1. No longer will I comment about another TV or blog commentator;
2. No longer will I comment about my family " at least until after the passing of my parents;
3. If I get more mail like the one from "carencn", I'll simply cut off the blog comment facility (I get 99 pct positive mail, but I'm not of a mind presently to accept the others, whether justified or not);
4. If I can't have a program written to automatically cut out the Texas Poker and Drug spam from the Trackbacks, I'll cut off that blog facility as well;
5. I'll try to shorten all these blogs; and
6. I'll try to focus more on companies/stocks/options, and less on other topics.

I'll try that for a couple months, after which I hope to have my proprietary programmed trading models ready, which in turn will facilitate my running the Portfolio/Trades sections of the website. At that point, rules #5 and 6 will be a lot easier for me to follow, and I think the blog will become more interesting.

Earlier this afternoon the Fed Minutes were released. Although I didn't read them, I understand that the verdict according to Greenspan and friends is that short rates are too low to be consistent with sustainable economic growth, and so the tightening policy shall stay in place. There was also discussion of possible signs of housing price excesses.

This is precisely what I have been saying all along, and I do not like the look of how this is playing out.

I believe that the Fed will tighten at a rate that is less than the growth rate of inflation, which means that commodity prices will expand, moderately perhaps but they will expand, which will ultimately put higher wage demands into play, and will squeeze corporate profits.

Interest rates will rise at the short end, moderately to start but then increasingly so if and when foreign buyers stop buying U.S. debt. That is not so likely to hurt the corporations or the retail consumer " initially or later on -- as much as it will the real-estate speculator, and the poorest of performing income trusts, and junk bonds.

Meanwhile, either the Fed tightening or a rapid slowing down of foreign purchases of U.S. debt, is going to eventually kill a gradually weakening housing market, and stock market, unless the broad economy can pick up, and interest rates can rise naturally based on retail and consumer demand.

Liquidity/velocity of money is becoming the issue. Fed tightening removes it; higher interest rates caused by economic activity does not.

I have been repeatedly saying that the average consumer in the U.S. no longer has ‘tickee for laundry" " they are tapped out, and cannot borrow more unless they earn more, which takes a stronger economy.

In addition, with a flat yield curve and a relatively healthy balance sheet at hand, the average corporation in the U.S. has no inclination to borrow or to develop capex programs. Instead they are using positive cash flow to buy back shares, in order to dress up the Financial Statements with the appearance of growing earnings per share.

A lot of that stock buy-back money flow (and the huge MSFT dividend too) is going overseas, where the best opportunities lie, which further hurts money velocity/liquidity in the U.S.

Today, the economy and the capital markets in the U.S. are in "fairly" decent shape, so this problem can continue for a while. And even as real problems do pop up, the bulls in the market will be able to point to localized successes. For example, for every Merck there is a Genentech; for every IBM, there is a Google or Yahoo, and so forth.

But just remember that the higher the PE, the more that market risk is sitting with the investor.

Since neither the industrial nor consumer segments are spending enough, there are only pockets of economic growth in the U.S. And wherever there is growth, there is a red-hot housing market, e.g., Las Vegas, parts of California, and Florida's Gold Coast -- at least for the present.

As the Fed has continued to tighten, normally interest rates should have raised significantly by now, which would have slowed or stopped that speculation.

Unfortunately for the Fed, foreign buyers (probably Asia Pacific countries ex-Japan, which have excessive economic growth rates due to unsustainably low currencies, and Japan, which is holding back its own growth for fear of a return to inflation) have been buying U.S. bonds to such an extent that bond yields, and hence mortgage rates, remain abnormally low.

What is happening today, I believe, is similar to what happened in Japan 25 years ago, which brought waves of inflation and then deflation there. Low mortgage costs in the U.S. will pump the real-estate balloon (like Japan) until the balloon breaks. More likely, the "tiny bubbles" will break, causing local market failures of banks, real estate holding companies, and so forth.

That means that both bulls and bears will continue to see their particular half of the part-full, part-empty glass. During the piece, the sell-side connected bulls will keep both the bond and stock markets over-priced relative to risk. Periodic pullbacks in both the bond and stock markets will be sharp and sudden. Nimble traders will do well; Mom & Pop not so well.

So I see a series of Inflation AND Deflation waves until there is a collapse.

In that event, I think some banks, REITs, and hedge funds that hold mortgage-backed securities are at risk. At some point there will be so many tiny bubbles bursting that a systemic failure is inevitable. The game of musical chairs will end as all currencies rush to devalue " and the price of gold will rocket higher at that point.

No one source, in my view, is to blame for what will be, at the conclusion, a perfect storm.

There is a Trade War among China, Japan, Asia ex-China and ex-Japan, Europe, Canada and the U.S. There is also a Trading War amongst the proprietary trading desks of the major banks of the world. There are some imprudently managed hedge funds that are scrambling for survival. There are real estate speculators in many countries around the world trying to wring as much in easy profit as can be made out of that market. There is a sell-side that is trying to survive in a Fed-tightening environment. There is a mass-media industry that is being displaced by an independent (and uncontrollable) blog media industry. And let us not forget the source of many of these problems, there is a War Against Terrorism underway that grows costlier by the day.

That's a lot for the owners and managers of capital to contemplate.

As for me, as I noted earlier, I'm just going to try to re-focus on the tape. That's my new KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID approach to life.

Now for a look at The Day in the Market After the Fed Minutes:

Note that the Goldminers were the top performing subindustry group.

Only two of my principal list of 25 goldminers were down. It appears the corner has been made here, and that investors of the fastest growing emerging economies (China and India) are starting to buy gold rather than hold USD (Source: Standard Chartered Bank, which is a major UK and Far East Bank).

Fourteen of 14 oil stocks on the Cara Global Best 100 Companies list all had strong up days in the market.

The Consumer Financial Services subindustry group for the most part had a bad day. I continue to avoid it.

The Homebuilders subindustry was mixed, but had some serious issues. I am pleased to get out a couple days early (because I was preparing to go to the hospital last Wed. mid-day, I didn't want to think about the risks associated with holding this group).

Except for Archipelago Exchange, which is planning to take over the NYSE, the majority of securities industry broker-dealers had a tough day. This could be a sign of falling markets, and declining volume to come. It is partly due to a rising interest rate environment that is now perceived, following release of the FOMC Minutes.

The majority of the most active and largest of the big banks had a tough day. It is also partly due to expectations for a rising interest rate environment, which would hurt the bond portfolios, and a possible slowdown in trading activity that is now perceived following release of the FOMC Minutes.

GLD was only up 60 cents, and the Dow down less than 20 points, but these monitors clearly show that there are shifts in money flow underway now that investors are getting a handle on the problems and opportunities that exist in capital markets.

At this point, I think that traders can start to go with the flow once again (i.e., normal price cycles, and fewer cross-currents) as the sell-side hype of a few stocks will start to run into technical resistance e.g., RSI on the Hourly, Daily and Weekly price charts will exceed the 70-line and even the 80-line.

RSI is a simple momentum indicator, but I hope by now you can see that the sell-side can only take the momentum game so far, even when they try to create their own version of history by telling you that market losers on the day were strong, etc. After an RSI has reached its peak and then dropped back below the 70-line, that's a good time to be clear of the long position in that price series.