Natural Light, Markets and Mark to Market Shenanigans

Friday, April 3rd
Various Times

U can see past posts on my blog : www.alvinjamur.blogspot.com
U can see some of my pictures : www.alvinjamur.com

Okie, plug done. Its been a while so I will be very desultory
here.

- My brother Vivin pinged me an observation of yesterday's
market action right after the close. As u may know, the whole
modification of Mark To Market rules were passed yesterday. The
banks performed as follows :

NWSB +9%
ZION +9%
STI +7%
WFC +7%
PNC +6%
USB +5%
C +3%
BAC +3%
KEY +2%
ISBC +1%
JPM +1%
MS -2%
NTRS -5%

Turns out that the best performers were amongst the
unhealthiest banks while the worst were the banks that
(at least to public knowledge) are the strongest.
There's Capitalism 2.0 for you. We reward the worst
perfomers.

- As crazy as it may seem, the passing of the modification
of the Mark to Market rules is not coherent with the
Geithner Plan (Public Private Partnership)!! The Financial
Accounting Standards (Rule 157e) will allow banks to use
their own models to value their assets and will allow them
to push the assets onto their Level 3 boxes. The Geithner
"Public Partnership" plan calls for "price discovery" and
the FAS157e plan circumvents this in a way. Go Figure!

- The market has rallied a LOT since my last post. Yours
truly was not able to take advantage of the rally and
stepped aside and watched. I've spent some time re-tooling
my head to be open to all possibilities and not get into
being a tunnel visioned bear. Its a constant work in
progress!

- You should spend some time staring at the chart below.
Speaks volumes about the rallies we get in bear markets :

http://www.dshort.com/charts/mega-bear-comparisons.html?mega-bear-quartet

- About a week ago, i got word that the greatest living natural
light photographer in the world (Jay Maisel) wrote a little blurb
about me on Scott Kelby's site :

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/3814#more-3814

I took Jay's course about two years at the insistence of my good
friend, Seth Resnick (a Cannon Explorer of Light). Photography has
not been the same for me after taking Jay's course. I tend to delete
most of my pictures and don't even bother shooting if the light is
not good. Jay has been a great influence on me and is one of a
kind. You won't find many like him in this day and age.

- I'm away from April 12th-19th on a Tiger Shark Trip with my friend,
Jim Abernethy. So will write after I return and will send you some
pictures, too!!