Morning Journal-Must see video of Alan Simpson

Economics

This Week’s Data

April industrial production rose 1.1% versus expectations of up 0.6%; capacity utilization came in at 79.2 versus forecasts of 79.0.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/05/industrial-production-rebounds-in-april.html

With some perspective (short):
http://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-additional-perspective-on-europe.html

The minutes from the last Fed meeting were released but contained very little new information. The committee did dance the QEIII issue but there was no indication of a policy change anytime soon.

Weekly jobless claims were unchanged versus estimates of a 5,000 decline.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/05/weekly-initial-unemployment-claims-at_17.html



Other

Alan Simpson on the US fiscal debacle (6 minute video):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/one-half-simpson-bowles-goes-there-krugman-borders-hysteria

Another solution for JP Morgan (medium):
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299954/once-again-break-banks-arnold-kling

More data pointing to a slowdown in China (short):
http://pragcap.com/to-see-chinas-slowdown-in-real-time-just-watch-their-interest-rates

A survey of economists and their 2012 GDP projections (short):
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/WSJ-Economist-Survey-on-GDP-May-2012.php

Fed intervention and the Market (short/medium):
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Fed-Intervention-Update.php

Politics

Domestic

More crony capitalism (medium):
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/16/obamcare-cronyism-the-first-ladys-patient-dumping-privacy-meddling-scheme/

News on Stocks in Our Portfolios

HollyFrontier (HFC) announces a special dividend of $0.50/share and a 50% increase in its quarterly dividend to $0.15 from $0.10/share.

Steve Cook received his education in investments from Harvard, where he earned an MBA, New York University, where he did post graduate work in economics and financial analysis and the CFA Institute, where he earned the Chartered Financial Analysts designation in 1973. His 40 years of investment experience includes institutional portfolio management at Scudder, Stevens and Clark and Bear Stearns. Steve's goal at Strategic Stock Investments is to help other investors build wealth and benefit from the investing lessons he learned the hard way.