4/23/10 Midday Report: Crash of the Titan as Greece requests bailout

The market is up today as sales of new homes were up 27% blowing past analyst guesses and rising by the most in five decades which is so long ago that baby boomers were still in grade school, man had yet to reach the moon, and full muff was still in style (like the very very NSFW 1561).  Sales were spurred by the government tax credit which runs out next week, milder weather, and improved construction techniques.  Additionally, orders for US manufactured durable goods were strong excluding the drop in commercial aircraft (no pun intended).  Taking out transportation (and if you are going to take out transportation, be sure to grease it up with plenty of oil at dinner if you want to make sure you get a proper ride later on), orders rose by the most since December 2007 when the sale of wrecking balls spiked during the "Make Detroit Beautiful" phase of the recession.  Driving up orders for durable goods was business spend on computers and electronics as companies are either gearing up for the recovery or trying to get enough computing memory to store all of the videos they have been downloading from spankwire.  And the SEC is back in the news today as Goldman is choosing to press their luck (no whammies, no whammies, and stop) rather than settle with them over fraud allegations and a report is out showing SEC regulators spent more time downloading porn than they did trying to actually, you know, regulate the fucking markets (though if they were doing it as a way to research whether Heather Vandeven was causing investors to drop their shorts and get longer, Money McBags totally understands).

Internationally, Greece is activating their bailout plan while Prime Minister George Papandreou called the economy a "sinking ship" and with the bailout he hopes to avoid the fate of the Dokos.  The bailout will give Greece 30B euros from Eurozone countries, another 15B from the IMF, and free two for one coupons at their local Red Lobster.  The Greek requested bailout is the biggest test for the Euro since it had to guess French Economic Minister Christine LaGarde's gender.  With the premium on Greek 2 year bonds approaching the premiums on both Pakistani bonds and Lindsay Lohan's life insurance, Greece needed to finally cry "theios" and get the aid promised them.  Of course getting the aid may be a lot harder than asking for it as German politicians are wavering on their desire to bailout Greece citing Greece's manipulation of economic statistics, the language in the EU treaty which forbids bailouts, and the potential for any funds to help energize Nia Vardalos's movie career (though we hear she is working on a new movie titled:  My Big Fat Greek Debt Spreading).

In stock news AMZN beat forecasts but like other tech companies, guidance was a bit lacking.  Revenue guidance for next Q was $6.1B to $6.7B and analysts guesses were more in the middle than lucky Pierre at  $6.4B so the Street is worried they could miss.  That said, AMZN earned $.66 per share which beat analyst guesses by $.05 thanks to a 46% increase in revenue as people still hate going outside to buy shit.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the iPad to make the Kindle obsolete and thus put further strain on AMZN stock.  Also, MSFT put up a nice Q as sales rose 6% and net income was up 35% thanks to Windows 7 and  businesses starting to spend again.  That said, the Street was hoping for better growth, especially after INTC's numbers, and as a result MSFT is trading down off of a pretty stellar quarter for them.  Money McBags hates everything about Microsoft from their clunky operating system which allows in more Trojan Horses than Troy and more viruses than Paris Hilton's vagina to that stupid fucking paper clip that pops up in word everytime one mis-hits one of those F keys, but the cycle should be good for them and they are relatively cheap at around 12x 2011 estimates.  So Money McBags bought a little in this dip and is going to try to get a quick 10% before puking it out like a KFC Double Down.

In small cap news, RICK had a big day yesterday on no news.  Two weeks ago they announced that March sales were up 11% with 3.5% same club sales growth and revenue for the Q up 21%. Of course it's not RICK's top line that we're worried about as they have proven to be literally and figuratively extremely top heavy, it is their bottom line that needs work.

Money McBags will be back next week with some interestng stock ideas.  Until then, enjoy the weekend and follow Money McBags on twitter.