The Market Ticker

I'm going to spend part of The Ticker today calling out one Richard Martin of "The Progressive Radio Network."

It appears that Mr. Martin is a fan of The Ticker. That's great. I love the fact that people like what I write, and think its worth reading. After all, if a blogger writes a digital forest's worth of trees and nobody reads it, does it make a sound?

But, Mr. Martin seemed to think that its ok to literally read entire Tickers on the air and fail to attribute their source, effectively claiming their content as his own original thought.

Specifically, on January 15th of this year Mr. Martin essentially read, word-for-word, my Ticker posting of the previous day - without attribution and without giving out the web site address.

That's not ok. In fact, it's radically "not ok."

That's called plagiarism and in a university setting it gets you a big fat "F" and potentially an honor-code dismissal with prejudice.

In the commercial world we call it "copyright infringement" and its a serious issue with potential exposure to statutory damages.

In both settings it frequently leads to public exposure - and that's exactly what Mr. Martin is getting right here and now.

Now with that said, I'm not terribly interested in suing, although I suppose I could.

But what I am interested in is those who pick up content from me attributing the source properly and, in the case of the Ticker, formally giving out the web address.

Why?

Because that is what you do if you borrow or "adopt" someone else's thoughts!

That is, if you're honest.

I pick up stuff all the time from other sources. I also provide cites and links. Why? Because that's the right thing to do, say much less the legal thing to do.

For hundreds of years students have attempted to cheat in this fashion when in school, and the only real defense against it was a wary eye in the head of their professor. Now we have automated systems that will take the submitted prose of a student and scan for potential theft of intellectual property without attribution, which makes it a whole lot harder to get away with it.

As the digital world expands and more people are exposed to more forms of media, the odds of "getting away with it" go down precipitously. This is a good thing, not a bad one.

Let this serve as a warning to those who would steal someone else's work without giving credit - its inappropriate, its wrong, and in this day and age someone is very likely to notice.

If you wish to cite Market Ticker in your own work, whether it be in print or in any other form of media, have at it. Market Ticker is put out explicitly for people to read and think about, and if you find its content to be of value to a degree that you actually adopt some of the ideas in it as "core holdings" in your thought process, I think that's great.

All I ask, now or in the future, is that you properly attribute where you got it, and tell people how to read the original content, in context.

This afternoon I received a phone call from Mr. Martin, who said it was an oversight, apologized profusely, has promised to apologize on-air and provide both the website address here as well as properly attribute things he takes from the site in the future. Assuming that holds and he is good for his word, I'm satisfied and consider the matter closed.

'Nuff said.

The ISM came in showing contraction but not horribly so.

Of more importance today is the stupidity of some of the rumor mongers in the marketplace. There was a regularly-scheduled meeting at The Federal Reserve among the Fed Governors related to the Discount Rate. This was not an emergency meeting, it was a regularly scheduled and noticed meeting published on their web page.

Yet last night and into this morning people literally were jumping up and down that we were going to get a "surprise" rate cut this morning, cutting off what had started as a big selloff on Friday.

Guys and dolls, give me a damn break, ok? First, it speaks to the extreme level of jittery "finger pushing" that is going on in the markets today when a regularly scheduled meeting gets spun into an "emergency rate action."

Second, will you folks please calm the hell down about the freaking Fed!

Simple question guys and dolls - Where was the S&P 500 when The Fed started cutting rates? Where is it today? How effective have those "rate cuts" been in driving the market higher? Yes, you got a nice short-term pop in October. Did it hold?

Any more questions?

Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) blew up this morning when it was disclosed that they have been getting margin calls they have not met over the last couple of months.

"Thornburg Mortgage Inc. lost more than half its market value after the company failed to meet $270 million of margin calls and a Citigroup Inc. analyst said the company may go bankrupt."

This one pisses me off severely because of the delay in notification to the marketplace; clearly, this isn't something that just came out of the blue. And oh, by the way, I have a passel of toilet paper PUTs that, had TMA disclosed these margin calls up front, might have been quite valuable.

Heh, it is what it is. "Early = wrong" in the market, like it or not, but that doesn't stop me from making a bit of noise about the fact that under the law you're supposed to file 8Ks when significant business events happen, not when you finally run out of rope and find a noose on the bitter end.

In truly breaking news Fannie and Freddie have apparently reached a deal with Cuomo on inflated property appraisals. This is the true news of the day, as it will end the pumped appraisal games that were so common during the bubble years. While this is no longer as much of a problem as it once was, and is a "bar the gate after the horses left" fix, the fact remains that going forward this is an important change in the market and will help housing prices correct to their proper values in a more rapid fashion.

Among other things this change bars "in-house" appraisals from being used for GSE-eligible loans. This is a big deal as this was one of the major fuels in the housing bubble - and one that has been complained about by truly independent appraisers going back to at least 2003.

The market had a muted reaction to this, with the exception of Fannie and Freddie, which got hammered. No, really? Gee, what's sitting in their portfolios now that wasn't compliant with these new rules? I wonder.... NOT!

Minyanville has an interesting article up noting that CountrySlide's 10K (which disclosed horrifying problems in their retained Option ARMs) may be putting BAC's acquisition in doubt. No kidding? Gee, when that "deal" was first announced I opined that I considered it a zero-cost CALL option on the company, was very unlikely to close, and in fact bought 50 "KaPUTts" on them on the premise both that the deal would blow up and so would they. I still own them as of this writing, so there you go for putting my money where my mouth is.

Oh, Paulson doesn't like my suggestion to treat mortgages (and whether you should keep paying on an underwater house) as a business decision. Awwwwwww..... too bad Hanky Panky. How about you go do your actual job and police some of those banks, you know, like your old pals over at Goldman? How about we get listings for all those "complex securities" and have them traded on public exchanges with published bids, asks and lasts, and a daily mark-to-market? Is it too much to ask that your buddies play by the same rules as the rest of us in the market where we have to live with known and stringent margin requirements? I think not, but boy, you sure look nervous bloviating about jingle mail.

Is that because you know what happens to your friend's balance sheets if this trend picks up a bit of steam?

Inquiring minds want to know.