High Frequency Terrorism: How the Big Banks and Federal Reserve Maintained Their Death Grip Over the United States:

By David DeGraw & Max Keiser, AmpedStatus Report
Posted on Monday, May 10th, 2010 at 1:11 am

http://ampedstatus.com/high-frequency-terrorism-how-the-big-banks-and-federal-reserve-maintained-their-death-grip-over-the-united-states

The following article is the third-part of a six-part report titled: “The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy’s Death Spiral From Greece to the United States.” The full report is available here:

http://ampedstatus.com/the-financial-oligarchy-reigns-democracys-death-spiral-from-greece-to-the-united-states

III: Financial Terrorism Operations: 9/29/08 & 5/6/10

In the aftermath of Goldman Sachs’ public flogging before the world in Congress, and while under investigation, on the very day that Congress was voting on the “break up the too big to fail banks” amendment and cutting behind the scenes deals to gut the audit of the Federal Reserve, the stock market had its greatest sudden drop in history, plummeting 700 points in ten minutes - shades of September 29, 2008 all over again.

If you recall, back in September ‘08, as Congress was voting down the first bailout, the big banks made the market plunge a record 778 points in one day, fear and panic then led Congress to pass the bailout. Trillions of our tax dollars, the money that we desperately need to keep our society functioning over the long run, then went out the window and into the pockets of the very people who caused the crash.

What happened on September 29, 2008 will go down in history as one of the greatest acts of terrorism ever.

9/29/08 proved that when you have so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, you can manipulate a computer algorithm and make the market and economy go which ever way you want it to go. So on 5/6/10, just as the power of the big banks was threatened again on the floor of the Senate and a deal on auditing the Federal Reserve was being negotiated, in came a sudden and unprecedented ten-minute 700 point market drop. A precision-guided High Frequency Trading (HFT) attack to show Congress who’s boss.

If you think the massive sudden drop happened because one lowly trader hit one wrong button, if you actually believe that the entire stock market can plunge because of one mistaken key stroke by a low level trader, you are stunningly naïve. I hate to burst your bubble, but this was a direct attack.

In a market where 70% of all trades are executed by computer algorithms via High Frequency Trading (HFT), Goldman Sachs has the power to make the market crash or rise at will. In fact, Goldman has a major Weapon of Mass Destruction in its Program Trading monopoly of the New York Stock Exchange, as Tyler Durden described on Zero Hedge:

“Goldman’s dominance of the NYSE’s Program Trading platform, where in addition to recent entrant GETCO, it has been to date an explicit monopolist of the so-called Supplementary Liquidity Provider program, a role which affords the company greater liquidity rebates for, well providing liquidity, and generating who knows what other possible front market-looking, flow-prop integration benefits. Yesterday [5/6/10], Goldman’s SLP function was non-existent. One wonders - was the Goldman SLP team in fact liquidity taking, or to put it bluntly, among the main reasons for the market collapse….

… here is the most recently disclosed NYSE program trading data….

What is notable here is that of the 1.4 billion in principal shares, or shares traded for the firm’s own account, Goldman was the top trader by a margin of over 100% compared to the second biggest program trader.

We have long claimed that Goldman is the de facto monopolist of the NYSE’s program trading platform. As such, it is certainly the case that Goldman was instrumental in either a) precipitating yesterday’s crash or b) not providing the critical liquidity which it is required to do, when the time came. There are no other options.”

For further investigation, I turned to Max Keiser, who has written and authored similar Program Trading and HFT computer algorithms. I asked him if he thought this was an attack, here is what he had to say:

“May 6th was an unequivocal act of domestic financial terrorism in America. A day that will live in infamy.

To scare the lawmakers, themselves large owners of the very banks and stocks that they are supposed to be regulating, a financial Weapon of Mass Destruction was put to their head and they acquiesced.

As the inventor of the continuous double-auction, market-making technology (VST tech. US pat. no. 5950176) that is referenced 132 times by program trading and HFT patents since 1996, I can tell you that Goldman, JP Morgan and the gang simply pulled the ‘buys’ from their computer trading programs and manufactured a crash. And when the coast was clear, and it was clear the politicians were not going to vote for anything that would break up the ‘too big to fail’ banks; all the ’sells’ were pulled from the computers and the market roared back.

This is a Manchurian Candidate market where program trading bots start the ball rolling in whatever direction Wall St. wants the market to go - and then hundreds of thousands of day-traders watching Cramer on CNBC jump on the momentum bandwagon and commit the crime for the Wall St. financial terrorists, who then say, ‘It wasn’t us, it was ‘the market!’”

On Friday, the next day, after the “break up the too big to fail banks” amendment was soundly defeated by a 61 to 33 margin in Senate and a deal was struck to eliminate key provisions from the audit of the Federal Reserve bill, Goldman was meeting with the SEC to work out a settlement in their case against them. Once again, Goldman proves that crime pays. Welcome to the New Mafia World Order.

Other than the two major operations carried out on 9/29/08 and 5/6/10, we must also recall a smaller attack on January 21st and 22nd of 2010, when Obama had a press conference and came out in favor of the Volcker Rule, which would have limited these HFT and “proprietary trading” schemes. At that time, the market dropped 430 points. Soon after this attack, all follow up talk on the Volcker Rule faded away and this reform has not been seriously addressed by Obama since then.

The bottom line, the United States has been taken over by a financial terrorism network. Let’s face it, we are all hostages of these financial terrorists and our puppet politicians rather be in on the scam than defend our interests. If these terrorists don’t get their way at all times, they have the power to throw their tremendous weight around and turn millions of lives upside down in a matter of minutes, and as they have shown they have no hesitation in executing that power, no matter how many millions of lives they destroy.

They set off this crisis with a wave of bombings in their initial Economic Shock and Awe campaign two years ago, resulting in massive devastation. Just to name a few of their greatest hits within the U.S.:

* 50 million Americans are now living in poverty, which is the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world;

* 30 million Americans are in need of work;

* Five million American families foreclosed upon, 15 million expected by 2014;

* 50% of US children will now use a food stamp during childhood;

* Soaring budget deficits in states across the country and a record high national debt, with austerity measures on the way;

* Record-breaking profits and bonuses for themselves.

Like other terrorists, they don’t use IEDs, they use CDOs. They don’t use precision laser-guided missiles, they use High Frequency Trading. They don’t have WMDs, they have derivatives. Let’s also not forget that they have toxic assets and dirty debt bombs just waiting to be deployed upon the American public once there is any true growth in the economy. Their nuclear arsenal includes hundreds of Trillions in secretive derivatives and hidden debt bombs, just ticking away, waiting to be set off… at their whim...

VIDEO - Fundamental & Technical Analysis of the S&P 500's Daily & Weekly Charts:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/zigzagman/videos/19/

Here is the end of the week Technical Analysis of the S&P 500's daily and weekly charts, plus a look at the important Economic and Earnings Reports due out next week...

Happy Trading this week...
zigzagman

Is Goldman Sachs the Anti-Christ?...

The Daily Bell
Saturday, May 08, 2010

http://www.thedailybell.com/1035/Goldman-Sachs-the-Anti-Christ.html

This debate is going to be crystallised in the Goldman case. Much of America is going to reflexively insist that Goldman's only crime was being smarter and better at making money than IKB and ABN-Amro, and that the intrusive, meddling government (in the American narrative, always the bad guy!) should get off Goldman's Armani-clad back. Another side is going to argue that Goldman winning this case would be a rebuke to the whole idea of civilisation – which, after all, is really just a collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even when we can. It's an important moment in the history of modern global capitalism: whether or not to move forward into a world of greed without limits. – UK Guardian/Matt Taibbi
Dominant Social Theme: Goldman bad. Very bad.

Free-Market Analysis: We always have to start these articles off with the requisite nod to the fierce Gods of Ancient (and Modern) Days. So let's get it out of the way. Here goes ... Goldman is a horrible, smug, abusive institution with obvious ties to the power elite. It may indeed be the heart of darkness on Wall Street, the instrument through which the elite maneuvers as it plies its mercantalistic trade.

But the key word here is mercantilism. More than almost any other firm, Goldman sits at the intersection between government and private industry in America. That's how it makes its money. By using and abusing the laws of the land to line its own pockets. However, apparently, that is not a conversation that Americans can have anymore. Thomas Jefferson would have it – and often did have it both privately and in the presence of others.

American Founding Fathers generally understood (maybe with the exception of Alexander Hamilton) that the best government is the government that governs least. Matt Taibbi, who is a very talented journalist and writer, seems only to understand that government should act as a "boot stamping on the face of Goldman Sachs – forever." (Apologies to George Orwell.) This article appeared in the UK Guardian late April, but given all that is happening on Wall Street these days (and Taibbi's general relevance), an analysis seems fairly timely to us.

One of the problems from our point of view is that even if one grants that government can find the right face to stamp, there is no guarantee that ten years from now government will not be stamping on YOUR face. You may derive a great deal of satisfaction from using the regulatory levers of government to pry triumphant justice – dripping with gore – from the chest cavity of Goldman Sachs, but maybe (just maybe) you are fooling yourself or setting yourself, your family and your country up for an abusive situation. Here's some more from this brilliantly polemical piece:

Will Goldman Sachs prove greed is God? ... The investment bank's cult of self-interest is on trial against the whole idea of civilisation – the collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even if we can ... So, the world's greatest and smuggest investment bank, has been sued for fraud by the American Securities and Exchange Commission. Legally, the case hangs on a technicality. Morally, however, the Goldman Sachs case may turn into a final referendum on the greed-is-good ethos that conquered America sometime in the 80s – and in the years since has aped other horrifying American trends such as boybands and reality shows in spreading across the western world like a venereal disease.

When Britain and other countries were engulfed in the flood of defaults and derivative losses that emerged from the collapse of the American housing bubble two years ago, few people understood that the crash had its roots in the lunatic greed-centered objectivist religion, fostered back in the 50s and 60s by ponderous emigre novelist Ayn Rand ... Here in the States, her ideas are roundly worshipped even by people who've never read her books or even heard of her. The rightwing "Tea Party" movement is just one example of an entire demographic that has been inspired to mass protest by Rand without even knowing it.

Last summer I wrote a brutally negative article about Goldman Sachs for Rolling Stone magazine (I called the bank a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity") that unexpectedly sparked a heated national debate. On one side of the debate were people like me, who believed that Goldman is little better than a criminal enterprise that earns its billions by bilking the market, the government, and even its own clients in a bewildering variety of complex financial scams.

On the other side of the debate were the people who argued Goldman wasn't guilty of anything except being "too smart" and really, really good at making money. This side of the argument was based almost entirely on the Randian belief system, under which the leaders of Goldman Sachs appear not as the cheap swindlers they look like to me, but idealised heroes, the saviours of society.

In the Randian ethos, called objectivism, the only real morality is self-interest, and society is divided into groups who are efficiently self-interested (ie. the rich) and the "parasites" and "moochers" who wish to take their earnings through taxes, which are an unjust use of force in Randian politics. Rand believed government had virtually no natural role in society. She conceded that police were necessary, but was such a fervent believer in laissez-faire capitalism she refused to accept any need for economic regulation – which is a fancy way of saying we only need law enforcement for unsophisticated criminals. Rand's fingerprints are all over the recent Goldman story.

For us, Matt Taibbi (despite his polemics) ends up in such articles being an apologist for the system as it is. He apparently supports the SEC prosecution of Goldman Sachs for various civil crimes as part of what he perceives as elemental fairness. But does Taibbi know what the SEC really is? Has he studied it? Does he understand that Wall Streeters smirk that the SEC is part and parcel of a larger "regulatory capture" by the Street and that many of the SEC's ambitious staffers dream of going to work on Wall Street for fat paychecks. The insanely elaborate regulatory system in America NEVER does what it is supposed to. It is not only dysfunctional but actually organized so as to raise barriers of entry to the securities business. The ONLY thing that SEC prosecution of Goldman will really end up doing is raising more barriers, which will further empower Wall Street's largest banks.

And how can someone as bright as Taibbi not understand that Wall Street itself is a creature of central banking. Without central banks money flows and economic euphorias brought on by the over-printing of money, Wall Street would likely not exist as such an attractive money magnet. Add in regulation, beginning in the 1930s after the great depression, and you have monstrous mish-mash that empowers the powerful, concentrates capital in certain investment entities and generally works to strip Americans of their wealth and hopes once every business cycle (every 10-20 years). The regulatory structure of America, when combined with mercantilist central banking itself, is the prime facilitator of this horrid system.

Taibbi might have a point about Rand if it weren't for the central banking and regulatory structure that surrounds Wall Street and empowers it. Wall Street is actually as far from Rand's idea of independent, laissez-faire self interest as it could possibly be. Every part of Goldman's business is based to one degree or another on federal laws and regulations. We would bet at this point in the history of US "free-markets" that you could not find a SINGLE transaction in which Goldman participates in that does not have some sort of regulatory color.

Taibbi is just like Simon Johnson in our book (see other article, this issue of the Bell) – blasting Wall Street and Goldman in particular without any regard to the larger frame of reference in which Goldman functions. Such analysis at this point in time is beyond naïve in our opinion. It verges on the manipulative. Does Taibbi really believe that the US government retains some sort of collective moral purity that is absent on Wall Street? No, Washington DC and Goldman Sachs are two sides of the same coin.

Because the mainstream media is the way it is, if there is a legal battle between Goldman and the SEC, the mainstream media shall probably partake of some of the positioning that Taibbi has already presented. The young lawyers at the SEC (yearning to work on Wall Street) will be presented as warriors for the aggrieved middle class and the young traders and bankers at Goldman shall be presented as Godless, greedy sociopaths.

Conclusion: Go on YouTube these days and watch videos of American civil and military authorities busting down doors and shooting family mutts while in search of dollar bags of marijuana, or throwing Canadian tourists in jail for not being polite enough when crossing the border, or tasering fans running across baseball fields. Read about the debates in the American congress over additional taxes for Americans and how the IRS is going to be equipped with shotguns, apparently to help with collections. Read about how Homeland Security is targeting American military veterans as potential terrorists, and those who participate in Tea Party protests, too. Go online and try to understand the ramifications and results of America's serial wars in the Mideast – the radiation poisoning from depleted-uranium weapons and the endless civilian killings. We understand that Goldman is a "great vampire squid" but what has the US government become? Taibbi defines civilization as "a collective decision by all of us not to screw each other over even when we can." What mirror is he looking in?

How China Holds the American Economy by the Balls:

By Scott Thill / AlterNet
May 3, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/146702/how_china_holds_the_american_economy_by_the_balls/?page=entire

America stays afloat selling billions of American dollars and Treasuries to our Chinese sugar daddy to keep our faltering consumer economy alive.

On May 1, China popped the cork on Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a months-long international celebration signifying the ascension of the city, and thereby its parent nation, as a global economic and cultural powerhouse. Meanwhile, in the United States, China's economic and cultural power has come under mounting fire.

Short-happy hedge funder Jim Chanos, who prophesied the fall of Enron, argued in April that the country's heated property market was on a "treadmill to hell." Foreign Policy followed suit by more or less blaming China's alleged currency manipulation, rather than America's own corporate and economic malfeasance, for exporting unemployment to the United States. Even our President Barack Obama jumped on the dogpile, expressing concern that China has not moved its currency to a "more market-oriented exchange rate," during an April meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington. His administration stopped short, however, of releasing an April 15 report to Congress expressing this disapproval in concrete terms, choosing instead to trot out the disgraced deregulationist Larry Summers to soothe the Chinese that such matters will be taken up at future gatherings.

For its part, China has responded to the finger-pointing by the United States with its own middle digit.

"We oppose the practice of finger-pointing among countries or strong-arm measures to force other countries to appreciate currencies," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in March, before restating his well-publicized 2009 worries that U.S. Treasuries are in trouble. "In the press conference last year, I said I was a bit concerned about it. This year, I make the same remark. I am still concerned. I hope the U.S. will take concrete measures to assure its investors."

Good luck with that, China. From resilient wage and unemployment stagnation to revelations of investment banks like Goldman Sachs selling "shitty" bundles of toxic mortgages to national and international suckers with one hand while clandestinely shorting them with the other, the United States is in no position to assure investors of anything. Which is why they've taken lately to crowing about China, rather than settling their own business at home. That business includes, of course, selling billions of American dollars and Treasuries to our Chinese sugar daddy to keep our faltering consumer economy alive.

"China holds about $820 billion U.S. dollars, and about $480 billion is in U.S. Treasuries," Stefan Halper, senior fellow at the Cambridge Centre of International Studies and author of the new book The Beijing Consensus, told AlterNet by phone. "China would not take steps to decrease the value of the dollar, because that would decrease the value of its own holdings. China doesn't want to bring the dollar down or the U.S. economy down, but it is benefiting from American consumers, who buy its exports. which represents about 60 percent of its economy per year."

Halper is firmly in the camp of those who are tagging China as a currency manipulator. In The Beijing Consensus, he argues that the rising 21st century superpower is suppressing the yuan, exporting unemployment and even standing in the way of America's lagging recovery from the global recession. In the process, Halper writes, China is also exporting its overall philosophy of economics and governance at the expense, pardon the pun, of our own.

"Beyond everything else that China sells to the world, it functions as the world's largest billboard for the new alternative of 'going capitalist and staying autocratic,'" Halper explains in The Beijing Consensus. "Beijing has provided the world's most compelling, high-speed demonstration of how to liberalize economically without surrendering to liberal politics."

Of course, he admitted, China couldn't have done it alone. America was more than happy, drunk on deregulation and war, to dig its own grave.

"The disastrous involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have just depreciated the American story and the American example," Halper told AlterNet. "You can look at the Pew data: There has been rising disapproval of the U.S. since Bush put us into those two wars. Plus, the Washington Consensus proved not to be a good form of Third World development, which opened the door to Chinese offers of low-interest loans and non-interference. So yeah, we've done things poorly. We've had a recession, and an inability to regulate our markets. We're certainly not perfect."

That's probably the understatement of the new millennium. Viewed through that prism, the argument that our preeminent funder is somehow partially responsible for our own extensive economic troubles is disingenuous, even if esteemed economists like Paul Krugman have been sipping the blame-China Kool-Aid. What's gets lost in the financial wonkery -- or wankery, if you will -- is the fact that, through our own corruption and greed, we have willingly pushed nations into the arms of China rather than earn their trust. Through the misguided Washington Consensus, we and others tried and succeeded at establishing a rapacious list of interventionist measures -- concretized as "stabilize, privatize, and liberalize" by Harvard professor of international political economy Dani Rodrik -- since the 1990s that has ultimately culminated in our current lunacy. To argue at this late stage of the game that China is partially to blame for this is playing the kind of crappy defense that loses championships in pro sports. It shows, above all, that we have no game.

"China will make decisions in its own interests, just as the U.S. does," Rachel Ziemba, senior analyst for China and oil-exploring countries at Roubini Global Economics, told AlterNet. "It's actually in China's interest in the mid-term to have a more flexible exchange rate as it increases their monetary policy autonomy and could boost domestic purchasing power, helping domestic consumption. It also could help control domestic inflation. But domestic dictates, not U.S. pressure, will determine Chinese policy moves in this area. Chinese authorities are balancing different economic pressures, and an appreciation of the currency would increase the price of Chinese exports."

Like Halper, Krugman and more, Ziemba thinks that China is indeed a currency manipulator. "The pace of foreign-exchange reserve accumulation implies that the Chinese central bank is intervening heavily in the foreign-exchange market, implying that, yes, it is manipulating its currency."

In that, it's not very different than anyone else playing the currency game, including the United States. Except that it's deftly playing the pegging game -- to the dollar, then to a managed float in 2005, then back again to the dollar during the crisis -- for the benefit of its nation, rather than a select few banks, funds and other entities. It's in it to win it. For everyone, depending on who you ask.

"The bulk of China's foreign exchange reserves are recycled into dollar-based assets, which helps fund the massive U.S. savings shortfall," Morgan Stanley Asia's Stephen Roach wrote in a Council on Foreign Relations roundup called "Is China a Currency Manipulator?" "Who might deficit-prone Washington turn to if it shuts off the Chinese funding spigot? At a minimum, reduced buying by America's largest foreign lender would spell sharp downward pressures on the dollar and/or higher long-term U.S. interest rates -- developments that could well trigger the dreaded double dip in the U.S. economy."

In other words, China is keeping its eye on the prize -- its own economic and political survival -- while the rest of the world, from the United States to the European Union treads water. And why not? A modest accounting argues that China's economy expanded at over 10 percent in the first quarter of 2010. Meanwhile, U.S. real gross domestic product probably grew around 3 percent in the same period.

"We believe consumer spending is being buoyed by a variety factors that will not be maintained over the long term," Ethan Harris, chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch, told MarketWatch in late April. "Even with the recovery in net worth, households have essentially lost 15 years of saving."

"Many countries have imbalanced economic systems," Ziemba told AlterNet. "China's economy has low external debt, which is a big plus, but the contingent liabilities of the government have increased as bank loans have increased. Yet with deposits having climbed as much as loans, China's banking system is well capitalized."

In the final analysis, complaints about China's financial practices should be properly contextualized, especially when those lodging the complaints have done more to disrupt global financial practices than anyone else. Perhaps when those complainers have settled their own accounts -- with vampire squids like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, or the print-happy Federal Reserve Bank, or the Supreme Court that recently ruled that corporations possess the same rights as people -- then their whining about China's currency manipulation should be taken a bit more seriously. But not sooner.

"To the question of American excess and inability to regulate our financial markets, you're right," agreed Halper. "We have fallen down on that, and the Chinese have taken the opportunity to extol their model. But you've got compare China over time. What you see is two things: A rising middle class with a strong commercial material culture, and a highly repressive iron hand on the part of the central government. And that really is the most fascinating thing we see today. It's not classical communism. It's in business to perpetuate its own power, and we have to come to grips with it."

Sure, no problem. But only after we come to grips with the business of perpetuating our own power first. Change begins, after all, at home.

America at the Crossroads - and the War on Gold:

Darryl Robert Schoon
Posted May 4, 2010

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/schoon/schoon050410.html

Every so often a philosophical dilemma becomes real. So it is today. For two thousand years, the message of Christ Jesus influenced and informed the West, if not in deed, then in word. Today, that is no longer so. Today, godless capitalism is threatening to supplant the two millennia reign of Christ's message of brotherly love - if not in word, then, certainly, in deed.

In times of great change, art reflects social and philosophical undercurrents. The movie, Avatar, is an example of this phenomenon as was the movie, Wall Street, in 1987. Gordon Gekko, Oliver Stone's protagonist in Wall Street probably didn't read much; but, if he did, a book such as A Utopia of Greed: Ayn Rand's Moral Defense of Capitalism could have been on his reading list.

One of Gordon Gekko's more memorable lines is Greed, for want of a better word, is good. Greed is good is also one of Ayn Rand's fundamental beliefs; and, if Karl Marx is the father of godless communism, Ayn Rand, America's premier doyenne of selfishness, is the patron saint of its antagonist, godless capitalism.

Alisa Rosenbaum was born in Russia in 1905 where she would later change her name to Ayn Rand. In her youth, she would become an atheist, a belief she would hold for the rest of her life. No other self-proclaimed atheist would achieve such a large following - except perhaps Karl Marx; additionally, no other writer would be as responsible for giving philosophical cover to the selfishness and greed that would later characterize American-style "laissez-faire" capitalism.

Ayn Rand saw selfishness and greed as virtues; and, to their later disgrace, so, too, did many others.



Ba'al: the Golden Calf of Capitalism Grows Up:

When Ayn Rand died in 1982, a six foot floral wreath in the shape of a US dollar was laid by her casket; a symbol that was to be ironically appropriate as Ayn Rand's death would precede the demise of the US dollar by only a few short decades.

Nothing exemplified the effect that Ayn Rand's philosophy would have on America as much as the movie, Wall Street. Released in 1987, it reflected the values that would be responsible for America's moral decline over the next 30 years. This 45 second clip from Wall Street is chillingly revelatory:



In September 2010, Oliver Stone's sequel to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, is scheduled for release with an older but still unrepentant Gordon Gekko. After the 1980s, greed did not go away in America - it flourished.

AYN RAND, GOLDMAN SACHS & GOD:

Nowhere was Ayn Rand's influence felt more than on Wall Street. The selfishness and greed that Ayn Rand exalted found a natural home among Wall Street banks, especially Goldman Sachs where Senior Partner Gus Levy succinctly summed up Goldman's strategy as long term greed. It was a mission statement Ayn Rand could be proud of.

It is incorrect, however, to attribute Wall Street's greed solely to Ayn Rand. Greed and selfishness existed long before she posited the two vices as virtues, just as free markets existed long before capitalism was illegitimately birthed in a manger of paper money at the Bank of England in 1694.

Ayn Rand's writings are nonetheless responsible for giving greed and selfishness the sheen of respectability they previously lacked, especially among the bespoke jackals that serve our currencies back to us in the form of loans.

In defense of today's bankers, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein recently stated, We are doing God's work; and, so, they are, if capitalism's culling of the trusting, vulnerable and less fortunate is included in Blankfein's novel definition of God's calling.

[I] managed to sell a few [worthless] abacusbonds to widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport.. not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient. email, 6/13/2007, Fabrice Tourre, vice-president Goldman Sachs

If it is God for whom Blankfein toils - at enormous compensation, i.e. $68 million in 2007 - it is not the God of the New Testament where Christ Jesus admonishes us to be our brother's keeper. It is the Hindu God, Shiva, the destroyer and transformer for whom Blankfein puts in overtime; and in that capacity he has done yeoman's work for which he is to be congratulated.

Goldman Sachs, more than any other bank, under Blankfein's leadership has played a central role in destroying capitalism, i.e. economies based on bankers' debt-basedcapital, a parasitoidal system bankers designed to indebt productivity and commerce for profit until society collapses.

PAPER MONEY - GOLD = PAPER
SHIVA'S DANCE OF CAPITAL DESTRUCTION:

While Lloyd Blankfein's contribution to capitalism's demise should not be minimized, capitalism's current problems actually began in 1971 when gold, one of the four essential ingredients in the bankers' brew of debt-based money, was eliminated from the classic formula that had served bankers and governments so well for so long.



Capitalism's recipe insures government's infinite growth as government access to central bank credit is unlimited and bankers will profit from loaning paper money into perpetuity.

When gold was removed from paper money in 1971, this simple yet powerful recipe for capitalism's success was fundamentally altered and so, too, would be capitalism. It would only be a matter of time until capitalism sans gold would falter.

Lloyd Blankfein, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Alan Greenspan et. al., individually and collectively, would only hasten the process. Lord Shiva's dance of capital destruction was already underway; because without gold, the illusion of paper money as money is only an illusion. Without gold, paper currencies are only coupons with expiration dates written in invisible ink.

To call capitalism a monetary system is a misnomer. It's a financial shakedown, a scheme whereby bankers profit by inserting debt into every aspect of human activity. Eventually, everyone becomes indebted beyond their capacity to repay and the system collapses.

The bankers' indebting of others eventually will end in their own demise, with governments, businesses, and consumers drowning in debt and banks insolvent. Capitalism is an economic parasitoid, a parasitic system where parasite and host both expire.

A parasitoid is an organism that spends a significant portion of its life history attached to or within a single host organism, which it ultimately kills (and often consumes) in the process. Thus they are similar to typical parasites except in the certain fate of the host.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid

As with all life-forms, parasitoids will do everything to insure their survival while blind to the fact it is their actions that will destroy them. Until its self-inflicted end, capitalism will struggle to survive and expand - and a part of that struggle is the bankers' war on gold.

THE WAR ON GOLD:

The IMF.. explicitly states in its Articles of Agreement that member countries are prohibited from tying their currencies to gold.

Gold Wars, Ferdinand Lips, The Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, New York

In 2001, Ferdinand Lips published Gold Wars, his book that describes the bankers' ongoing war on gold. That Lips, a Swiss banker, would write such a book is to our benefit as the Swiss have a unique, historical, and deep respect for the monetary metal.

Curiously, Lips had earlier been an agent for the infamous Rothschild banking family. In 1968 he was co-founder and Managing Director of Rothschild Bank AG Zurich. As such, Lips had an insight into the world of gold that few had and some believe it would later cost him his life.

One story in Gold Wars is of particular interest as it involves John Exter, the extraordinary central banker (formerly vice-president in charge of international banking and gold and silver operations at the New York Federal Reserve), and Paul Volcker, later Fed chairman and erroneously believed by many to be a hero.

Exter's story shows Volcker in entirely different light, not as a hero but as the one responsible for the removal of gold from the monetary system. Volcker, according to Exter, played a central role in the decision to do so.

In Gold Wars (pp.76-77) John Exter tells Ferdinand Lips how the decision to demonetize gold was made: On August 10, 1971, a group of bankers, economists and monetary experts held an informal meeting... to discuss the monetary crisis. Around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a big car rolled up with Paul Volcker in it. He was then Under-secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs.

We discussed various possible solutions. As you would expect, I was for tight money - raising interest rates - but that was overwhelmingly rejected... As for raising the gold price, as I suggested, Volcker said it made sense, but he didn't think he could get it through Congress.

At one point, Volcker turned to me and asked what I would do. I told him that since he wouldn't raise interest rates and wouldn't raise the price of gold, he only had one option... he'd have to close the Gold Window... Five days later Nixon closed the Gold Window.

The final link between the dollar and gold was broken. The dollar became nothing more than a fiat currency and the Fed [and especially the banks] were then free to continue monetary expansion at will. The result... was a massive explosion of debt.

Paul Volcker, then, is the one who eliminated gold from capitalism's 300 year-old recipe for power and wealth. Karl Marx was right when he predicted that capitalism would destroy itself. We just didn't know it would be Paul Volcker who would pull the plug.

THE SLEDGEHAMMER THAT BROKE THE CAMEL'S BACK:

The explosion of debt allowed by Volcker's removal of gold in 1971 has now reached extraordinary levels. In 1971, US debt was $436 billion. Today, US government obligations exceed one hundred trillion dollars. Tethering the dollar to gold was the one constraint on US spending. Volcker eliminated that constraint thus enabling the US to indebt itself ad infinitum - and it did.

Debt, the inevitable effluvia of credit, is Shiva's final shiv in capitalism's back. But it is not the indebtedness of those the bankers indebted that are now causing capitalism's final paroxysms. It's the debts of the banker's themselves.

When US banking and financial interests repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, it reopened the doors to another depression, doors that had been sealed since the 1930s. Prior to its repeal in 1999, Congressman John Dingall (D-Mich) whose father helped write Glass-Steagall in 1933 warned:

What we are creating now is a group of institutions which are too big to fail... Taxpayers are going to be called upon to cure the failures we are creating tonight, and it is going to cost a lot of money, and it is coming.

Congressman Dingall's warnings were ignored by both republicans and democrats. The republican-sponsored bill to repeal Glass-Steagall was passed overwhelmingly in the House by both parties (362-57) and in the Senate (90-8) effectively enslaving America's future generations, gratis of a $300 million lobbying effort by banks and insurance companies.

The beauty of paper money is that it buys real power

Once again, both republicans and democrats sold out the nation's future and allowed banks to bet the savings of America, this time with obscene leverage of 40:1 and more. Not surprisingly when the banks bet the house and lost, the house collapsed.

Politicians can't be bought. They can only be leased.

When bankers couldn't cover their losses, governments came to their rescue and indemnified them with taxpayer money. But the trillions of dollars spent to rescue banks and restart capitalism's broken engine is not being levied on the banks. It's being levied on those who saved them. The current upsurge in sovereign debt is the cost of the bankers' crisis subsumed into national ledgers.

Recently, President Barack Obama went to Wall Street to ask for help in reforming the financial system. Asking Wall Street's help with financial reform is akin to Neville Chamberlain asking Hitler to assist in redrawing Europe's borders. The current effort is designed not to fix the system, but to continue it.

Avarice is never appeased. Greed is never satisfied and the fires that Ayn Rand inflamed will not subside until the house that fanned them and gave them shelter burns to the ground. The bankers have come too far to go back. There is only the road ahead - and it's a cliff.

SHIVA'S COMING MAKEOVER:

I end my articles with the words: buy gold, buy silver, have faith. Of the three, I believe faith to be the most important, the most valuable and the least understood. A strong and unwavering belief in an intellectual construct is not faith, though many believe it to be.

Faith is a knowing that we are one with our Source, despite all appearances to the contrary. Finding faith in a tautological matrix that creates its own reflection is not easy. Faith exists despite the world of appearances; despite maya; despite - and not because of - human ignorance.

In March 2007, I delivered my paper predicting a severe economic collapse to Marshall Thurber's Positive Deviant Network (the PDN) and the reaction was disbelief and anger except for the very few already invested in gold.

In 2008, one year later, after $6 trillion of worth had been stripped from global markets, the Positive Deviant Network was more predisposed to hear what I had to say. That February, I gave a talk to the PDN on what I believed to be the real reasons for the crisis. My talk, America at the Crossroads, can now be viewed on YouTube in four parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjKnATlxMY

At its birth, America embodied the highest hopes of mankind but is now a tragic caricature of those great ideals. As it enters the 21st century, America finds itself bankrupt morally as well as financially. Its ideals stood the test of time but America did not.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned America about the dangers of private bankers and standing, i.e. permanent, armies. Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned America about the dangers posed by the emerging military-industrial complex; and ten years ago, Congressman Dingall warned America about the danger of repealing Glass-Steagall.

America was warned and America didn't listen. Now, the price must be paid. Shiva's dance of destruction and transformation is underway. The destruction comes first, the transformation comes next - but only if America first changes its ways.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way
Democracy is coming... to the USA

--Leonard Cohen, 1984

Leonard Cohen's simply-stated truth - that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way - is the crucial prerequisite for America's transformation. During America's drive for self-aggrandizement, world dominion, corporate profits and billion-dollar bonuses, America lost its way - and lost touch with its heart in the process.

America is at a crossroads. It has already chosen. It'd best do so again.

What's the difference between a pendulum and a wrecking ball?
Sometimes nothing.

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith...

Ten Ways the American Economy Is Built on Fraud:

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

VIDEO - Fundamental & Technical Analysis of the S&P 500's Daily & Weekly Charts:

Here is the end of the week Technical Analysis of the S&P 500's daily and weekly charts, plus a look at the important Economic and Earnings Reports due out next week...

Happy Trading...
zigzagman

VIDEO - POZN Gets FDA Approval For Pain Drug Vimovo:

Friday was a great day for Pozen Inc.

The FDA gave full approval to their drug Vimovo. It can now be sold all across America...

$POZN Gets FDA Approval for Pozen Inc.'s Pain Drug - Vimovo !...

POZN - US FDA OK's AstraZeneca, Pozen Inc.'s Pain Drug:

Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:19pm EDT

* Agency clears drug for U.S. market

* Vimovo includes naproxen and Nexium ingredient

* Pozen shares up more than 21 percent after-hours

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) and Pozen Inc's (POZN.O) pain drug Vimovo, an agency spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday.

Vimovo is a fixed-dose combination of the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen and an immediate release version of esomeprazole, the active ingredient in AstraZeneca's acid reflux treatment Nexium.

Shares of Pozen were up more than 21 percent, or about $2.30, in after-hours trading on Friday, trading at $13.15, after earlier closing at $10.85. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London and Vidya Loganathan in Bangalore; editing by Carol Bishopric)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idCNN3015546220100430?rpc=44

POZN is currently halted...Per the Nasdaq.com website:

http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=TradeHalts

No time is given for resumption of trading...

There was a huge Bear Raid at 12:37 this afternoon, as the MM's took out all of the stop-loss limit orders people had in place:



POZN After-Hours Chart shows it closed at $13.15 when it was halted for "news pending":

$DNDN - Dendreon Gets FDA Approval For Provenge To Treat Prostate Cancer!:

FDA Approves a Cellular Immunotherapy for Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Provenge (sipuleucel-T), a new therapy for certain men with advanced prostate cancer that uses their own immune system to fight the disease.

Provenge is indicated for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body and is resistant to standard hormone treatment.

Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer among men in the United States, behind skin cancer, and usually occurs in older men. In 2009, an estimated 192,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed and about 27,000 men died from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.

“The availability of Provenge provides a new treatment option for men with advanced prostate cancer, who currently have limited effective therapies available,” said Karen Midthun, M.D., acting director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Provenge is an autologous cellular immunotherapy, designed to stimulate a patient’s own immune system to respond against the cancer. Each dose of Provenge is manufactured by obtaining a patient’s immune cells from the blood, using a machine in a process known as leukapheresis. To enhance their response against the cancer, the immune cells are then exposed to a protein that is found in most prostate cancers, linked to an immune stimulating substance. After this process, the patient’s own cells are returned to the patient to treat the prostate cancer. Provenge is administered intravenously in a three-dose schedule given at about two-week intervals.

The effectiveness of Provenge was studied in 512 patients with metastatic hormone treatment refractory prostate cancer in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial, which showed an increase in overall survival of 4.1 months. The median survival for patients receiving Provenge treatments was 25.8 months, as compared to 21.7 months for those who did not receive the treatment.

Almost all of the patients who received Provenge had some type of adverse reaction. Common adverse reactions reported included chills, fatigue, fever, back pain, nausea, joint ache and headache. The majority of adverse reactions were mild or moderate in severity. Serious adverse reactions, reported in approximately one quarter of the patients receiving Provenge, included some acute infusion reactions and stroke. Cerebrovascular events, including hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes, were observed in 3.5 percent of patients in the Provenge group compared with 2.6 percent of patients in the control group.

Provenge is manufactured by Seattle-based Dendreon Corp.

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm210174.htm

DNDN was halted at 12:34 pm ET, and remains halted at 2:10 pm...Just before the halt, it jumped up almost 15% and up over $7.00 in three minutes from $40. to $47.

$PWRM - The International Congress of Alzheimer's Disease Accepts Four Scientific Presentations by Power3:

Power3 Presents NuroPro® to ICAD for the 2nd Year in a Row:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-International-Congress-of-bw-3938801446.html?x=0&.v=1

Press Release Source: Power3 Medical Products, Inc. On Wednesday April 28, 2010, 1:06 pm EDT



HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Power3 Medical Products, Inc. (OTCBB: PWRM – News) announced that four abstracts were accepted for presentation to the annual meeting of the International Congress of Alzheimer’s Disease on July 12, 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The presentations will cover results from protein biomarker discovery, drug response, test development, and ongoing clinical validation trials of the NuroPro® AD biomarkers and blood test for Alzheimer’s disease. The four studies to be presented involve a total of 154 Alzheimer’s disease patients and 91 Parkinson’s disease patients, as well as 210 age-matched normal control individuals and 173 disease control individuals.

The NuroPro® AD biomarkers and blood test are intended to help clinicians distinguish patients with Alzheimer’s disease from “normal” individuals, i.e., patients with similar, non-Alzheimer’s neurological disorders. They are also intended to solve the critical challenge facing physicians, clinicians, patients and drug developers, who all need tests for early stage accurate and specific diagnosis of this debilitating disease, as well as more guidance for drug therapy, patient selection for drug clinical trials, and better tools to monitor drug treatment response.

The abstracts report the use of combined results from ongoing clinical validation trials of NuroPro® AD. The trials are being conducted by the Power3 scientific team, led by scientific advisory board member Lourdes R. Bosquez, MD and Chief Scientific Officer, Ira L. Goldknopf, Ph.D. in collaboration with Marwan Sabbagh, MD, director of the Banner Sun Health Research Institute. The team is also utilizing previous studies Power3 conducted with Stanley H. Appel, MD during his tenure as Chairman of Neurology at the Baylor College of Medicine and, currently, as Co-Director of the Methodist Neurological Research Institute. Dr. Appel continues to be chairman of the scientific advisory board of Power3.

“These 4 posters represent the culmination of 7 years of hard scientific effort which we have been blessed to pursue with our distinguished collaborators,” said Dr. Goldknopf. “There will be some surprises for our colleagues at ICAD that we are particularly excited about because they have the potential to guide us towards improvements in treatment for this awful illness.” Dr. Goldknopf will present two of the posters at ICAD, one on NuroPro® AD biomarkers for Alzheimer’s specific diagnosis and the other on NuroPro® AD diagnostic clinical validation trials. Dr. Sabbagh will present a third poster on prospective clinical validation of the use of protein biomarkers from newly drawn patient sera for diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and Dr. Bosquez will present a fourth poster on NuroPro® AD protein biomarkers and drug response.

“We are proud that Dr. Goldknopf will be joined this year by two members of our scientific advisory board, Dr. Sabbagh and Dr. Bosquez, in presenting to ICAD 2010,” said Helen R. Park, MS, Chief Executive Officer of Power3. “For us to present four posters at the same time at such a prestigious forum speaks to the depth of our science and our commitment to improving the outcomes for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. This work, in conjunction with the recent filing of our joint patent application with StemTroniX, bodes well for the upcoming acquisition of StemTroniX by Power3.”

Power3 Medical Products:

Power3 Medical Products, Inc. is a leader in bio-medical research and the commercialization of biomarkers, tests, and mechanisms of disease. Power3's patent-pending technologies are being used to develop screening and diagnostic tests for the early detection and prognosis of disease, and to identify protein biomarkers and drug targets, to fulfill critical unmet needs in areas including neurodegenerative disease (NuroPro®) and breast cancer (BC-SeraPro™). Power3 operates a state-of-the-art CLIA certified laboratory in The Woodlands (Houston), Texas and continues to evolve and enhance its IP portfolio, employing sensitive and specific combinations of biomarkers blood-based tests for ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's diseases, breast cancer, and drug resistance.

For more information, please visit: http://www.power3medical.com

StemTroniX:

StemTroniX, Inc. is a stem cell biotechnology holding and acquisition company that is committed to improving the lives of individuals by using autologous adult stem cell technology to repair tissue damage in patients. Autologous adult stem cell therapy is the process of using an individual's own stem cells for the purpose of repairing and regenerating damaged tissue. StemTroniX also provides a patented system to augment this process in a non-invasive method for in-body monitoring of the stem cells at the site of injury as they are being introduced into the patients.

For more information, please visit: http://www.stemtronix.com

The $SPX Daily Chart had a Major breakdown today...

Today's selloff of the overall market was pretty severe...Today's bad news was about Portugal and Greece getting their credit ratings slashed by Standard and Poors...Plus a GS executive is being grilled by a Senate subcommittee...He's denying all wrong doing...

The $SPX closed below the middle BBand today and took out the previous level of support it had two Fridays ago when the news the SEC was accusing GS of fraud...I see the $SPX heading to the lower BBand at 1168 now...Closing below the intraday low set on the 19th is a breakdown of a double-top chart pattern...

Today it closed below the 15MA for the first time in since mid-February...That's very Bearish IMO...The CCI dropped below zero today, and STO is dropping hard and may blast down thru 50 if we see two more down days in a row...The MACD looks Bearish...Volume was very high on the selloff today...

Tomorrow should be another down day according to the shape of today's candlestick...The $SPX closed only two points above the intraday low...The canldestick is very tall and solid red...Expect a smaller red candle tomorrow, a smaller one the next day, maybe a hammer or a doji the following day...

If this was a stock, that's how it would usually go...Since it is an Index, it's a bit harder to predict what it will do over the next few days because of the massive amount of news it gets every week...There's lots of Earnings and Economic Reports to come out this week...

Overall, this chart just turned very Bearish in only one day...See what bad news can do?...

US HOT STOCKS: Hertz, Thomas Weisel, Whirlpool, Goldman, Citi:

U.S. stocks were mixed Monday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 24 points to 11228, but the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.3 points to 1216 and the Nasdaq Composite Index declined 2.1 points to 2528. Among the companies whose shares are actively trading in the session are Hertz Global Holdings Inc. (HTZ), Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. (TWPG) and Whirlpool Corp. (WHR).

Car-rental company Hertz ($15.13, +$2.25, +17.43%) plans to acquire rival Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. (DTG, $42.32, +$3.47, +8.93%) for $1.27 billion in cash and stock, giving Hertz a larger foothold in the leisure-rental market when its core business-travel operation remains in the doldrums. Avis Budget Group Inc. (CAR, $16.62, +$1.95, +13.29%) also traded higher.

Stifel Financial Corp. (SF, $53.28, -$2.46, -4.41%) and Thomas Weisel ($7.18, +$2.82, +64.68%) agreed to merge. Each Thomas Weisel share will be exchanged for 0.1364 shares of Stifel stock in a deal valued at over $300 million.

Whirlpool's ($117.64, +$15.42, +15.09%) first-quarter earnings more than doubled, smashing analysts' estimates, as revenue surged and margins increased amid an improving global economy. The appliance maker also raised its 2010 earnings outlook.

Financial stocks slid Monday as proposed regulation from Senate Democrats about sweeping new rules for the derivatives market would likely hurt revenue at most big banks, though many investors think there is little chance of the measure passing in such a stringent form. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS, $152.52, -$4.88, -3.10%), Morgan Stanley (MS, $31.14, -$0.80, -2.50%), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM, $43.99, -$0.95, -2.11%) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC, $18.29, -$0.14, -0.76%) all fell.

The Treasury Department said Monday it would sell up to 1.5 billion Citigroup Inc. (C, $4.69, -$0.18, -3.60%) shares, the first round of a plan to divest its entire 7.7 billion share stake in the bank holding company.

Caterpillar Inc. (CAT, $72.21, +$3.43, +4.99%) swung to a sharply higher-than-expected profit in the first quarter following prior-year restructuring charges, though sales fell and taxes rose. The heavy machinery maker also raised its 2010 forecast. Other machinery stocks also rose, with Deere & Co. (DE, $62.95, +$1.16, +1.88%), Terex Corp. (TEX, $28.44, +$0.70, +2.53%), Joy Global Inc. (JOYG, $63.88, +$2.43, +3.95%), Manitowoc Co. (MTW, $16.28, +$0.65, +4.16%) and Bucyrus International Inc. (BUCY, $70.94, +$2.57, +3.76%) all gaining.

Switch & Data Facilities Co. (SDXC, $19.61, +$1.91, +10.79%) said federal regulators raised no antitrust concerns about Equinix Inc.'s (EQIX, $102.12, +$6.38, +6.66%) purchase of the company. The two data-center providers expect the deal to close next Friday.

Digirad Corp. (DRAD, $2.62, +$0.56, +27.18%), which makes medical-imaging products, said it got clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market and distribute its ergo large field-of-view, general-purpose portable imaging system.

Mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc.'s (PMI, $6.27, -$0.36, -5.43%) first-quarter loss widened and was worse than analysts expected. In addition, its main mortgage insurance unit may have fallen below a minimum capital threshold. As a result, the unit may be required to stop selling new business in some states, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday.

[b]Other Stocks In Focus:[/b]

Biotechnology company AspenBio Pharma Inc. (APPY, $4.27, +$0.53, +14.17%) shares hit their highest level since January 2009 amid chatter that a partnership or takeover is in the works. AspenBio has been gaining lately as data from a pivotal trial on its blood-based diagnostic test for appendicitis is expected this quarter. ThinkEquity didn't dismiss the chatter, but said a partnership/takeover is more likely after the company gets further down the regulatory pathway. Based on its recent naming of a CEO with sales and marketing experience, it looks like APPY wants to be the one to commercialize the test, ThinkEquity said.

While medical-products company Baxter International Inc.'s (BAX, $47.81, -$1.51, -3.07%) shares have fallen 16% since its 2010 guidance cut last Thursday, JPMorgan thinks they'll be "range-bound" around this level because of lasting uncertainty about the plasma market. The firm lowered Baxter's rating to neutral from overweight. JPMorgan said management lowered the bar enough for 2010, but that isn't the concern. "The underlying issue is the lack of visibility on 2011, an absence of catalysts, and the likelihood that we won't have visibility until December at the earliest or more likely 1Q next year," it said.

BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. (BPAX, $2.19, +$0.05, +2.34%) said it entered into a deal which carries an option for "a major pharmaceutical company" to get a non-exclusive license to use BioSante's antibody technology.

BlackRock Inc.'s (BLK, $193.50, -$17.52, -8.30%) first-quarter earnings quintupled as the money-management firm continues its integration of Barclays Global Investors, which it bought late last year. However, the results missed analysts' estimates as the company has run into some trouble with the deal.

Jefferies International lowered British Sky Broadcasting (BSY, $38.07, -$0.92, -2.36%) to hold from buy ahead of the company's fiscal third quarter results, due Thursday, saying it expects "uninspiring" results with net adds below last year. At 18 times calenderized 2010 per-share earnings, the stock is up with events and fully valued, the firm said, adding it thinks the stock is likely to be influenced by the court decision expected imminently relating to a stay of execution on channel wholesale regulation. News Corp. (NWS, $18.64, +$0.14, +0.76%) which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire, has a roughly 39% stake in BSkyB.

Pharmaceutical-research Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (CRL, $34.30, -$5.47, -13.75%) and Chinese drug-research contractor WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) (WX, $19.44, +$2.87, +17.32%) will merge in a $1.6 billion deal. Charles River also announced first-quarter earnings that slightly missed expectations, while revenue came in ahead of views.

CKE Restaurants Inc. (CKR, $12.37, -$0.48, -3.74%) said Saturday it has agreed to be sold to Apollo Management Group for $694 million, or $12.55 a share, after private-equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners declined to match Apollo's higher offer for the operator of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast-food chains. CKE shareholders will get $12.55 a share, but shares slipped Monday as it appeared there would be no bidding war.

Dendreon Corp. (DNDN, $41.99, +$1.89, +4.71%) gained after Brean Murray Carret raised its target price on the stock to $50 from $40. Analyst Jonathan Aschoff said the boost emphasizes his confidence Dendreon will get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Provenge, the drug company's prostate cancer candidate. Some of Brean Murray's peers are backing out of the stock at what Aschoff believes is "exactly the wrong time," he wrote.

Eagle Materials Inc.'s (EXP, $34.18, +$1.73, +5.33%) fiscal fourth-quarter profit declined 73% as sales fell and extended plant shutdowns increased operating costs. But results at the maker of concrete, cement and gypsum wallboard for buildings and infrastructure beat analysts' estimates.

BMO Capital Markets adjusted its ratings on several real-estate investment trusts ahead of first-quarter earnings reports. The firm said it believes "management teams are on the verge of becoming collectively more optimistic about the future, and we think this improvement in operating expectations could happen as soon as this coming earnings season." The firm boosted its ratings on Equity Residential (EQR, $45.26, +$0.66, +1.48%) and Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc. (MAA, $54.78, +$0.95, +1.76%) to outperform from market perform and Essex Property Trust Inc. (ESS, $105.98, +$1.99, +1.91%) to market perform from underperform, but it cut its ratings on Apartment Investment & Management Co. (AIV, $22.19, +$0.08, +0.36%) and Colonial Properties Trust (CL, $83.76, +$0.49, +0.59%) to underperform from market perform.

Oppenheimer downgraded regional bank First Midwest Bancorp (FMBI, $16.36, -$1.55, -8.63%) to perform from outperform, saying the stock was strong last week on much better-than-expected results. First Midwest also had an FDIC-assisted transaction last week in which it acquired the assets of a failed bank, and the firm said it is concerned investors might be disappointed with that news, as two other banks had multiple, larger deals.

Guess? Inc. (GES, $50.63, +$1.01, +2.04%) shares have more than doubled in the past year, but they may well rise another 25%, Barron's said. Sales could grow in the double digits this year, and profit margins are strikingly high. The apparel retailer is finding a new edge, updating its trademark jeans and peddling in-the-moment items like jeggings (jeans/leggings) for young women and embroidered, distressed t-shirts for men.

Credit Suisse turned indecisive, downgrading ITT Educational Services Inc. (ESI, $109.51, -$2.28, -2.04%) and DeVry Inc. (DV, $64.69, -$4.77, -6.87%) just two weeks after upgrading them as it says government draft policy on "gainful employment" regulation may not be so generous after all. Other for-profit education companies trading lower included Apollo Group Inc. (APOL, $62.59, -$0.94, -1.48%) and Corinthian Colleges Inc. (COCO, $17.27, -$0.62, -3.47%).

Lorillard Inc.'s (LO, $80.50, +$0.93, +1.17%) first-quarter profit jumped 26% as shipments at the tobacco company increased following prior-year disruptions.

Caris & Co. boosted its price target on Netflix Inc. (NFLX, $107.08, +$7.35, +7.37%) by 25% to $120, saying that the online video-rental company continues to post strong growth and has surpassed its price target for the fourth time this year. The firm said consensus expectations are moving up, but fiscal 2011 numbers still look too low.

Bernstein cut its rating on Nokia Corp. (NOK, $12.44, -$0.32, -2.51%) to market perform from outperform, saying the fate of the world's largest maker of mobile phones is now too dependent on the success of Symbian 3, the delayed revamp of its "smartphone" operating system. The broker also told clients that the first-quarter results showed that the improvement in gross margins witnessed since the second quarter of 2009 has been halted and said Nokia's guidance cut for the second quarter of 2010 shows that "this isn't a temporary weakness but a trend that will stop only with the next product portfolio refresh."

Shares of Office Depot Inc. (ODP, $9.01, +$0.56, +6.63%) traded sharply higher Monday after Credit Suisse upgraded its stock-investment rating on the office supplier, with the positive sentiment also boosting shares of OfficeMax Inc. (OMX, $17.48, +$0.85, +5.11%). Credit Suisse said in a note Monday that channel checks point to a modest but slow improvement in the first quarter at Office Depot. "This sector has not yet seen the pickup other retail sectors have shown," the firm said as it raised its rating on Office Depot to neutral from underperform.

Quaker Chemical Corp. (KWR, $35.53, +$2.26, +6.79%) continued on its bullish April, rising to a new all-time high after gaining by a third this month. Shares have nearly doubled over the past three months and the specialty chemicals maker will report its first-quarter results after the close Tuesday.

Global Hunter Securities cut its stock-investment rating on Perry Ellis International Inc. (PERY, $25.31, -$1.44, -5.38%) to neutral from buy based on valuation. The firm said that while it expects to see strong execution from operations due to gross margin expansion and cost controls, the apparel company's shares have exceeded its price target.

PrivateBancorp Inc. (PVTB, $15.04, -$2.03, -11.89%) swung to a first-quarter loss that was wider than analysts' estimates as provisions for loan losses quadrupled.

Private equity firm GTCR LLC said Monday it is acquiring security systems firm Protection One Inc. (PONE, $15.40, +$1.64, +11.92%) from a group including Quadrangle Group LLC and Monarch Capital Partners.

SPX Corp. (SPW, $69.97, +$3.07, +4.59%) was boosted to buy from neutral by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts who said the diversified industrial company should see improvements to its businesses, particularly its flow and test measurement segments, while the industrial and thermal markets remain muted.

Thoratec Corp. (THOR, $35.07, +$0.72, +2.10%) agreed to sell its International Technidyne division, which makes a wide range of equipment for hemostasis management and point-of-care testing, to manufacturing company Danaher Corp. (DHR, $84.80, -$0.61, -0.71%) for at least $110 million.

Titan International Inc.'s (TWI, $12.05, +$0.58, +5.06%) first-quarter profit fell by 70% but at 6 cents a share was still twice the Street's consensus as revenue also slightly topped views as well. The maker of wheels and tires used for off-highway machinery, such as tractors, which said agriculture demand should remain strong in the second quarter. It also said mining looks bright and added it was increasing prices.

Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO, $19.00, +$2.50, +15.17%) reported first-quarter results better than the one analyst covering the stock expected. The company, which is paid by travel companies to advertise their offers, said the number of subscribers to its newsletter in North America and Europe jumped 25% from the previous year.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut bank holding company Trustmark Corp. (TRMK, $26.06, -$0.77, -2.87%) to market perform from outperform on valuation, saying the shares have been strong since its exit from TARP in December, and there's limited upside left to its 12-month target price. "We continue to like TRMK's strong core profitability," the firm said.

Tuesday Morning Corp. (TUES, $7.56, -$1.03, -11.99%) shares fell after the home decoration close-out retailer posted third-quarter earnings just shy of expectations. The shortfall comes two weeks after the company raised its full-year earnings guidance to reflect a bump-up in sales on improved traffic.

-By Dow Jones Newswires; write to hotstocks@dowjones.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100426-711600.html?mod=WSJ_Banking_middleHeadlines

The Sickening Abuse Of Power At The Heart of Wall Street:

Written by Simon Johnson
April 24, 2010 at 3:02 pm

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/24/the-sickening-abuse-of-power-at-the-heart-of-wall-street/

Here’s where we stand with regard to democratic discourse on the future our financial system: leading bankers will not come out to debate the issues in the open (despite being approached by reputable intermediaries after our polite challenge was issued) – sending instead their “astro turf” proxies to spread KGB-type disinformation.

Even Larry Summers, who has shifted publicly onto the side the angels (surprising and rather late, but welcome anyway), cannot – for whatever reason – bring himself to recognize the dangers inherent in our unstable and too-big-to-manage banks. Or perhaps he is just generating excuses that will justify not bringing the Brown-Kaufman amendment to the floor of Senate?

So let’s take it up a notch.

I strongly recommend that the responsible congressional committees request and require all assistant secretaries at the US Treasury (and other relevant political appointees over whom they have jurisdiction) to appear before them early next week.

The question will be simple: Please share your calendar of meetings this weekend, and provide us with a complete accounting of people with whom you met and conversed formally and informally.

The finance ministers and central bank governors of the world are in Washington this weekend for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund. As is usual, the world’s megabanks are also in town in force, organizing big meetings and small dinners.

Through these meetings dutifully troop US treasury officials, providing in-depth and off-the-record briefings to investors.

Banks such as JP Morgan Chase and the other top tier financial players thus peddle influence, leverage their access, and generally show off. They accumulate information from a host of official contacts and discern which way policymakers – their “good friends” – are leaning.

And what is the megabank whisper mill working on? Ignore the “economic research” papers these banks put out; that is pure pantomime for clients-to-be-duped-later. I’m talking about what they are telling the market – communicated in specific, personal conversations this weekend.

They are telling people that, based on their inside knowledge, Greece and potentially other eurozone countries will default on their debt. Perhaps they are telling the truth and perhaps they are lying. Most likely they are – as always – talking their book.

But the question is not the substance of their whisper campaign this weekend, it is the flow of information. Have they received material non-public information from US government officials? Show me the calendar of the top 10 treasury people involved, and then we can talk about whom to summon from the private sector to testify – under oath – about what they were told or not told.

There is no question that the megabanks derive great power and enormous profit from their web of official contacts. We should reflect carefully on whether such private flows of information between governments and “too big to fail” banks are entirely suitable in today’s unstable financial world.

Large global banks make money, in part, through nontransparent manipulation of information – this is the heart of the SEC charges against Goldman Sachs. But the problem is much broader: the Wall Street-Washington corridor is alive and well on its way to another crisis that will empower, enrich, and embolden insiders (public and private) while impoverishing the rest of us.

The big players on Wall Street are powerful like never before – and they use this power to press for information and favors from sympathetic (or scared) government officials. The big banks also appear hell-bent on abusing that power. One consequence will be further destabilizing global financial markets – watch carefully what happens to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain at the beginning of next week.

It is time for Congress to step in with a full investigation of the exact flow of information and advice between our major megabanks and key treasury officials. Start by asking tough questions about exactly who exchanged what kind of specific, material, market-moving information with whom this weekend in Washington.

More News Relating To Goldman Sachs:

Here are a number of articles related to the SEC fraud charges against Goldman Sachs:

Goldman Loses German Bank's Business—Are Bonds Next?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/36694793

Along with SEC, other investigators and suits may target Goldman Sachs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042105394.html

AIG Considering Potential Claims Against Goldman Sachs:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575195010771947900.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

Meet The New Goldman Derivatives Business:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/meet-the-new-goldman-derivatives-business-2010-04-22

Michael Lewis: Must Read Today by Karl Denninger:

http://market-ticker.org/archives/2230-Michael-Lewis-Must-Read-Today.html

Goldman Suit Exposes Big Banks to Firestorm:

http://news.goldseek.com/RickAckerman/1271829600.php

By: Rick Ackerman
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Now we learn that the SEC split 3-2 over whether to go after Goldman Sachs in court. Supposedly, the regulatory agency prefers unanimous votes when bringing enforcement actions against the firms it regulates. Why the exception this time? The Wall Street Journal made it sound like it was simply partisan politics that carried the day – i.e., the SEC’s two Republicans voted against suing Goldman for civil fraud, but the three Democrats prevailed. That is superficially what happened, and it is as much of the story as the SEC is willing to divulge right now. But it’s bound to leave many observers, particularly Obama-ites in Congress who are out to pillory the bankers, with the impression that the two Republicans were merely looking out for their fat-cat buddies on Wall Street. This thought occurred to us as well, so we’d have to concede it is at least possible.

But might there have been another reason why the Republicans backed away from bringing formal charges against Goldman? We think there is and that it goes to the heart of the corruption in which the world’s largest banks have inextricably trapped themselves. For if you assert in a of court law that Goldman defrauded its customers, you have implicated every bank in the big leagues. Enabled by their respective central banks, they all – even the ones run by otherwise spotless Swiss Burghers -- play the same Ponzi game. Moreover, regardless of whether the charges brought against Goldman are civil or criminal, they will open the door to an endless flood of litigation with the potential to bring down the entire banking system. From this point forward, Goldman will be fair game for every aggrieved city, county, state, sovereign fund and class of investor they have done business with for the last decade. The same goes for Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank et al.

Lynch Mob:

So it’s just possible the Republicans put politics aside when they voted, in effect, to quietly sanction Goldman behind the scenes. It must also have occurred to them that it would ultimately be impossible to mask the overwhelming stench of Goldman’s actions. The firm, after all, did sell an investment to the public that had secretly been created by someone betting on the portfolio to fail. There is no way Goldman can talk its way out of this, although that hasn’t stopped CEO Lloyd Blankfein from trying. With Goldman reporting a spectacular $3.4 billion quarter yesterday, he might as well be trying to explain to a lynch mob that he has never, ever kicked his cat and that he always helps little old ladies cross the street.

Some see the charge of civil, as opposed to criminal, fraud as reflecting a compromise engineered by Mr. Obama to help expedite his takeover of the financial sector. “He stirs up the masses with yet another example of Wall Street greed and fraud,” wrote one contributor to the Rick’s Picks forum, “but offers nothing more than what amounts to a fine to his friends at Goldman. We all know how deep their pockets are. They are quietly happy that this is the extent of the fallout.” While this seems plausible, it doesn’t reckon with the fact that just one civil suit could conceivably put the world’s largest banks in mortal jeopardy for years to come. Indeed, if they should somehow dodge the bullet, it would be evidence that the corruption that permeates the banking system has engulfed our judicial and political systems as well.