Realistically, a 5% tax rise should prompt a 5% spending cut, with the earning power lost to inflation adding more belt tightening. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. Workers have no money.

Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance. If profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism.

The US is better able to live with cheap oil than many OPEC countries and outsiders, above all Putin's Russia, which both Saudi and Yankee oilmen want to hurt.

Nomura analysts in Hong Kong shifted gears on ASEAN Asian markets this morning.

The Jewish new year got off to a rotten start, hit by the “bend it like Apple” risk of another bad launch. It was also hurt by some BASH: the arrest of Vladimir Yevtushenko who runs Bashneft and other firms in Russia and the rise of the BASH “shellshock” virus which hits Apple computers.

Somewhat less than three years ago, I wrote two articles on Behemoth stocks which I define as stocks with over $100 Billion of market cap. Today I want to revisit those stocks, and those that have joined them.