I don't know about you, but this list from Business Insider indicates to me that things aren't quite as rosy as the market pundits would want us to believe. Call me a cynic, but I think they want us little investors to keep pumping our money in, while they rake off the creamy profits while our hard-earned cash pushes up prices. 

Then, when it truly becomes untenable, they'll already have their money out, while we take it in the shorts (no investing pun intended).

If your city is on the list, you have my sympathy. Though Chicago is not on the list, they bankrupted the future to pay for today.
In descending order, I give you the Ignominious Sixteen. And for you Detroit-bashers out there (that seems to be a sport), it is on the list, but not even top 5.

Without further ado:


16. San Diego, CA
Deficit through June 2012 : $73 million
Budget in FY2011:$2.85 billion
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#san-diego-calif-1#ixzz1oRiuqRt8

15. New York City, NY
Deficit through June 2012: $2 billion
Budget in FY2010: $63.1 billion
Annualized gap: 2.1%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#new-york-city-2#ixzz1oRiomgEe

14. San Jose, CA
Deficit through June 2012: $90 million
Budget in FY2010: $2.7 billion
Annualized gap: 2.2%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#san-jose-calif-3#ixzz1oRizvh6W

13. Cincinnati, OH
Deficit through December 2012: $60 million
Biennial budget FY2009/2010:$2.5 billion
Annualized gap: 2.4%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#cincinnati-ohio-4#ixzz1oRj49UpM

12. Honolulu, HI
Deficit through June 2012: $100 million
Budget in FY2011:$1.8 billion
Annualized gap: 3.7%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#honolulu-hawaii-5#ixzz1oRj9W01S

11. San Francisco, CA
Deficit through June 2012: $380 million
Budget in FY2011: $6.55 billion
Annualized gap: 3.9%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#san-francisco-calif-6#ixzz1oRjHgawZ

10. Los Angeles, CA
Deficit through June 2012: $438 million
Budget in FY2011: $6.7 billion
Annualized gap: 4.4%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#los-angeles-calif-7#ixzz1oRjLxjg4

9. Washington, D.C.
Deficit through September 2012: $688 million
Budget in FY2011: $8.89 billion
Annualized gap: 4.4%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#washington-dc-8#ixzz1oRjUsBru

8. Newark, NJ
Deficit through December 2011: $30.5 million
Budget in FY2010: $677 million
Annualized gap: 4.5%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#newark-nj-9#ixzz1oRjam1Es

7. Detroit, MI
Deficit through June 2011: $85 million
Budget in FY2011: $3.1 billion
Annualized gap: 5.5%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#detroit-mich-10#ixzz1oRjpzS2I

6. Reading, PA
Deficit through December 2011: $7.5 million
Budget in FY2010:$120 million
Annualized gap: 6.3%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#reading-penn-11#ixzz1oRjvHW4d

5. Joliett, IL
Deficit through December 2011: $21 million
Budget in FY2010: $274 million
Annualized gap: 7.7%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#joliet-ill-12#ixzz1oRk0ZxB7

4. Camden, NJ
Deficit through December 2011: $26.5 million
Budget in FY2010:$178 million
Annualized gap: 15%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#camden-nj-13#ixzz1oRk8yTSI

3. Hamtramck, MI
Deficit through June 2012: $4.7 million
Budget in FY2011: $18 million
Annualized gap: 17%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#hamtramck-mich-14#ixzz1oRkDi7yh

2. Central Falls, RI
Deficit through June 2012: $7 million
Budget in FY2011:$21 million
Annualized gap: 22%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#central-falls-ri-15#ixzz1oRkK6WuQ

1. Paterson, NJ
Deficit through December 2011: $54 million
Budget for FY2010:$225 million
Annualized gap: 24%
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-most-bankrupt-cities-2010-12#paterson-nj-16#ixzz1oRkSuY2P

It's tax season here in the U.S. The smell of W-2's, 1099's, Schedule D's and the ever-lovely delicate wafting scent of the 1040 is drifting through the air. Or is that a stench? 
I have started my annual income report to Uncle Sugar, and I am one of the fortunate ones that actually has money, income, and yes, even investments. As part of the process of reporting income gains and losses realized from investments, I need to itemize each transaction that I participated in, so Uncle Sugar can tax the gains as either short term or long term - when gains were made.
Most investment institutions have made this a reasonably painless process in that they allow for a download of your transaction data to a txf file - a generic tax format file that can then be easily imported into (I think) any tax software package. Most. Not all. Not the one institution that has the majority of my taxable investments. I'm looking at you, Raymond James.
JFC, man, after dealing with your lame-ass download page, I am very close to dumping you for a different company, despite a friend being my broker. On the download page, there are exactly three options:

• Download the last 45 days worth of transactions to Quicken - Um, no thanks.
  
• Download the last 45 days to Microsoft Money - Sorry, don't use it.
  
• Instructions on how to import the information directly from inside TurboTax - wait, import from inside? ONLY??

That's it. Essentially Raymond James has told their investors to either use TurboTax or suck it, and enter your data by hand. For good or ill I don't use TurboTax, along with millions of others. 
What's stupid about their decision to exclude a .txf download is that TurboTax will accommodate this file format along with the rest of the world. All they needed to do was make this file format available and ALL tax software packages would be accommodated. But instead, Raymond James went down the fractal boundary into specifics without ever doing the generic case first. 
Completely and utterly stupid.

So I bought some Biotime stock awhile back. It didn't do as well as I hoped, and to eliminate some of the potential loss I would incur if I sold, I first sold some call options to lower my overall cost basis. In the event of a static or dropping market, this strategy tends to work fairly well, as the stock doesn't reach the "in the money" point before expiration and the calls expire worthless to the purchaser. Cash for me. 
The problem with that strategy is if something momentous occurs, that skyrockets the underlying security. Like what happened over the last two days to BTX. A rather startling approximately 25% rise. 
I like the stock. I like the company. I like what they do. I wish I hadn't sold the calls. I can buy them back at a loss, and not get "called away." Though with the troubles endemic in the world markets, I can't be sure that doing so wouldn't be throwing good money after bad. 
Couple that one instance of my buying the RIM puts for a month too early, and my other options that are amazingly, and consistently red at this point; both calls and puts.
What's happened to my crystal ball? Need new batteries? Need a new crystal ball? Might as well just throw my money in the fireplace. If I had one.

Yesterday, I bought the December puts on Groupon (GRPN) at a strike price of .35. Today, I sold them for $1.15. Thanks Groupon for being such a dog! I know there are some that will chide me for not holding longer for a better price, because, let's face it, Groupon is a dog. 
I'm not greedy. And, since it will likely rebound in the short term, I'll buy them (or others) again when the rebound hits. 

This is the best explanation of the economic problems facing Europe. Worth every second of the 2:45 it takes to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzR3UAyXao

Not much time, need to go be a dad, but wow. Give a little money to a few irresponsible Greeks and the stock market goes wild. Irrationally, in my opinion. The problems still exist, the solution is to kick the can down the road for 8 more months. Nice solution. It did give the institutional shorts a chance to shore up their near-term positions — taking advantage of the investor who sees the run up all month and finally decides to jump in. Too bad for him, is my take.
Speaking of stupid, why on earth is AvalonBay Communities (AVB) up at all? It's currently trading at a staggering P/E of 101 on earnings of 1.32/share. The killer, though, is they are paying a quarterly dividend of .89/share. Think about that for a second... They are paying more out in dividends than they are earning. 
Makes no sense at all. Their earnings report and conference call on 11/1 should be interesting.

In early October, the stock market appear to hit a nadir and has been on a significant upswing for the month. I would call it a nice bear market rally, that will not hold. In that vein, I think the collapse (I think that is a fair assumption for a 35% overnight drop in valuation) of Netflix (NFLX) last night will be the first in a series of large downward steps for the overall market. 
The irrational exuberance of the market in October with the European financial situation acting as the sword of Damocles dangling overhead is just that: irrational. 
There are a couple things I would have done differently:
1. The NFLX puts I bought in April with an October 2011 expiration, I would have kept through the August swoon. Though I made 300% on them, hanging on through the debacle of splitting the streaming from disc delivery services, the instantiation and subsequent near-immediate "do-over" call of Quickster, would have netted me a lot more.
2. I would have waited a bit longer buying the puts for next spring, in order to get a better price. For the record, I am holding puts on QQQ for Nov 2011, GLD in March, CELG for April and WFM for May. 
Though I think a long drop is in store, I am long a number of speculative stocks (LDK, BTX, SNMX, SRZ), and am mostly in cash. Of the stocks I am holding, I sold the calls on one, and am waiting for additional drops to add to more of the others. Looking at their ticker symbols, I guess I like the ones with X and Z in them.
We'll see how I do.

Since the last post, my running has suffered greatly. A series of injuries and overuse issues has cut my weekly mileage from 35-40 to about 3. Yes, that's a single digit less than 5. Sigh.
The waiting for the healing is the hardest part, and the fact that I am no longer a strapping 20-something makes the waiting period even longer. Compounding that is my impatience and "trial" runs that only appear to set me back. As I write this, I can't even walk without pain. I'm 90% confident of my self-diagnosis of peroneal tendonitis. The nagging 10% left has almost convinced me to go see a doctor, to rule out tears in the tendon or ligaments in the area, since I did roll the damn thing a couple of times since the tendonitis set in 6 months ago.

Regarding the market: buy it. It may dip on a pre-election low, but it'll only go higher after that.