Interesting Videoclips of the Week (July 26 – August 1)


Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting videoclips with brief comments. Our Web Software does not permit embedding of the clips into our articles. So we shall have to be content to include the links to the actual videoclips. We are very happy with the tremendous response from readers to this series of articles. We thank them sincerely and profusely. 

This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever.  No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerances. Only a professional will be able to accurately guide you as to knowing will silver go up or not.



This is unusually long article. But then this was an unusually exciting week with 3 major events and lots to talk about.


  • China – Launch of US-China Strategic Talks – First warning of stimulus cutback in China
  • Largest Weekly Issuance of US Treasuries – Dramatic Flattening of the Yield Curve
  • US Stock Market at a new high for 2009

China –

As far as we can recall, no equity rally has ever reached its peak without CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo getting giddy about the rally. We recall how giddy she became the day Dow Jones hit 14,000 in October 2007. Her exuberance about commodities and equities in 2007 prompted us to give her the nickname GLG2 Champion (Global Liquidity Global Growth).

This year Maria has been different. She has been skeptical of the equity rally and worried about fundamentals such as revenue growth. She brought us bearish interviews with Charles Biderman of TrimTabs and Bond Bull Peter Fisher of BlackRock.

Well! Maria Bartiromo turned unequivocally bullish this week. She convinced herself that China was the great story and she regained her fervor on commodities describing China’s demand as “insatiable”. To make up for her late arrival in the China Bulls camp, she began asking “why all of a sudden has China’s stimulus package taken effect?” and asking in her promos “How can we get in on the 87% move (in Chinese equity market)?”. She even began talking with her guests about how China is going to pull us out of recession. At that time, Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School, gently admonished her “don’t confuse a high rate of growth with a high base of growth”. But we all know Maria Bartiromo. She is not going to heed gentle admonitions when she gets going on a trend.

Why is this relevant? Because, in our experience, Maria Bartiromo is one of the best tells. After she raved about China on Monday, the Chinese Central Bank itself warned against over speculation in the Chinese equity market on Tuesday night. The Chinese equity market fell 5% on Wednesday. But that did not deter Maria for more than a day.

Frankly, from our empirical observations, our giddiness indicator for Maria Bartiromo is currently at about 70%. This  suggests that the Chinese rally has more to go. Remember the Chinese equity market is only up 87% this year. The Nasdaq 100 was up 100% in 1999. And in our opinion, the excesses in China are much greater than the excesses in Technology- Telecom in 1999. So we have to consider the possibility that a “meltup” might occur in China and Emerging Markets later this year.

We are not being rude to Ms. Bartiromo. In fact, it is a sign of eminence to be considered as an indicator. And she did bring us the best China interview of the week. Unlike Maria, her normally bullish colleague Larry Kudlow expressed his concern about China on two different occasions this week remarking that he was “hearing a lot of smart people worrying about a bubble in China because of excesses in lending by Chinese Banks”.
Larry Kudlow has both the intellectual heft and extensive contacts to really do justice to this all important topic. But he let us down badly. His guests on this topic were mediocre in terms of real knowledge about Chinese lending and were either interested parties or political. That is unfortunate. 

Whether China is potentially a bubble or not is, in our opinion, the single most important question before the investing world. That question is dependent on the condition of the Chinese banks. As Larry Kudlow said, a number of smart and knowledgeable people have done extensive work on this subject. One of them is Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. Jim Grant originally wrote about the loan losses at Chinese Banks back in 2006, as we recall, and they have recently done more work on the state of lending in China.

We urge CNBC Anchors to invite Jim Grant as well as other experts to delve deeper into the conditions of Chinese Banks and the frothy lending excesses in China. We saw what happened in 2008 when Banks in America damaged their balance sheets with bad loans. China’s exposure is greater. CNBC would be doing its journalistic duty by focusing on this topic. Perhaps, Joe Kernan and his Squawk Box colleagues could do a one-hour special on the condition of Chinese Banks.

We recall that Joe Kernan invited Jim Grant on June 10 to discuss his anti-Treasury views. As we wrote that week, being anti-Treasuries is a sure ticket to an invitation at CNBC. Will Joe Kernan invite Jim Grant to discuss the bad loans on Chinese Bank balance sheets? Or will that be a violation of CNBC’s “Love China, Hate US Treasuries” faith?
 

US Treasuries – Largest Weekly Auction in History

This week the US Treasury issued about $205 billion in new Treasury securities. CNBC and their expert guests told us for the past few months that long maturity Treasuries should be sold by all and even shorted because such huge supply would cause Treasury prices to plummet. CNBC spent the first three and half days of this week worried about these Treasury Auctions and the negative impact on the stock markets.

When CNBC worries a great deal about an issue, it proves to be a dud. The issuance was absorbed and by the end of the week, the Treasury market rallied strongly.

We remind viewers that, in our opinion, the excessively negative coverage by CNBC on June 10 ended up marking the bottom in Treasury Prices. How has the hated 30-year Treasury Bond performed since then? We all know that the US Stock market had a phenomenal rally in July. Guess what? The 30-year Treasury Bond has rallied more than the equity market. Specifically:


  • EDV, the long maturity Zero Coupon Treasury ETF ( best proxy for the Treasury zero coupon strip) is up from 89.4199 on June 10 to 98.92 on July 31 – a rally of 10.62%.
  • SPY, the S&P 500 ETF, is up from 94.40 on June 10 to 98. 64 on July 31 – a rally of 4.49%.
  • FXI, the Chinese Equity Market ETF is up from 39.17 on June 10 to 41.70 on July 31 – a rally of 6.46%.
In other words, the scorned, maligned and despised long maturity US Treasuries had a greater rally than the spectacular rally in the US Equity Market and even beat out the Chinese market, that ultimate repository of hopes and dreams.

We have to ask:


  • Is this spectacular 10.62% Treasury rally amazing? OR
  • Is it more amazing that no one at CNBC mentioned this performance of the Treasury Market. They kept celebrating an  equity rally of 4.49% since June 10, they kept marveling at the Chinese equity rally of 6.46% but they totally ignored the 10.62% rally in long maturity Treasuries. Maria Bartiromo, how do you feel now about leaving US Treasuries to fall in love with the Chinese stock market?
We ask:


  • Is this because they did not know about the Treasury rally? OR
  • Is this because they hate US Treasuries so much that they refused to acknowledge this amazing rally?
Which answer is more disturbing? We let our readers decide. In any case, perhaps readers might also wish to ask, as we did in August 2008, Are CNBC Anchors on a Mission against US Treasuries?

It is an article of faith at CNBC that Treasuries are only a safe-haven asset class and Treasuries only rally when investors are afraid of taking risk in the equity markets. Yet, during the past 45 days, Treasuries, Stocks and Commodities rallied simultaneously.

The last year this happened was in 2006.  The month of June 2006 marked a major bottom for US Treasuries. From that bottom, the 30-year US Treasury Bond rallied over 15% by November 2006, a nice gain in 5 months. The US Equity markets began rallying  in July 2006. Technology stocks rallied and so did commodities. There may be another reason to talk about 2006. What? Read the next section.


US equity Market – New Highs

The US equity market reached a new high on Thursday, July 30, 2009. Mohamed El-Erian of Pimco argued that this  move was a “sugar high” (see clip 1 below) while two veteran technicians made the case for a continuation of the rally (See clips 3 & 4 below).

Our humble, empirical observation is that the US equity market is behaving similarly to the 2006 US Equity market. In 2006, the rally was a series of sharp steps followed by choppy periods of consolidation until the next step up. That rally was marked by persistent low volume leading veteran market watchers like Art Cashin (CNBC’s favorite market observer) to doubt the rally. But, despite the comments of Mr. Cashin and his veteran peers, the equity market did not suffer a meaningful correction but kept going up in a low volume, choppy, low volatility manner.

It was only later that market analysts told us that factor-based quantitative strategies were the reason for the choppy, low volume persistent rally.  These Quantitative Managers were buying as they normally buy, with quant techniques that sit under the bids. 

We wonder whether such factor-based Quant Managers are at work again this year as they were in 2006. That would explain why veteran, manual trading watchers like Art Cashin have been proved wrong in the past couple of months.

We would love to know and we request CNBC to get experts who could shed light on this topic. Our first and fast choice would be Jim Bianco of Bianco Research or his colleague Howard Simmons. They have the ability to explain such factor-based models in a way that even we can understand.

This also reveals a critical gap in CNBC’s coverage. Every single equity reporter or anchor at CNBC is a traditional market watcher, taught over the years to observe manual trading, signals like Head-&- Shoulders etc. None of them have any idea of quantitative investing. This is just as true of Fast Money traders.

Let us be clear. We are not talking about High Frequency Trading or Flash Trading that is in the news today. We are talking about old-fashioned quant factor analysis and the trading algorithms used to implement factor-based strategies. Such strategies were used in 2006 and in 2007 in progressively large quantities. Almost all the Quant managers at that time used the same factors and strategies. This was fine as long as money was being put to work and no one wanted to get out.

That is until some funds tried to get out in August 2007 and then all the Quant Funds blew up. We all remember the carnage that followed.

In our opinion, CNBC Management should try to recruit or invite people who can cover such quant techniques and the large funds that use these techniques. Without such focused coverage, CNBC might end up misleading its viewers about what is going on in equity markets. This is not just true of CNBC but equally true of Fox Business and Bloomberg TV. Of course, as CNBC discovered earlier this year, Jon Stewart only targeted CNBC and not the other networks. They only shoot the big guys, the most visible people.

This week, we feature the following clips:


  1. Mohamed El-Erian on CNBC Squawk Box on Wednesday, July 29
  2. Jim Cramer on ‘1929 All Over Again” on Thursday, July 30
  3. Phil Roth of Miller Tabak on CNBC Squawk On The Street on Monday, July 27
  4. Jordan Kotick of Barclays Capital on CNBC Closing Bell on Wednesday, July 29
  5. Cramer vs. Najarian on US Treasuries
  6. Donald Straszheim on Closing Bell regarding China on Monday, July 27
  7. Jing Ulrich and Steven on Closing Bell regarding China on Friday, July 31
  8. Jim Cramer on China on Wednesday, June 29
  9. Rick Santelli as CNBC Fast Money Anchor on Tuesday, July 28
  10. Peter Schiff on CNBC Fast Money on Thursday, July 30

1. El-Erian; Rally Won’t Last – Mohamed El-Erian of Pimco with Joe Kernan on CNBC Squawk Box – Wednesday, July 29 – 8:40 am

Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of Pimco, was eloquent and thoughtful. This is a must watch clip. Below we include excerpts of Mr. El-Erian’s comments:



  • We can have muted growth.., we can have GDP in the 3% range, but that is not enough to stabilize the system that has grown accustomed to 5-6% nominal growth  so we will have growth, it will be timid, it will be what we call here at Pimco the New Normal where all sorts of relationships, national, international are going to be redefined…we are not gonna go back where we have come from…there is an assumption out there in the market place,… that this was a very nasty cyclical fall and we are gonna go back to where we have come from – that’s not gonna happen…(emphasis ours)
This is a critical statement. We agree with Mr. El-Erian. The consensus believes that the worst is over and the corollary is that we will get back to where we came from, may be slowly but surely. If that is not true, then investors are in for a rude awakening. May be that is why Mohamed says:

  • Our feeling is that the July part of the rally is a bit of a sugar high
In response to a question about the Newsweek cover story about the recession being over and the picture of a balloon:


  • Ask what is in the balloon, the helium in the balloon is public debt; we have replaced private  debt by public debt and we have pumped up the economy  floating higher on public debt – there is a limit to how much you can do that – at some point you need to hand off back to the private sector – so   far that balloon to stay up in the air  you really need the private sector to kick in ..and you need the public sector to start dealing with its debt issues and we are not seeing that yet…
Mohamed refers to the August 2009 commentary by his colleague Bill Gross titled Investment Potions. This is a very good article and should be read. Bill Gross concludes:


  • An investor should remember that a journey to 3% nominal GDP means default/haircuts for assets on the upper end of the risk spectrum, as well as extremely low yielding returns for government and government-guaranteed assets at the bottom end. 
Does this mean Bill Gross thinks Treasuries should be bought because their yields will go down to extremely low levels? 

Will Joe Kernan ask Bill Gross? Will Erin Burnett invite Bill Gross and ask him directly? We recall that Bill Gross used to appear weekly on Erin Burnett’s show when he was against buying Treasuries and Joe Kernan invited him on Squawk Box. Why do these two anchors avoid him now? Is it because Bill Gross is now bullish on Treasuries? Ours is an inquiring mind and it wants to know.

As a relevant aside, on July 20 a story crossed the Dow Jones newswires stating “Pimco wants to buy 5-, 10- Year Treasuries”.


2. 1929 All Over Again? Opening Clip of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money Show
– Thursday, July 30 – 6:00 pm.

Jim Cramer shows the eerie parallels between the 46% equity rally in 1929 and the current approx. 46% equity rally. He points out that the 1929 rally was followed by a 85% decline, a horrible thought. The clip is really worth watching and the charts scare you.

Then Jim Cramer points out that, this time, we have Ben Bernanke as our Fed Chairman and that Bernanke is the foremost expert on the Great Depression. So Jim argues that the 2009 rally would not end like the 1929 rally.

So we ask. Jim, would you change your mind if Ben Bernanke is not reappointed by President Obama?


3. Summer Rally; The Real Thing? Phil Roth with Erin Burnett – Monday July 27 – 10:06 am

Is this summer rally for real or are we in for some pain in the coming weeks? Phil Roth, of Miller Tabak; Brian Battle, of Performance TrustCapital Partners; and Addison Armstrong, of Tradition Energy, share their insight with Erin Burnett.

We shall focus on the technical views of Phil Roth on the equity rally:


  • We have had a huge rally from the lows in March starting with huge momentum..that suggests that the advance would be a medium term affair…
  • Now we have nearly duplicated that momentum with the last two weeks of rally. That buys you time in my opinion because big over bought conditions while suggesting a consolidation also suggest that the final high is ways off..peak momentum almost always leads to peak prices so the summer rally probably carries into August and may be September..
This tallies with the current 70% level of our own Maria-indicator discussed above, with apologies to Ms. Bartiromo, of course.

Watch the clip to hear the always sensible views of Addison Armstrong on Oil Prices.  



4. Beyond The Summer Squeeze – Jordan Kotick with Melissa Francis
– Wednesday, July 29 – 3:15 pm

We have featured clips of Jordan Kotick because he has been consistently right on his technical calls. In June, Jordan had argued that the equity markets would suffer a summer squeeze and he proved to be correct. Now he predicts that the US equity market will go higher in August in a choppy manner and outperform the European equity markets. He also predicts that the European Fixed Income markets will outperform the US Fixed Income market. Watch this clip.


5. Cramer vs. Najarian on US Treasuries

Jon Najarian is, in our opinion, among the finest of the CNBC Fast Money Traders. But, the Fast Money show has always been anti-Treasuries led by it’s media star, Karen Finerman. So we were astonished when Jon Najarian made a bullish comment on the Fast Money Halftime Report on Wednesday, July 29, minutes before the 5-year auction results were released. We quote Dr. Najarian (at minute 8:21 of the clip):


  • With the 4.5% yield we are at right now, for the 30 year, I think that bodes well; we are already dropping in yield; that is a positive going forward
Jon Najarian proved to be right as usual. The five year auction was not good but the 30-year Treasury Bond roared later in the week.  Booyah! Jon Najarian.

The Booyah call reminds us that Jim Cramer was negative on Treasuries on Monday July 27 during his Stop Trading segment with Erin Burnett.
We recall and remind readers that during the Stop Trading segment on June 10, Jim Cramer was even more dismissive of those buying US Treasuries. On that day, he heaped scorn on bond buyers saying “let them trade bonds, I am buying a building”. We know Cramer is a rich man. But does he have to flaunt it in our ordinary, simple face?

The performance of the 30 Year Treasury Bond (up more than 10% since June 10) shows that Jon Najarian is the American Booyah man and may be Jim Cramer should find a Chinese word for Booyah! (see clip 8)


6. Inside the U.S.- China Agenda – Donald Straszheim and Joseph Meuse with Maria Bartiromo – Monday, July 27 – 4:44 pm

This clip begins with a short introduction to the U.S.-China strategic talks by CNBC’s Hampton Pearson, followed by a discussion between Donald Straszheim of Straszheim Global Advisors and Joseph Meuse of Belmont Partners.



  • Meuse I was in China two weeks ago and I can tell you they are already past the issue of a global recession…95% of that country is humming with at least 9% gdp growth
  • BartiromoWow – that is much better than what any one thought
  • MeuseThey are back to where it was three years ago..we are still stuck in a recession right?….they have already figured out how to build their economy without exports..
  • Bartiromothey are holding the cards..
  • Meusethey are a superpower
  • Bartiromoright absolutely …Don, do you agree with all of that?
  • Straszheimwell to a certain extent Maria…It is true that China has an awful lot of leverage over us right now..but we have some leverage over China as well..
  • Bartiromowhat is it?
  • Straszheim as long as China continues to be such an important seller of product to us and us being an important buyer of product from them…they need the jobs..they need the employment to keep their economy running…as Joe just mentioned, their economy is growing very rapidly..I would caution that part of this growth that China is enjoying right now seems a little artificial to me.because it is an enormous push through the state owned banks to push lending to state owned enterprises and an enormous push through state owned enterprises to invest in capacity that I don’t really think either China or the world needs
  • Meuse the banking system in China was much more advanced than ours when this recession started – they had really tight lending controls – we didn’t – I think they had the flexibility to increase their lending and not have it cause major issues,.,, at the end of the day, they are growing at 9%..when the US consumer is at his worst and not buying Chinese products right?
There you have it. That is the crux of the debate on China.

In our opinion, Meuse is dead wrong when he says that the banking system in China was much safer than ours. We recall a detailed article in Grant’s Interest Rate Observer in 2006 that showed the extent of the bad loans on the books of Chinese Banks. Grant’s, if we recall correctly, quoted from the prospectus of the Chinese Bank IPOs to make their point.

This is why we again urge Joe Kernan and Squawk Box to invite Jim Grant to address the state of the Chinese Banking system. No point in asking Maria Bartiromo. In this clip, in our opinion, she is nearly 85% as giddy as she used to be in 2007. At that time, she never considered the fact that the global growth was being driven by of the global credit bubble. Recall that when the credit bubble collapsed, the growth collapsed.  

This is why Larry Kudlow kept saying that Chinese Banks may be in a lending bubble according to his smart sources. Maria should remember that economies tend to hum when there is a lending bubble in the banking system. She did not care about the American lending bubble in 2007 and she is demonstrating that she does not care about the current Chinese lending bubble.


7.
Shanghai Stock Bubble? Jing Ulrich of JP Morgan and Stephen Green of Standard Chartered -with Maria Bartiromo – Friday July 31 – 4:40 pm

This is a good clip with careful statements from all parties. We had featured a conversation with Jing Ulrich and the CNBC Power Lunch team (see clip 5 in our review of clips from July 12 to July 18). Ms. Ulrich was more circumspect in this clip stating that the Chinese market had raced ahead of fundamentals. Mr. Green argues that the current rally would continue for another 3 months or so because the Chinese authorities are unlikely to drain any liquidity until then. Watch this clip.


8. We are like Britain in 1946 and China is America – Jim Cramer on Mad Money – Wednesday, July 29 – 6:01 pm

This is really a segment about POT or the stock of Potash and why Cramer likes it.  Jim Cramer has said on his show that he is a believer in China. This excerpts from this clip will show you the strength of Cramer’s faith. The Taleban would be proud of Mr. Cramer zealotry. 


  • China is in charge. China is the prism through which you have to look at the entire stock market. The Chinese, they hold the market.This is the new world, the new world order where we used to be China and China is now us. Ten years ago, China used 10% of the world’s copper. Now it is exactly reverse now. we use 10% and they use 30%. When it comes to economic growth, we used to be the top dog. Now the dog is China and we are just its little tail that it can wag all it wants, all it wants.  We are like Britain in 1946 and China is America. 
Jim Cramer should insist that CNBC fly the Chinese flag at its headquarters in Englewood Cliffs. No wonder he hates US Treasuries. The 30-year Treasury Bond is the investor’s ultimate protection if China falters. But then, the truly faithful shun protection.

We are willing to concede that a large part of Jim Cramer’s rhetoric is showmanship for his show and that Jim Cramer is smart enough to get off the Chinese train before it crashes, if it ever does. But remember, the creatures who followed the Pied Piper of Hamlin did not survive even though the Pied Piper did.

Much of Jim Cramer’s rhetoric is valid. But, he is utterly and completely wrong when he says we are like Britain in 1946 and China is America. That shows a total ignorance of the inherent strengths of America and the glaring structural, economic and geostrategic weaknesses of China. But that would a topic for a much longer comment, one we would rather leave to Stratfor.


9. Rick Santelli as anchor of Fast Money on Tuesday, July 28 – 5:00 pm

We confess to being fans of Rick Santelli, the ex-trader and bond reporter at CNBC. We believe that Rick is the MTP (Most Trusted Player by the viewers) on the CNBC team. Just as we have been positive of Rick Santelli, we have been somewhat negative of Fast Money on a few occasions. So we were very interested in seeing how Rick Santelli would perform as the guest anchor of Fast Money.

With Rick in the anchor seat, Fast Money became the show we always hoped it would – a fast, intense show in which traders offer their best ideas and frank opinions.

It was immediately evident that the Fast Money traders had brought their A-Game to the show. They did not want to be shown up by Rick Santelli, both out of respect and out of sheer competition.
Having brought their A-game, they played their A-game as well. Every Fast Money trader was intense and assertive, including the usually gentle, almost diffident Karen Finerman. As a result, the content of the two shows anchored by Rick Santelli was superb.

In contrast, while the Fast Money Traders like the regular anchor Melissa Lee, we get the distinct feeling that they do not respect her expertise in trading or investing. They like her a lot and enjoy her presence on the show. But, it is evident to us that the Fast Money traders take the show lightly when Melissa Lee is in the anchor’s seat. They tend to throw their opinions at the proverbial wall without any fear of contradiction or rebuttal. They did not do so with Rick Santelli in the anchor’s chair because they knew that Rick Santelli could make them look foolish.

Of course, there is one factor that Rick Santelli cannot deliver. It is the gender part. Apart from breaking the visual monotony, Melissa Lee brings to Fast Money the subtle art of gender innuendo, which Michelle Caruso Cabrera took to a new level as the guest anchor on Monday, July 27. Michelle actually made a trader blush a bit on air.

So it is up to CNBC to decide what is important to them. As an avid viewer, we would like a trading or investing heavyweight to sit in the anchor’s chair. While Melissa Lee is a wonderful, bright and talented anchor, she is not an investment heavyweight. So our choice would be Rick Santelli.

Of course, Rick is not the only choice. Jim Cramer would also be great. No one at CNBC is better than Cramer in understanding the individual investor. But Cramer has his own show. Eric Bolling, one of the original Fast Money traders, would be a terrific anchor as well. But CNBC let him go to Fox Business. We think Michael Santoli of Barron’s could be a good choice. He is a journalistic heavyweight, he does a good job on TV and he knows enough about investing to make Fast Money traders bring their A-game to the show.

Again, we mean no disrespect to Melissa Lee, but we would love it if CNBC made Rick Santelli the anchor of Fast Money.


10. Peter Schiff on Bull Market or BS segment of Fast Money – Thursday, July 30 – 5:00 pm

Peter Schiff has been a regular guest on CNBC and other Business networks. As we understand his views, Mr. Schiff believes that the US Dollar is on its way down, seriously down and that US Treasury Bonds are a terrible investment. He believes that Foreign stock markets, especially Emerging Markets, are much better investments than the US Stock market. As a result, business networks often call him a perma-bear.

In 2008, the US Treasury Bonds had a phenomenal year with great returns and the US Dollar was strong as well. Further, the emerging markets performed miserably, both in absolute terms as well as when compared to the US Equity market. So the best investment strategy for 2008 was to own long US Treasury Bonds, US Dollar and the paired trade of being long US Stock market and short Emerging Markets.

In other words, in 2008, the predictions of Peter Schiff turned out to be completely and totally wrong. This conclusion, we think, is beyond debate.  So we were blown away when we heard Fast Money Trader, Guy Adami say to Peter Schiff:


  • There is no doubt you called everything that happened last year to a T …but you will admit yourself that you had a rough year last year and I don’t want to talk about that .
This was a deliberate factual misstatement.  As we have described above, there is no doubt that Peter Schiff called everything that happened last year totally wrong. That is why, Mr. Adami, Peter Schiff has a rough year in 2008.

Let us be clear. This is not about Peter Schiff. It is about why and how a Fast Money trader can deliberately make false statements on national TV to please a guest. We like Guy Adami and we do not ascribe any motives to his behavior. It is our empirical observation that Guy Adami tries to “suck up” to guests and the more well known the guest , the greater the level of flattery by Mr. Adami.

Mr. Adami needs to remember that trusting, unsuspecting individual investors watch Fast Money. Being good & decent people, they tend to believe what Mr. Adami and his colleagues say on air. So when Mr. Adami certifies Peter Schiff as being totally correct to a T, some viewers are likely to follow what Mr. Schiff recommends. Should Mr. Adami feel morally responsible for any losses they might sustain because of his misstatement or mis-certification of Peter Schiff? Yes, we argue. Does he? We don’t know.

This is our main problem with Fast Money traders. They act as if the show is by the Fast Money Traders and only for the Fast Money traders. We hope CNBC does not think so. We hope that CNBC feels that their Fast Money show is to help individual investors be better managers and better guardians of their own monies. In other words, we hope CNBC realizes that the individual viewers are the Brand for the Fast Money show. If they do, they should make sure that traders like Guy Adami ride for the brand and act in the best interests of us viewers.

Frankly, in our judgment, the misstatement by Mr. Adami can be considered as journalistic misconduct, if there is such a thing. Further, in our judgment, the other Fast Money traders, Karen Finerman and Joe Terranova, can be considered as accessories to we what think is misconduct. Why? Because they remained silent and let the viewers get the wrong impression. In this connection, we recall that Ron Insana as guest on another CNBC show corrected Peter Schiff when Mr. Schiff said his forecasts were proven correct. If Ron Insana can do so, why can’t the Fast Money traders?

Finally, these are the mistakes that can be prevented with a investing heavyweight like Rick Santelli in the anchor’s seat.



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