictions:
  • Oil coming down below $130
  • Dow touching 12500 and Nasdaq touching 2500
  • With major financials reporting results next week, finally LEH, GS, WB and WM finding some footing. Lehman may touch $28 (from $25 on Friday) at which it raised nearly $6B
  • Airlines with their cost cutting and raised prices for all kinds of services should also find some footing. If you are daring enough, one could take some positions in airline stocks (or ETF) as a bet against oil
  • In general, the way markets bottomed out in March, exactly 3 month later it again bottomed out and July/Aug should be similar to Apr/May
  • Jerry Yang of Yahoo really screwed up by not accepting Yahoo offer in Feb or May and now Yahoo stock is back to 23 and most probably going down even further. What would Mr. Ichan do since he must have lost $100M in this Yahoo/Microsoft saga. He must be totally pissed off at Yahoo board. IMO, he would continue to fight the proxy war but now that Microsoft is out of picture (almost) and no other company willing to acquire Yahoo, most probably major shareholders have no other option but to stick with Jerry and co and hope for the best! I would buy Yahoo between $20-21. Till then there are so many other opportunities around us and would take a pass at Yahoo
Have a good weekend

/Shyam

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey shy thanks for the info on the new delhi

think Im going to go there as the reviews seem like the food there is really good

will let you know how it is

thanks again for the rec.

hope things are going well
8:56 PM
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