Cara's Commentary & Community Chat, Mon., Jan. 12, 2009

There goes the hs top in gold,it's almost like they painted this one special for o.e. 780 is the po

Globe and Mail short postions shows a 12 million increase in Cameco from the last report. Wonder if it was the large volume day (13.5m) on Toronto 12/23?

The 20ema is ~$5.70
The 20sma is ~$5.85

Looks like normal consolidation after it's huge move above $6...

you are absolutely correct. I saw a trading range of 5.50-6.50 usd near term, so i wanted to try my luck to sit out the potential move down to 5.50. and maybe get back in there. we shall see if i made my 1st mistake of 2009.

Reason was i saw some weakness in gold, silver, and general markets overight and premarket, so i thought there would be some pressure. then i saw a bid for enough shares sitting at $6 pre market so i took my chance.

Started buying UCO Friday... small position to start that I will add on weakness and near support levels.

I have learned to never start with a full position or even half, especially in this market... it seems tight stops are easily taken out.

I usually transition in and out of positions with an max absolute dollar amount (not percentage) to manage the risk involved and cut losses - otherwise I become prone to watching my positions like I bet on a horse race... which ends poorly.

I have a core SLW position I trade around. I will begin to add at the 20ema and the 20sma

Physical sales on the London markets always produce a price change in the very short term like we're seeing this morning. Take a look at the list of the usual suspects. Diffidence in the gold price on the Tokyo market merely means that the Yen is still holding its own as a currency, the Yen gold chart is the worst, comparatively speaking.

You have to wonder at what point foreign exchange markets will be tapping into grossly undervalued currencies yielding many 100's of points more than either the Yen or the Dollar.

Still at least a week or more before expecting a rally in gold prices. With oil price declines you'll see physical selling on the London market, because the British cultural notion that gold is a barbarous relic won't be reversed any time soon. A change in sentiment as regards oil may occur soon, because its low is technically in place, but can continue lower for a time much like any other market until a denoument occurs.

I would say dependance on brokerages that deal in options/futures contracts outside the COMEX will lead the way in gold prices, though people will eventually have to turn to primary sources for physical delivery.

well said,

i suspect though that the usual forces are being blamed for the unexplained price movements in the POG.

talk of people accumulating gold bars and difficulty obtaining it havent really seen much higher gold prices as we sit at $830, w/ the USD moving higher again.

w/ crude oil tanking hard its difficult to envision a situation where gold would soar. it seems as though every time Obama talks of a rescue and aid plan the USD jumps higher. the opposite of what most people think should happen noting how many people state all these plans are inflationary.

the rest of the world is very unstable in more ways than one thus whatever made the USD jump higher and faster than most other assests continues to be at play. gold mining companies are still tied to the broader market and have not gained heavy on the lower oil prices which many suggested were holding them back.

markets look to be opening lower and we may see a retest of the SPY lows along w/ the commodity complex, as ive always said for the past few months this is a critical event for gold. if it crashes along w/ everything else we know things are still as bad as they say they are. if it can hold up while everything else is crashing then gold bugs will have the light at the end of the tunnell.

my money is on gold stocks falling hard w/ the market during any downturn and that no decoupling will take place just yet. for that to happen i sincerly believe we would need to see gold move well back above the $950 range in short order to cause a sling-shot rebound in prices.

good luck.

looks like my initial purchase last week is about to be taken out on the open, tight stop, looking to reload as the price is coming down nicely, talking heads on cnbc talking $30 oil, guess anything is possible but we will see.

ATVI - added to Top Picks list at Citigroup. $15 price target. Buy rating.

QCOM - estimates cut at Merrill/BofA to reflect tighter 3G chipset inventories. Company remains positioned well. Buy rating and $42 price target.

at 60% of allocation...

"I thought long and hard about Katrina..."

-Schmendrick.

tonight?

Is this ETF still universally reviled by the community? I don't think it will re-test the November lows ($3-handle). In the $4's it seems like a good buy and hold for a 3-6 month time frame. It's also paying a nice yield, although that's a fluid situation.

Thanks in advance for any input from the community.

I sold USO at opening. Thanks for the advice last night. I will rebuy oil later on.

I heard DRYS is paying dividends today, will that cause a nose dive later today or tomorrow??

2nd,

My take on AA earnings is just the same stuff everyone knows. It looked great on the charts a couple of weeks back, then they announced massive jobs/production cuts, tonight they are announcing what will most likely be disappointing earnings. It's already re-crossed the buy prices on all my AA picks, my rules stating that a profitable position, held for days, that re-crosses is a sell. Very disappoining.

Speaking of AMZN... Maybe this is a symptom of something else, maybe not.

An order I placed in November, intended for Xmas:

Order Date: Nov 19 2008
Order #: 702-33758xx-xxxxx
Items not yet shipped:
Delivery estimate: Dec 8 2008 - Dec 9 2008

No shipment, and I get no answer from them.

Haven't been following the interest rate regimes and the announcements of changes, just follow the forex sites for the current rates. Keep a watch, though a politically unacceptable and faulty "solution" to deflation will now be imposed around the world. Quantitative easing DOES NOT stop deflation, but imposes massive currency risk. The way they pay for it, is multiples in higher prices calling it "price control." This will also mean wage controls or restrictions as well.

Fancy making the same as the Chinese?

Was also hoping for better with this issue; still holding a small position (my time horizon is a little longer). Most guesses are flat to a loss, maybe -.20, but that would seem to be priced in. Resistance now seems to be at 12, with possible support at 9 or 10?

Why did they wait til Monday to sell it off though?

fwiw, my wife places orders often, and has had no problems...

Hi Chicken,

Yes, I broke even on the USO when I sold it this morning. I will rebuy it when it starts going back up.

(I held UCO just in case this is the oil bottom.

Everything is tanking (except palm), I am down 1000.00 right now for the day..

If one holds a stock at closing before the ex-div day but sells it after hours, do you still get the dividend?

I studied charts this weekend as well as sentiment indicators and come to conclusion that 1/5/09 was perhaps a short term top and we will retest the Nov 08 lows, a la early 2003. Anyone cares to poke some holes in this hypothesis? I'm looking into selling any long positions (except for underwater energy and very green TBT on 5% stop loss autopilot) and reloading short 3x ETF.

BTW, by pure luck, I sold a big chunk gold miners on friday. Today my DZZ got sold at 27.6 premarket for a minimal gain. As usually, I should have held to it a bit longer.

"If one holds a stock at closing before the ex-div day but sells it after hours, do you still get the dividend?"

Yes I believe so, but I haven't tested this.

Yes.

SU is Suncor, the oil sands company, which also has the Sunoco stations in Canada.

SUN is the American refiner Sunoco that markets thru its Sunoco stations in the U.S.

Two separate companies.

All of the main indices are flirting with their 50 DMAs this morning.

Perhaps there will be a large break either way at some point today ? Maybe it is time to buy a put and call on S&P or R2K?

china will go down along w/ teh rest of the world if economic problems persist.

i find it laughable that people still hold their decoupling theory on china and india somehow having enough development to carry them through relatively unscathed any weakness in north american markets.

the BSE in india has been hit particularily hard w/ one of their flagship companies having reported an enron-like scandal of fake profits.
theres no such thing as 1 cockroach.

i suspect china will suffer additional issues w/ any slowdown and increasing civil unrest taking place there now. i wouldnt touch their stock markets with a 10 foot pole.

i find it telling that many of the same people who entertained the decoupling theory failed to admit their error's from the 2008 crash and are still pushing these ideas of china and india being great place to invest amidst a massive american recession. its hogwash imho.

yuan appreciation and american slowing consumption represent a double knock-out for chineese manufacturing. japan or other large economies will not pick up for american slack, its just too huge.

unfortunately much of the belief in china is predicated on a somewhat racist notion that they are that much smarter than others and somehow immune to the bubble plauging the US, yet will readily ignore the reality that china is one of the larget holders of US debt. they more than most have vested their prosperity on american prosperity.

ECB rate announcement is supposed to be on thursday

They are now spiking upward:
http://www.markit.com/information/products/categor...

TED Spread is down nicely.

Interpretations? Anything not backed by the government is poorly. Commercial mortgage backed securities are not yet backed by the government. Anything else that is backed is doing well.

Sold 1K @ tiny profit. Spot oil has been a falling knife all morning!

Anyone planning to short US automakers between the auto show (now) and the bailout reevaluation (end of Q1 09 IIRC)?

Yap, I was planning to reload today at a better price, but may not be able to.

3 day downtrend. buy stop 2.77/2.80.

Max pain 7.50 for jan

do ur own homework.

The investing public wants vigilante justice even though most were not directly affected by the Madoff ponzi scheme. Seems Madoff's victims were mainly the well to do predators of the working people. So, why is the general investing populace so concerned with landing a hard left jab cheap shot at the back of Bernie's head, or even a boot to the ribs while he is down on the ground? Listen to all the news channels and people are feed shovels full of crap about how terrible a person Madoff is. Why? The wall street thieves are feeding the news wires to take the focus off their greedy Ponzi schemes. Where did the 350 billion in TARP dollars go......WALL STREET! These HB&B wall streeters have no conscious when it comes to fleecing the retirement accounts of the working people that are gated by laws that prevent them from managing their own retirement accounts instead of leaving it to the so called money managers that know little or nothing about actually managing retirement money.
If the working people were allowed, by law, to pull all the retirement accounts out of the money managers slimy paws, you would see the same Madoff ponzi scheme, except the term would be the wall streeters ponzi scheme.
I have no doubt, with out all the teacher pension accounts, fireman and policeman retirement accounts, state/county highway employee pension accounts, and the millions of other pension accounts that are controlled by laws that keep them completely in the hands of the greedy rich wall street scum, wall street would be the same as Bernie Madoff.
What happened to the rogue trader schemes? the fraud has become so enormous that it can only be described by a Ponzi scheme in the HB&B controlled USSA.
Has deferred compensation been a wise choice for the working poor, knowing that laws prevent their dollars from being managed by themselves, the real owners of the money, instead of the wall street ponzi scheme that hasn't been revealed yet?
Ponzi schemes are only Ponzi schemes if people opted out, that's what happened to Madoff, laws have prevented the wall street Ponzi scheme from ever happening.
If Bernie goes to jail today, it will be mission accomplished by the propaganda machine of HB&B rich and greedy. Wall Street will blame his Ponzi scheme, and keep theirs going full steam ahead until laws are reversed and working people are allowed to manage their own deferred compensation.

Jack Black, this is the 4th up day for TZA. I just don't have the courage to buy it here. But I am watching other things, like PMs: SLV & SLW, etc

If this judge does not pull Bernie's bail, there will be rioting pensioners and old grande dames breaking windows up and down Madison Ave.

He gets to stay in house arrest.

NO JUSTICE! PATHETIC -

Can someone please straighten me out on the mechanics of what they're talking about. How does money "come out" of the stock market? Doesn't money go in via IPOs and secondary offerings, and out via dividends and other returns of capital?

Please fix my brain on this... thanks

I just bought a bunch of $5 Feb Calls on APWR at $1.25. I also bought stock. I think this is a great long term winner and has a lot of short term momentum to it.

They have over $2/share in cash and are projected to earn $0.70/share this year and $1.20/share next year. The company is trading at a little over 5 times current year's earnings ex-cash and 3 times forward earnings. The GE joint venture puts the nail in the coffin for naysayers who doubted the legitimacy of this company. They will be bringing on a new CFO in the coming weeks, which only adds to the legitimacy.

Let's use tarp money to bail out the Madoff victims. As well as the victims of alien space-ray transmissions.

I understand that selling pressure moves the price down, but how does that result in a net outflow? I was an accounting major many years ago and I didn't learn much, but I did learn that there are always 2 entries for each transaction (in this case a buy and sell).

-Lifted TBT at 40.85, sold $41 calls at .78 (5 days to expiry)
-KBR at 15.90, get a lift here right now, SPY breaking above 1 hr ma's, will fade any rally with selling calls
-Bought and sold SDS 3 times
-I don't mind GE here and write the $16 Jan calls, and then write the Febs next Monday

Any one interested in selling Jan AA puts for .64 cents, if assigned cost of AA 9.36, if not assigned quick premiun reward.

Friday's news release:
Sequenom Inc. (SQNM), which makes genetic analysis products for research
application, has made a bid to acquire Exact Sciences Corp. (EXAS) for $1.50 a share, valuing the maker of stool-based DNA screening technologies at $41 million. Shares of Sequenom slipped 1% to $22.80 in late trading, and Exact Sciences was halted

I'm no accounting major, but here's how I see it:

seller#1 @ $35, if he bought @ $45 he takes $10 out of market, buys $35 USD
buyer #2 @ $35, sells $35 USD
seller#2 @ $25, takes another $10 out of market buys $25 USD " "
buyer #3 @ $25, sells $25 USD
seller#3 @ $15, takes another $10 " "
buyer #4 @ $15, sells $15 USD

Value isn't destroyed, it is transferred: Total $30 moves out of market to USD?

Looks for now like 8500 is support for the DOW.<---So much for that comment!

Spot slvr is down -0.52 presently, this looks like a good trade. I'll be watching and perhaps following with a trade.

This is in response to original comment 6296.

The major funds and asset managers are always moving around allocations.
So while you are correct about a buyer of stocks and a seller of stocks cancelling each other out, it is the fund managers that take the proceeds from the sale of stocks and RE-INVEST in bonds, thereby increasing their allocations to bonds. Many individual stock investors do not do this on a daily basis, most just buy and sell stocks. Their asset allocation differential is stocks and cash (or margin).

But the fund managers, who are often tracked and interviewed by Bloomberg et al, were flowing funds from stocks to bonds today (changing asset mix in portfolio).

Hence the headlines during the day about money flowing from stocks to bonds.

Out of all my UCO@12.05 at a slim profit and feel lucky to not have been cut by my knife juggling act today.

Brown-cal is right...

you sell your stock for $35 someone buys it for $35. You now have $35 of cash in your cash account, they have $35 of stock.
Before you owned $35 of stock and they had the Cash.
If you sell later at $25 for loss, you lost $10 of value. Still, $25 of sideline cash comes into play for your $25 of stock. Sideline cash is unchanged (never changes) but value of stock is not (value of stock always changes unless it is for the same transaction cost).

fear or greed will determine what value of transaciton the person who bought your stock will have. fear moves market by creating a supply of sellers or a demand of buyers.

Money only enters the stock market through IPOs and secondaries/conversions. Not by daily trades. granted the actual value of the market changes value.

symantics... money on sidelines is not a bullish indicator.

I got shellacked in SLW on small size, I would be careful.

I normally would be holding still and wondering if i should sell at 5.50. making the sale at 6, expecting a fall to 5.50 paid off. now just watching overall mkts, slv, gld, gg, and volumes for sign to re-enter or wait.

let's see if 5.50 is defended.

I did well with SLW last week. But this week I'm watching SLV and the oils. SLV is looking prettier by the minute. I'm almost ready to get hitched.

So then why does a major financial news organization like Bloomberg report it as money coming out of x and going into y. And not just say "stocks moving down and treasuries moving up".

It is one thing for them to make ridiculous attempts to identify the catalysts for each move. But reporting the moves as money flows is factually incorrect.

I think I just was, via my GG stop. Time will tell. Just heard Art Cashin talking about how traders think deflation is taking hold. This PMs vs Dollar thing is quite a battle.

at 40% of allocation....

bought 1k@10.518

Be careful kids, we are heading into earnings and it's hard to get a break when the numbers are likely to be very disappointing. They are already trying to soften the blow of what is to come in the financials. I think we may see opportunities to buy at November like prices.

worse than the overall indices reflect.

I hope anyone holding ERX from last Tuesday has plenty of valium.

thanks

bought TNA @ $28.35

I think it is instructive to read the following articles on John Hussman's site before continuing the debate on this topic:

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc081110.htm
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/rsi/badnewsbulls.htm

Here are some quotes from those articles:

“It will help to be careful about the analysis of valuations, because there are a lot of bad arguments being thrown around. Among the most misleading are calculations about potential risk and fair value based on current earnings, without normalizing them in some way. Some analysts are talking about how low earnings might go in a deep recession, and what P/E multiple might be applied to them at the trough, based on P/E multiples at other bear troughs. That sort of analysis strikes me as coarse and unhelpful, since the extent of the earnings contraction varies dramatically from one bear market to the next. There's no such object as a “P/E on trough earnings” – at least nothing well-behaved.”

“It's best to tune out any forecast for the performance of next year's stock market that is based on expectations for near-term earnings growth. There's almost no correlation between year-over-year earnings growth and stock market performance. But the habits of investors are hard to break, and the focus on quarterly earnings is unlikely to dim soon.”

The way I look at it is that stocks usually do not move when earnings come out as predicted. That is, if S&P 500 earnings DO come out at $42 in 2009, then this information by itself should not affect stocks. Why hasn't S&P 500 collapsed already, if the “official” prediction of its earnings for 2009 currently stands at $42, implying a current P/E ratio of about 20 (which is unusual for recessions)? Maybe that's because the investors feel that earnings in 2010 will be much higher than in 2009? There is currently a debate about the extent to which the monetary and fiscal stimulus will demonstrate itself in 2009. But most people agree that its impact in 2010 will be very noticeable. So investors are probably looking out beyond 2009 and hence are not selling down S&P 500.

A finishing quote from John Hussman: “Stock valuations should only be based on measures that are somehow representative of the long-term stream of cash flows that can be expected from that point onward. Trough earnings are not helpful in that regard.”

C reports Thursday, chances are it will be their turn to dive on their fake rubber sword. HB&B has a keen sense of when and who is going to release their billion dollar losses.
Chances are the Madoff petri dish was licked clean by those HB&B CEO's, and it will be a long time before positive change takes place, and greedy CEO's start turning themselves into the nearest maximum security prison.
Paulson needs to lead the pack!

Monsanto Gap Filling and on the 50 ema, long.

Thanks David, Great post!!!

http://tinyurl.com/9nultx

Good Luck NYU. I'm out a hea

Shark:

"Kaimu will one day trade his useless gold bullion for deep fried banana leaves and creamed poi and pineapple sandwiches."

HA!

Did I ever ever ever in any way say anything critical of you? In the unlikely event that is so, I take it all back a hundredfold.

I wrote about this in part last night and I agree to a certain extent because when the write offs end, which i think will happen some time in the first half of 2010, earnings will bounce pretty well for the banks. The only issue is banks will have to significantly raise their capital levels, thus diluting future earnings going forward.

Short term I'm worried about BAC. I am worried they will be the next bailout; remember, they bought out MER and CFC, both of whom would now be bankrupt.

I agree on BAC, stay far away. Let it implode or whatever it does. Not worth a trade, really. Too many other higher probability longs and shorts out there.

@NYUGrad

Buying at a support level is a very fine entry point strategy, good luck with it.

Eagleone.... thanks for the post. Very interesting!

TJ was right 207yrs ago.

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXznKV7rw7k&feature...

One womans take on the bailout, enjoy your evening.

I'm looking for a higher day to sell TNA (cost 28.8 today), reload TZA and DZZ, and short F and GM. IMHO, gold spot is in a topping mode, hopefully, short term only.

gone short gold today EOD

i dont like shorting gold but my convictions say that the downward pattern of gold has been fairly consistant the past 2 years, when we have these huge plunges down theres a period of consolidation followed by some sort of brief spike overnight then a hard fall the next session.

gold shares moved down hard along side gold.

nothing has changed since the fall of everything that wasnt a T-bill in 08.
imho, but again, i see absolutely nothing to suggest that there will be any sort of decoupling here in commodities or gold if the broad market falls.

yes gold may fall relatively less than the rest of the market, and im sure you could find a few blue chips stocks that fell relatively less than the S&P but that does not make them inherently better investments.

longer term yes to gold. of course.
short term no. a higher USD looks baked in at this point,
all the action is there to show whats happening.

for those still following the gold bugs advice about now being a great time to buy (now being when gold was $40 higher a few days ago) by all means, continue to peddle more stories of COMEX default, or rising demand for the metal or shortages of gold. none of it has done a thing to make the LONG side money because they have been proven to be total fallacy (or at the very least: plausable ideas way too early to be of any use)

a move back towards the mid 700's on any breach of the market lows is a conservative estimate. remember gold is still in its downtrend from its mid-08 highs. no break of the trend-line no dice.

nothing to suggest USD weakness at the moment either. the russian forex market is collapsing, the indian markets are hemmoraging and the EU is facing serious structural problems (spain's recent downgrade, the first of many EU member drubbings)

china is the only one... for now...

as always ill let you know when im back in.

There are 3 basic strategies for betting on stocks rising:
- selling at-the-money puts,
- buying shares,
- buying call options
which I have ordered from the most conservative to the most aggressive. John Hussman mentioned several times that one's exposure to the stock market should vary in proportion to the expected long-term returns. As prices fall, one's exposure should be increased. I sold at-the-money ERX puts on Friday (a conservative strategy), since I suspected that ERX might have a further downside. I bought some UYG, WGW and USO today, since expected returns from the current price levels have noticeably increased. If stock prices decline further, I will keep buying shares instead of selling puts, since the expected return from selling puts (most likely due to options expiring) will be smaller than the expected return from buying shares. When I run out of my cash (I'll try to make it last until S&P 500 hits November 20 lows), I'll wait for a few days and will start buying call options on margin, which is the most risky strategy but the one that is most appropriate to a local bottom in stock prices.

Just sharing some thoughts...

QT- I've always thought that most of us, without the 20th/21st century distractions of [telephones, radios, televisions, computers, automobiles, cramped quarters, dense neighborhoods, commutes, compressed educations/schedules/careers, unending worries, and noise in general], would be able to take a thought or an idea, reflect on all of its ramifications, sketch them out on paper, write/rewrite our way to a complete grasp, and follow it through to some kind of gratifying end/ending...I don't know about you, but I just don't have the time...Jefferson, sitting in his study or strolling the grounds of Monticello, had that kind of time...

vinod- you were right again, both on market direction and the decision to stay (mostly) sidelined...i should start trading AFTER you make your calls in the morning...(not saying i'm upset about my recent performance...i've gone through many periods similar to the last 3 months, not just as a trader but in every aspect of life; just the way things are)...

2nd - "Jefferson, sitting in his study or strolling the grounds of Monticello, had that kind of time..."

Jefferson was an incredible man who accomplished amazing feats numerous times. He was a very deep thinker and perhaps didn't have all the meaningless distractions we face, but I can't agree he simply sat in his study or strolled the grounds of Monticello... he was master of many, truly a unique man. ;)

As members of this blog probably know, Mark Faber (Mr GloomBoomDoom) has already declared that WWIII has begun in Afghanistan. Forget Iraq, he says, which is rather unimportant in geopolitical terms, whatever its reserves of oil.

But Afghanistan has borders on both China and Russia, as well as Pakistan - nuclear powers all - none of which relish the idea of the longtime presence of US troops in that woebegotten country.

I find this idea interesting to contemplate ... in Jeffersonian terms.

BAC really got a major spanking today, Citibank is in doubt of their dividend and thinks they're going to be forced to raise capital.

This all seems like a terribly bad dream, a nightmare. Just think of how much money the market has sucked out of all the 401K retirement accounts... All because of the greed and ineptness of a bi-partisan Congress who were too interested in themselves and their own well-being to make and implement sound and common sense fiscal judgment!!!

Truly disgusting!

2nd - I realize you weren't taking away from TJ, at least not on purpose... I'm pretty sure he could have blown both you and I away with both hands tied behind his back... on any subject of his day. I'm contemplating what he could've accomplished with all of our modern "distractions" at his disposal.... I have to assume he'd still blow us away....

2nd
You know that I do not have much experience I market. After taking heavy beating for buying in sept 2008
And from being up 70% to down 15% I now became little more careful. I know how worried I was when I was 100% in market and market going down each day.
But, unless I take the risk I am not going to make money in market. So, I am going with my hunch and feeling about market based on reading of general news about market. Following all post at this site will give me better return than following market guru’s article at major web site like MSNmoney/Bloomberg/cnbc etc
I do feel that we may test low of November and will go lower in oil and metal. There is no demand right now
Craig todays post says it all

Thanks for the headsup on your comments on BAC this weekend. Your comment caused me to sell my shares in the pre-market before going to work. I broke even on the sale but now I can see myself buying much lower soon. I assume after the quarterly report. I sold at 12.95.

Well Dr. Cosa,
If we believe in cycles, Ecclesiastes, Yin/Yang, it was not all that long ago that China was the largest economy in the world. As a rule, they focus extensively on education. I believe their ethnic grouping makes up the largest sub-population in the technical disciplines. That is, those disciplines that actually produce something. It is true they hold a large amount of US debt and therefore, some of their wealth is ephemeral at best. However, they do appear to be waxing while the US is waning. Perhaps there won't be a radical shift, but there seems to be no doubt the progression is towards a changing of the guard.

If we were to draw a 30yr trend line on the S&P, it looks like it would intersect the 750 level, which is where we were back in Oct.

greg - BAC - I was just thinking out loud, but I'm glad you're happy about your decision. I didn't sell by the way but probably should have... the position was initial, so if it bottoms and BAC doesn't cut their divy I might add to it...

Or, better yet I should've taken profits a few sessions ago. We never bat 1000 on this field!

I retired at 55yo 3 years ago and have spent a lot of time studying the technicals and have not felt comfortable with it until lately. I am a very simple guy, no puts/calls...just wanting a way to get in and get out, make some money with minimum exposure.

I have settled on a simple, but so far effective strategy using MACDh and RSI, adjusting values to fit my comfort level. I have had about 95% positive trade results so far and avoided many false trade traps.

My latest was DXD (500 shares) bought last Monday at $50.74 and sold today at $56.37...after commission made about $2,800 or 11%. This trade is typical and I track 23 various ETF's. Did similar with XLE last week of December.

I am no expert on technicals, but this little bit of it works for me.

MK

Mrking, nice trade. I was wondering how you were able to find it?
stockcharts doesn't provide hourly scans or do you some other type of program?

http://tinyurl.com/8z6kg4

A look at TD Range Projections (tm)

Congrats on your system. I also started swing trades in ETFs several weeks ago after realizing that buy and hold is dead now. I was lucky to have mostly wining trades too, but sometimes after willing to seat on underwater positions when my entries were early (quite typical of my trades). Another difficulty is an exit strategy as I tend to leave a lot of money on the table exiting early. Any advice on exit strategy?

Here's what John Hussman has to say about durations:

http://tinyurl.com/8px92s

"Bank of America is scheduled to announce its earnings — or losses — hours before President-elect Barrack Obama takes office Jan. 20.

J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is scheduled to release earnings the following day before the market opens. Citigroup (NYSE: C) reportedly expecting an operating loss of at least $10 billion, will announce earnings on Jan. 22.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) reports on Jan. 28."

http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/200...

"Obama to Limit Dividends From Banks Getting ‘Exceptional’ Aid
“Those receiving exceptional assistance will be subject to tough but sensible conditions that limit executive compensation until taxpayer money is paid back, ban dividend payments beyond de minimis amounts, and put limits on stock buybacks and the acquisition of already financially strong companies,” he wrote.

Obama wants more of the money funneled to community banks and small businesses, as well as steps to loosen credit for individuals and help for homeowners facing foreclosure, said Summers, picked by Obama to head the White House National Economic Council. He also wants greater oversight of the aid program and a public accounting of how the money is spent. "

Full Story:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&si...

Aside: Will the girls' new pet be a Labradoodle or a Portugese water dog?