Moin from Germany,

i agree with Bill on CNBC!

Hard to believe a company like Circuit City would experience a bad quarter immediately after firing their most experienced sales staff and then hiring them back at migrant worker wages. Hard to believe indeed. And not a peep from the owners about that brilliant move, it seems.

Here's the obligatory tell all from a former Circuit City employee:

27 Confessions Of A Former Circuit City Worker (Consumerist.com)

http://tinyurl.com/32toyn

Mike
NYC

Forwarding a (bleak) summer market outlook from Frank Barbera (from leisa's blog):

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

No one doubts we are in a topping process...and Barbera's outlook fits in with Bill's call for a melt-up followed by a correction to maybe DJIA 9500. It's all in the timing, right? Barbera looks for a major break in mid-July, with 10 signals to track, calling the Shanghai Composite Number One on his list->sees a continuing rise to 4500 around June 25, after which, if it drops below the 50-day MA, a change in trend for global markets...

Does anyone else have a feel for an impending break...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried...my wife wants me to think about parking my LT holdings in the Money Market Garage for the summer and picking them up again later...

re HOV, Bill don't you think do to the significant risk still involved in the housing market that the stock remains a high risk trade? I agree in general with the technicals but the market and housing specifically seem to have a lot of froth to still burn off...thoughts?

Hello??!!?? Have I unwittingly offended the site upgrade diety as my last posting must have found the wrong coordinates through the Worm Hole....;)

Anyhoo, maybe a few noticed that Home Despot divested itself of what CNBC and other 'economic experts' considered to be the weight holding down its earnings to a trifecta of PE firms. The sale price just might have covered the cost & investments to date (I'll have to check up on that), but the after market trading shows a 2+ point surge into the $40/share range.

When I read the news my first thought was of my Daughter's fate as she is employed in the Supply division. Thankfully she was tapped to join HD Corporate in a related capacity concerning sales coordination within the home improvement division. My office is safe once more! D

Blackstone IPO moving up http://www.ft.com/cms/s/73f28748-1e82-11dc-bc22-000b5df10621.html

Maybe Bush's college roommate Schwarzman has been given the signal to get this IPO done ASAP before liquidity dries up.

From Reuter's coverage of yesterday's housing report: "Permits for single-family homes fell 1.8 percent to their lowest level since July 1997, but permits for multi-family units jumped 16.5 percent." Folks got to have someplace to live, eh.

...melt-ups are difficult to play...if shanghai follows the nikkei 1990 or nasdaq 2000 it could have a long way to go...i think barbera is correct in his outlook, but do we need to bring more money in from the sidelines first? are tops marked by fear or exuberance?

...melt-ups are difficult to play...if shanghai follows the nikkei 1990 or nasdaq 2000 it could have a long way to go...i think barbera is correct in his outlook, but do we need to bring more money in from the sidelines first? are tops marked by fear or exuberance?

taking rig and oih off the table for now...

..adding to kry

Bill,

You didn't ask but, I vote that the gray boxes go. I find that they make reading difficult for my old eyes.

mu up 3.6%

adding to kgc...

Bill,

I think it may work better for the gray boxes to be for your comments, and the rest to stay white. Just easier on the eyes.

Mike,

Loved your Circuit City story. Can you imagine, stealing, with no commish and for a few lousy bucks an hour? They oughtta split the booty with the peeps, it'd improve morale.

Kry confuses me a bit. I used to have such a good feel for this stock, and I don't seem to understand it. Am looking long though out of this consolidation-thingy.

I also agree the gray boxes are the opposite of an improvement. Am starting to warm to the new picture though...lol

...and adding to uxg/wgdf/gdx...so officially rotating from oil->PM rather than paring the LT position for now ;)

chris-i think your confusion stems from position size...objectively, i see nothing strange in the fact it's not moving straight up...if there are in fact major bidders looking at it, no one wants to see volatility...

Regarding KRY ... this has gone as expected for me as I don't expect any movement until the end of the month, when we either get news about the final permit or we don't.

I like an October 5 collar here.

...forgot to preface my last comment with Re KRY...

Perhaps the gray could be made a shade or two lighter. That might help Fred, while still offsetting the comments the way Bill wants. It might also make it easier on mobile screens, if anyone is using those to read the blog. I think it would make the whole page look more 'smooth.'

Or perhaps put Bill's comments in the gray, since typically he posts fewer comments to each entry than the aggregated masses.

Just thinkin'

re: HOV. I don't know much, but I recall Bill making a positive comment about homebuilders several months ago (6?) and I thought "He's nuts! There's obviously more shakeout to come." Damn if homebuilders all didn't take a little break in the freefall and climb a bit for a while. That's why he's the 'trader wizard' and I walk around scratching the back of my neck wondering what the heck is going on.

re: circuit city story - I'm not a big fan of that whole blog family/company, but I like Consumerist.com a lot. Like Bills site, it's about helping the little guy deal with the big powers. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Geek Squad sting story - they've taken to sending people in to get jobs in some of these anti-consumer places and reporting back from the inside. I love it!

Mike
NYC

Gold consolidating back to Monday's levels. Hopefully this scares people out of the miners so we can pick up some more on the cheap. Waiting to see how gold spot plays out before I bite.

Re Fred's complaint about reading gray text boxes,

Black text on gray is very difficult to read, especially for long periods of time.

A better combination, one that has maximum legibility and still allows distinguishing Bill's posts from everyone else, would be to print black text on very, very light warm yellow background. (Very very light being very very important in this instance--too intense can be 'off-putting' and equally as tiresome to read as black on gray)

Legibility will be enhanced and viewers can easily distinguish Bill's comments among the crowd.

2nd ave, re mkt outlook

As i talk to you, i talk to myself. Fear and greed love to ping off each other. The inner me, or you, may like the stimulation but it is stress that has the potential to do harm. If I had to choose my own psychic role model it would be more dispassionate, less interested in what others say, and stuck to whatever rule based model I had chosen. The more I disregard all this the more likely i am to loose money. All markets top. The issue is whether or not I'm prepared. Will I sell into strength or depend upon stops. I plan to do a little of both. Bill has more tools (puts/calls) in his pocket. Earlier this year fear just immobilized me. They said emerging mkts were gonna crash, but if I had stuck to my low trade relative strength model I would be up 29% and no big deal to have a trailing stop loss at 9%...or even higher. The voice in the back of my head says, "whatever makes you happy." (ok, too preachy, stops are loaded, as is my port, time to go for a swim.)

Same show, diff episode.

Semel made $282,000 a day the past six yrs.
http://tinyurl.com/382bc6

I wonder if they included weekends in this calculation.

It says including Sunday... that is incredible

jasper, you're right about trying to tune out the noise...gold/oil beats any fiat currency hands down right and i think 1000/100 are good targets...it's in my nature to try avoiding the periodic routs, and i can see i'm trying to find ways around the "disciplined" approach...

Mike, I keenly recall Bill correctly calling the oversold condition of the homebuilder stocks at the end of last summer. It was a painful lesson for this N2S.

That said, the fundamental condition of the housing market has deteriorated further since that time and the builders are in terrible shape. I would follow Bill's advice to watch price here and not move until the daily RSI (7) moves back above 30. For me, that would be a signal to take profits on my shorts.

What's the saying again? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again ... um ... eh ... uh, don't get fooled again." ;)

began329,

As a guideline for scaling into homebuilders, I would take a look at their levels before frenzy set in to find attractive entry points at secular supports (around maybe Spring 2003). A cursory look at HOV shows a $15-18 range where I would have a strong look.

JML

i see both gfi and slw are bucking the trend today...both up >1%

BILL,
THE GREY IS VERY HARSH AND BREAKS THE "FLOW" imho.
maybe your comments in grey font not background will work.

Thank you for your generousity always.

If you think of it, pls. opine on the idea of when it was that "we the people" owned and controlled capital. Or point me to books and info that will enlighten me. I'm thinking of the the Nathan Rothchild's myth of the London 'change post.Surely that was since the beginning of time??

Hope others will chime in as well. I am really curious as to why so much resources still is not enough to provide for "the people".Pls. share.

Thank you.

Re: colored comment blocks

I would advise leaving user comments on white, and highlighting Bill comments with a light tone. I suggest a screen of one of the greens you use in the header to be consistent. Try hex: e4fcb4.

In a similar vein as my CC post, I see that Home Depot will move to dump their Business Supply unit to Bain/Carlyle et al and focus on their retail business.

It's sad what they became. I recall going to Home Depot years ago and I almost always walked out impressed and happy with the service I got. There were plenty of those orange smocks around, and the reps knew their stuff and seemed genuinely happy to help. They knew where stuff was and always walked me right over to it, as opposed to the 'grunt and point' I get now. Sometimes they would even see me wandering around and just come up to me and ask to assist. It was good and I was the sort of customer who would tell friends about it.

Fast forward a bit, and this last rotten CEO they just fired made the brilliant move to shift everyone to 'part-time' status and shave costs. I hope everyone knows what a huge shafting 'part-time' status is these days. And now Home Depot symbolizes crappy customer service and they, so they say, are dumping business supply to focus on fixing retail.

Hello! You had retail working just fine. But you sacrificed it to 'cut costs.'

Will Wall Street, ever, someday, reward a cut of experienced sales staff with a _drop_ in share price? With all the choices we have as customers at the retail level, sooner or later those chickens come home to roost. Personally, I moved from thinking of Home Depot first to looking for alternatives where I can find them, and HD is a last resort. Kinda like Wal-Mart - they are now 'stores of last resort' for me.

Sorry for ranting here! That's all for today, I promise.

Mike
NYC

Dear Genie,

You seem confused as to be history of "We the People". "We the People, were, until the 18th century living in squalor and poverty, struggling under the burdens of both aristocracy on the one hand, and the all-powerful Church on the other.
The French Revolution (1790s) was the beginning of putting action behind the writings of Enlightenment scholars such as Rousseau. But progress was slow. And so as history unfolded, and up until this present day, the hisory of mankind is a progression towards freedom but tempered by the reality that resources can be difficult to come by and only by pluck and lucky circumstance do we as individuals prosper.
Why do we as a race not prioritize the protection of the rest of the species? That is a question anthropological in origin, and the answer probably comes down to some Darwinian competitive thing.
This has been a roundabout way of saying, "We the People" are a bunch of peasants, and though exceptions will be many, as a classss, it will always be thus.

Chris

I like the grey background, easier to read for me. Maybe you could even consider putting a very light grey on your blogs...it's really easier on the eyes than white. White always has a glare factor. I'm one of your older readers. NT

re background
light brown/yellow may be an easier read as mentioned above, when using stockcharts.com that color has seemed a good choice. light grey ok,too.

This may be of interest to some readers. Geologix Explorations Inc. (GIX) announced today that warrants totalling 2,768,200 units @ $0.65 expiring June 19, 2007 have all been exercised. Also, MPEL looks to me to be in the accumulation zone. It has been a falling knife however.

jmf,

a great book on the subject of saudi oil 'overestimates' is called 'twilight in the desert' written by matthew simmons. it's very technical, and disturbing, and a pretty tough read, but well worth it if the subject interests you. matthew simmons has also been interviewed over on fs, a great listen.

what about having the entire blog gray, but for user comments Bill? I set my backgrounds to gray on WORD, EXCEL, etc and I think it's much easier on the eyes than a bright white. just a thought.

being forced to sign in again after trying to post. good thing i ctrl-a, ctrl-c beforehand/

had to post this a third time before it showed up (hopefully it does this time)

Does anyone have any thoughts on the price action today of MU?

It gapped up on the opening and traded above $13.00.

Many thanks for any commentary offered.

regards all.

joey

Eric,

I read twilight in the desert, and I came away a non-believer. Whether or not it's "peak oil" now or ten years from now matters not at all. We have enough oil for the foreseeable future, alternatives abound, and Simmons came off like a shill for the oil industry and their 3 dollar a gallon oil. And yes, the charts and tables were indecipherable.

Hello Bill and others,
Would I look here or on the thread yesterday for WGI/WGDF for potential cash flow and earnings per share multiples for mid tier gold stocks in a bull market?
Thank you for checking on this for me as per your response yesterday.
Tom

Bill—not having any problem reading comments with shading. Checked two different monitors, a laptop and all look fine FWIW. (Disclosure: I’m not a youngster).

MTRX—a falling knife today, down 18% despite reaffirming guidance although earnings disappoint. Looks overdone IMO. No position, but watching closely.

SLW continues to fight the trend and the 12 handle. Long.

Picked up some TRA 2 days ago; like today’s move. Long.

MikeNYC—agree with HD comments. That’s why I prefer to shop at Lowe’s.

For what it's worth, I like the grey background but I agree that it is hard on the eyes after a while. Something lighter (be it a lighter grey or a light yellow or green or blue) would probably be a good idea.

ibn and mbt:
I doubt Bill intended this way, but the cara 100 are looking to me as a wonderful cross section of the best of the best for making entries based on strength. When I look at the top third ranked by a risk adjusted roc (alpha) 15 period these look like having had good entries last week: ibn,mbt, and oxps. I took positions in the first two. When Bill shared information about ibn, that one was the easiest decision. OXPS has a long base but recent move may be too predicated on take over rumors/? CHA looks like a good value play on the underperforming russian mkt. A sell occurs when a ticker falls below 30th rank or violates a trailing stop loss. Weekly data only.

fwiw...not cha but mbt is russian company

Home Depot (HD) is up almost 7% today because they plan to repurchase $22.5 billion in stock and sell their HD Supply business. My analysis of this is that HD can see no business opportunities and they expect their mid and long-term market to shrink.

Re: Bill's Comment "There is far more market engineering going on today than I have ever experienced in at least 30 years. I don’t think that’s a good thing."

The term "financial engineering" has become quite common, in fact I think Bill or someone else recently mentioned a friend or relative who has just graduated in just such a specialty and is going to work in analysis in the oil and gas industry.

I have not heard the term "market engineering" before.When I saw this I wondered right away what qualifications one must have to enter this field. I can only imagine.

To wit: a little something about engineers and engineering -

Structural Failures and Engineering Ethics

J. Struct. Engrg., Volume 119, Issue 5, pp. 1539-1555 (May 1993)

W. M. Kim Roddis,1 Member, ASCE
1Asst. Prof., Dept. of Civ. Engrg., Univ. of Kansas, 2006 Learned Hall, Lawrence KS 66045

Major engineering failures act as a catalyst for change in standards of practice and therefore create the opportunity for establishing better ethical practices for the profession. When examining ethics in engineering practice, it is useful to make the distinction between ethics in engineering and ethics of engineering. Ethics in engineering deals with the ethics of actions of individual engineers. Ethics of engineering deals with ethical issues that involve the role of engineers in industry, the ethics of the organizations in which they work and of professional engineering societies, and the ethical responsibilities of the profession. This paper presents case studies of two major structural disasters—the 1907 Quebec Bridge collapse and the 1981 Kansas City, Mo. Hyatt Regency walkway failure. The effect of each failure on engineering ethics is examined from the viewpoint of both ethics in engineering and of ethics of engineering. In response to failures, engineers need to change professional procedures and practices so that they reinforce, rather than place obstacles in the way of, moral action.

©1993 American Society of Civil Engineers

Re the emergence of notion "we the people", which by any account has a complex ancestry:

I highly recommend Neal Stephenson's ( http://tinyurl.com/ffrw4 ) epic trilogy, _The Baroque Cycle_ for a rip-roaring, entertaining and highly enlightening (even though fictional) account of the emerging Enlightenment world of modern global finance, contending national financiers and suspect currencies, bickering philosophers, democratic, republican yearnings and more.

The trilogy comprises three novels spanning several decades following the great fire of London in 1666: _Quicksilver_, _The Confusion_, and _The System of the World_ also serve as prequel to the modern setting of his _Cryptonomicon_, which richly explores overlapping lusts for data, technical prowess and gold.

The more we the people change the more we seem the same . . . .

i sense gold is getting ready to move one way or the other...since i "feel" like it's going to drop, and i'm wrong 2/3 of the time on ST direction, guess the smart bet is it takes off to the upside...playing it that way...

I lust for data, technical prowess and gold, is that wrong? ;>)

Merrill Lynch seizes $800mil of Bear Stearns bonds before BS can sell them to bail out their hedge fund. Sweet! Let the games begin. They have done this to themselves. Next I bet GS cleans Merrill's clock. http://tinyurl.com/2qmf45

Weird, type key though I was signed on a blank several times, had to jump through hoops to post this.

And on the housing front B of A CEO says that the housing slump is just about over, Economy to pick up in Q3 and 4.

Sure it's over!

http://tinyurl.com/3ynqab

Just a reminder....
check your missives from colin Twiggs RE: the DOW support, which as of last report was 16629 (Friday's low). Note where we are now and that we may be heading for a test of 13,300.

NASD is 2590 down to suuport at 2525-2500
S&P is 1490 support at 1460-1375.

So far no biggie except to watch the DOW. I've upped stops and am thinking of buying inverse indexes if we start to build momentum on the downside.

Re: "I lust for data, technical prowess and gold, is that wrong?"

Just "we the people" in our typical predilections . . . .

Sure that wasn't the B of S CEO, agaunv?

what are you trying to say, craig..i was about to reply to professor roddis' post and then i see you kind of hit on the motivation behind trading (and i happen to think you list things in the right order-the gold helps you keep score, but the challenge/Zen of being able to navigate the markets [interpreting data and acting on it] is what keeps you playing)...of course i would put it another way...both ethics in financial engineers and the ethics of financial engineering deserve a good look...but in the end, it is traders who play the game, and the sum total of their executions that comprise the movement of prices...of course, i think roddis is referring to the damage inflicted on the average citizen when the market collapses due to irresponsible behavior by a different class of financial engineers..

ALOHA !!

I have been researching the 1978 US economy and the markets, especially currencies and PMs. The year 1978 was important because it was the year prior to the POG/POS and consumer interest rates melt-up!

Even some 30 years ago, in 1978, the FED was busy manipulating markets on a semi-daily basis. Here is a part of my article that was published at another paid subscriber website.

FOMC Meeting Minutes(conference call) dated 1/5/78(pages 9-10):

MR. HOLMES. I only hope that we can be lucky as well as wise.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. Well, we can all join you in that hope. Do you have any recommendations to the Committee?

MR. HOLMES. I think the one thing we need, Mr. Chairman, is an authorization, at least from the Subcommittee, so we will have at least some money for intervention tomorrow.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. I am sorry I asked that question!

MR. LILLY. Let tomorrow take care of itself.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. You know, your best day was yesterday when you didn’t spend a penny.

MR. HOLMES. Those are the days we like, Mr. Chairman, but we can’t expect to do that every day.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. No, but you don’t have to intervene every day. I like the question that was put to you, I think by Mr. Partee: Do you expect to intervene every time the market declines? After the kind of rise that we had yesterday in the market, today in the foreign [exchange] market a little reversal in the New York market is only to be expected. That’s the way the markets function.

MR. HOLMES. Mr. Chairman, we have had that reversal today. The rate is now 2.1435.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. And what was it before?

MR. HOLMES. It has been as high as 2.1575

CHAIRMAN BURNS. Well, considering the movements we’ve had that’s hardly a movement at all. What do you think it would have been if you had stayed out of the market?

MR. HOLMES. I think it would be back to 2.06 to 2.07.

CHAIRMAN BURNS. I don’t believe it for a minute. I don’t believe it for a minute and I say it loud and clear.

VICE CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. Compromise on 2.10.END

What's this "lucky" thing? Is that these guys count on?

Here we have the US Federal Reserve documented in meeting minutes back in 1978 talking about intervening in the USDX on a daily basis. Their efforts are to intervene in a way that resembles "free markets". Laughable at the very least. This is conclusive proof of manipulated markets that dates back some 30 years, manipulations that occur on a frequent basis. The fact that Bernanke insists that the PPT does not meet every day is an out and out lie. Perhaps they skip a few days but the likelihood they only meet once a month,as he says, is truly very ridiculous.

Further, if you read the entire transcript you would see the word "psychological" mentioned a number of times. You would also see that the US Federal Reserve was spending billions of taxpayer funds to manipulate the USDX. Just imagine what amount they must be spending today to "manage" not only the USDX but all other
markets including the DOW under the auspices of the PPT. Even with all this taxpayer money adding to market sizes and monetary inflation the performance over the past 30 years has been dismal based on what a US Dollar can purchase in 2007. It is clear to me that the US Federal Reserve in conjunction with the US Treasury
has had a long and storied past of market manipulations. I have to question whether such manipulations have been worth the cost? Of course we will never know since there have never been "free markets" since the creation of the
US Federal Reserve. One thing is clear ... we have had some 100 years of monetary inflation and the fact that I can no longer purchase any thing for a penny speaks volumes to the success of "fiat" monetary systems and the US Federal Reserve. We were warned over 200 years ago about printing money ... Now there is no turning back!!

Link to FOMC 1/5/78 meeting: http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/transcripts/1978/19780105confcall.pdf

CNBC commentator Ron Insana is starting a hedge fund.

Already took a position in SDS on Monday and am darn glad I did it, this is my first short position ever. Just feels good to have one foot going out the door.

This whole market is being held together with duct tape and bailing wire and the PTB, HB&B are quickly exhausting the supplies.
Hmm 3M and Steel wire makers might be a good market play at this time.

number2son: regrettably you are quite right, HOV is on record today as saying that there is no end in sight for the housing slowdown. Sniff.

Eric, Bill once suggested copying one's comments somewhere before posting, since there seem to be consistent posting glitches. I find that works. I just go back, recopy, and paste my comment. Usually I only have to do this once. Saves rewriting it.

Re: the colored background: I find the copy harder to read on color. That said, I'd love to see Bill's comments separated by color. We all look for his comments, after all. Color would make them easier to find.

playing this on pure instinct (with a nod to agaunv)...putting on a hedge with sds into the close...

...MAJOR hedge...can't say why right now...

2nd_ave:
Looking at the way market is tanking in the last hour, I too bought some SRS (52.29), just for the fun of it.
I also exited some miners (GRS, GFI). Ff the market goes down miners and GLD will follow.

if they're going to drop the market on you, why not now, and why not lull you into thinking it's another modest dip that will get bought, only to crank up the selling into the close, ready to gap down tomorrow---that's as close as i can come right now to "explain" my last minute move...i think a major drop right now would catch 90% of market watchers off guard...glad to see JogyP's intuition worked the same way...

..."explainING"

P&F DOW Chart posted a High Pole Warning 6/20

http://tinyurl.com/2fca4v

stokbot, do you mind explaining what a high pole warning is, and its significance...

2nd Ave

Its a P&F reversal signal

You can find this info on the stockcharts site, use search:

The high pole warning is given when a chart rises above a previous high by at least 3 boxes but then reverses to give back at least 50 percent of the rise. The reversal implies that the demand that was making the prices rise has given way to supply pressure. The pattern is a warning that lower prices could be seen in the future.

Shanghai chart did not make new high:

http://tinyurl.com/2njzue

ok, thanks...

Seeing as I was the one who "complained" about the gray, I'll offer an opinion on the green. I like it!

James De Porre "put on the biggest hedge that I've had in some time," in the final hour also...so I don't think the bearish vibes are that far off:

http://tinyurl.com/2h62uh

Any thoughts on RBY? Rob Mcewen will be on BNN tomorrow -probably discussing positive drill results.

..currently positioned at 25% long (LT) oil/PM, 15% long ST gold, and 25% SDS...despite the fact that SDS is a turbo-charged double-short position, I think the higher volatility in PMs leaves me net neutral at the moment...and hoping the hedge will be unnecessary and can be taken off soon...

I like the new green color. I also like the way Bill's comments are in an opposing color, like in the King James Bible. :)
Bought PEIX today for 12.01 and sold it for a $350 gain. Boy I love those support zone trades. Own 2K WGDF @ 2.00, 2K KRY @ 4.44. I am trying to buy another 2K of WGDF at 2.25. That is a tough stock to purchase on limit. stk

I vote with Fred: I not only like the pale new color, but I think the copy is easier to read against the color background.

Maybe Bill should keep his comments against the white so that we can find them quickly.

JogyP-if gold and miners go down with the market, and we agree with current headlines that higher rates are behind the drop, what are the odds that this time gold reverses quickly and shifts to the more traditional relationship of higher rates=higher POG?

just thinking aloud here-with the last few broad market drops, price movement in the miners were positively correlated and had beta values>1 (ie, the market drops one step, miners drop maybe 1 & 1/2 steps)...if we further assume that the majority of gold timers will reflexively exit their positions in the face of broad weakness (ie, they are now conditioned to expect another out-sized drop in gold, and who can blame them), then i think betting against the majority means expecting a quick reversal in the POG and a straight shot >730...that would be the difficult-to-play-but-highly-rewarded move to make...but i think it would take either strong conviction or strong nerves to make that play...at some point the POG will need to diverge from general market direction (if history is any guide)...why not now, when no one expects it? any thoughts...

...in which case the ultimate position is short the market but long gold...so i should disclose that that happens to be my current position, although i did not arrive at that position based on the reasoning in the previous post...

Lew Rockwell has a great piece about Ron Paul's chances in the forthcoming US Presidential race: http://tinyurl.com/2h8lm4

I think Ron Paul will also do well in gaining support in the Unity08 online convention: http://tinyurl.com/38terp

i also see i scanned the "financial engineering" post too quickly earlier, and any mention of Roddis in my post should be replaced with Bull/Bears...

johojo, did you see Thomas Woods article on Rockwell titled Excluding Ron Paul? He gives me a public thanks at the bottom, which was real nice of him. Nice writer and a seemingly good guy.

I had come home from work yesterday and saw the news had just broken about him being excluded in Iowa and boy was I steamed. I started Google-ing these guys like mad. I turned up the changed lineup card, though the organizer had said it was set in stone months ago, and I turned up the campaign contributions to McCain, both of which I forwarded to Woods and via phone to the the national campaign. Not that both wouldn't have been found by the public very quickly anyway, but it's a good feeling to have made some small impact (besides the two NH voters I've personally converted to Dr. Paul.)

Anyway, I'm sure Bill doesn't want this to become a political/Ron Paul blog. I actually came here to see if Bill or someone can talk about RIO and what happened with the price due to the new "Manditorily Convertible Notes," but I'm going to wait until tomorrow and make a comment/question about it then. I'm not in it, but I inadvertantly put a guy at work into it by mentioning what a great company I though it was - I really do like RIO a whole lot, and I had enumerated why I liked BHP, RIO and TCK, not as a stock, just as a company. (Next day - "Hey, I bought that stock you were talking about, in Brazil, RIO or something?" Me: "You did WHAT!!??")

It worked out lucklily for both of us, as it happened to be a day that RIO tanked after nickel plummeted several months ago, and he actually got in at almost Soros levels (I heard Soros is in from 20-32) But I learned a good lesson in talking about companies around guys who spend a month studying about some new MP3 player and can't spend ten minutes reading about a company they put thousands into. This fellow is now sad he didn't put more into it, of course, and though I know it's not a Cara Buy Alert, I'm wondering if this pullback is a good dip upon which to add a small bit to a succesful position?

(Yes, I just de-cloaked myself with the Woods article reference. I had been planning on doing that anyway and now I think I can make my email address public via this TypePad account - nothing to hide here!)

Regards all,
Mike
NYC

MikeNYC,

Good job! In the interest of social equity, not just politics, I salute your support of Ron Paul. I signed the petition and hope he gets included in the upcoming debate.

Change.

G'day Bill,

Just a few problems with your revamped site.

Could not register as new viewer from your menu.

Cannot get many of the menu items at top to work eg contact details, Cara 100 for US, Asia Pacific, etc.

Problems would probably only be noticed by a newbie to your site!!

Very impressed with your blog. I have already adapted some of my analysis from your process and methodology.

Regards, Aussie Dave

sv