Contrarian Finance

Here's a nice little article from Jon Markman detailing 5 banks that are good bets for stashing your hard earned cash:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/5BanksSafeFro...

I don't personally use any of the five, I use USAA, whom I highly recommend. But most folks won't qualify to use USAA, so be sure to check out the article.

Well, as we so easily forget history in this country, we are now likely doomed to repeat it. Lehman Brothers is bankrupt, and by this time Wednesday, AIG probably will be as well. And how did this whole subprime mess come to be in the first place?

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You can really point to one main issue: how freaking STUPID our government is.

Well, it's not a recession (yet) and if you ask me, there may not be one at all. That doesn't mean we won't trudge along for a year or more while the housing market gets back on track, but slow is quite different from negative GDP. Suck on that, would-be-fearmongers aka Presidential Hopefuls.

Here's the latest on Bloomberg: U.S. Economy: Leading Economic Indicators Index Rose (Update3).

This book, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider has been out for quite some time, but given the current state of the economy and the Fed, if you haven't read this book, now is the time. At almost 800 pages there is a lot a material to digest, but the time you'll invest will pay significant dividends.

It's lacking some data I want to provide, but here is a basic view of what's in my portfolio.

I'd like to eventually provide the relative weights for these positions as well, but at least you've got the list of what I own as a starting point. I am long all these positions, as a rule I don't short stocks, or mess with futures.

This week's featured stock is another major Brazilian company. Vale (formerly Companhia Vale do Rio Doce or CVRD) is a diversified metals and mining company. They are well positioned to capitalize on the international growth of emerging markets like China and rising commodity prices.

The first release of GDP data for Q1 2008 shows the economy growing at an annual pace of 0.6%. Since we need two quarters of negative growth, we're not in a recession... yet.