NYIM May 5th Meeting; Oil Report; Swine Flu Update

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

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We would like to thank our guest, best selling author William Cohan for a great interview at the New York Investing meetup last night. The discussion of his recent book, "House of Cards" touched on many of the major issues currently facing Wall Street and the financial system. Cohan was mostly critical of Wall Street during his talk as he was in his book. There was also a talk at the meeting about stocks, oil, gold and silver and where the opportunities currently lie. To find out even more about this topic, we urge everyone in the New York Metro area to attend the New York Hard Assets Investment Conference next Monday and Tuesday. Registration is free and can be done by going to: http://www.hardassetsny.com/. Meanwhile, more news about swine flu is coming out, but the medical authorities are finally being somewhat more responsible about informing the public about what is really going on.

While there are many point of agreement between the New York Investing meetup and William Cohan, some divergences of opinion come out during his interview. Cohan stated quite clearly that he believed significant reform was on the way for Wall Street and that he had high hopes for Timothy Geithner's tenure as Treasury Secretary. While there is certainly a strong movement for reform among the American populace, little has been done so far and anyone who reads this blog regularly knows we are not fans of Timid Tim Geithner. We certainly agree with Cohan's criticism of Congress and the large campaign donations that it accepts from Wall Street has corrupted our system. We don't agree with Cohan's favorable views of TARP, something we vehemently opposed and consider to be one of the biggest wastes of government money ever. Cohan did provide some interesting insight into the failure of Lehman Brothers saying there was really no clear answer why the authorities let it fail other than the timing of its demise (if it had been first, he believes a bailout would have taken place) and it wasn't a favored institution of the government as is Goldman Sachs. We hope to have at least excerpts of the interview out on video shortly.

The weekly oil storage report came out from the EIA this morning and it looked pretty bullish. Oil in storage was up only 600,000 barrels, while analysts has expected a rise of 2,000,000 barrels. Gasoline was down 200,000 barrels and the high demand summer driving season is just about to begin. In the meetup last night we showed how oil was well below its 200-day moving average and predicted it needs to get to that level before the current rally will end. Oil jumped up to a new 5-month high after the inventory report with light sweet crude reaching $55.55 a barrel. There is probably at least $20 more upside to the commodity, if not more, before a 2009 high is hit.

In today's media coverage, the first actual American death of someone who tested positive for swine flu was reported. Read the articles carefully however, they do NOT say that the woman who died on the Texas/Mexican border died of swine flu. Indeed the medical authorities refuse to state that she did and said that she had other 'critical underlying medical problems'. The little Mexican boy who died in Houston also had other significant medical issues. In Mexico, the current count is 42 deaths (still nowhere near the originally reported 160). No medical history is available for most of these people, who were poor and had limited access to health care. It is quite possible all of them had other medical issues as well and swine flu was not the primary cause of their deaths. This would explain why there are no swine flu deaths outside Mexico in places where advanced health care systems and accurate record keeping exist. There is no substantial proof that the current outbreak of swine flu is deadly, nor that it is even a serious disease.

NEXT: A Rally Frothing at the Mouth

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.