Nothing Lucky About Rally

From thestreet.com 8/11/08

Eight seems to be the magic number.
In Chinese numerology, recurring numbers represent luck, and 8/8/08 was thought to be the luckiest day. Three eights were the perfect day to launch the Olympics. However, that day the luck was flowing here in our equity markets rather than in Beijing where the numerologists reside.
Think about this for a minute. If someone told you that there was a brand new conflict between Russia, a big oil producer with 200 million residents, and its small (population 4.5 million) border neighbor Georgia, and if you heard that Russian tanks were rolling and casualties were mounting, what would you guess the reaction would be in the oil market? Up $5? $10?

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It's Not So Bad Out There

From thestreet.com 7/16/08

To my mind, things not as bad as everyone seems to think.
Alcoa(AA - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and General Electric(GE - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) beat analysts' estimates. And Intel(INTC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), Altera(ALTR - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Wells Fargo(WFC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) have posted solid quarterly performances. Plus, crude oil dropped $6.49 on Tuesday and is down more than $1 on Wednesday.
The consumer price index was up 1.1%, an improvement for the first time in more than three months.
Citigroup(C - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) reports results on Friday. The stock has been crushed, closing at $14.50 after hitting $56 a little more than a year ago. Analysts around the Street are certainly going to shoot low; after all, any analyst who has been around for a while is surely not going to go out on a limb with overly optimistic Citi numbers. ...........
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