Só imigração fez subir mão de obra. Contributo foi dos maiores da UE

[lsilva4]

Não costumo ser grande adepto do Cramer, mas desta vez tenho de lhe fazer a vénia. Expressa uma visão muito clara e objectiva dos problemas e caminhos do panorama americano (e mundial).

[Ulisses Pereira]

"Here's What's Holding Us Back"

By Jim Cramer
RealMoney Columnist
6/7/2011 10:22 AM EDT

"You want to know the real problem in this market and with this bounce, which looks pretty darned good? It's that we don't know what we want! Think about it, here's the confusion in a multi-scenario nutshell:


1. Do we want lower oil prices? You know I do, because I fear a 2008 gasoline-price-pump-induced recession. There were a lot of other reasons why we slowed, but that's as proximate as you can get. But if prices go down, a substantial number of people will say that we have double-dipped, period. That will cause a radical lowering of estimates. Lower oil prices caused by more supply from the Saudis and OPEC and the final taking out of Gadhafi would be unmitigated positives. Margin requirement increases would be terrific, but we know the lobbyists for the exchanges and brokers are more powerful than common sense. We need $90 from supply, not demand.

2. Speaking of estimates, we are now in a no man's land where we want estimates lower by fiat, meaning that the analysts just come out and say the numbers are too high for the cyclicals so that when they report, they can bounce. In other words, as long as the big industrials say things are fine, they are doubted. If they wavered, we would have a quick capitulation and a tradable bottom. I don't think we have one yet.

3. U.S. debt downgrade. Is this a catastrophe, or does it cause Congress to wake up to the fact that real budget reform is needed, not just a debt ceiling and business as usual? Do we fear the International Monetary Fund enough here? I don't think so, or we would be using the long-term low interest rates to raise a trillion dollars and not have that rollover problem that Greece has that we know can happen here if we stay profligate.

4. Unemployment claims staying elevated. I think it is unequivocally bad that this is the case. But many will say that this will keep the Fed on hold, which is the best possible scenario for stocks. I wish it mattered less anyway.

5. Chinese slowdown? We are as concerned that the Chinese have a hard landing and a screeching end to growth as we are about them cooling inflation. Nothing is clear cut over there. We want a soft landing, but nobody will believe it when we start seeing it, or they will fret that we have stagflation.

6. Soft-goods rotation. We want an area we can make money in, but there is so little money coming in that we can't have more than one area working at a time. It is all zero-sum, so if H.J. Heinz (HNZ - commentary - Trade Now), for example, works, then 3M (MMM - commentary - Trade Now), United Technologies (UTX - commentary - Trade Now), Eaton (ETN - commentary - Trade Now), DuPont (DD - commentary - Trade Now) and that ilk fails us.

7. Oversold. We need to get oversold. We need to get extended to the downside to get back up, and we need a capitulation, but we have to be careful what we wish for, because it will lose us a few more percent that most are not ready for.

8. More stimulus. This is like the debt ceiling. We need more stimulus, clearly, but we can't afford it. So much better to cut back, say on ethanol subsidies and troop deployments, but politics prohibits anything real from happening.

9. The banks are hated, but they need to be more hated to bounce. The only way to get more hated is to go down more.

10. We need fewer bulls, but the way you lose bulls is to go down, not up, hence why I keep saying that the best way to get to where we have a bottom is to simply go lower and make all stocks cheap.
Obviously there are some good bits of news out there that are not up for debate and are just positive: the rebuilding of Japan, the workable -- for now -- debt plan in Greece, a very strong price of copper, the metal that matters, the OPEC raising of crude supplies (as opposed to demand destruction), but none of these can replace the notion that we don't know, really don't know, what we are wishing for. So we're beaten and knocked around and suckered in, always with the hopes that "this is it" and that we are back in rally mode.

We need to see some of these things resolved in a way that are clearly positive to all. It just has to happen over time. And, perhaps, price. "

(in www.realmoney.com)