Merkozy’s Magic Medicine Moves Monday Markets

Well, no it’s not but Super Friends Angela Merkel and Nick Sarkozy has another one of their famous emergency weekend meetings and have proudly announced that, this time, they definitely plan to have a plan to "present a comprehensive package of measures against the crisis in euro-zone banking and government bonds by the end of this month."

"We are determined to do what is necessary to guarantee the recapitalization of our banks," Ms. Merkel said. "We will make proposals in a comprehensive package that will enable closer cooperation between euro-zone countries," she said, reiterating her view that it would be necessary to make changes to European Union treaties to allow greater European control over nations’ budget discipline.

As any parent knows, it’s important for Mom and Dad to present a united front when dealing with the children and this little get-together comes a week before the EU Summit in Brussels, where the plan is to get all 27 EU nations in-line ahead of the G20 summit in Cannes, France on Nov 3rd, when Merkozy believes all of the World Governments will then approve massive, coordinated Global action that will definitely fix everything just 7 days ahead of the US elections – what could possibly go wrong?

This fantastic news did not stop the Shanghai from falling 0.6% as they come back from vacation (skipping a very volatile week for the big holiday) and the Hang Seng fell 400 points at the open and finished the day dead flat on a 300-point stick save while the Nikkei gained a point and the BSE jumped 2%.  Europe is making modest gains going into lunch (8am EST) with the FTSE up 1%, CAC up 0.66% and the DAX up 0.33%.  US futures seem far more excited, up 1.25%.  

Overall it’s been a very quiet weekend with little to report (unless you are in Egypt, where riots are worsening and 19 died) as all the movers and shakers were at the First Annual PSW Conference in Las Vegas.  We had a great day yesterday playing poker until 3am and then starting our meeting a little later that morning (some people were surprisingly late) but, once coffee was poured, we got a lot accomplished, discussing the broad issues like Portfolio Allocation, Identifying Value Stocks, Scaling into Positions, Hedging Positions, Setting Stops and, most importantly, Long-Term Wealth-Building.

We also…