All about money: September 2007

Sunday, September 30, 2007

How Traders Make 28% Returns In A Day

Friday’s stock market had a distinct sense of deja vu about it. Even though it was down overal, I was reminded of the crazy dotcom days in late 1999 when any tech stock could rally 25-50% in a single day!One of my friend’s subscribes to a stock newsletter. Periodically he gets an email alert informing him when a stock is about to make a significant jump. He often sends them to me and I usually look at them and then ignore them. Yesterday he sent me an email about a China Clean Energy Inc (CCGY.OB). By the time I got the[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Mitt Romney In Salt Lake City

I previously announced my support for Mitt Romney as President of the United States. I think he is the most qualified administrator that has ever run for this office. His business and investing experience shows that he knows how to fix things that are broken. Imagine a venture capitalist running the U.S. government, recruiting the right people to major posts, shutting down services that have failed, and using market forces and the Bain way (which includes vigorous debate among various points of view) [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Real Estate Broker Sued For ?cybersquatting?, Has The Last Laugh

In June 2006, Florida real estate broker Michael Morgan unveiled a Web site targeting alleged costly construction mistakes by Lennar Homes. In it, Morgan alluded to allegations of ’shoddy workmanship, slipshod carpentry and faulty wiring’ and invited consumers to submit their complaints. Morgan bought PPC ads and whenever someone was searching for Lennar Homes, they would get directed to his site inst[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What A Surprise

As expected, bankrupt "alternative business model" real estate firm Foxtons blames the poor economy for their failure rather than lack of planning, incompetent management or faulty business model.A Darling of Discount Real Estate Rides Into the SunsetFoxtons: Ex-Cons and Strippers turned Listing AgentsRead More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Friday Humor

I get lots of jokes sent to me, but I rarely even acknowledge them. The other day I saw one that actually made me laugh out loud.I should warn you, it’s crude and vulgar. Some might even find it offensive. But I still couldn’t help from laughing. Let me know what you think-- [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Follow The Leaders

Follow The Leaders Now that the odds strongly favor a new up-leg underway, investors should be carefully monitoring the new highs list and most active list for high volume breakouts by leading stocks and leading groups. Remember that the most plentiful and low-risk opportunities to position in leading stocks and groups breaking out for the next leg up usually do not develop until 10-15 weeks after a low has been made in the major indexes. That means the leading stocks and groups that have already broken out are the pioneers and great opportunities will likely devel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Msn The New Google Slayer?

So what does the largest Software manufacturer do when it decides it wants to get "serious" about search? Call their platform new. -New relevancy (better than Google) -New technology, with big words (like neural network ranking and natural language) -New...[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Friday, September 28, 2007

Save our pixelated post offices

Save our post offices:It seems incredible such Stalinist tactics are being openly used to silence any criticism of the closures of post offices, many of which have made their masters a healthy profit over the years

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Silicon Valley’s Rising Star VC: Jeff Clavier

Is there any investor in Silicon Valley startups that can match the current track record of Jeff Clavier? His self-funded Softech VC fund has had an extraordinary run of success, selling five companies out of 20 investments in less than 4 years. Truveo (acquired by AOL for a rumored $50 million), Userplane (acquired by AOL for a rumored $35 million), MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo for $10 million), Kaboodle (acquired by Hearst for a rumored $30-4[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Plethora Of 52 Week Highs

Wednesday closed the day green across the broader markets on heavier volume, leaving an accumulation day. This was the first day this week we had all the broader markets on the same page with direction and volume. The day was holding its own until a rally sparked by Bear Stearns news that Buffet may take a large stake in the brokerage. Gold fell $3.30 to $735.50 an ounce and crude rallied up 96 cents to $80.49 a barrel. Thursday we have the Nas Composite, S&P 500 and Dow just under the 2007 highs to watch for as the bulls find their legs. Eco[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Yahoo Relief?

For those suffering from the malaise of Yahoo non-existance, maybe this will help. Yahoo’s just released some fresh updates to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Pension Managers Still In Love With Alternative Investments

CNBC just beat me to the punch (I hate when that happens) on a post I was preparing to make on alternative investments. Citigroup put out some interesting notes from its recent survey of pension managers, who collectively manage over $1 trillion in assets.Here are some of the findings it contained:About 85% of pension managers will raise their allocation to alternative investments over the next 3 yearsWithin 3 years, private equity allocations will surpass both hedge fund and real estate allocationsAlmost 90% of pens[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Small-Caps Poised To Make A Volatile Move

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.An indecisive session concluded with a round of broad-based gains yesterday, as the S&P and Dow continued to consolidate their gains from last week’s breakout, rising 0.5% and 0.7% respectively. The Nasdaq Composite maintained the week’s relative strength by breaking out above its near-term trading range and gaining 0.6%. Both the small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 indices rallied 0.8%. Though the closing gains were solid, the intraday trading action was far fr[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Negative equity is back - and now for the slump

The Credit Crunch Chronicles continue with a look at Abbey's ill-timed home loan and an interview with a top City guru PLUS: The Northern Rock loan for hard-working 80 year olds

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Thursday, September 27, 2007

A Bust Without A Boom

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index has been updated below to include two more months of home price data since its inaugural publication here a while back.Poor Detroit appears to be having a bust phase without having had a real boom, though things have picked up a bit in the last month.For those of you having trouble following the color codes, from top to bottom on the rightmost part of the [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bear Stearns (bsc) Rumor

There is a rumor going around right now that Warren Buffet is considering taking a 20% stake in Bear Stearns (BSC).The news has traders giddy, and the stock is spiking $12 higher, or +10% on the news. This is also helping push the XBD index up nearly 3% on the day.On an unrelated note, the CME is also spiking $25, or nearly +5% on the day. I have not seen any major news to account for the surge.The market is turning higher, and putting more pressure on those underinvested or leaning short. With quarter-en[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Pricing It Right In A Declining Market

As you’ve probably noticed, prices in Edmonton are on the decline. I dont know how far, or for how long they will fall (thats a topic for another post) but if you have to sell now you have to face the fact that prices are falling. When prices are falling pricing your property correctly is more important than ever, because if your homes sits on the market while prices are falli[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What To Do With Good News And Bad News

Last week I sent an email to the investors in World Vital Records with a bunch of good news. We had a record sales week. We are signing more partnerships. Our marketing programs are gaining momentum. Our content collection is growing fast. One of them emailed back with a question: how are our Facebook apps doing?I hadn’t addressed our Facebook apps in my investor email, because it is not yet one of the areas where we have positive news. Even though I attended the Facebook platform launch event and immediately called my developers and told them this is the biggest opportunity in ten [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Robert Bruss

A few years ago I met Bob Bruss thru a client named Brian Yui. Bob was contributing to Brian’s Home Buying book, and Brian thought we should meet. I was eager for the introduction as I knew Bob to be...[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

When Will You Update Suggested Portfolios?

Are you going to update your suggested Buy-and-Hold portfolios? I know they are Buy-and-Hold portfolios but shouldn’t they change after the significant drop we have experienced the last month?There are several reasons we update our buy and hold portfolios. We update the suggested portfolios whenever a fund closes to new investors or some other event requires a change. We have changed funds several times when a no load fund decided to begin charging a load. We will also update a portfolio if a new fund will give us access to an asset class we have not previously had available wi[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Trade Update - Chinese Adrs Breaking Out

Chinese ADRs are really gaining momentum, although they could be getting a little too frothy. Look at FMCN, JRJC, ZNH, SNDA, etc. That said, I continue to look for breakouts as trading candidates.Today I took a long (trading) po[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Selling Into Strength, Locking In Gains

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.After dipping lower on the open, stocks spiked higher one hour into the session, but the bullish enthusiasm was short-lived. Selling pressure hit the market just after mid-day, causing the major indices to surrender the morning’s gains and eventually settle in the bottom quarter of their intraday ranges. The Nasdaq Composite slipped just 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 0.9%, but rel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Greenspan On Comedy Central

Jon Stewart interviews Alan Greenspan on The Daily Show. Greenspan has been busy promoting his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and has been talking to anyone willing to listen. Check out the video. It’s pretty good.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Forex Trading Pattern Set Ups On EUR/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/JPY

Double-click the video image below to open a new page with larger video. Get your free 21-day Autochartist trial and INTRO video series at http://www.autochartist.com[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Dismal Retail Sales Weigh On Market

Retailers are not reporting very strong results currently, just ask Lowe’s (LOW). The company lowered guidance materially, and said that too many uncertainties exist to call the bottom. Also, Target (TGT) lowered its September same-store sales forecast. The combination pushed the retail index down to a -3.0% decline in early trading.Homebuilder Lennar (LEN) also posted dismal results, posting a net loss vs. the consensus for a gain. The company has cut its work force by 35% and anticipates futher job losses. The homebuilder in[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

July Case-shiller Home Price For San Diego

The latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index number for San Diego are out. As we know, the Case-Shiller HPI -- let&039;s just call it the HPI for short -- arrives with a considerable delay, so today&039;s value only represents home sales closed in July (which themselves represent deals made primarily in June). The world was a different place in June and July, lending-wise, and the HPI will continue not to reflect round 2 of the credit crunch until the September number at the earliest.Nonetheless, just for kicks let&039;s have a look at what was happening with aggregate resale prices as [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What The Future Holds In Store

Check this out over at the Seeking Alpha site. Earlier this week, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) extended the futures market on the S&P Case-Shiller Home Prices Indexes from one to five years. Now, futures investors can make bets on where home prices will be as far out as 20[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fed Clearly Blinks And Risk-Assumption Indicators Signal New Leg Up Underway!

Last week we looked at over ten indicators to watch to determine whether risk-assumption was truly reigniting in global equity markets and suggested watching the FOMC meeting and market reaction to it carefully. The Fed clearly blinked and reduced both the Fed Funds and Discount Rate by 50 bps in a surprising unanimous decision that ignited global equity markets. The US market broke through the August highs in major indexes on high volume and on a 90% up-day. TLTs fell sharply and broke their up trendline shown last week, as interest rates and volume finally joined the rally. Whil[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

September 24th Blogger Sentiment Poll

This week’s poll continues to be bullish. Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Historical Bull And Bear Markets For Oil.

I found the below study from Ticker Sense/Birinyi Associates of oil bull and bear markets dating back to 1986 enlightening.What I find particularly interesting is how the bear markets are consistently down about a third, in terms of both the average decline and the median decline being around 30%. Of the past three bear markets (since 2003, when things really got kicking), two of the declines are nearly spot on 33% (-33.27%, and -34.47) and the other is -26.21%.There is much less consistency in the rallies, where the average change is 62.89%, and the median is 37.30%, w[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Commentary For 09/24/2007

Market commentary for 09/24/2007 Good day! Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Through The Fly’s Eyes: Pending Deals

from Theflyonthewall.comCoverage Ratios Do Not Look PrettyAs many of the larger private equity deals get shopped around to both equity and debt investors, the returns are simply not looking promising.Archstone-Smith (ASN), a real-estate investment trust, is scheduled to close its deal on October 5th. The deal is trading as though it is going to close despite having some pathetic coverage ratios. Bankers are marketing its debt and equity after reporting Q2 annualized cash flow of $700 million. Annual interest expense is expected to be $1.04 billion. It does[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Greenspan Week (continued)

Alan Greenspan showed up on Meet the Press today. The funniest part of the whole show was when Tim Russert read what sounded like Paul Krugman’s entire article about what a poor job the former Federal Reserve chief had done in advising on the Bush tax cuts.Naturally, the response to Krugman’s barbs sounded a lot like the mini-filibusters that were commonplace during Congressio[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Monday, September 24, 2007

Northern Rock and a picture of modern Britain

How the pub has become the new metaphor for the sorry state of Britain's financesPLUS: The Northern Rock loan for hard-working 80 year olds

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Don’t Make This Trading Mistake

I was at Barnes and Noble the other day and I dropped by the trading section to see what books may be new on the subject as I always do. There was a dizzying number of books by great authors teaching the world how to trade from Nick Darvos and David Dreman to Phil Town and Robert Kiyosaki. I actually picked up the book by Phil Town, ’Rule 1’ and started reading some of it. It drew me in. It is not my trading style, but it seemed to have some valid points. He talks about longer term investing that is styled a bit after Warren Buffett, which is different th[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Investing In Oil

I spent most of Saturday listening to an investment presentation by some oil guys from Texas and Oklahoma. I come in contact with them on a previous deal. At that time I had shown their investment presentation to my CPA (who usually turns down every investment I show him) and he was so impressed, he decided to fly out and meet them. He’s become their accountant and is investing heavily in their current deal.Incidentally, in the previous deal where I came across the oil guys, they were also investo[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Nar Pushes For Increases In Fre And Fnm Portfolio Caps

First the National Association of Realtors (NAR) pushed for exotic loans to keep prices rising. Then they redefined the way affordability is calculated so that housing looks more affordable than it really is. Then they demanded that the Fed lower interest rates. Then they backed the asinine Bush housing bail-out proposal. And Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Some Charts

The Bureau of Economic Analysis updated some of their data (and revised some data points) so I decided to update one of my favorite charts in response.Here is the average price of a Marin single family residence (SFR) divided by average per capita income for the years spanning 1969 to 2005. The data has been normalized to 1969.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Truth Or Dare?

I keep trying to understand how it can be that Bernanke’s lowering of interest rates last week by 50 bps can be the cure when it was too low of interest rates for too long that caused the problem to begin with. How can a course of action be both the cause of a problem and its cure?Or was it all about saving the banking system (by givin[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Rate Cut Post Mortem

As you know I have my own feelings about Helicopter Bens’s rate cut. In case you haven’t been following along, I think it was an extraordinarily bad decision and each member of the FOMC should be strung up by their balls. I’ve been dieing to comment from a bush economists point of view (and have been ranting and raving offline), but really wanted a more professional opinion for this blog.As usual, Mick Shedlock delivers the goods with some excellent analysis in Bernanke’s Bullet Misses Th[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Early Bounce On Options Expiration Day

The market is getting a bounce in early trading after some positive earnings reports. Oracle (ORCL) beat consensus estimates and also raised guidance. It stock gapped higher on the open, and is helping the tech sector.Nike (NKE) also beat estimates, and raised guidance for future orders. That stock is higher also, but the overall retail index is lower by a bit.And Texas Instruments (TXN) said it will buyback an additional $5b in stock, and raised its dividend 25%. That stock also gapped higher this mornin[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Good News

Just when you thought the world was going to hell in a hand basket. Just recently:U.S. Mortgage Rates Drop Below Year-ago LevelsThe economy has expanded faster than expectedThe trade deficit has been reduced[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Should We Be Concerned With Rising Crude Oil Prices?

Over the past few years there has been an inverse relationship between the price of Crude Oil and the Dow. Each time we have seen the price of Crude Oil rally more than $10 or more (points A to B) this has been followed by some selling pressure in the Dow (points C to D). The last three occurrences have seen the Dow drop from 850 points to 1400 points when the price of Crude Oil has rallied more than $10. Currently the price of Crude Oil has risen more than $10 from the low made on August 22nd (points E to F). Thus if history repeats itself then we[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Gps Has Changed My Business

We recently purchased a couple of portable GPS navigation systems and my clients love it. Aside from the more expected uses for out of town clients who can use it to find their way around Edmonton, my in town clients love it too. When Im showing properties to my clients, I bring along my GPS and at each property I can tel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Top Internet Friendly Cities

An Ohio State University research study determined accessibility by the number of internet connections to and from each city through 41 major commercial internet backbones:1. Chicago2. Washington D.C.3. Dallas4. Atlanta5. New York6. San Francisco

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Huge Four Day Foreclosure Auction

Yesterday was probably not the last time that an ad for this Northern California home auction will be heard on the radio - it came on twice while driving around for a total of about 20 minutes yesterday.According to the U.S. Home Auction website, otherwise known as the Real Estate Disposition Corporation, over 500 homes in Northern California will be unloaded over a period of four days starting next week - the airwaves are likely to be full of ads promoting this event between now and then.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Lackluster Thursday

Thursday left us with a lackluster narrow range light volume day. The Dow even managed to have an inside day, which is a very dull slow motion day. The market needed this rest and to digest the past two days. Financials took on the heat though, coming well off the highs and giving up a lot of ground. Gold and crude are still in rally mode and closed up $11.70 at $741.20 an ounce and crude up $1.91 at $83.84 an ounce. Im glad to see Friday this week, the market has had quite a week. Brokers came in mixed this week, more mortgage woes. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Orderly Pullback, Corrective-looking Pattern

Orderly Pullback, Corrective-looking Pattern By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com) As we’d anticipated, the market had a weak session. It was quite thetrading range early in the morning when the indices vacillated back andforth. In the afternoon they rolled over in a 3-wave decline that tookout the morning lows, particularly on the S&P 500. Finally, late inthe session the indices made nominal new lows, even on the NDX, but inthe last hour they snapped back. That last-hour snapback rally failedat the 2 day declining tops lines [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Friday, September 21, 2007

Canadian Dollar Hits Parity With Us Dollar

Today the Loonie achieved parity with the US dollar for the first time in 30 years. Five years ago, 65 cents could buy you 1 Canadian Dollar. Since then the Dollar has devalued 50% against the CAD and nearly 100% against Gold. This has been partly due to a massive increase in the number of Dollars floating around, and partly because of the low interest rates which no longer attract much foreign interest.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Hey Now

I found an interesting post from Jim Wiandt in the IndexUniverse blog section about iShares MSCI EAFE Fund (EFA). He was at some sort of ETF conference and he remarked about the buzz created when Steven Schoenfeld said that EAFE was obsolete, and so by extension I take that to mean he thinks EFA is obsolete.Um, I’ve kind of been saying the same thing for a couple of years now. The first instance I found in the archives of writing[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Day 2 For The Bernanke Hangover

Wednesday the bulls were able to hold the market up for another day. Volume outpaced yesterday, which is showing continued market participation and it is usually hard to outpace a FOMC day for volume. Gold closed up $6.60 at $730.30 an ounce and crude closed up 30 cents at $81.81 a barrel. We closed the day mid range and with an overbought market on the daily charts. With early economic data and Chairman Bernanke speaking tomorrow, which will hopefully shed some light on why he cut .50 instead of .25. The market will look closely at the pre marke[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Do We Now Have To Worry About A Potential Double Top?

I’m not sure this latest rally is a good thing for the market in the longer term as there was no retest of the August 16th lows. That doesn’t mean there has to be however historically the odds have favored a retest to clear out the weak minded investors and allow for a new leg up to develop. When the S&P 500 rallied strongly from late March through mid July it formed a small Double Bottom pattern with the 2nd low lower than the 1st. Currently what has developed is a "V" bottom pattern as there was no retest of the August 16th low. If the S&[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will We Get Some Price Consolidation?

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Follow-through momentum from the previous day’s massive rally caused stocks to gap higher yesterday morning, though they subsequently drifted sideways to lower throughout the day. By early afternoon, several of the major indices had nearly filled their opening gaps, but buying interest in the final ninety minutes of trading lifted stocks off their lows and enabled the broad market to finish with solid gains. The Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average a[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Houston We Have Lift Off

Tuesday big range expansion and high volume left an accumulation days across the broader markets. Bernankes cut was bigger than expected and sparked the lift off that never looked back. Talk about squeezing the shorts and leaving a market overbought, we did that today for sure. Crude left the day up 95 cents at $81.52 and gold also rallied today but a late day drop ended red at $772.70 down $1.10 by the close. Even before the announcement the market was enjoying good news on earnings and up, the announcement just gave the big push up. The Fed cut the F[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Moody's Forecast: Good Luck With That

Thanks to the fantastic folks at Calculated Risk for alerting me to Moody&039;s latest home price forecast.According to Moody&039;s, the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos triumvirate is in store for an aggregate home price decline of 10.9% between the peak (which they peg at Q1 2006) to the trough (Q4 2008).While I&039;m all for m[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bullish ETF Breakouts

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A brazen half-point reduction in the federal funds rate launched a gargantuan rally that swept through practically every industry sector yesterday afternoon. The Fed surprised much of Wall Street by dropping the key rate 50 basis points instead of the widely anticipated 25 basis points. Further, they reduced the discount lending rate by another half-percent. The market’s bullish reaction was immediate and swift, causing all of the main stock market indexes to gain at least 2.5%.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Momentum From Fed Cut Carries Over For 2nd Day

Asian markets were up sharply overnight (+3 - 4%), and that helped push our futures higher at the open once again. The core CPI report came in in-line with expectations, which helped ease inflation concerns.Crude oil stockpiles fell last week, and that is helping push oil prices above $82. But this too is not impeding the stock market’s gains of late. Morgan Stanley (MS) reported earnings this morning that were below expectations, but the overall strength in the financials helped support the stock price from falling.Bond y[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Data On Yesterday’s Rally

According to the good folks over at Sentimentrader.com, yesterday’s rally showed that upside volume on the NYSE swamped downside volume by a lopsided 25-to-1.The last time we saw that big of a skew in upside volume was August 20, 1982, just as equities were making their low before the start of a secular bull market.Now, I am not saying we are about to embark on a multi-year bull rally like we did in the 80s, but this statistic is meaningful to the bulls nonetheless.There have been only 7 other instances of this type of breadth actio[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Through The Fly’s Eyes: Dollar Financial

Larry Schutts is a contributing editor for Theflyonthewall.com and the Vice-President of Stockwinners.com.Serving the ’Underbanked’
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

MLPs Catch A Bid On The Back Of The Fed Cuts

I guess that ledge on the chart from the action of the last 2 weeks was the formation of a launching pad. The MLP index was up over 1% yesterday...3 plus points on the back of the spectacular post fed rally. We have a few hurdles to get through like those moving averages w[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

San Rafael Advocates Moral Hazards

Apparently, the city of San Rafael wants a new fire chief and the income for such a position ($152,000) i[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bulls Are Back

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in more than four years by 50 basis points to 4,75%. The broad market reacted well on the news and rallied in the last two hours of trading. Volume increased compared to the last weeks showing some strength behind the move. The day after the Fed decision tends to reverse the prior days direction, so do not be too much aggressive now thinking you are missing the train...I will post the CPI numbers, as usual, [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Where Do I Find The Returns Of Your Investment Strategies On Your Website?

I would like to compare my returns to yours. Where do I find the returns of your investment strategies on your website?Comparing returns is tricky business. I often speak to people who have done better than our strategies but the comparison is meaningless. An investor whose portfolio is a handful of individual stocks cannot be compared to a diversified portfolio of 15,000 companies. An investor who has all of their equity investments in value funds cannot be compared to a portfolio that is a balance of large, small, value, growth, U.S. and international asset classes. And as p[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Iphone Question

A buddy of mine just called me and said he went to buy an iPhone, but that AT&T told him he could not activate it under his business account.So basically, that means that no corporate users can use an iPhone. Doesn’t that seem odd? Would Apple allow AT&T to eliminate such a large population of potential customers?If you have any info. on this, or anything to add, please respond to this post.Thanks,-jordan[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Northern Rock and a picture of modern Britain

How the pub has become the new metaphor for the sorry state of Britain's finances

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Can’t Stop Global Warming!

From the Yahoo message boards for James River Coal Company (JRCC), which I had sold some naked puts on a few months ago, by some poster named Ross_Perot4PresidentI just farted a real loud wet one.....I just contributed to global warming....Whoops, I just barbecued some ribs.....more global warming...I just opened up a beer (i.e. a carbonated beverage), I just contributed to global warming.I just let out a big friggin belch (methane gas -- holy @$%, I just killed a tribe of pygmies tied to global warming)I turned on the faucet to run w[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

PAAS Trading Idea

Short: Today is FED decision after 2:00pm ET and I will wait with any swing possibility until 15:00pm ET. Reason for that are strong market reactions after FED announcement and I will avoid false breakout possibility. I like PAAS daily/weekly chart for swing opportunity. On the chart we can see triangle pattern and if market will start with sel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Silicon Valley Incubates Black Swans

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s "The Black Swan" is an incredible book. I give it my highest recommendation, I now have a new hero.The Black Swan shows how our society, how our experts, consistently fail to consider the effect of events that are unpredictable but totally game changing. The point is to know where we are exposed, not to sweep things under the carpet using the misapplication of mathematics and statistics based on past events.A Black Swan is an event that is many magnitudes outside of the expected. We can become less of a "sucker" to these types of events, and also o[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

All Eyes Are On The Fed

Monday started the day weak and finished weaker after staying in a small range throughout the day. Volume for equities was very light and lackluster, while futures held their own and put in narrow range days across the broader markets. A day with all eyes on the FOMC announcement due out Tuesday at 2:15. While this isnt the only event this week, it is the one that is holding up the show for us now. Once the announcement is released well see the market move and that is the moment we want to wait for. A 25 basis point ease is expected, but that i[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

We Hate To Sound Like The Rest, But. . .

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.After gapping down on the open, stocks drifted lower throughout the morning, but mild buying interest lifted the market off its lows in the afternoon. Still, each of the main stock market indexes posted losses moderate losses. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.8%, the S&P 500 0.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.3%. Relative weakness in the small-cap arena caused the Russell 2000 to fall 1.0%, while the S&P Midcap 400 slipped 0.8%. All the major indices finish[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fed Surprises Market With A 50 Basis Point Rate Cut

Wow, color me surprised. Maybe the Fed is more worried than we thought. In a surprising move, the FOMC unanimously cut the fed funds rate by 50 bps to 4.75%.The market surged on this news, with financials leading the way. The banks and broker index are both up +3.75% as of this post. The Dow is surging +250 points right now.I think the Fed felt it needed to throw a lifeline to the housing/mortgage market, and if they were just going to cut again in a couple of months, why not do a full 50 bps right now?Of course, sentime[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

More Discussion On Returns, Risk And Leverage

Previously I discussed an important debate on whether it is better to increase a portfolio’s return by taking on more risks (e.g. holding high-beta stocks), or by increasing leverage but holding low-risk assets. A reader Mr. F. Sudirga has kindly send me some other research papers supporting the conclusion that increasing leverage is the preferred way.In a paper titled "Risk Parity Portfolios", Dr. Edward Qian at PanAgora Asset Management argued that a typical 60-40 asset allocation between stoc[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Light Volume Selloff Ahead Of Fed Meeting

Last week, I commented on a trade update that I was taking profits in Las Vegas Sands (LVS) as the stock had moved up appreciably from its summer swoon.The stocks has continued to move higher, and now it has rallied so much [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Market And The Fed

The market closed flat a choppy day last Friday. The bulls activity was strong after the weak start and this is positive, but all the bullishness around doesnt make sense for me right now. This just because we have no idea what will happen later this week. There is no way to anticipate the Feds decision and take position, the same in which direction, ahead of it. Here an interesting chart: Caterpillar Inc.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Best Conversations With Top Traders

It’s always enlightening to read a book a second time, as you seem to find things that weren’t there the first time. Possibly this happens because the first time you read, you read for content, and the second time for context. Here are some of the things I learned as I reread
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Japanese Housewives Burned By Forex Trading

The New York Times has an interesting article, Japanese Housewives Sweat in Secret as Markets Reel about housewives losing a lot of money in trading forex.Since the credit crisis started shaking the world financial markets this summer, many professional traders have taken big losses. Another, less likely group of investors has, too: middle-class Japanese homemakers who moonlight as amateur currency speculators.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What Apocalypse?

I thought I would clear up what it is I mean by "The Apocalypse" that I am trying to trade as there are some who are offended when I use the term.As you know, the word Apocalypse is a word that comes from the book of Revelation in The Bible. Obviously, it is highly symbolic. Onl[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Monday, September 17, 2007

Poll

What will Bernanke do with interest rates this Tuesday?LowerRaiseUnchangedIt doesn’t matter to housing eit[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Latest Out Of The Mouth Of Greenspan

Alan Greenspan was reported as saying:US house prices are likely to fall significantly from their present levels, Alan Greenspan has told the Financial Times, admitting that there was a bubble in the US housing market... the decline in house prices ’is going to be larger than most people expect’.It’s a good thing we are immune and special and not in a bubble, at least according to the experts. That way we get to continue living in a crushingly unaffordabl[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sunday Foreclosure Chart Extravaganza

It&039;s Sunday and the weather is beautiful, so naturally I took the opportunity to sit at my computer and create some charts. Today&039;s topic: foreclosures.First up is a chart of the ratio of sales to NODs, most recently discussed here but originally explained here. The idea is that measuring demand against the amount of potential must-sell supply provides a good read on the market&039;s[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Econ 101 -- You’re Late, Get In There, Sit Down And Shut Up

Real Estate Bubbles and California’s Economic Growth:Part 1 (9:38)Part 2 (7:57)Part 3 (7:29)

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The Importance Of Branding

I think that Inman may still has some work to do as far as branding and name recognition go.......Inman NewsTurn Here Video[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Race4madi.com

Next week, on Saturday morning, a 5k race will be held in Provo (very close to BYU and the MTC) to raise funds for leukemia treatments for the most amazing 15-year old girl. Please visit Race4Madi.com to learn more.Madi was diagnosed a few months ago, and has been in serious chemo treatments for 3 months. She has a super positive attitude and is always cheering everyone up. If you run and live in Utah, please sign up for this 5k. We want hundreds of runners to show support for Madi and her family. Th[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The 17 Year Old Adsense Millionaire!

Here’s another depressing story of some 17 year old millionaire who makes $70,000 per month selling myspace templates. Did I say depressing? I meant inspiring! Ashley Qualls, founder/CEO of Whateverlife.com doesn’t actually make money from the templates, but rather from adsense ads! Apparently her first adsense check from Google was for $2800, which is more money than Google EVER sent me. Of course, I haven’t filled a need (which she obviously did extremely well) but atleast I’m getting some remuneration (if you consider minimum wage to be any form of remuneration) for voicing my i[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Precipitous Drop In Marin Sales; Tightening Lending Standards Just Starting To Bite

Yawn. The IJ is reporting on old news, stuff we figured out long ago.Marin’s median home price hit the $1 million mark again last month [August, 2007], but sales of homes slid more than 32 percent compared with this time last year... homes priced under $1 million were off by 39.8 percent between 2006 and 2007... in Novato, single-family homes sales were half of what they were a year ago...a 23 percent drop-off in Mill Valley...In Tiburon and Belvedere, sales remained flat. Regionally, Bay Area [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Saturday, September 15, 2007

A New Kind Of Nigerian Scam?

I recently got an email from a reader that I think I should share with you. It involves a new kind of scam and you need to be aware of it.Hi: I have a question regarding real estate fraud. I have an ad on a website selling my property (for OVER $550K) online. The web co. forwards me an email from someone named Dr. Earl Spencer inquiring if the property is still available. It is.He then wants maps and info about the area. I send them to dr_earl_spencer1995@yahoo.com . Then he says I should consider the property sold and he wants my HELOC account number [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Recession On The Horizon?

Despite what Bush & Bernanke say to reassure us that the economy is doing well, I don’t believe it is. Here are some news stories that support this belief.The first is from Newsweek.Because home sales and moves stimulate purchases of appliances, electronics and furniture, the giant chains that catered to house flippers and renovators have reported recession-like results. In the second quarter, same-store sales were down 5.2 percent at Home Depot and 4.3 percent at Sears.Americans who were living high by taking out home-equity loans during the boom [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Start A Vending Machine Business

If you’ve ever wondered how much money the vending machine guy at your office makes, here’s an excellent post by GeniusTypes on how he got into the vending machine business.It all started with having an open mind and buying a route from someone who had lost interest for well below what it was worth.You’ll see this theme repeated in many successful investment stories. Every so often you’ll see ads in the local paper about the company that sells large office-type vending machines holding a presenta[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Prosper Update

I started lending money on Prosper.com about 10 months ago. I started out with a total of $1900 in my account. I’ve been mainly targeting people with D and E credit who seem have steady jobs but got into the payday loan trap and can’t get out. My average interest rate is about 19.4% right now and I usually lend out the minimum $50.I’ve been reinvesting all the interest payments I’ve received. So far I’ve made loans to 40 people and I’ve had 2 defaults and 1 currently late loan - two of which were from Prosper’s auto-pay, which I don’t really recommend using. One of the defaults had[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Russians Get The Day Off To Make Babies

The Russian government is sponsoring a "Day of Conception" today. Officials in the Volga River region (a demographically deficient zone about 550 miles east of Moscow) are giving couples a half day today to go home and make babies. Couples that give birth to a child nine months fromtoday, a Russian national holiday, are eligible to win cars, cash & even a shiny new refrigerator.Since the Soviet collapse in 1991, population has been in steady decline thanks to lower birth rates, shorter life expectancies, emigration surges and a truly horrible health care system.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Raging Bull

For all of you that enjoyed (or maybe were horrified by) Jim Cramer’s emotional outburst, here’s a spoof on that. Its really funny, check it out. You can [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

American’s Better Off Than Ever Before? Yeah Right!

Prof. Perry of economics at the school of Management, University of Michigan has an interesting blog on economics called Carpe Diem, which roughly translated means seize the day. In a recent post, he claims "that despite what many people think, our standard of living is higher now than ever before".The evidence he cites is that we’re spending less on food, clothing and shelter than in 1901, and we’re spending less than citizens of "developing countries" like India or China.We [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Sell A $14 Book For $2,500

Previously, I had mentioned a $2,500 book by Monhish Pabrai called Mosaics:Perspectives on Investing and how I was hoping I could find my own signed copy to hawk on Amazon.Well, I did find it and after jumping through several hoops I was finally approved as a seller on Amazon.com. (Don’t know what the issue was, just some technical difficulties on their end).Not only did I find a signed copy, I also happened to have an unsigned copy too! I’m selling the autographed copy for [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Make An Easy $25 & Other Blog Monetizing Tips

AuctionAds is running a promotion. Just sign up to display Auction ads on your site and you’ll get $25. Not only that, if you refer anyone, you get 5% of their income for the first 6 months too.It takes less than 5 minutes to sign up and you can modify the code to suite the layout of your site. You can also mention which keywords you’d like to target so that you get relevant ads (Note: this does NOT interfere with Google Ads). Somehow it integrates with Ebay’s affiliate program and you earn a referral fee anytime y[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Mortgage Lenders Squeeling Like Pigs: Wamu First To Cry Uncle

Despite Ben Bernanke’s optimism that the sub-prime issues wouldn’t spread to the rest the of the economy, not only is it spreading to the rest the of the economy, its become our favorite export to global economies too!The resulting liquidity crunch has already begun. Many banks just announced that they’ll no longer accept loans through brokers. This is to reduce the additional cost of having a middle-man. Washington Mutual also announced that its Jumbo loans would be priced at 8%. OUCH! Basically, WAMU is having a tough time reselling these loans on the secondary marke[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Counter Argument To China’s Threat To Dumping Us Dollars/treasuries/

A few days ago,China threatened to offload its Billions of US Treasuries in retaliation to any US imposed trade tariffs.One of the newsletters I read regularly is from John Mauldin who doesn’t think[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are Mba’s Over-rated?

According to this interesting article,an MBA isn’t all its cut out to be.While having that M.B.A. might give you a boost, the reality is that the degree generally isn’t a guarantee or indicator of your future success. Business success has more to do with leadership, talent and a drive for excellence than it does with having a degree from a prestigious university. An M.B.A. can help you get your foot in the door, but according to Peter D. Crist, chairman of Crist Associates executive search firm, "it’s instinc[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Its Official: Hell Freezes Over

Last week, hell froze. The Financial Times reports:In a rare unplanned investor call, the bank revealed that a flagship global equity fund had lost over 30 per cent of its value in a week because of problems with its trading strategies created by computer models. In particular, the computers had failed to foresee recent market movements to such a degree that they labeled them a 25-standard deviation event - something that only happens once every 100,000 years or more. "We are seeing things that were 25-standard deviation events, several days in a row," said Dav[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Yield On 10 Year Tbill Keeps On Dropping

Even though the past few sessions in the stock market have been rather choppy, the yield on the 10 year treasury has steadily dropped over the past several weeks. [Graph of 10 Year Treasury Yield over p[...]<br><br /><a href=

[Graph of 10 Year Treasury Yield over p[...]<br><br /><a href=

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Homes For Everyday Heroes?

According to the FirstHomebuilders.com, based ou[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Is The Us On The Verge Of Collapse?

According to the Financial Times.The U.S. government is on a burning platform of unsustainable policies, and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic health care underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.David Walker, comptroller general of the U.S.,issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his countrys future in a report that lays out what he called chilling long-term simulations. These include dramatic tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdin[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

China Pulls Out The Heavy Ammunition!

According to the Telegraph,The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Become A Better Investor

The Orlando Sentinel has sad story about condo flippers in Miami. They put down $100,000 on a pre-construction condo and now either they lose their deposit or they close on a $585,000 1 bedroom condo thats worth less than $500,000.The sad part is that people fall for these get-rich quick schemes in every cycle. It happened in Miami during the last boom. It happened in the stock market in 2000. Its been happening regularly for over 400 years in every country. If these flippers had onl[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are Recessions A Good Thing?

Today’s post is a follow-up to yesterday’s, Recession on the horizon?. Saving Diva asks if a recession is necessary for the economy? And Lazy Man isn’t entirely convinced we’ll see a recession.I think a recession is a normal part of the business cycle. Messing with the business cycle in 2001 is what caused the huge housing bubble. When I say messing with the business cycle, I mean manipulating the interest rat[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Paris Paid To Attend Own Birthday Party

Its not enough that celebrities people get paid for guest appearances at night clubs and public events. They now are getting paid to host their own birthday parties!Paris Hilton was reportedly given $200,000 to celebrate her 24th birthday party at "Pure" in Las Vegas. She spent the last 3 at "Light" at the Bellagio, but the[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Funny Kitty Video

Here’s a funny video. Make sure you’ve turned up your speakers or you won’t fully enjoy it.Check out my bookstore.[All content is copyright of Adventures In Money Making][...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are Jim Cramer’s Stock Picks Worthless?

According to a recent article by Barron’s Magazine title The Cramer Effect (& Defect), readers who follow Jim Cramer’s stock picks from his show are more than likely to lose money in the long run.We also looked at a database of Cramer’s Mad Money picks maintained by his Website, TheStreet.com. It covers only the past six months, but includes an astounding 3,458 stocks Buys mainly, punctuated by some Sells. These picks were flat to down in relation to the market. Count commissions and you woul[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How The Carry Trade Really Works

Here’s a really, really good video on how the carry trade works and what implications it has on global asset prices and the global financial stability.I think the carry trade will have to reverse at some point in the near future. Trees do not grow to[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Linkworth’s New Referral Program

Linkworth is a site that offers bloggers and website owners the opportunity to monetize their site via paid ads.Originally they only offered referral commissions for advertisers, but since July they’ve been tracking publisher referrals and will pay you for those too! Advertiser Account Referrals >> $25 payout once the advertiser spends a minimum of $100.00 >>5% payout on all recurring charges for the life of the advertiser account Partner Account Referrals >> $25 payout once the partner earns a m[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

New Coin Purchase

I recently mentioned that I made $500 dollars last month from online advertising. Rather than use that money to expand or improve my lifestyle (also knows as "buying crap"), I decided to invest it in something that has intrinsic value.The US Doll[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Friday, September 14, 2007

Mexican Standoff As Markets Close Near Zero Line

Mexican Standoff as Markets Close Near Zero LineBy Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com) The markets were up in the morning, down in the afternoon, and closednear the zero line with very small fractional changes. The day startedout with another thrust to new rally highs. The Nasdaq 100 burstthrough 2000 and got up to 2006, which turned out to be the high forthe day. They then sold off and retested support successfully, andrallied again, but in the afternoon when the S&P 500 made new highsand got right near 1480, the Nasdaq 100[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Nice Bounce In Early Trading

The market is enjoying a nice bounce in the first hour of trading. Of course, I am always skeptical of strong market opens.McDonald’s (MCD) raised its dividend by 50%, and GM got upgraded to Buy at Citigroup (C). Both of these seem to be aiding investor sentiment.Currently, the S&P 500 is approaching overhead resistance at its 50-day moving average. Let’s call it SPX 1482. I think this is a key level to watch. If the market can break above this level, it could spur some short-covering on a sque[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Beware The ’Head and Shoulders’

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Stocks attempted to build on the previous day’s gains yesterday morning, but reversed course as the S&P 500 neared resistance of its 50-day moving average in the afternoon. Each of the major indices settled flat to modestly lower. The S&P 500 was unchanged, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.2%. The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 0.6%, but the S&P Midcap 400 lost only 0.1%. Intraday price action between the main indexes was divergent and choppy[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

An Update on Crude and the Dollar

As the U.S. Dollar pushes lower this morning through the 79.50 level there is a slight bounce to just above the 79.50 which tells us that this is at least a pit stop for the Dollar before we wither bounce up to the 80 level or down towards 20 tick minor psychological level support. The easiest way to measure U.S. Dollar movement in between the "00" is to watch the 20, 50, and 80 price levels.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Much More Do You Expect The Market To Go Down?

With all the current economic problems and more on the horizon it seems like the market is likely to go down more than it has. How much more do you expect it to go down?Here is what I know about the past that might give some perspective about the size of the current decline. There are always reasons for the market to go up, as well as down. There is always list A, the good news, and list B the bad news. Right now the focus seems to be on the bad news. But markets often go up in the face of bad news and fall when the news seems to be mostly good.I have no idea how lon[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Solid Day, But Volume Lacking

The market put in a solid day overall. It was reassuring to see the broker group (XBD) up +2.6% for the day. Retailers were also very strong, +2.1%. Semis and biotechs lagged, and were down slightly for the day.The one thing that has been missing from the strong price action this week has been volume. Ideally, you want to see rallies come on strong volume and selloffs see lighter volume. Over the last week, we have basically seen the opposite. The rallies have been on light volume, while the pullbacks have seen rising volume. This amounts to distr[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Exports

This is a useful graphic from the WSJ.The other day when[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wake Me When We Arrive ...please

Wednesday brought us a mixed day with the Nas 100, Nas Composite and Dow slightly red, the S&P 500 slightly green. Volume was also split and opposite of yesterday, today brought the NYSE in lighter and the Nasdaq heavier. Gold closed the day lower by 50 cents at $720.60 an ounce. Crude rallied up $1.55 to close at $79.78 a barrel. Overall a seriously dull day and slow motion is enough to put us to sleep...ugh! The market action is very digestive and awaits on news coming next week from Fed Chairman Bernanke. We do have a few significant report[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

UBS On The Horn!

UBS is sounding the trumpets this morning and upgrading 2 of the bigger cap MLPS...Oneok LP (OKS) and Teppco (TPP) to buy from hold. The charts below tell us that of the 2 Oneok (OKS) has been the better performer. In fact the weekly chart of Oneok still looks pretty good with the longer term uptrend in tact.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Newswatch 9.11.07: Barcelona Thrills, Apple’s Spectrum Tease

Partners sing homage to Barcelona[Register] Skipping the fact that AMD has launched the chip that was originally code-named Barcelona six months late and at only 2Ghz performance, many of the firm’s first tier partners instead sang the praises of virtualisation, energy efficiency and something the chipmaker dubbed as "investment protection."So that’s $100m in free iPods[FT] Apple on Monday dispelled some of the concerns that have gathered aro[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Selloff Continues With No Sign Of A Bottom

THE DAILY CHART IS UGLY THE WEEKLY CHART IS UGLY

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Biotech Strength Follows Through. . .

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Stocks gapped open higher for the second straight day, but this time the gains remained intact. The major indices built on their opening advance, grinding higher throughout the day, before finishing near their intraday highs. Both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 indices were higher by 1.6% and 1.2% respectively. Despite erratic volatility in the final thir[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Hype Machine

Here we see Mr. Peabody and Sherman about to crank up the hype machine for the rolling of commercial paper and adjustable rate mortgage resets.I don’t know if it is "Wall Street," the media, someone else, all of the above but the market often confronts scary events that cause people to get very worried and then these scary events end[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bulls Regain Some Control

Tuesday rallied throughout the day to close the broader markets green on mixed volume. The NYSE was heavier volume than we saw yesterday and the Nasdaq on lighter volume. Showing less tech participation than big cap participation. Semis held their own and a green day, but nearing the 50dma resistance. Gold rallied to close up $8.90 on the day at $721.10 an ounce. Crude closed up 78 cents at $78.27 a barrel after OPEC announced letting some reserves out to increase inventories. We have weekly inventories tomorrow (Wednesday) morning that will be close[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Shrugging Off Record Oil Prices

I am a bit surprised to see the market bouncing in the face of record oil prices ($79). You know that if the market was down today, CNBC would be all over the place saying that record oil is hurting the market.But it is a strange twist in the market lately that when the oil patch rallies, the overall market follows. Guess everyone is involved in the oil trade, huh?The semis are lower after Texas Instruments (TXN) offered tepid guidance. I think given the strong comments out of many chip companies, expecatations were certain[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Strong Bounce On Little News

The market is getting a nice bounce in early trading, although you know by now that I am often skeptical of strong market opens. I prefer to see a market that opens flattish and rallies into the close.Wireless equipment maker Ericsson (ERIC) issued a strong forecast, and disk drive maker WDC also raised its guidance. So those are some positive developments that are helping the tech sector at the margin.Goldman Sachs (GS) put in a big reversal yesterday, and helped lift the whole group. The brokers are up again this m[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Goldman (GS) Put Diagonal Spread Books 20.5%

On September 02 our Strategy of the Week was a neutral to semi-bullish Put Diagonal Spread on Goldman Sachs (see original article - September 02).Based on the technical structure at the time, we mapped out a couple of retracement targets based on Fibonacci ratios and confluence areas (see chart below). The first target, which represented a 61.8% and 127.2% confluence retracement of the last leg down was hit last Tuesday and again today. It centered around the $183 level. GS closed at $183.61 today[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Markets Remain Undecided

Monday started the week off in the red for the S&P 500, Nas composite and the Dow, leaving only the Nas 100 slightly green. Semiconductors helped to hold up the Nas 100 and showed strength off the good news out of INTC and AMD on the day. We had lighter volume than Friday, leaving us still below average volume across the broader markets. Oil rallied on the day to close up $1.39 at $78.07 a barrel. Gold closed up $2.50 at $711.70 an ounce on the day. With the market finding early weakness and closing well off the lows, it kept us in rang[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Long-term Solution?

Great Morning! Stock markets remain on a roller-coaster ride. Up one day, down the next. Down big in the morning session, complete reversal upside in the afternoon to erase morning’s drop, significant selloff in the final minutes to end the day. That’s the type of price action investors / traders have dealt with since mid-July when all-time highs peaked and folded. Several months of upside gain was erased in a couple of weeks. The Fed’s collossal infusion of short-term liquidity coupled with a faux interest rate cut parked a (temporary) floor beneath recent lows.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Opec, Crude, And The Markets...

This morning’s OPEC press conference is going to having further reaching implications than just the crude oil futures pit. An increase or decrease in supply will effect the Canadian Dollar as well as the U.S. Dollar and stock market. Let’s look at the double top forming in crude on the daily chart. The distribution cycle is more suited to playing the resista[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

A Concise Look At The Hourly Downtrend Lines. . .

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A bullish pre-market report from semiconductor giant Intel Corp. caused stocks to gap up yesterday morning, but the excitement was short-lived. Traders sold into strength throughout the first half of the day, pushing the stock market firmly lower, but modest buying interest lifted stocks off their lows in the afternoon. In the end, the major indices settled the indecisive session mostly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a gain of 0.1%, as the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 fel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Edmonton New Homes: Condo Construction Surges Ahead

Today CMHC released their "Housing Now" press release for Edmonton; it outlines the amount of new home construction going on in the greater Edmonton area.As we’ve seen in many of the months this year, far more multiple family units are going up than single family homes. From our own listings we can see that condos are far more popular these days than their higher priced counterparts; we are receiving far more requests for information on our condo listings than our other listings. Why are condos more popular?1. Because condos are typically le[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Inevitability Of "free"

Not all blogs are created equal. Despite the common wave of thought, blogs are not all the same. Sure they usually come as pre-built scripts to be search engine spider friendly. However, that does not make it optimized.So we optimize them. There are tons of Realtor’s blogging. How many are making money from them? These are people operating on imagined value. There are some things you can do to a blog that will help you, and many more temptations that will hurt your traffic and readership. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

50 Day Ma Provides Expected Resistance Thus Far And Gold Breakout

In the last update I stated, "I suspect that the current rally will find resistance between here and the August highs on the S&P and then embark on a renewed decline that will retrace at least 50% of the current up move and more likely make a serious test of the lows made thus far, before a new leg up can commence in force." So far the market hit the 50 day ma and then has reacted off of this expected resistance level. The SPY will need to test at least the 144 level for a minimum 50% retracement though I would not be surprised to see a real test of the August 16 lows ev[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

U.S. Dollar And Forex Markets Quiet

The market is looking ahead to tomorrow’s data and and Bernanke and it’s unlikely we’ll see a sustained breakout from the current range in the U.S. Dollar Index. The U.S. Dollar is bouncing within a 20 tick range just below the breakdown through 80.00. This range has a low of 79.80 and prices seem to be settling quietly within this narrow channel. The majors are trading in range-bound patterns like the GBP/USD 60 minute cha[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Did Friday’s Distribution Day Hurt The Bulls?

Friday left the day and the week closing red across the broader markets on weak jobs numbers. Volume increased on Friday for the NYSE and Nasdaq leaving a distribution day. The week ended on a very nervous tone and the data the market was anticipating disappointed to show the growth. The market is worried there is some slow down and wants to know if the Fed will step in and will that even offer the help needed? Gold rallied to 16 month highs closing up $5.80 at $710.40 an ounce. Oil also closing up on the day by 40 cents at $76.70 a barrel. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Digital Cosmotology

From the Online Real Estate Marketing Ten Commandments: Technology replaces itself and thusly cheapens over time. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

August Defaults And Foreclosures

That can&039;t be good:2,350 NODs and 902 NOTs were filed in August. This compares to just 2,388 MLS sales closed.I&039;ll put some more default charts up once the DQ numbers come out.read more[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Where Money Comes From

I propose that answering the question "daddy, where does money come from?" is one of the most difficult of childhood questions. Give me the "where do babies come from?" any day. I wonder if I could get away with the story about a stork again? I am asking myself this question today relative to consumer spending in the US and part of my answer is going to be available this afternoon in the form of the[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Streets Of London

For a couple of years now, there has a been a growing crowd that have become bearish on the UK property market. The bulls cite a number easily disproved fallacies as to why they think property prices will rise well beyond inflation ad infinitum. Shortage of [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Shame On The Ij

Well, I was going to show some discretion and let this story in the IJ rest and not form the centerpiece of a blog post. But apparently, a passing comment in a different post was too terrible to bear and indicative of me not being sufficiently considerate and sympathetic to this Marinite’s plight... Never mind the fact that for the last two+ years this blogger (and, of course, other bloggers) has feared and lamented this very outcome and duly condemned this ho[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

S&P 500 Testing Support Of Prior Downtrend Line

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.After getting off to an encouraging start last Tuesday, stocks capped the week on a negative note. Each of the major indices gapped down on Friday’s open, dropped further in the morning, then chopped around in range throughout the rest of the day. By the closing bell, the S&P 500 had shed 1.7%, while both the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average similarly plunged 1.9%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 indices fell 2.2% and 1.8% respectively. A bit of bu[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Investor Angst On The Rise

The market continues to selloff today, and it does not look like we will get much of a bounce into the close. But this is part of the process of working off the overbought condition, even the selloffs are somewhat severe. On the plus side, our investor anxiety indicators are spiking, a necessary ingredient to help stem the decline. To wit:Bears exceeded bulls in the AAII survey for the 4th straight weekThe ARMS Index spiked above 3.25, a rare occurrenceThe put/call ratio is elevated at 1.10
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[Source: The Money Blogs]