It's Hard to Believe the Phillies are World Champs

The Philadelphia Phillies are finally World Champions again after 28 years. It's still hard to believe. The team I grew up watching. The team that finished in last place so many times. The team of misfits that made it to the World Series in 1993 and lost. All the baseball games watched on channel 17 and then channel 29. Finally they did it.

Not living in the area has made it hard to follow the team for the past several years. I will admit that at times I pretty much forgot about them. But seeing them play well over the past couple of years has been nice. And watching them play really well in this postseason brought back a lot of memories for me. Memories of my childhood. The first time my dad took us to a baseball game at old Veterans Stadium. All the years we went to games and most of the stadium was empty b/c the team was no good. What made it difficult for the city was that none of the teams could finish the deal. If any of the city's teams had a winning season, they would make to the playoffs and then lose. We all became really cynical about sports in the city and still are today. Maybe that cynicism will never go away. But for this one moment we dont have any excuses, no one to blame, and we dont have to be angry b/c one of these teams, the Phillies, won the whole thing.

I'm sure it would have been out of this world to be in Philly during this baseball season, especially during the playoffs. To be surrounded by millions of other people who feel the same way you do about a sports team. I have seen my teams (PSU, UNC) win before but never felt the feeling of relief that have been feeling this week. Relief for a city that has been let down so many times and hadnt had a champion in so long. Relief b/c now for just one day everyone can let their guard down, let it go, and enjoy the moment. Relief b/c maybe, just maybe, this could be the beginning of a winning trend for the city. I saw the victory parade today and couldnt help but feel happy for the 1 million+ people who showed up.

So this is what it feels like.

So This Is What It Feels Like to Live in a Swing State

Robocalls, 5 glossy mailers a day, people knocking on your door. They were even at my gym the other night. Candidates coming to stump every several days. Personally, I can't remember ever having so many opportunities to go see the candidates speak. It's really a weird feeling to have the candidates pay so much attention to North Carolina which hasnt voted Dem in a presidential election in 24 years or something. As recently as 6 months, mostly everyone I know (including myself) figured NC was so red it would be ignored during the campaign.

The plain and simple fact is that NC demographics have permanently changed in the last 10-20 years. So many people have moved here from the Northeast. Combine that with the newly arrived Hispanic population and African Americans who have been here all along and I guess that gives you a swing state.

The fact that the hisorically red NC is a swing state leaning toward Obama does not bode for the Republicans.

Market Perspective 10/24/2008

Today was supposed to be the day to end all days in the stock market, but I guess the world somehow decided it wasnt going to end today. It was the first day since 1997 (I believe) that stock futures were trading so far down that the levels were indicating that the circuit breaker rule on the NYSE would be triggered. In a nutshell, the circuit breaker rule indicates that under certain circumstances if the market trades down past a certain level, trading can be halted in order to give everyone time to cool off. Most people thought the Dow would trade off 1000 points on the open based on stock futures and what had happened overnight in overseas trading. Well, none of this really happened.

Midway through the morning we got some decent news on existing home sales which were up 5.5%. Most people right now are trying to put together all the data in order to figure out how bad the recession we are in right now is going to be. There is a lot of uncertainty right now about the depth of the downturn.

Market Perspective 10/17/2008

Early this morning we got some bad news on the housing market showing housing starts and building permits at multi-decade lows. From my perspective, the market sort of took this in stride although the intra-day volatility continued. At this point, the market I dont think is really trading on housing market data. Rather at this point, it's probably going to be the jobs related data that drives the market.

Volatility continued throughout the day. One of the big stories continues to be oil prices which are literally plummeting before our very eyes. The driving factor behind oil prices in the low $70s is simply a slow down in economic activity. For the near term world consumption of energy may drop off. One interesting observation is that OPEC is going to meet soon to decide what to do about the falling price of oil. They dont like the fact that oil could head to $50/bbl. They will probably cut production in an effort to keep oil prices well above current levels as they know that at these levels, oil prices are probably not a deterrent to economic activity. This is part of the reason we need to get off foreign oil. We are not in control of our own destiny.

Review of Third Presidential Debate

Last night, Rajul and I watched the third presidential debate on TV b/t Obama and McCain. The debate seemed like a big waste of time to me especially considering the Phillies game was on TV at the same time. Anyway, I thought if anyone "won" the debate, it was Barack. The strategies were clear. For McCain, stay on the attack. For Obama, stay cool and dont screw anything up.

Mac brought up this whole Joe the plumber thing which turned out to be the biggest joke of the debate. Turns out Joe the plumber isnt really a licensed plumber and owes back taxes. The whole thing is a mess. McCain just wasnt able to derail Obama in the 90 min debate.

At this point, I think there is a good chance, Obama could end up winning well over 325 electoral votes on election day. If that happens, he will have a pretty strong mandate as president and the dems will streamroll policy especially if they end up winning a boatload of seats in congress.

The presidential race is starting to get a little boring and I am beginning to wish the whole thing was over already.

Market Perspective 10/16/2008

After last week in the market, this week seems like sort of a walk in the park. I mean, at least we havent seen 5% declines on a daily basis. I guess that's a good thing. So this is what it feels like when 300 million people get a hang over all at once. Make that 6 billion people or however many people are on earth right now.

What is becoming quite apparent to most of us now is that a lot of the "economic growth" that happened this decade wasnt really economic growth. It was just the illusion of growth that happens when you borrow more and more money from someone to buy things. The only problem is that eventually you actually have to pay the money back and then you realize that maybe borrowing the money wasnt really worth it. But its too late now.

So the deleveraging of the market continues as painful as it is. The speed of the decline in the market over the past 6 weeks has simply been stunning. I dont think anyone really expected it to unfold like this. Anyway, I think we are at point now where the stock market has declined enough to accomodate a good deal of negative economic data. So, it remains to be seen exactly how bad the data will actually get.

What is unfolding right now in the equity market feels like the 3rd bottom of the year w/the first two occuring in Feb/March 2008 and the second in May/June 2008. What remains to be seen is whether this is the final bottom of the cycle or if there are more to come in equities. Certainly we are close to the bottom we hit in the stock market during the short-lived 2001-2002 recession.

Either way, if you are a long-term investor then you have to consider to yourself whether the current levels are attractive from a long-term perspective. If you will be needed your money w/in the next 5 years, you better not put it in the stock market.

A Couple of Funny You Tube Videos

Take a look at these You Tube favorites to get an idea of the quality local news programming you can get if you live in certain parts of the country. The first video is a local news broadcast in Oakland, CA and the second is in Mobile, AL. These news producers will put anything on the air! These clips are hilarious!

McCain calls Obama "That one"

This video is unbelievable. At the time McCain made this comment during last night's presidential debate, I sort of thought to myself "he probably should not have said that." I think it sort of shows Mac's lack of respect for the man who is going to beat him in this race. It's a bit of contempt and anger on his part and it's not really helping his cause. Unfortunately, he probably feels a bit frustrated given he may in fact be more qualified to be president but most people dont care about that right now. If they did, Hillary would have been the Dem nominee, but she isn't.

McCain has to defend North Carolina

In a tragic turn of events for conservative North Carolinians everywhere, Politico reports in this article that North Carolina is effectively a battleground state. Obama has been here 3x in the past month and is currently spending several days in the state. I think at this point the McCain camp is a little dismayed at the situation b/c they now have to defend states they previously thought were solidly red. This will be a problem for the McCain camp as they have already pulled out of Michigan and now they are on their heels in places like NC. The race is turning against them. This race may already be over.

North light rail's price hits $900 million

Wow. For those of you in Charlotte, NC... I just ran across this article the CLT Observer stating the cost of the planned Blue Line Extension to UCITY will now cost up to $900MM! The cost have been revised upward from $750MM I believe. This is a big problem b/c in the article the new head of CATS mentions yet again that the line may not be built even though UCITY is one of the biggest population centers in the city. Last year, it seemed more and more likely this line would be built as some federal funding was in place.

I would think a project like this would be a perfect place to spend stimulus dollars at the federal gov't level in order to spur targeted economic development. But then again, what do I know.

I thought Biden won the VP debate; Palin did OK

(Note: This is a note from last night.) Just finished watching the VP debate. I thought Biden won if you can actually declare a winner of these things. He has a definite advantage in that he has spent decades in Congress so he's more knowledgable about everyone's voting decisions over the years. Palin on the other hand doesnt have this experience and mastery of detail and that came through. Regardless, I thought she handled the situation pretty well and still managed to attack Biden effectively at times.