Yeah, I don’t usually make venting posts, but seriously, who the heck is relentlessly selling MDR at the open? Took it straight from the open above $54 down to $49!!! Someone’s dumping MDR like it has subprime exposure! Are they selling it because oil is down lately? HAL has much more oil & gas exposure and it’s not even down this ridiculously much. Or, are people just selling anything non-financials so they can jump into financials…AFTER this 50% move in the XLF?!?! Are so many people seriously trying to get into the financials or short cover the financials that they’d dump the actual good stocks…the stocks with earnings? Why would you sell the companies that are making money everyday for companies that are losing money everyday… Are the banks out of the woods after this earnings report? HEEEEECK no. Just for the moment people took the prices down to where THEY WILL BE at the end of the year as housing keeps getting whacked…just shouldn’t be there now. It’s like selling a beemer to buy a tricycle just because the tricycle pumped up its flat wheels. This is wrong, so wrong. The sharpest snapbacks occur in bear markets. Whoever’s jumping into financials here are gonna be pantsed like nobody’s business. If you think you have too much money, donate it to charity. Throwing it away on picking financials bottoms.

**Disclosure: I am long MDR and bought MDR Feb Calls as MDR dropped below $49**

The bounce by the financials from the depths of hell last week was definitely a sigh of relief. The “less abysmal” earnings from first Wells Fargo (WFC) [that stagecoach really can run!], JP Morgan (JPM), and US Bancorp (USB) told us the sweeping assumption that all banks are gonners was premature. Well, premature at least for now. Regardless of which side of the argument talking heads take on picking the bottom in financials, most (if not all) would agree that housing needs to bottom if the banks want to be out of the woods. When will housing bottom? Citigroup Chairman Win Bischoff offers his opinion in this Reuters report. Remember, however, Citigroup hasn’t exactly been on the right side of the trade on this whole housing crisis, as made evident by it’s shares dropping from the $50’s to being a teenager.

“LONDON (Reuters) - Citigroup chairman Win Bischoff has warned that house prices in Britain and the United States are likely to keep falling for another two years.

The chairman of one of the world’s most powerful banks told the BBC in an interview that he expects it will take two years for the markets to stabilise.

He also said he expected the credit crunch could continue through until 2009.

Bischoff told the BBC that there would be redundancies at the bank, which employs 12,000 people in Britain, and warned that some of them would be compulsory.

No further details were released of the interview which is due to be broadcast later on Saturday on the BBC News Channel (Reporting by Paul Majendie, Editing by Jon Boyle)”

Full Article: House prices could fall for two years

Suggested SuckingLess.com Research Resource:

• The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter: Tracking the Housing Finance Breakdown
• Annaly CEO Michael Farrell Financial Market Commentaries

PBR and RIO have been Brazil’s stars in this latest Brazil run, dominating positions in the iShares Brazil ETF ticker EWZ. PBR and RIO’s stories are well known, and I actually think RIO looks done for now given the continual weakness in nickel prices. Could financials be the next leg up for Brazil’s markets?

BLOOMBERG: REINSURERS RUSH TO BRAZIL AS PREMIUMS CLIMB 40%

“By Telma Marotto

July 11 (Bloomberg) — Swiss Reinsurance Co. and Munich Re, the world’s two largest reinsurance companies, are leading a rush to Brazil to capitalize on the biggest deregulation of a market since China opened up more than six years ago.

At least 13 companies have been authorized to operate since the government ended its 69-year monopoly in April, said Armando Vergilio dos Santos Junior, head of Brazil’s insurance regulator, who estimates the number will reach 40 by December. He expects reinsurance premiums to rise 40 percent to $3.5 billion this year and then double to $7 billion by 2011.”

Full Article: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGQItoNVF_As&refer=home

Jim Cramer has always said, its not “buy and hold” but “buy and homework.” Too many “investors” do not know what they own when they buy a stock, which is just reckless, but I don’t think its completely their fault. Most people don’t now how to do proper research, or have the background to understand how to do it. Even my friends who work at mutual funds often ask me where I get my info for the analysis I put on this site. This is why I started SuckingLess.com - an investor research and education magazine/community.

SuckingLess.com is a collection of the best industry and company websites to learn about the companies you own. When you own a stock, you’re, in a sense, an owner in the company. So, you should at least understand the basics of the business or industry, which means you should probably read what someone who works in that industry would read. Still, this ISN’T you’re actual job and making it so would be too time consuming, so I’ve also tried to filter SuckingLess.com to have only the most relevant and easiest to understand websites.

I want SuckingLess.com to be a COMMUNITY, a tool for ALL OF US. So, I invite everyone to come and participate on the site, SUBMIT your favorite research resource to help others learn the way I’m trying to get this started with my own favorite bookmarks. Please RATE the sites you’ve used before to help others know what’s most useful, and leave comments on how you’re using the sites or anything you’ve learned. Again, to help others. I’m sure you’ll learn something from the site, so give back a little and share your investing knowledge and experience with us!  Sometimes its not immediately obvious what you can learn from a website, so give people a little insight too if theres a special way you’ve found to tap into the markets with a certain website.

For example, I don’t have many resources on financials, healthcare, or retail/discretionary because, as readers of this site you know, I focus on industrials, tech, and energy sectors. So, help me learn a bit too!

Finally, PLEASE PLEASE send me feedback on how to make the site more useful to you. This is a tool for all of us, so lets make this what WE need to do the best research. And get your friends and trading buddies to help build SuckingLess.com too. Thanks and hope this is what we all need to become better investors, i.e. Suck Less!

P.S. 90% of mutual funds underperform the markets…so sucking is not something to be ashamed of. We just have to suck less as we learn more.