I Owe How Much??!!

A bill for $23 quadrillion each was what a number of Visa customers were presented with thanks to a computer error. According to Freakonomics, this is greater than the sum total of wealth accumulated in history. There is hope however, in a few years time, $23 quad won’t actually be that much money if the Marc Fabers of the world are right. A month’s wages should cover it. Failing that, once the system gets back up and running, you should be able to borrow it from your local bank at a nice teaser rate.

Moving swiftly along, the market received a late day boost when the economist formerly known as Dr. Doom was momentarily rebranded as Dr. Boom. The recession will be over by the end of the year, it was proclaimed! Roubini rapidly responded with a wrong righting release. No change to forecast here, yes I believe it will be over by year end but I’ve always said it would last c24 months and we’re now 19 months in, was the basic message. You don’t have to be a prize winning economist to work out the rest. Here’s the link if you want to read the whole thing.

The beats continue to come thick and fast, IBM and Google overnight. No revenue beats mind you. And with Citi, GE and BAC later on today it will be interesting to see the market reaction, especially as C estimates have come down by about 50% in the last few weeks from -22 to -33, while GE have been flatlining and BAC have moved up sharply from 10c to 18c. There’s been a reasonable amount of airtime given to the idea that the reason forecasts are coming in ahead is simply because estimates have been taken down too far and the cost cutting has been moving along strongly. Today’s figures may give some more food for thought on that issue. As I write GE come in ahead…a mere 2c though, pfff, most companies wouldn’t cross the street for a 2c beat in this quarter. Oh, GE revs are light too…