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June 19, 2005
"Focus of the Week", Sunday, June 19, 2005, 12:57 PM
At the suggestion of a couple readers, I will set up a new feature called the "Focus of the Week". Each week I will write various articles on that topic. I encourage readers to register and make comments under each "Focus" and to submit web links to articles or data that might be of interest to researchers and readers alike.
To set this up I asked for and received a large number of key words and topics you'd like me to focus on quarterly or semi-annually. In just a couple days I received the impressive total of almost 200 "talking points".
I am impressed that you feel, as a group, that I am up to the task.
Entries received that were common or particularly interesting were listed in the top 60, as shown below. There were also another 24 that some readers feel ought to be in the top 60.
Obviously this response is too much for one person to "focus" on weekly, every quarter. There are 13 weeks every quarter, so if I were to attempt to cover them all in a "Focus", that would be about five (5) unique talking points every week.
I'd need to have the Wall Street Journal staff to support that kind of endeavor. And you know this is merely ;-) The Cara Daily Planet.
So here is the main list of 60 (plus 24 other items): please send me an e-mail as to the top 20 in your opinion.
Please just give me the numbers in a string, like 3, 6, 7, 9, 14, etc., because that will make it easy for me to compile. If you have another topic you'd like to see in the top 20 or 30, go ahead and list it (them).
I'll take entries for the next several days, and post the results. After I decide on the final list, based on your replies, and the time I have available for publishing, I'll set up a calendar schedule plus a reader response article, and a reader submitted web links research article for each "Focus" topic.
Judging from the response so far, I think this will be fun for me, and valuable for many of you.
I am but one voice among many millions in the world of capital markets. As a trader like you, I am but one in many hundreds of millions. Surely, we, the owners of capital, i.e., the buy-side of the market (including you individuals who happen to work on the sell-side), have lots to say to one another, and lots to gain by focussing on what's important.
I hope you're with me on this:
1. Book reviews
2. Broker ratings; Full service v. online brokerages debate
3. Developing algorithmic or systems-based trading software
4. Developing more useful economic indicators
5. Developing more useful securities trading sentiment indicators
6. Dow 30 Long/short portfolio, with updates; for tracking, learning purposes
7. Economics: and Investment
8. Economics: Country debt/GDP ratio
9. Economics: Fed and Greenspan watch
10. Economics: global deflation/inflation
11. Economics: perpetual war monetizes debt bubble
12. Economics: Policies of Central Banks
13. Economy & stocks: Asia Pacific ex-Japan, ex-China
14. Economy & stocks: Brazil and Latin America
15. Economy & stocks: China, including relations with Taiwan
16. Economy & stocks: Europe, including the future of the EU
17. Economy & stocks: India
18. Economy & stocks: Japan
19. Economy & stocks: Russia
20. Electronic newsletter and investment advice services
21. ETFs: by sector and country
22. Forecasting equity market trends and cycles with futures data
23. Fundamental Analysis; reading between the lines (management brochures, figures)
24. Hedge Trading, Portfolio Pairs Trading - Long GM / Short Ford example
25. How to _______ (fill in the blank with pretty much anything)
26. Information "for-dummies": cost-efficient trading for small investors
27. Information "for-dummies": pros/cons of being expat investors
28. International Bonds, U.S. Bonds and Yield curve,
29. International investing: relative risk/value (attractiveness) of specific opportunities
30. International stocks: popular ADR's
31. International stocks: the best growth companies
32. Key indicators of stock cycles, key market drivers, weighting of market drivers
33. Media and Talking Heads: "Hot Air / Fluff of the Day" - Noise to ignore
34. Microcap and Penny Stocks (love them or leave them?)
35. Money Flow (Stocks; Commodities; Real estate; Currencies; Bonds)
36. Mutual funds v. ETF-only investing (or "Is there any reason to use Mutual Funds anymore?")
37. Mutual funds: Rating the best
38. Options Trading; Techniques, use in trading for all time horizons
39. Portfolio construction and asset allocation, do you subscribe to modern portfolio theory? If not what is your view on how people should structure their portfolio
40. Potential dangers for system failure in capital markets
41. Psychology of trading
42. Real Estate Investing/Bubble, housing market, credit bubble stuff
43. Regulators: Spitzer, SEC management, policies, need to reform
44. Retirement and Estate Planning
45. Risk Management, Risk v. Reward Analysis
46. Sector rotation and intra-market analysis
47. Sector specific investing ideas: Alternative Energy
48. Sector specific investing ideas: Dot-com or Dot-bomb
49. Sector specific investing ideas: Foreign Telecom Company
50. Sector specific investing ideas: Gold (all aspects)
51. Sector specific investing ideas: Leisure Markets
52. Sector specific investing ideas: Metals complex ex-Gold
53. Sector specific investing ideas: Top 5 North American Banks To Hold 20 Yrs
54. Stock screens: developing useful quant screens for large cap stocks
55. Systematic vs. Active (discretionary) trading
56. The 5-minute Trader: quality info sources, protocol to productively review them
57. Trade entry and exit tactics for maximizing profit
58. Trading Strategies & Tactics: Using common sense & avoiding the snake oil
59. Trend & Cycles Analysis (stock cycles, business cycles, interest rate cycles, forex cycles) for market timing
60. Warren Buffett and other great traders
· Buy the stock, sell the option ideas and methodology
· Cara Global 100 Best Companies
· Dividend Yield, high yielding stock portfolio
· Dow Theory
· Earnings
· Federal Funds Rate
· Foreign exchange rates,
· Generating blog revenue
· Legal/tax aspects (for being semi-permanent residents here)
· Long-term v. Intermediate-term v. Short-term Investing
· Market Trends
· Model Portfolio
· Modern Portfolio Theory
· Peak oil
· Portfolio turnover
· Smaller Emerging Markets (Eastern Europe, Turkey, Vietnam, etc)
· Systematic Risk
· Timing Cycle for Crude Oil/ Nat Gas
· Timing Cycle for Gold
· Tricks of the Bulge Bracket
· Twin deficits
· Understanding Ratios
· US/CAD exchange rate, Canadian interest rates and bonds
· Volatility Index
I look forward to hearing from you, whether or not you identify yourself, and whether or not you consider yourself an expert or someone new to the game.
Your participation will remain as confidential as you want it to be, but I assure you that many others will be positively impacted by your participation.
Thanking you in advance.
Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on June 19, 2005 12:58:22 PM | Category: Cara "Focus" of the Week
Discourse
Hi Bill,
Thanks for all your hard work on this Blog. As I have mentioned few times before, it is extremely educative and full of insights.
Can I request you to provide follow-up views on your earlier posting on 5/10 on Consumer Financials
http://www.billcara.com/archives/2005/05/consumer_financ_1.html
While, it has gone against your prediction in the short term (stocks are up by 7% on average and puts are significantly down since 5/10) - but I had liked your posting then and I feel even now that stock movement since May 10 has only made them better candidates for 2006 Jan puts.
Thanks,
Rick
Hi Bill,
I feel that quite a few points on the list could be condensed into one topic. For a quick example the "better trading" series 5,22,32,35,56,57,59 look pretty close. Also 13-19 Economy & stocks series might already be covered by the Cara Global 100 Best Companies point. The Sector specific investing ideas 47-53 series as well. In replacement of these, it might be more rewarding for all concerned to have more of a "Techniques to go about analysing topic X" focus rather than a hard list from the end product of your analysis. Basically how to go about thinking and analysing topic X, a "Trader Toolbox"/recipes (with examples). Then readers could apply the techniques learned to their favourite sector or Economy (for example), plus add their own style/knowledge domains and perhaps even give back with some great ideas of their own for peer review/comment.
Just an idea.
Cheers,
Keith.
Posted by: Keith Nelson at June 20, 2005 7:27 AM [link]
Nitromed's stock increased on news that the FDA panel approved BiDil for use in African American populations. If the FDA takes the panel's advice, which it usually does, BiDil would be the first drug to reach the market for NitroMed (NTMD, last $19.70). What do you see as a high for NTMD in the next 26 weeks? Do you see $32 or greater in the coming weeks given the very large market for this drug?
Posted by: Duke Rollington at June 20, 2005 10:15 AM [link]
Here is my order of topics I'd like to see you focus on: 3,5,6,32,34,38,45,46,57,58
Thank you for doing this, I can't wait to read the "focus topics." I hope they're as good as the "week in review."
Posted by: Matt at June 20, 2005 3:53 PM [link]
Thanks, Bill. Your site is my daily visiting website and enjoy so much.
It's very hard to choose top 5 from 60, and the top 5 should change by the time. I think you just pick what you think are important during the time for INVESTMENT like you did for gold mining and gold.
Posted by: John Fox at June 21, 2005 1:27 PM [link]
Hi Bill,
Here is my list in order of preference:
46, 32, 42, 57, 59, 40, 39, 38, 58, 55, 35, 41, 45, 56, 6, 5, 4, 50, 47, 36.
What the heck does 11 - perpetual war monetizes debt bubble mean?
-Ben Green
Posted by: Soulek1 at June 19, 2005 3:50 PM [link]