Bill, it sounds like you're Windows profile got deleted. And you still have problems with a virus? What exactly did the repair shop fix?

Also, with that many files on your system, I wonder if you may have a problem with disk fragmentation. This is one of the most common and overlooked causes of performance problems on computer systems and, I'm glad to say, one of the of the most easily remedied.

Rather than using the defragment utility that ships with Windows, I recommend using a free utility available here:

http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

Anyway, good luck resolving your computer problems.

Cara 100

Downgrade

Encana Corporation(ECA)
Wachovia Capital

HOLD from STRONG BUY

Long ECA
Oct 16/07

Bill:

You can restore your desktop settings from your backup. However, many of the links may no longer be there if they were links to programs that are no longer installed.

You may also restore your browser bookmarks.

The desktop links are generally located at C:\documentsandsettings\username\desktop. Copy the files from the backup into the same folder on the new machine.

Try 1 folder first to see if it works so that you can delete it if its not what you want.

The bookmarks are located at C:\documentsandsettings\username\favorites\links. Do the same thing there. Again, try 1 file to make sure it works.

If you really screw up, you most probably can use the System Restore to get you back (Start/help and support/undo changes with system restore.

Now, on the email, your isp should have a web based interface to get you through until you get your disks back up.

Hope this helps, any other questions ask. This board has alot of smart tech guys.

Have global stock markets run into a cul de sac? Bulls with long and short horns alike will probably admit that the rally since August 17, 2007 (i.e. when the US Fed cut the discount window rate) was probably “too much too fast”.

A “pop ‘n drop” pattern seems to be global stock markets’ fate, at least for the short term. Time will tell whether the rest of the journey will require coming all the way back from the cul de sac, or whether a longer, but more steady, route can be found.

Here is the link to my full story:
http://investmentpostcards.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/global-stock-markets-pop-%e2%80%98n-drop/

Is this a temporary set-back or something more ominous? What do you think?

Carry trade got a bit of a squeeze tonight.

Windows bites, but heh, what 'ya gonna do...

Oh, by the way, if you're tired of the nonsense in our Capital Markets - "mark to myth", SIVs, fraudulent mortgages?

Head over to http://financialpetition.org and do something about it. This is mine and I'm paying for the faxes to your lawmakers.

US only guys, because we're hitting US Lawmakers.... but this just might shake a few people up.

http://www.apple.com

Go ahead. Take a peek. It is nice.

It sounds like they just backed up your documents and then wiped the machine. That's pretty standard operating procedure for a screwed up windows install. If that's the case then most likely all of your applications will need to be re-installed and re-configured. Just finding the shortcuts to them won't help. If you just need basic document functionality(word+excel) I would recommend trying docs.google.com. Hopefully that will keep you going until you get home and can reinstall your applications.

Hope that helps. :-)

Good Morning one and all!!!

Is anyone holding DUG or only me ?? just curious.

TIA

Bill,

Whenever I have problems with Windows, watching this always makes me feel better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TOeHJLDpI

Didja see them run the stops in PAL a second ago...It paid to have that $7.76 buy order in eh?

Bill...I hope your getting it all together electronics-wise. I miss you man!

I am holding out of the money AMZN October puts.

What's are your feelings about options expiration this month? Should I hold until Thursday, wary of a Friday rally or is this finally the week the crazy money takes their money off the table?

UXG: 4.35
Taking a small position here.

"What is a Windows Profile? Where do I look for that?"

It includes registry settings and the desktop shortcuts, links, temporary files stored under your C:\Documents and Settings\ folder (as described by slynch above).

moneygenie- still long DUG..added yesterday...

SMN (ultrashort basic materials)- opened yesterday and closing this morning (5% move)

QID- still long and looking to add...concern is INTC announcement tonight, which can take things either way....

Long-Term Weekly Chart for Altius Minerals(ALS.TO)

http://tinyurl.com/2ohebd

JoggyP - I've been looking at UXG too... Haven't seen any news to explain the recent decline.

Bill - I came to the same conclusions a while ago; that's why I run Linux at home. Of course, I'm a computer person, which helps. Almost everything I use is free, so I can get a new computer up and running just by downloading all the software I need, and all my files are in open formats (if not formally specified, the source code of the programs that read and write them is freely available), so I never have to worry about being locked out of my data.

"If you really screw up, you most probably can use the System Restore to get you back (Start/help and support/undo changes with system restore."

Maybe it can be restored back to a recent date, but prior to the virus hitting.

How high is BMK.v going?

Bill, I second the indication to use Google docs (Word, Excel and Powerpoint). No need to install anything, all runs on your browser, and you have instant backups and can access them from any other computer :-).

UXG: I'm watching it too but would like to see some signs of a floor before entering.

2nd

I went long QID for 50% of my retirement portfolio. Intel had a lot of money outflow yesterday (selling into strength).

NOT.V - $6.00 + another 8+% today.

Bill,

Does your ISP have webmail? You should be able to access your email account from a web site. Otherwise, a Gmail or Hotmail account might make sense for you, and it's available via Outlook with a bit of tweaking. Never lose an email again. You can also load your ISP emails into Gmail or Hotmail if you have the server settings.

In this web 2.0 world you should not even need desktop apps. :)

Zoho...
http://www.zoho.com/

Google Docs
http://docs.google.com/?pli=1

Google Apps
https://www.google.com/a/

You can also download the trial versions of Office software from www.microsoft.com/office/ as a temporary measure. And http://office.live.com gives you a web repository for documents.

cheers.

To anyone who is suggesting GoogleDocs: Where is the information one enters into the free software being stored? Googleplex?

Bill,
There's a product called "Deep Freeze" that you may want to consider if you stick with MS, possibly even with Mac too. I haven't tried it, don't know the price, so this is not a recommendation

http://www.faronics.com/html/product.asp

MS learned long ago that features sell, quality doesn't.

RobBoss- thanks for the info...i think zooming out to a 6 month horizon makes holding the ultrashorts look very reasonable (reversion to the mean)...

wb, yes, somewhere in GoogleLand. It's secure and cannot be accessed by anyone else, or you can share with whoever you want. Another nice feature is the built in Finance functions (stock prices), plus the automatic html publishing capabilities, really neat and useful.

Sold remaining BMK, will pick up later.

Bill's windows woes -

It's only a matter of time before the same thing happens to ALL of us. What should we do to prepare?

I bought System Mechanic from Iolo. Do you computer guys think it is good?

Steve: what are "VM virtual images" and how can "just plain folks" use them to protect their systems?

Maybe we can derive some good from Bill's windows woes ! =

Steve: Is VMserver a piece of software? How can I use it to avoid my next mega-crash?

"VM server is free and runs under windows or Linux to let your computer run multiple virtual images under the host systems with minimal performance penalty. The best part is that snapshots can be made easily from a VM image even on the fly and the image is completely portable to another PC."

Thanks in advance! - Jock

MykeNYC posted a comment at 2:32AM today about GLD and SLV ETFs: "As a base or core holding of metal they are an illusion. I've read the SLV prospectus several times and some of the stuff in there would curl your toes."

Can you elaborate on that?

Also, when gold was falling earlier this year, people here were blaming the GLD ETF, as the ETF was dumping gold. If gold drops in price, mom&pop would likely be selling their GLD, so GLD sells gold holdings, nothing sinister there. Conversely, if mom&pop are buying GLD, the ETF should be increasing its physical holdings. So, is it possible to know how much gold has GLD been buying now? What are their holdings? Are where is it stored? (assuming it exists, or is it on consignment at Fort Knox :-) ).

Robbie: Put value deteriorates very quickly--as you weigh your decision, keep in mind that TH is just before Friday.

QID- not finding an entry point for adding...ideal scenario would be a spike in QQQQ into the close->set-up for sell the news...a drop in QQQQ would be more difficult to play....

SiO2,

you can access all the info about GLD at their website:

http://www.streettracksgoldshares.com/

Thanks, SiO2.

Re: SLV. Take a look at USO prospectus. That one is even more interesting...

NXG:
Moving up on decent volume on a down day.

2nd:

Maybe a look at DXD would make sense (hedging your hedge?). Today at least it appears to have more reverse leverage than QID and as of now more volume as a % of ADV.

Bill,

I have worked with Deepfreeze before. It is an extremely powerful tool. That said here's the basics for how it works:

Deepfreeze software locks your hard drive from any permanent changes being made. So, when Deepfreeze is locked, you can make any changes: you can download spyware/virus/worms etc and delete any files it doesn't matter. As soon as you reboot it is back to EXACTLY how you had it before. If you want to make a permanent change you reboot and tell deepfreeze to unlock your hard drive. You make the changes, then reboot and lock your hard drive. It's really simple once you get the hang of it.

It is possible to setup deep freeze to leave one directory unlocked always. Like if you want to be able to store files in your 'My Documents' when everything else is locked.

-William

2nd:

Maybe a look at DXD would make sense (hedging your hedge?). Today at least it appears to have more reverse leverage than QID and as of now more volume as a % of ADV.

2nd:

Maybe a look at DXD would make some sense (hedging your hedge?) It appears to have more reverse leverage and, as of now, more vol as a % of ADV.

Seeing huge selloff in Indian ADRs in the past few mins

IBN dowm 5.85% at 53.35 (day high 58.75)
INFY down 4.25%
TTM down 4.3%

Jogy, same with the Brazilians SDA/PDA.

UUU.to on the move - up from 10.80s to 11.30s today - a large sigh of relief from me

"He also said policy makers should consider developing a uniform national licensing and monitoring system for mortgage brokers." Would this have prevented the current credit crisis? I think not. This situation was not created by rogue mortgage brokers. It is the making of revered iconic pigs.

Irregardless of the type of computer you use or the OS you are using, the number one thing you need to do to protect yourself in case of a computer emergency is to have valid backups. What I recommend is getting a small external hard drive and making periodic backups of all your documents to it. You can get 60G to 80G of external storage for around 60-70 bucks now. That's hard to beat.

For Windows users what I would do is make sure that you are saving all your files in your "my documents" folder, then create a batch file to automate the backup process for you. You can even automate it so that it stores the backups in dated folders for easy reference. I'll post an example if you guys would like.

Bill, I've had my fair shares of headache/heartaches with MS.

Here's my survival tactics:

1. Start with a pristine system - I prefer customizing my system with the hardware of my choices. I don't like preloaded systems like Dell or else, because they're ridden with trivial apps. and numerous ad-wares that would waste resources and bog down performance.

2. Partition the hard drive into several partitions. I like to store the Windows system files, Misc. application, multimedia files into different partitions. I strongly recommend that the antivirus program to be install on a partition of its own. By doing so, a multiple layer of security is achieved. (Partition Magic is one of the tool of trade.)

3. Install Windows, MS office suite, all the necessary programs into their destinated location, but don't the antivirus program. We'll get to that later.

4. Connect to the internet. Don't go surfing yet.
Allow all the latest updates/patches be downloaded and installed.

5. Now we're going to make images of the system. I used Norton Ghost 2003 - yes, I know it's dated but it still work!

What it does it store the chosen hard drive into a file, called ghost image. Think of it like you print several copies of a photo, hang one on the wall, something destroy it in a few days. You replaced the damaged one with a stored copy.

I like to store these image file on a separate hard disk(they're pretty inexpensive now a days) with in the system. If I am really paranoid, I would burn copies onto DVDs.

6. Now install the antivirus application. I don't like Norton because it's a performance killer. I like Panda Internet Security because it's lean and mean. It's loaded with features and it updates itself.

Now, after 6 to 7 hours of work, you can enjoy the fruit of your labor!

There're couple more things you can do to enhance the system security further.
After step 3,
a. you can created a couple different users and assign them with different rights( administrator or limited user). Log in as administrator when you need to make system changes; log in as limited when doing everything else.
b. Relocate the My Documents folder into a different drive other than the system drive.

Every time before you restore the system from image files, back up the "Favorites" folder.

You can or have Steve write some macros or similar things to streamline the daily chores like backup files,etc. and have scheduling program to execute them for you.

The whole process may seem involved, but it's worth it. From here on, you can have a working system within minutes.

Hope this can help a bit.

Re: Deepfreeze

I wrote about this software a couple of days and since it came up again today, will sing it's praises. I've used it personally for 6 years and in an internet cafe with 12 computers for 4 years, and never had to reinstall windows or any applications. It's a one time cost of around $100 or so, and you don't need any anti-virus software/subscription, so great ROI.

Can't recommend it enough!!

It is nice. Take a peek. Ver-r-r-y Pret-t-ty:

http://www.apple.com/imac/

Cin-e-maaa displa-a-a-ys:

http://www.apple.com/displays/

You are sad. Then comes apple. Then you are a HAP-P-P-Y-PERSON!!

My oct 20 TTM(Tata motors) puts bought Monday for .15 just got filled at .85. That's the best percentage gain I had this year.

"Things were great until the ISP offered its own firewall, which rendered my (elegant and costly) solution useless."

Maybe you can turn off the ISP's firewall.

We had a conflict a couple months back with two firewalls competing. If these links post right, maybe they'll help (??):

http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1091964.aspx



http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+do+I+shut+off+the+windows+firewall+when+my+new+virus+package+has+it%27s+own+firewall%3F&btnG=Google+Search

.mac for web:

http://tinyurl.com/26mm4p

Yay!

I second Zenob suggestion for an external HD to backup "My Documents" folder say every week or so. You get two benefits - true backup and ability to access your data on another computer.

Also always have a copy of CDs all apps that you use normally. Then on any crash event just ask the tech to do a clean install of an OS with the latest security patches plus all your apps. Then copy back the "My Documents" folder.

Windows tends to accumulate internal entropy with time ;) so it is always a good idea to do a clean install from time to time (optionally replacing internal HD just in case) *but* with all the latest service packs and patches - which any tech can do easily for you. Doing a customer specific fixes and restorations is usually way more time consuming and requires much higher skills.

My solution for any potential crashes is to have 2 identical hard disks. I use DiskMirror to clone one disk into the other. If a crash happens just swap disks and it boots as if nothing had happened since the last time I cloned (once a month or whenever I feel I have done enough changes that should reclone). Everything is intact.

You can use RAID, which is an alternative too. However, it doesn't help you with soft failures like virusses as this affects both disks. Also, if your computer gets stolen, you lose everything, while with the extra hd I still have it.

I have never had a virus on Windows, but I have had a couple of disk failures.

FranSix - You crack me up. "Cin-e-maaa".

re PC

all great suggestions

one thing to remember is that Hard Disk is a magnetic medium and it does get corrupted overtime.

another thing is do not use the PC as storage device. Pictures can be stored on CDs. Many useless pre-installed programs slows the pc performance, therefore should be removed.

I had major problem with my new pc from Dell last summer. I felt that they basically owned the PC and I had the privilege of using it.

Regarding GSS:

I feel obligated to mention to anyone who may be interested that my bullish feelings have been tempered by tepid price action that has shifted my stance to neutral for now on this stock. It seems to want to go back to 4.

Kaimu...Congrats re: ANO Anooraq Resources makes a nice predictable breakout yesterday.........

"FranSix - You crack me up. "Cin-e-maaa"."

I am happy.

24" iMac with Airport has done wonders for my ego.

Bill:

Here is what I do for offsite backups and it is inexpensive. Amazon has data storage called S3. It is .15 cents per gig stored per month.

I store all software and data here. This way, if you uploaded your office install disk, you could have downloaded when you were in Canada.

I use Novastor to backup my important database files daily.

I use "super flexible file synchronizer" to synchronize the folders and backup file between local and Amazon S3.

Then I use the S3 firefox extension which allows me to open a firefox browser and see my offsite files from any browser.

You really cannot beat it for offsite disaster recovery.

Steve

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a halt in BMK for a company comment. It's up 150% in three days.

Shark_attack

GSS...Dec. Gold had a very bullish push to 772.00 today...Normal for it to pullback after such a thrust...

To me this signals higher prices in the weeks and months ahead for gold...

Keep the ammunition dry and buy on the pullbacks...

Chart of GSS could be cup/handle or possible inverse head shoulders...

What is your take?

UXG - is the worst over? Moving up from LT support tested this morning.

BillySundance...

4.00 just looks like a magnet to me Re UXG...

Just my take...Why not wait for RSI to turn back up?

India considers curbs on foreign inflows to shares
http://in.biz.yahoo.com/071016/137/6m0ln.html

This explains the selloff today. But IMO this should be positive for the ADRs.

Hi Bill. Until quite recently I supported Windows and Linux corporate/R&D users out here in Silicon Valley. It doesn't matter what kind of notebook you own, since any pc can always be lost or stolen. The only practical solution for a non-corporate user is to have two notebooks (corporate support maintains spares that are swapped in/Fedex'ed).

If I was in your situation, the steps I would take would be (i) Switch to the backup notebook. (ii) pull the 2.5-inch drive from the primary notebook. (iii) Connect the drive to a Coolmax cd-350-sata, connect that via USB to the backup notebook and copy any files you need from the old drive. (iv) Put the drive back in the primary notebook and have that re-imaged, etc.

The important thing is to be set up so that you don't have rely on an external service to continue to be able to work day-to-day.

The Coolmax cd-350-sata (available from NewEgg for $26) is a great device that lets you access a damaged notebook/desktop drive from another pc.

Hope this helps.

OUR Bill is looking at a Steve Jobs product?

I know they say they don't ring a bell, shoot a cannon, etc. but this signifies something substantial....no?

Does anyone have any thoughts on wizetrade?

Thanks

(apologies if this is not an appropriate topic)

Bill, with all due respect to you and the wide-eyed Apple boosters on this board, purchasing a Mac isn't going to solve all your problems.

But best of luck just the same.

not's price is a little insane for an unproven exploration company, is it not?

Hi SiO2,

Q: does it use closing daily prices or intra-day lows and highs for the triggers?

A: The current file at

http://www.mediafire.com/?bknic2wxwxy

executed buy & sell actions at the closing price. However, I am able to program the scenario to execute for intra-day (arbitrary minute granularity), high, low, or open prices.

Q: Would it be possible to also publish the complete data source (list of all stock values and computed RSI values for each day in those 7 years)? We can get this from yahoo, but is a large wasted bandwidth.

A: Not sure...will let you know...

Here's a quicky batch file you could create to make backing up your data simple and painless. Create a txt file on your desktop. Name it backup.bat. Now open it in notepad and enter the following lines in it:

xcopy /e /c /I "%userprofile%\desktop" "e:\backup\%date%\desktop"
xcopy /e /c /I "%userprofile%\my documents" "e:\backup\%date%\my documents"
xcopy /e /c /I "%userprofile%\favorites" "e:\backup\%date%\favorites"

Now save it and anytime you wish to backup your files(this includes your desktop, my documents and internet favorites) you simply click that batch file. It will run that script and create a new folder under the backup folder with that day's date and copy all of your files to it. If you wish to fully automate it, you could open the task scheduler and create a new task and have it run that batch file on a set day, say every Friday.

Two things I should point out, first you will need to change the destination drive letter to match the drive letter of the hard drive you wish to use for your backups. I used e: because it is most common, but your drive letter could be different. Second, you will likely have to change the formatting of the date field on your computer. This is easy to do. Go to your control panel(make sure it's in classic mode) and click on regional and language options, click the customize button, go to the date tab, and about halfway down that page you will see a drop down box that says "date separator". Change that from the slash to the "-".

There has been a lot of incredible hardware/software suggestions made here today. I need to put today into my "archive" to remember to come back. One suggestion I would make from a personal wreck. I do an auto defrag every Friday night. In the midst of the defrag, Microsoft did an automatic update that required a restart. Saturday morning I had nothing!! Replaced the hard drive, re-installed all the software, and did all the updates. I use 2 external hard drives, one auto synchronizes every night and the other is kept in the fireproof safe to manually synch every weekend, so I had all my files to move back.

My settings are now set to download updates automatically, but I decide when they will be installed. I'm sure all the discussion today will save some of us a lot of headaches.

For email I would certainly lose Outlook and go to gmail. I've used Microsoft, Thunderbird and tried others, but I could not function as well without gmail and the rest of Google's apps.

It pains me to see Bill considering going over to "THE DARKSIDE".

Read RE: Wisetrade

http://tinyurl.com/4ipk

jogyp- UXG back to 4.63...nice entry this am...

Basketguy,

GSS: What I think is, I don't know. I do know that the price action has been disappointing vis a vis gold. Your idea of buying on the drops sounds right, and I wouldn't be surprised if a big spike downward will proceed the next upmove.

Hard drives are fickle, they just fail sometimes and corrupt themselves sometimes. I have a Macbook and the hard drive went out, but luckily I have a huge external HDD and had everything backed up but the most recent stuff, and Apple replaced the broken drive for free, which was awesome.
I definitely love my Macbook, and with the Parallels program, I can run any Windows program as well, so there is no reason to have a PC as far as software goes.

Great advice on this scroll today. Thanks to all.

N2son, thx for the defrag utility--seemed much better than the windows version.

Somehow I can't help but think Bill will be looking for a stiff drink this evening.

Come to think of it, there isn't a bar named the Apple Store in Toronto is there?

GIX.V
Closed pos. @ 1.96....for a 48 % return.Thank you Aussieontop!

NOT.V
Still holding half pos. for 50% gain.Sold prev.half for 30% gain.Now,to sell or NOT..

Well under water with US Gold...but still breathing and swimming upstream.

TKS ALL

FWR seems to be making its move up after trailing NOT and BMK).

2nd - You are the BOS! Nice entry on UXG; wish I'd followed your lead (as does everyone else!)

fnc.v (Fancamp)
also moving with the 'group'

not.v
Taking the 40% gain(down from 50%)....while i can.
closed @5.85

of course ...back to 5.96 now

According to my scanner, for the first time in weeks ( maybe 15 or 16 weeks ) the spot price for Uranium today ticked up...could it be coming out of its slumber?

Congratulations Bill! I think many of us will monitor your experience and if positive, we'll step up to the bar!

It was almost subliminal the way FranSix posted intermittently.

Good thing I undertake DD when he/she posts :)

he

Reducing overall exposure.

With the break below 70 Daily RSI7, took profits and exited SLW.

Cara 100

NEWS FROM Globeandmail.com

Teck rocked after investor's talk
14:12 EST Tuesday, Oct 16, 20

Investors are still chipping away at miner Teck Cominco Ltd. after Monday’s investor day in Toronto and Tuesday’s repeat session in New York.
The B stock has dropped $2.03 or 4 per cent to $48.16 on the TSX Tuesday afternoon.
RBC analyst Fraser Phillips didn’t hear anything startling at the presentation, but he cut his forecast of third-quarter profit to $1.19 a share from $1.52 earlier after tallying commodity and currency prices and current guidance. His numbers for all of 2007 didn’t change.
Among other things, he notes that the company’s production growth will be limited over the next 12 to 36 months. And over the next two to three quarters, Teck will likely take a hit from the strong loonie, especially at its Elk Valley coal mine until forecast prices rise next year.
Given Teck’s spending so far this year on dividends, share buybacks and acquisitions, and capital spending plans going forward, the company is unlikely to raise its dividend and buy back only a limited amount of stock over the next 12 months

I am continually getting more and more sickened by the rhetoric out of Paulson and Bernanke since the housing bust has commenced. If you want to read a good skewering of their double talk head over to Roubini's blog. He absolutely lays waste to these corrupt hacks with his tirade today on the SIV rescue scheme.

"2nd - You are the BOS! Nice entry on UXG; wish I'd followed your lead (as does everyone else!)"

Posted by: OldGoat at October 16, 2007 3:02 PM

OG- actually, it's jogyp who entered at that price...i didn't take a position today (should have ;)

A blast from the recent past - AKAM was down big today.

Last Trade: 33.30
Trade Time: 4:00PM ET
Change: -1.80 (5.13%)

From 28 to 38 and back smack in the middle at 33 today - all of this in the first half of October.

Will keep an eye on this one. She's a wild one. Wouldn't mind getting back a piece of this back in the 31.50 area.

Bill, congratulations on your Mac, you will enjoy it immensely.

I have been using a MAC since 1984 staring with a Mac SE. My current G4 has work near perfect for over a decade. The only thing I did was upgrade to 2 gigs of memory (highly recommended) and changed out my hard drive which was starting to make odd sounds after about 10 years.

Regardless, everyone should have at a minimum one hard drive back-up for all data.

I was looking just this week at either a MacBookPro or an IMAC and still deciding what to purchase.

There are two very good software programs for the MAC:

1) http://www.trendsoft.com/

2) http://www.beesoft.net/

The first program Trendsetter has both EOD and Real Time programs available. I stop using this program about 10 years ago to migrate to the dark side of Windows using Tradestation and 4 monitors. This is a very good choice.

The second program ProTA is an EOD program with back testing and scanning functionality. Personally, I’m not a fan of back testing, but very much of scanning and ranking on a % of change basis. This is a very good choice.

I still use ProTA today, primarily for ranking a database of about 100 Mutual funds for % of change on a daily, weekly, monthly, 3 month, 6 month and yearly % of change.

You can also write code to do scans of your choice.

Once I purchase my new Mac, I intend to upgrade to ProTA Mac OS native version and begin to rank Cara 100 stocks.

Anyway, I just wanted to let people know that there are 2 excellent programs for the MAC out there that I have used for over 10 years.

http://tinyurl.com/2ew74m

Life is harder now, some experts say:Generation gap: After paying the bills, middle-class pockets are emptier

“Despite all those $200 sneakers you hear about and the long lines at Starbucks, consumers are actually spending less of their income — much less — on discretionary items like clothing, entertainment and food than their parents did. In fact, after taking care of essentials like housing and health care, today’s middle class has about half as much spending money as their parents did in the early 1970s, Warren says.
The basics, according to Warren, now take up close to three-fourths of every family's spending power (it was about 50 percent in 1973), leaving precious little left over at the end of the month — and leaving many families with no cushion in case of a job loss or health crisis. “

Recently I've noticed lots of long tails on candlesticks (1 minute). I see it on YHOO aftermarket and I noted it on BA Friday. A reminder to use limit orders even on highly liquid stocks. One wouldn't want to sell at $26 when it's going for $29+ as is the case with YHOO.

Not too late to take a position on UXG.
It should dip again.
~S

INTC - After hour up over 5%

Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor maker, said Tuesday its third-quarter earnings rose 43 percent as strong demand for notebook computers drove sales of the company's microprocessors.

YHOO - After hours up nearly 10%

Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) posted a slight drop in quarterly net profits on Tuesday due to weak spending from corporate advertisers, while investors waited for a signal on the company's next moves after a 100-day strategic review.

Looks like the market will be up tomorrow!

I have one piece of advice for windows divorcees who buy a Mac. Don't attempt to load your windows frustrations into it. Give yourself carte blanche to do the things you need to do and start from square one.

You will feel some stress, no doubt. But its a good stress.

What does the TIC portend, Net Foreign Purchases crashed compared to before revision.

Net Foreign Purchases:Aug $-69.3B Revised from$19.2b

see
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aJga9zeIsrco&refer=economy

A comment on 'emerging' markets:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,511785,00.html

UXG filled it's second and last remaining gap from 4/10 this morning. Will it dip again, I'm doubting it. In fact, I think it's going to rocket up the other side if it stays in line with past pattern behavior(Ex: Nov. 2005)

I'll mention on GSS, it's probing into resistance from the downdraft on 5/07/07, a large volume day. The chart looks spectacular as it's sitting right under a 4yr downtrend line and pushing it without backing off...

Started a pos in UXG, holding GSS.

Best,

The CoinGuy

Re-Wizetrade
Ennar;
That link provided by moneygenie says enough about that software.IMHO it spells "AVOID".There are plenty of traders/investors on this blog u can learn from.(myself excluded!).Invest that hard earned cash in quality stocks....and watch it grow!

Current Chart of GSS:

http://members.cox.net/bock1-1/GSS.jpg

Best,

The Coinguy

re INTC and YHOO after-hours- skeptical (of course, i have a position in QID, so biased also)...i've seen reversals of the AH action too often to think it presages a return to the bull...could close out my QID right here with no regrets, but for some reason i'm still leaning towards a bear reaction to ultimately hold sway...we'll see soon enough....

kaimu,
Regarding yesterday's SLV comments: Here's one thing I found in the SLV prospectus:

Any shareholder who owns some large percentage of the SLV trust holdings(I think it was 60%) can initiate action to terminate the trust. The silver would then be distributed to the shareholders.

That looks like a back door way to legally acquire, in one fell swoop, an enormous quantity of silver. It also avoids the anti-trust aspects of large-scale delivery requests from the futures market. I'm sure some of the big banks have their eye on that move down the road.

BTW, I agree with your assessment of the safety of the Perth Mint. Far safer than anywhere in the US/Europe.

CNBC - sober, clear, legitimate, insightful business reporting...

...compared to the mess that is Fox Business Channel, that is.

Cavuto just said this:

"Folks are worried about a recession or a mortgage meltdown or some other such media nonsense, but they still have a funny way of showing it, because they are still eating like crazy. Burgers, tacos, blah blah blah" and he went into a segment with the chairman of Yum Brands.

Media nonsense? And that was in the first two minutes that I turned the thing on.

Oh, boy. This is going to be quite the channel.

MikeNYC, did you expect anything less from that right-wing tool?

AUY announces exploration update on projects in Argentina, Mexico, Chile & Brazil. Any geologists have an opinion?

http://tinyurl.com/22lday

AUY Daily RSI7 >70. Noticed some institutional buying over the past days.

Retaining Long position.

#2, nah. I tuned into the train wreck to see how bad it is. Was not let down.

I switched back to something meaningful and legit.

The Simpsons.

I'm just waiting for the game.

Go Sox!

Kaimu, MikeNYC and all

GLD and SLV ETF's, do they / you hold physical ??

I see there has been a bit of a discussion on the matter recently. IMHO I take the side that they are just short term trading vehicles. If you want to hold physical then somewhere like the Perth mint is a better choice. If you don't mind a blend then the Millennium Bullion Fund in Canada offers a fixed ratio of physical Gold / silver / platinum, stored in a vault in downtown Toronto.

Have you seen the analysis by James Turk on both the GLD and SLV ETF's. His conclusions also point to the fact that there may be little or no physical, mostly just third party obligations of one sort or another, you know that derivative thing again. I found his analysis well done, easy to read and includes all the references to prospectus, SEC filings etc.

GLD comments
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/turk/2007/0305.html

SLV comments
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/rubino/2007/0410.html

Quasi

I read the Turk analysis of SLV. He has a greater insight into the 'weasel' phrases/legalese in the prospectus, things that might mean something different than they appear to, and so spotted weaknesses in the prospectus I didn't see. I also recall thinking that he may have gone overboard, slinging a little mud at the ETF. Don't forget: Turks company is in direct competition to the ETF. But there is plenty in that prospectus that made me raise an eyebrow.

The SLV auditing procedures, for example, are a complete joke. Much is secretive with this vehicle. I see no good reason for that. Contrast with the openness of goldmoney.com, for example. I don't know the Perth Mints' auditing procedures.

I know people who use SLV/GLD for trading and it's fine.

I think the ETFs probably have some metal, but no real obligation to hold as much as people think they do.

And yes, I have some physical metal. It makes me happy and I wish I had more. I wish I had gotten started way earlier.

BTW, I met Turk this year at the Committee for Monetary Research & Education Spring Dinner here in NYC. A very nice guy.

MikeNYC

Yes I agree Turk has a bias and probably has gone a little overboard.

I don't currently have any physical, but am seriously considering it. Assume yours is gold?, do you keep it under the mattress, in a safety deposit box, or in a segregated account somewhere.

A close friend has quite a bit of gold and silver, the gold is in a SDB, but his silver bars are too big so he wrapped them in cloth and uses them for door stops around the house, (they look just like bricks).

Quasi

I was using goldmoney for a while because I live in the city in a once-questionable but now gentrifying, still rough edged neighborhood. Having lots and lots of metal would be dicey around here.

I'm a small-time player. Most of my metal is silver. Lunars, Eagles, Timberwolves, bars, some strange odds and ends (love my silver kilo-bunny.)

I think if I had more I would put it in gold for ease of storage and transport. I would probably also hide it in the walls or something. Right now it's in a place where, were I to get broken into, it would be found. Don't want to go into too many details. It's a pretty small pile, so I'm not too worried. But it's mine and I'm happy to have it. Maybe I ought to hide it better, I guess. I like having it where I can check it out once in a while, though.

There's lots of ideas for storing your hoard on the web.

But I also found goldmoney.com is a super easy way to create a silver/gold 'bank account.' For a while I was regularly making a transfer every payday from my checking account. It really worked out great. I'm about to close it out for personal reasons, but it has appreciated better than any bank account would have, that's for sure.

That idea for the silver bars is very good. A friend at work's Dad has some Comex bars and they look like junk. Covering them and using them for doorstops is definitely one good way to do it.

PS - When the US govt confiscated gold, safety deposit boxes are where they plundered first.

It's not where I would put my metal. But that's just me.

Here is a link I've kept around, and now I'm seriously thinking of opening a digital gold bank account myself. MikeNYC, I see that GoldMoney.com is rated the best one in this review, and it's regarded as the best professionally run business out of all of those reviewed. I also like the fact that it is audited by the best 3rd third party auditing firm Deloitte and Touche.

Here is the link:
http://tinyurl.com/23eosa

maximum frustration? what if the market gaps down in the morning and continues to slide, after positive earnings the night before...just putting it out there...fxi needs to go down big sometime->will it be october 17...

Hey Mike_nyc,

Bought IVAN today. I think it's going higher.

Regarding GSX, I am watching it to see if it can basically stay above the 20 day and perhaps rise. I might take a flier on it if it holds.

2d, if the market opens very weak, but gold stays strong or keeps climbing, what do you think that will mean for gold shares at the open? Weaker with the market or stronger with gold? I guess we'll see, but I wonder what you or anyone else thinks will happen?

If I have to buy WGDFF back higher than I sold it last week and then tell sharky he was right....

:-)

*blech*

More charts:

INDU 1987 Crash:

http://tinyurl.com/yswo6m

Nasdaq 2000 Crash:

http://tinyurl.com/23kdya

Oops, they don't want those charts outside of Stockcharts.com, so I put them here, to flickr:

Nasdaq Crash, April 2000

http://tinyurl.com/2kjxpf

Dow Jones Industrial Crash

http://tinyurl.com/37lx3f

Shark_attack, thanks for the pointer on IVAN.

That actually fits my needs very well. I have a small account so the next thing I buy A) needs to be on a US exchange or OTC because Scottrade has those stupid high foreign commissions 2) it needs to be relatively cheap but with a decent sized price channel. A pricier stock and a few points scalp won't help me the way you guys with a bigger nut to swing can work it. I'm trying to get there.

Also some of the technical indicators look a little better for IVAN than WGDFF right now. WGDFF made such a strong move could it be a little tired? I'll be looking at both at the open.

If anyone has any other ideas about quality sub-$4 miners trading in the US, let's hear 'em!

By the way, check the action on that SLW-wannabee that Bill laid the hammer on last month, SST.V. I think they just had some big news to cap off the strong move since August.

Kinda funny to see GSX popping after I mentioned it the other day after it was the high gainer on my 'small hydrocarbons' watch list. That one lonely pump must be working overtime. What a big move this past week or so. I can only put one or two stocks in play right now, so I let that one go by. Good luck with it.

BTW, looks like your are right about $GOLD and I was wrong. Won't be the last time. I will say this: The Dec. futures options expire third week in Nov, I believe. The huge OI at 800 is a very powerful number. Usually we see a big move down the Monday or Tuesday of that week to push it below, in time for the expiry on that Thursday. But things are strange these days. 1000 wouldn't really surprise me, either.

But know this: I'm majorly long precious metal no matter what crazy predictions I spout out. I'm down with it. Big time. I'm gonna go fondle some silver right now. :-)

S_A, and Mike,

Appreciate the heads up on GSX. As long as it holds above support @ 1.75, this chart stays very nice...I like what I see.

SST.v, I'm sitting on quite a few of these small lottery tickets...er, burning matches, I'll add this to my list. Here are 3 off of my list with promise(nice fundamentals and a good story). OK.v, TTQ.v, and TYS.v. When I'm playing with spec capital, I usually try to limit my exposure to "the best dozen" burning matches I can handle...

Best,

The CoinGuy

I probably should add.

Out of those 3 I mentioned, I'm only currently holding Tyler Resources. The other two I've taken my profit into free shares and wouldn't buy here without a pullback.

TCG

Bill, congratulations on your Mac purchase. Did you buy a Macbook Pro or Mac Pro? Leopard was declared ready today and will ship on October 26th. You will be able to order it for $9.95 for the shipping cost.

I recommend you buy an external USB drive to use with Time Machine for automatically backing up your data.

If you ever have any Mac questions, feel free to email me. I just converted my roommate 2 weeks ago and my dad has been on it for a couple of years. The technical support calls have dwindled down to zero!!

India Stock Market down over 7% - TRADING HALTED

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- India's stocks plunged, triggering a trading halt, and the rupee fell the most in two months after regulators proposed investment controls targeting global funds.

http://tinyurl.com/2bn9v5

Onlineaces, I saw that too. The yen has risen strongly in response, which will mean that the carry trade is about to unwind strongly. I expect there to be strong changes similiar to what happened a month or so ago when the carry trade unwound a little bit. I will purchase some Nov puts on RTP as soon as the market opens.

Bill,

Make sure you grab OS X Leopard when it is released at the end of next week. It will be worth while on your new iMac.

FXI is up 7.5% and PGJ up 5.5% while the Indian stock market is crashing? Aren't the Chinese concerned?