Bill-

You have my complete endorsement and compliance with your directive on political commentary on your Blog.

A major tenet of my investing core belief is: "Significant events move markets significantly!" The North Korean missiles test confirms that belief, IMHO. For further confirmation, look at all the magor market indices - all are trading lower for no other reason than this weekend's N. Korea tests, even GLD that defensive bellweather, although not a drastic.

The moral: Learn to play the market's momentum. It's risky, but so exciting!

I, for one, will abide by your request and not post in response to any future posts that are as provocative as those that appeared most recently.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid this issue will likely come up again in the future, so I just wanted to let you know that I find the posts of most of
your commenters of great value and that I sincerely hope that others will also restrain themselves and not let things reach that pass.

I trust the reader understands that geo-political "events" such as NK missle testing are worthy of discussion in this blog where such events are tied directly to economic factors. Most Asia watchers understand that the driving force behind the impoverished NK's arms initiative is the seeking of economic advantages ( i.e. hand-outs ) from the West. It's called economic blackmail, plain & simple, and its going on in other places such as Sudan, Palestine, and Iran to name but a few. In the last century you had to lose a world war in order to have your economy re-built to super-power status in one generation. Today, aid only comes at the point of a gun.

Oratier - I alluded to this in a late and long-winded comment in the WIR but would you recommend any materials for studying how to "play the market's momentum".

Additionally, is there a timeline for when the BoJ is expected to make their announcements this week?

Iran and N. Korea will develop nukes&missiles, just as India and Pakistan did. Under the nation-state system, they are (sadly) free to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty and do this. Extra incentives for nukes come from Bush'es attacking the "axis of evil" member without nukes, but not those developing nukes. For investors, this means: Expect broad international moves towards nukes, and watch to see how, when, and for how long unfolding developments affect security prices.

ruticuf,

Re: "Additionally, is there a timeline for when the BoJ is expected to make their announcements this week?"

I think this is a question Bill Cara (Blog's host) can answer way better than I. (I don't follow the Japanese economy)

Momentum trading:

Two short-term indicators I use exclusively are:
Value Line's (Timely Stocks in Timely Industries screen) (beware- this is not an endorsement of Value Line)and Darvas Boxes (the price calculations used to create those boxes are fascinating.)

IMHO, Value Line publications (and software) are the premier research tool for evaluation a stock's fundamental valuation and Darvas boxes for the buy/sell timing.

The best tools in momentum trading should not be the most elaborate, or elegant, but simple to use and understand (use the KISS principle)

A Value Line subscription should be part of any traders yearly investing costs, IMHO.(again, this is not an endorsement of the publiction)

Thanks

Thanks for you response Oratier.

After a quick google search, according to a number of articles, the bank has its meetings to set policy on July 13th and 14th.

North Korea is China's problem child. China intervened in the Korean war to prevent U.S. and Korean forces marching all the way to the Chinese border and camping there.

North Korea is a buffer but, it is also the reason that the Americans have permanent bases on the Korean peninsula. NK has also been a royal pain for the Chinese.

The latest story is that NK is stealing Chinese trains. The Chinese send food and fuel aid into NK by rail. The North Koreans keep the trains claiming that the rolling stock is part of the aid.

Well spoken Bill, can we also delete Novalawyers comment now since though it brilliantly represents shallow understanding of a political organisation, it is also offensive to many.