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September 26, 2005
Random thoughts at 5 in the morning, Mon., Sept. 26, 2005, 5:45 AM
Equity futures are very strong early this morning. The Dow 30 futures are +64, and the Nasdaq futures are +10.50. That's what happens as a reaction to last week's over-sold conditions plus an oil market that traded down over the weekend. I noted that Unleaded Gasoline traded down -10 pct on Sunday. It's still down -5.0 pct.
I also note that India (Bombay index) is up +2.9 pct overnight, and Japan (Tokyo index) is up +1.8 pct.
But, all is not well in the energy complex. As kind as Rita showed herself to be, that storm did manage to put many more U.S. energy resources out of service. I do expect the energy markets to bounce around this week, not free-fall.
President Bush is going to speak at 10:55am ET this morning about U.S. energy policy. This ought to be a key speech because the energy market is causing a national and international economic emergency.
When President Bush took office, could anybody have predicted the events of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, four hurricanes in a month last year in Florida and then Katrina and Rita this month? I'm surprised the young man can manage to smile.
But things will improve. You mark my word today that by the time George Bush leaves office, the economy will be on the upswing and the Dow will be a new record high.
That btw is an apolitical statement since I don't attribute these prospects to supply-side economics or the massive tax relief that has occurred under this administration the way some people do. It's a case of human nature " fear and greed " at work.
Btw, this week I chuckled at having my liberal" views referred to by a reader since I'm also a fiscal conservative. What I want is social equity and less government for me and for all of you. I wish government were a fifth or a tenth the size it is today.
As for often being referred to as socialist", Canadians may have a social conscience " at least many of us do " but very few are socialists, at least in terms of what people understand about socialist regimes.
Across Canada we have a national health insurance plan, but we still pay for that insurance, one way or another.
As for supporting socialized healthcare" in Canada, let me ask if there is anybody on the planet who believes that any service government provides is free. It's just that if everybody gets the same chance in life (i.e., health and education, information, and the like), then I believe we all get to enjoy a higher quality of life.
During my earlier years, most people who knew me thought I was as much right wing as say Kudlow or Cramer. It's just that I have always believed if you help take care of all the people, then there will be fewer who think they can interfere with your life. I don't want to build walls around my house, because that would make it a jail.
As I see it, society is suffering an emotional breakdown brought on by the business cycle and the stock market cycle. I'm guessing that family physicians must be seeing a lot more emotional problems these days. I recall in 1990 my family doc telling me that he had never seen anything like the stress in people, as he did then, after 40 years of practice.
And I'm thinking that Wal-Mart is seeing it too.
The Canadian government is soon going to announce plans to admit another 100,000 immigrants on top of the 235,000 admitted last year. This is what happens when governments seek more tax revenues. They open the doors.
In any event, I'm going to help. I have a plan for self-sufficient traders to come here, to live in an area that many Canadians call paradise. I'm going to talk to an immigration consultant this week to see what kind of package can be put together for a select group.
Contact me in confidence if you have any interest. A few of you already have, so I started putting two and two together. Even in Canada that adds up to four (less GST). ;-)
If you are going to blog, you have to understand that you are trying to communicate to people. To help me do that, my favorite tool is the MS Word Spelling and Grammar checker that gives your work a rating for Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease and Grade Level.
For the first two months of Trader Wizard, I kept a daily record of these scores, always trying to get a ‘Reading Ease' score over 65, and a Grade Level below 10.0. I also try to keep the number of passive sentences to an absolute minimum.
When I finished my article for ADVFN last evening, I managed a Reading Ease score of 78 and a Grade Level score of 5.3. That made me smile, and I'm still thinking about it this morning.
This one, for example, is something like 62.2 and 8.9, with just 2 pct passive sentences. I don't have time to improve it. I'm still trying to wake up.
Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on September 26, 2005 05:50:50 AM | Category: Cara Today in the Market