Market Updates

North Korea attacked South Korea today, killing one soldier and injuring 14. I’m sure the trading floor is full of the frenzy of salesman/woman talking to his/her clients on phone about how the market sentiment would be low as a result of the political unstability in Korea, and it might be a good time to take a ride on Treasury or gold with the money the institutional investors have after dumping their euros yesterday.

Shanghai Composite, Shenzhen Composite, and Hand Seng seem to not care nearly as much about what is going on with the attacks happening on the peninsula. U.S market players usually say the Asia market players are not as sophisticated, which might just be a euphemism in saying that the Asian sales people are not as good at luring their clients into thinking the way they are thinking and the market is not as predictable. Well, at least the market did sink a little when the Chinese government requires LTV ratio to max out at 50% last week.

In my personal portfolio, outlooks are not completely optimistic given that my exposure in the financial industry is unhedged and Irish problem remains unsolved. But I dumped all my NYT shares today at $9.10 per share, after a 6% surge in gain with the unusual volume. Now, I have an outstanding limit order on UBS at $15.5 per share, just to lower my basis in exposure to financial services. And who knows if that wouldn't be a good thing?