Thanks for the Goldcorp report Bill,
Just listened to Don Coxe of BMO Nesbitt Burns on starcast link below who was at the Global Metals and mining conference in Hollywood worth a listen I think . Discusses Gold Miners particularly Canadian miners and is bullish on Gold at the time of his broadcast,feb 27th 08. Apologies if this link has already been posted previously.

http://tinyurl.com/yf9un2

John

I live in Manhattan and I have noticed this to be true:

http://tinyurl.com/2vqpk3

If Boeing hadn't bribed the pentagon last time for this tanker contract, they would've been building planes already. Of course, NGC has done their own nefarious deeds, too - as I expect every defense contractor has.

To Kaimu's points: The end result is just a bit more than a redistribution of wealth, gov'ts get products to defend themselves, or (hopefully) enforce peace. It's unfortunate that it's been warped by the illegal Iraq war, but I feel that Afghanistan was entirely valid, for example. So there is a need.

With regard to NGC doing the nasty, etc. It's a shame there's a lot of crap in the industry. There's definitely a lot of fat & waste that could and should be cut out operationally speaking.

However, I would expect NGC to fund their pension through defense contracts because that is pretty much their sole source of profits... unlike BA.

And to anyone concerned about engineering / manuf jobs offshoring w/regard to the tanker contract: Boeing does the same thing, too. This tanker contract size pales in comparison to the commercial aircraft market, for both EADS & BA.

I ask you to take a gander at Boeing commercial. 20% of the 777 was built by Japan. For the new 787:

wings are built in Japan
horizontal tail fins built in Italy
landing gear built in France
fuselage sections built in US, Italy, Japan
wind tunnel testing in UK, US, France.

some sub-assemblies are so large that they're being transported on modded 747s.

Offshoring may be (is?) a valid argument about the U.S. manufacturing base in general, but not when crying foul over this particular tanker contract.

I expect Boeing to challenge the contract, and rightfully so if the supposed last-minute criteria changes i'm hearing about swayed the decision unfairly. supposedly BA won the CSAR helicopter by similar last minute changes, now LMC / Sikorsky have challenged to the GAO, and there's going to be a recompete.

Disclosure: I work @ NGC, but would gladly take a job outside the industry in exchange for world peace.

True or False?

Executing a trade that is "odd lot" meaning it is not a multiple of 100, will result in sub-optimal price execution. Is it true that trades entered in multiple share size of 100 are electronically matched to bid/ask and are more efficiently match to get the best price for market orders ( as opposed to limit orders ) rather than "odd lot" trades are separately matched.

onlineaces, i was at a bar last night @ 7th & 53rd, and a british family tried paying with pounds... i think it was accidental, but it was still funny.

Canadian Jr Miners are represented in (StockCharts) $SPTMN which is an index whose criteria for listing of miners I do not know but I posted a list some time ago and will try to find it again if anyone want to see it.

In any case, the Index showed an RSI accumulation zone entry and trend line break a few weeks back, and is now bouncing upward (just in time for the PDAC?).

There is some resistance, though, shown on the chart at the horizontal line which might be something to watch as PDAC come home eager to buy - enough buyers and the resistance will be broken at least for a while.

Just thoughts on a picture.
http://tinyurl.com/2knmlf

"In life, we earn the respect of others."

sharing a story from my youth. in the fall of 1970, my dad lost his job, and my younger (by a year) brother and i moved with our family away from the bay area. two long-haired asian-american kids transplanted to a highly conversative upper-class high school in the mid-west, with classmates whose parents were executives of even more conservative industrial conglomerates. two weeks earlier we were speeding down 280 with friends in the cool california night air (hendrix and cream on the radio), and now we're wondering what the dress code is at the new school. hey, it all started before the first class, when i walked into the registration area to hear two guys wondering loud enough for all to hear whether my brother was a boy or a girl. i never forgot those two, but it turns out one of them played in a local band. tough opening, to say the least. by next june, my brother was on stage playing lead guitar (his own writing) at the end-of-year assembly, and i was sitting in the audience listening to them hooting and hollering at those stinging notes (also noticed half the audience had grown their hair longer than his LOL). two months later, we moved to the more hospitable environment of ann arbor, mi.

point is, try to find common ground and display mutual respect. we're all part of an international community here with shared goals..a house divided is only going hinder our progress...

FattyArbuckle -

My USD$ were rejected outright by a vendor during a recent trip to Egypt (city:Alexandria). Rome, no problems, Athens no problems, Turkey no problems. You would think, with all the abject property in Egypt they would take any currency!

Countries like Panama and Ecuador use American dollars as their official currency. Anyone been on vacation to either of these countries?

Not promoting anything here, but it is interesting :

From NY Times Travel Guide:

RECOGNIZING the challenge American tourists are up against, some hotels with a large American clientele have also begun to guarantee some rates in dollars. The high-end Hotel Carl Gustaf in St. Bart’s, for example, is guaranteeing winter rates for travel through April 19 in dollars. While the listed rates begin at 1,100 euros, or $1,672 at $1.52 to the euro, the hotel is offering rates beginning at $1,300 a room a night with a three-night minimum to travelers who ask for the United States-dollar rate. One place to find hotels that are offering similar deals, said Stacy Small, owner of Elite Travel International, is the Web site of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, www.slh.com. The collection of upscale hotels “has a number of properties that consistently promote U.S. fixed-dollar rates,” she said.

btw, doubt many bothered to listen to the lyrics of his ballad, but they were written during those first few lonely months and from the heart...he's now an investment banker in asia, and still plays...

"try to find common ground and display mutual respect. we're all part of an international community here with shared goals..a house divided is only going hinder our progress..."

nicely said 2nd. I imagine that each of us has a somewhat similar story - likely what underlies our desire to excel in the markets and life.

Dave

WSJ By MICHAEL ANEIRO, TOM LAURICELLA and LIZ RAPPAPORT
March 1, 2008; Page B1

Months of turmoil in the municipal-bond market, long a placid haven for individual investors, reached a boiling point Friday -- as hedge funds were forced to unwind complicated bets and in the process dump billions of dollars of the securities.

...

Hedge funds are a new source of trouble. Many hedge funds made bad bets on the direction of U.S. Treasury bonds in recent weeks. Treasury bonds have rallied because of economic worries, and some hedge funds expected them to sink because of inflation. With the hedge-fund trades going wrong, lenders to the hedge funds demanded capital -- something called a margin call -- forcing the hedge funds to dump municipal bonds to raise money.

A number of hedge funds reached the breaking point on Wednesday and Thursday, when U.S. Treasurys moved sharply higher in price and muni bonds plunged.

"What they own is going down, and what they were [betting against] is going up," says Joseph Deane, who helps oversee $38 billion for Legg Mason Inc.'s Western Asset Management. "It's a financial hand grenade."

Tom Dresslar, spokesman for California state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, said the state doesn't expect greater difficulties selling the bonds, and will tap the market as scheduled next week. "We're prepared for higher rates than we've paid in the past, but it's not like it's going to be exorbitant," Mr. Dresslar said.

As a result of the bond insurers' recent problems, Mr. Dresslar noted, the general-obligation bonds will be sold without insurance. "Insurance has no value. It would be a waste of taxpayer money."

May be this is reason for war in Afghanistan . .

Afghanistan sitting on a gold mine

Studies of only 10 percent of the country have discovered significant deposits of copper, iron, gold, silver, lead, zinc, oil and gas, and coal -- as well as precious gems such as emeralds and rubies.

Already in the pipeline is the exploitation of a massive copper deposit -- one of the biggest in the world -- about 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Kabul. With today's prices, it contains an 88-billion-dollar deposit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080221/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanminingeconomy

Uranium in Virginia?

The rolling Virginia farmland contains the largest unmined uranium deposit in the United States, worth an estimated $10 billion. The company, which has bought about 2,000 acres of farmland around the site, has 31 Virginia investors, and hopes (that is if they get the permit) go public in six months to a year.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/business/uranium.php

ALOHA !!

onlineaces ... Thanks for the NYC currency lesson. Would those NYC stores accept gold? Probably not! The Europeans buying up NYC are laughing all the way to the bank! The Euro is not out of the woods by a long shot so best get while the gettins' good!

Here in Hawaii stores still take US Dollars! Actually Hawaii had its own currency prior to the US invasion and occupation! Hawaii was once a sovereign Nation prior to Statehood. I believe the Hawaiian Nation coin and note currency is quite sought after by numismatics.

Nice comments about Cara 100 ADBE on Footnoted.org:

http://www.footnoted.org/

A rather rare thing indeed...

Dave

The real purpose of the "surge" was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents in Iraq $800,000 a day not to attack U.S. forces.

As the world now knows, Blair's "dodgy dossier" about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq was a contrivance that allowed Blair to put British troops at the service of Bush's aggression in the Middle East. Now that Blair is out of his prime minister job, he has been rewarded with millions of dollars in sinecures from financial firms such as JP Morgan and millions more in speaking engagements. As part of the payoff, the Bush Republicans have even put Mrs. Blair on the lucrative lecture circuit.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02192008.html

The best investment advice you'll never get

For 35 years, Bay Area finance revolutionaries have been pushing a personal investing strategy that brokers despise and hope you ignore. The story of a rebellion that's slowly but surely putting money into the pockets of millions of Americans, winning powerful converts, and making money managers from California Street to Wall Street squirm.

http://www.sanfran.com/content_areas/home/view_printable.php?story_id=1507

Thanks Bill!

I’m seeing broadest buying going into Energy sectors once again last week, this has been a consistent (and easily exploitable) pattern lately. Also strong were Metals and Mining and there was some relative strength seen in Drugs and Biotech. The broadest selling was in Utilities, Transportation, Software and most big cap type Indexes/ETF’s.

Good Trading All!
Ralph
http://successfulonlinetrading.com/blogs

An interesting read . .

investment opportunity in LMT? Don't who will get the helicopter contract

China, India, play it again for Uncle Sam

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JC01Df02.html

Congress investigators head to Cayman tax haven

Rich Americans dodge more than $100 billion a year in taxes by hiding assets in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. A thriving business in tax avoidance has developed in recent years on Wall Street, with some purveyors even seeking U.S. patent protection for their off-the-shelf schemes.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2924633420080229?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112

Colin Twiggs Trading Diary- "Low rates are inevitable."

http://tinyurl.com/7fw5r

excerpt:

"Brad DeLong at Economist's View describes the problem facing the Fed:

This kind of crisis cannot be solved simply by ensuring that solvent borrowers can borrow, because the problem is that banks aren't solvent at prevailing interest rates. Banks are highly leveraged institutions with relatively small capital bases, so even a relatively small decline in the prices of assets that they or their borrowers hold can leave them unable to pay off depositors, no matter how long the liquidation process.

....But if the central bank reduces interest rates and credibly commits to keeping them low in the future, asset prices will rise.

The obvious path is for the Fed to maintain low interest rates until asset prices recover. Unfortunately, while this would rescue the financial system, it is likely to cause an inflation spike. Creating an asset bubble to bail out the banks will inevitably lead to another collapse when artificially low interest rates are allowed to rise."

the fed, of course, is unable to artificially suppress long-term rates, so will be keeping an eye on the long bond (as well as RRPIX) for cues on inflation...

ALOHA !!

More background info on the long standing tie between the US government and the military-defense alliance. What we have today is closer to the paranoia of the USSR before it collapsed. Many here do not realize its origins so perhaps this will shed some light ...

Link: http://tinyurl.com/ypadvn

Obviously there are times when military protection is needed and without a small army and navy we would not have won our fight against the British for our independence, but at what point do we end our military empire. Do we need bases in 133 countries around the World now? Are we that insecure? How did we get where we are policing the entire World? Read the entire link listed above and I think you will see many similarities to our situation now. Its no accident we are doing what we are doing in the World. As Richard Maybury says the best investment he has ever made was buying defense contractor stock right after the supposed COLD WAR was over!!!

I have been studying the Bush FY 2009 Budget and the Homeland Security budget is second only to the Pentagon! The fear is very palpable even in our own government's budget. Here we are armed to the teeth with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire Earth 30 times over and our biggest fear is a bearded guy in a cave who might get hold of a suitcase with a nuke! Boy ... if thats not live by the sword ... die by the sword I don't know what is??? Ironic isn't it? Hummmmmmmmm??? His plan to bleed us dry in an ocean of our own debt is working far better than he expected! Of course thats how Russia collapsed ... in a pile of its own staggering military debt! When you are a reserve currency you can out spend any enemy to death! Of course I think BinLaden knows that is also our Achilles Heel ... Or do I make him out to be smarter than he really is? I don't know? I wish we could find him so Barbara Walters could ask him about all that!

Bill
I was trying to get the info on GG Goldcorp.
How does a person contact Pat?
I thank you and others for the time you invest in this blog. The info has helped me to get an understanding of how the market should work and what political intervention does to the market.

kaimu- smart people learn from their mistakes, which in this case means to stop interrupting our self-destructive impulses with another call to action (LOL)...

ALOHA !!

jk484 ... Your SanFran.com link does not work.

I guess Congress won't look too hard or they'll end up investigating their own family and friends bank accounts!

Why is it assumed having a foreign bank account is tax evasion? Where else can one go if you don't trust US Banks or the FDIC? Or is this a scheme to shut down US citizens from moving their funds out of the USA? Whats next gold confiscation and the New Old Deal?

Job creation in Alabama for French tankers - some celebrate - some castigate.

For me, I just seem to keep hearing Bob Dylan's refrain circulating in my mind:

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
...
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
... "
_____________________________________________________________

It's a shame that we teach so little history to our children (or to ourselves). This country was built on times of stress and disagreement. Comfortable American tories did everyting in their power to maintain the status quo against struggling American revolutionaries; comfortable American guilds and trades did everything to prevent the industrial revolution, cheap American labor resisted cheaper non-American Irish, Italians, and German taking jobs here - and on, and on, and on.

So what if non-skilled labor gets trained here in French built factories? The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics first before using those skills to build airplaines. Our skilled labor needs to move away from outdated ways for getting jobs and look where new opportunities can be created or found. That is, in fact, the American way, and the times, they ARE a-changin'.

jmho, of couse.

.

An interesting read:

The current rally in gold does not have the characteristics of the speculative hype of 2006 despite the fact that gold is now $240 over its 2006 levels

http://tinyurl.com/2y6mlj

ALOHA !!

viso ... Thanks ... I love the Google take especially the "gold price" and "obama" comparison! Talk about asleep at the wheel!

Kaimu

I copied the link a few days ago. Now it does not work.

as I remember the article was about Google educating their employees on financial matters before going public. The emphasis was investing in simple index funds.

I will repost the link when I find it.

Ranger...

Try to email Pat at

Pat[at]BillCara.com

Put "Goldcorp" in subject line

Was only good for yesterday, but I tried to email this morning..We will see how it goes

Nobel laureate estimates wars' cost at more than $3 trillion

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/28891.html

"The current rally in gold does not have the characteristics of the speculative hype of 2006 despite the fact that gold is now $240 over its 2006 levels."

Agreed. It's all about inflation and the collapse of the dollar against other currencies. Some observers have disputed this, saying inflation isn't a problem in the U.S. Leaving that argument aside, there is no doubt inflation is a problem elsewhere.

I want to point out again that the inflation in soft commodities has been by and large unanticipated. Bill himself was looking for a drop in the CRB index as a confirmation of inflation. Growing world demand and the foolish misallocation of acreage to support ethanol production have been the two main contributors.

Does the commodity boom continue, pause or bust? That's the question.

Building a Personal Finance Library: 25 of the Best Books About Money

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/07/building-a-personal-finance-library-25-of-the-best-books-about-money/

Kaimu

here is the link on

"The best investment advice you'll never get"

For 35 years, Bay Area finance revolutionaries have been pushing a personal investing strategy that brokers despise and hope you ignore. The story of a rebellion that's slowly but surely putting money into the pockets of millions of Americans, winning powerful converts, and making money managers from California Street to Wall Street squirm.

http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-youll-never-get

Not all is bad with the USD. Although it fell against almost all currencies in the world this week, it did not fall against Zimbabwe's.

The USD should remain strong as Zimbabwe's inflation is running at 100,000%, US inflation is yet not expected to reach those levels in the next few weeks.

spot
re: $SPTMN
I dusagree that this a proxy for the Canadian junior miners; though I do agree that some juniors have been moving the past few weeks.
This link gives you the components of $SPTMN:

http://tinyurl.com/25pjz2

Imo, a better proxy for Canadian junior miners - though not perfect - is Stockcharts symbol $CDNX, the Cdn Venture Exchange Index.

regards

joey

2nd

Thanks for Quote

"try to find common ground -----

Junk sales mirror '91 recession and bankruptcies

So far this year, at least 16 public companies have filed for bankruptcy, representing nearly $9 billion in assets. As measured by assets, that's the fastest start since 2002, when a wave of 220 firms filed for bankruptcy in the first two months of that year in the wake of the dot.com market crash, affecting $65 billion in assets.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2947877720080229

jk484- reference your 1055a post...great story about aperio...

allow me to post a few ways to play the low-cost market index strategy using fidelity mutual funds (by paul farrell of marketwatch):

http://tinyurl.com/2gphxf

joey - your 10:58am - The $CDNX might indeed be a better chart for following Canadian Jr Miners than the $SPCDNX, but the membership of the $CDNX Index is ??? Do you have a source for that? And why better?

Thanks for the comment. I'm always trying to find better ways to get an edge on what's happening, and I like the link that you provided better than the one that I used before (Yahoo), but it doesn't appear to have the components for the CDNX.

I'm looking at buying some beaten unloved Canadian junior miners. I'm interested in companies with huge indicated and inferred assets in the ground that can't get them out now for technical, environmental and economic reasons. My watchlist right now includes Novagold (NG.T), Copper Fox (CUU.V), Seabridge (SEA.V), Northern Dynasty (NDM.V) and the much larger Cameco (CCO.T). There's probably more downside to these in the near term, particulary if market sentiment for this sector sours some more and the "flight to quality" and flight out of the market continues. These companies could be dead money for a long time but, I believe that in the long-term our capacity to overcome any technical challenge will win out if the prize is big enough. Disclosure: I picked up some NDM.V on Friday. I might be mental as anything? Comments?

Judge Backtracks: WikiLeaks Resumes U.S. Operations

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge on Friday allowed whistle-blower site WikiLeaks to resume operation in the United States, a week after ordering its U.S. hosting company and domain registrar to shut down and lock the renegade's site from the internet.

WikiLeaks, a whistle-blower site publishing thousands of leaked documents, was taken offline in the United States after posting allegedly stolen documents: individuals' banking records that suggest a Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank was helping customers practice money laundering and tax evasion across the globe.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/post.html

spot:
try this link for the $CDNX

http://tinyurl.com/3eytss

scroll through the pages and pages of venture juniors - many of which are not jr miners - so not a perfect proxy - but many of which are.

The source I use for this research is www.globeinvestor.com tab - market action; tab - market indexes; tab - canada detailed

hope this helps. gotta go. am picking up Jock at the airport as I am attending the PDAC bash.

regards

regarding the $CDNX,

i always use the $CDNX as a measure of speculative money coming in the market (at least the canadian market)

its had a nice run the past few weeks, but its a long way off from its highs of a few years ago. i notice a few things with respect to the JR Miners gaining some life:

1. the CDNX looks like its trying to bottom, positive divergence on the TA

2. the CDNX to Gold ratio looks like its basing after falling off a cliff the past year. so JR's may be gaining some leverage to the metal back. though very slowly.

3. Sprott Asset Management has recently started aquiring some PM's in the market, or at least more noise is made about some of ther recent purchases. i consider the people of SAM ahead of the curve on such things

4. peter grandich has again made a call for shares to out perform the metal. he's been off on this in the past but its making more sense this time. he has made excellent calls on the metals the past few years.

5. people are so capitulating on the shares, and gold ETF's being blamed for the lack of interest in mining shares, along w/ currency and costs issues. the same happened to energy shares compared to the price of oil. eventually the relationship will change course, otherwise there would be no reason to ever buy a mining company over the metal if there werent added benefits from underlying leverage.

6. most mutual funds for canadian banks have at least one "precious metals" fund which carry more shares than bullion.

when people want to move their funds to "gold" the financial advisors w/ these institutions would likley direct them to their PM fund vs. a Gold ETF as they dont stand to make MER's from the purchase. a large scale move to gold by the masses who passively invest in mutual funds would (IMHO) move into mining related shares.

7. if the markets make another slide down, even breaching january low's, it will be critical to watch what happened to the POG. if it fell in sympathy the Miners will probally fall very hard as Bill has stated.

if the ratio's b/w the miners and gold remains strong, its a good sign that the move back up will favour the miner's in a big way. again all in my humble opinion.

good luck to everyone.
(long gold via XGD, short financials via HFD)

Fred:
comments on Seabridge amex SA

I like this one - a leveraged pure play on the price of gold. If you bought 300 sh today at u.s. $27.18, and wrote may30 covered calls receiving $2.05(source: Yahoo quotes) assuming share purchase commission cost of .0015 and option sale cc of .03, the following is a possibility:

Symbol SA ($ 30.000)
Name Seabridge Gold Inc.

Sell the May2008 30.000 calls at $2.050
Total invested for 300 Shares $8416.95
The Called Return is 6.767%
The Annualized Called Return is 32.498%
The Static Return is 6.927%
The Annualized Static Return is 33.268%
The Downside protection is 6.478%

Thanks Joey,
Seabridge looks good to me too. Recent insider buying at $25.50 and $26 (cdn) is encouraging too.

Mish has his March 1 post up.

Don't miss it; it's terrific!

http://tinyurl.com/d8q6j

To All: Let me apologize for my rant last night, and especially those massive run-on sentences! I have nothing against Mr/Ms McGraw, but would be happier if the assembly plant was assembling BA parts made here. How far is Mobile from Kansas City compared to France? Who pays shipping? Kaimu knows. I don't begrudge Mobile wanting/needing jobs. That isn't the point.

I tried to keep it civil and not call names. I'm hardly xenophobic.

Fatty: I agree with your point on the 777, however, the tanker was not based on the new and yet to be built or flown 777, but on the 767 which is an existing well proven production jet built in Kansas City. Probably the finest jet I have ever flown in.

It (the triple 7) is all new technology designed by BA computer services in Renton, WA. Some of the composite peices (carbon fiber technology)are built in other countries because, frankly, we don't have the expertise in this country to build those parts....we lack a workforce educated enough to do so. Proof of concept? Sadly.

Kaimu: IBEW....my Dad is now a retired Foreman Electrician that worked for the fifth largest Electrical contractor (at the time) in the U.S., Warner Electric. He ran projects like the Iperian sewage treatment facility in L.A. and Hollywood Park. I don't know about the IBEW's sway in the Bay area, but Warner paid dear old Dad 2% of anything he could save on any bid. Yes, they were experts at cost plus and finding any contractual or contracting bungle to add to costs but they also cut costs like crazy as they had an incentive. If the steel workers or carpenters or plumbers weren't on schedule or screwed up, it was noted and someone paid as it affected the underlying electrical contract. That's the biz in contracting, isn't it?

I will now leave this topic and return to our regularly scheduled fun.

What is the e-mail address to pat at Pat[at]BillCara.com

Thanks

Posted by: 2nd_ave at February 29, 2008 4:01 PM:

> DavidV- congrats, major payoff on your short
> financial positions today...

Thanks, 2nd_ave. :) It would have been nice to see the decline on Thrusday and Friday occurring without Bernanke's Congress testimony on Thursday, which would then be a clean "proof of concept" about the predictive power of ABX indices. But his testimony gave me confidence to hold onto my shorts and not close them on Thursday, so I am not complaining. :)

Overall, I believe in logic, and since banks have to write down new losses when ABX indices decline, it is hard to believe that XLF can have a sustainable rally in the face of the ABX decline. The fact that in the past XLF has tracked ABX indices very closely on weekly basis suggests that it can't deviate from these indices too much, and local deviations that occurred on Monday and Tuesday constituted perfect trading opportunities. Let's watch for similar opportunities in the future...

Renger: There are programs that mine e-mail addresses on the web. Thus we spell out the address, [at] meaning @.

MSFT: Don't know if anyone has seen this jewel.
http://tinyurl.com/34vbf7

2nd: Good stuff from CT....seems to be a confluence of thought.

You forgot the best part, the quote OG would love!

"Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit. That was so obviously the wise thing to do and so well known to me that even now I marvel at myself for doing the reverse."

~ Jesse Livermore in Edwin Lefevre's Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

I took the opportunity to offload some of my still profitable but sinking positions AH yesterday. I must have been channeling Jesse. :>)

Looking at CT's report I think that was a wise choice.

An interesting link regarding economic theory (ies).

http://tinyurl.com/29trlf

I'll leave it for each of us to decide, but the history contained in the "criticism" section seems accurate.
I happen to believe there is a common sense middle ground that could reduce the downside.
But then I am a pollyanna.

I don't want to re'start any fights so don't get started...someone posted about how bad it was to be in SKF a day before friday, not so bad on friday. I'm up $10. I read about covestor in maybe Business Week, and thought that it could be a bigger and better Cara site, (how could I have been so foolish?) I was registering and then the time came to give them my account # and my id and password, to my trading accounts, They may as well have been asking me to stick a sensitive part of my anatomy in a chain saw. I cannot imagine any one anywhere turning over that info. I know people do, but not this peep. I love you guys.

I'm also not looking for any fights. I maintain a portfolio in the CAPS game at Motley Fool and my results are "brilliant". In real life, with real money, my returns are "not as brilliant". When money isn't at stake it's easy to swing for the fence! If we want to get better acquainted and share model portfolios, documents etcetera then someone could setup a Facebook community (only if Bill blessed it).

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) annual report for 2007

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2007ltr.pdf

I like to use www.updown.com because the overall gain/loss calculation includes dividends received.
I maintain portfolios at www.bullpoo.com, www.hedgestop.com, and www.marketocracy.com. Check out the websites and see which one you like best. Let me know if there are other sites as well. Thanks.

Public vs Private Information, who knows what.

Just saw this hilarious video, maybe a little extreme but gets right to the heart of where we could be heading.

"Ordering Pizza in 2010"
http://tinyurl.com/37mn25

Bill,

Thank you for helping educate all of us and all your hard work. It is very much appreciated. Looking forward to the PDAC debriefings.

Quasi: Did you see/hear the story about RFID chips? We're closer than one might think.

http://tinyurl.com/h02h

Was thinking....if some have their way, we would simply track Bill via the RFID chips in his wallet, passport, whatever he is wearing.

ALOHA !!

Looky ... looky!!! The shorts are Down Under strangling the Aussie banks too!

If you missed shorting the ABX then head down to Australia and short their ABX!

READ ON:
Loophole allows hedge funds to manipulate stock in secret
Ian Verrender | February 22, 2008

Page 1 of 2 | Single page
The volatility that has infected the Australian stockmarket in recent months may be playing havoc with your investments, but not everybody is unhappy with the situation.

Traders love it. It's how they make money. There is an apocryphal tale that sums it all up in which New Yorkers wake up one morning to read: "There was no trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Everybody was happy with what they had."

There is a vast global industry looking for any means possible to exploit a price difference here, an arbitrage opportunity there. When it works properly, it is part of an efficiently operating market.

But lately in Australia it appears it hasn't been working properly at all. A clever bunch of traders - some local but most based offshore - have taken advantage of a legal loophole that has resulted in wild gyrations in stock prices.

They are known as hedge funds. And lately they have targeted Australian banks and financial stocks which have been hammered on the stockmarket.

Take the Commonwealth Bank, Australia's biggest bank. Its share price is now 30 per cent below its November peak. Last week, it announced a smallish rise in its provision for bad and doubtful debts which sent the entire financial sector into a share price tailspin and took the broader market with it.

This week, it was ANZ's turn. With a couple of Australian companies such as Centro Properties, Allco Finance and MFS in financial difficulty, ANZ raised its provisions for bad and doubtful debts. Again, all the banks were slammed in the biggest single-day fall in 19 years. MORE AT LINK BELOW

Link: http://tinyurl.com/27dqg7

Wow ... does all this sound like dejavu? Thank you big US Banks for sending your fraud around the globe! Now why is it there are no huge class action lawsuits against US banks from foreign banks? Imagine the logisitics and huge cost for Citibank's attorneys to fly to Sydney and London and Hong Kong to litigate for years?

One of Australia's biggest commercial property holder is Centro and they just announced a $1.1bil loss due partly to bad US investments. Now none other than the US Wall Street vultures extroridanire, the Blackstone Group and GE Capital are swooping in for the kill! I wonder where these two are getting spare cash from for buyouts since last I heard they were losing billion also? Amazing ...

Whoa, I may of been wrong about a Buffett bounce on Monday. I was pretty sure CNBC booked him for a market kool aid drink fest but If this is what he's gonna talk about for three hours CNBC mine as well ask him to stay home.

http://tinyurl.com/2rkqaz

a few snipets..

But, he adds, Berkshire investors shouldn't expect to see such robust insurance results in coming years. "The party is over," he says. "It's a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008. Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise." He warns that even if Berkshire avoids any major catastrophe claims, industry-wide profit margins could shrink by 4 percentage points. Obviously, he adds, results could be far worse if there's a big hurricane, earthquake or other major disaster.

Natural disasters aren't the only worry on Buffett's mind. He is also concerned about the bill that will come due when U.S. companies are forced to tell shareholders they have been pumping up their earnings by under funding their pension plans.

He writes that the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged from 66 to 11,497 during the 20th century. That is a huge rise - yet it averages out to just 5.3% compounded annually, Buffett writes. What's more, were the DJIA to repeat that 5.3% average annual gain throughout the 21st century, its value on Dec. 31, 2099, would approach 2 million.

Buffett goes on to note that were stocks to return 10% annually throughout this century, the Dow would hit 24 million by year 2100. "If your adviser talks to you about double-digit returns from equities," he writes, "explain this math to him - not that it will faze him. ... Beware the glib helper who fills your head with fantasies while he fills his pockets with fees."

Craig, re RFID

Yes thats a pretty good intro piece on the subject, although it's a little slanted towards the privacy issues.

I started following RFID about 7 years ago, basically as Walmart started their push into it for inventory tracking purposes. I realized at that time it was destined to become the new "bar code".

I agree there are pros and cons, but I think in the end it will be adopted, just have to work out the issues to protect privacy where it is required.

Here's my watch list of companies that have some sort of exposure in that market, if you're interested.
ALAN CKP HEII HYC IN MANH NNDS PTNX RFIL RFMD RFMI SI.TO TGAL WIN.TO ZBRA

PS; I don't have a chip but our dog has one.

QUASI...I think you are the blog's web expert..Is there a way to :

1) Capture a screen clipping off our trading platform
2) Turn it into a .jpg
3) Post it to like a google page or do we have to set up a blog for that?

Much Thanks

Regarding PDAC. If you're like me and can't physically attend the conference, PDAC is offering a virtual delegate service which you might find interesting. http://tinyurl.com/397ud9

Craig,
Re: RFID. Unfortunately, I was far ahead of the curve on RFID and lost a small amount of money with investments in Intermec (IN) and Zebra (ZBRA) a few years back. I still think they are the best way to play RFID if you are so inclined.

EEMTRADER

I wouldn't say I'm a web expert, there are others here that I would say are experts. But I have been doing it for many years so have learned by trial and error what works for me.

I use Gadwin for the screen captures, you can set it to capture a user defined rectangle, (drag and drop). You then set the default output to be a jpg, gif, png etc, and pick a name & location to save it on your hard disk.

Once you've got the image just upload it to a public web server, google page, ImageShack, Photobucket.etc. Then get the URL for the image (convert to TinyURL if necessary) and post the link in your post.

Gadwin is pretty simple and free, some people also use Snagit which has a 30 day trial but has more editing features. Your might be able to find an older version of Snagit on the web which is free and doesn't expire. Personally I've been happy with Gadwin for captures and I use PaintNet for editing if necessary.

I also have a few other tricks to streamline the process, but get this working first and then we can talk about other things.

here's an example which took me less than 20 seconds total to capture, save, upload and create the TinyURL.
http://tinyurl.com/2yj5wc

Now you can also just do a screen capture in Windows, save and then go into paint or another editor and crop the image, then resave, upload, post etc. I recommend you try the above method. If you need help email me Quasi at frontenacdesign dot com.

QUASI : Thank you are a MEGA STUD in my books.and that book is thin. :)

I use OneNote clippings for my trading journal on my desktop. Now getting ready to hit the road and prefer to not lose my work and convert from ltp to dktp and back.

Tried print screen from Windows and cant get it to work on either dktp or ltp.

I owe you one.

Fred, re RFID

Another one I follow is Alien, although they are still private, they are one of the real leaders in this space.

"Natural disasters aren't the only worry on Buffett's mind. He is also concerned about the bill that will come due when U.S. companies are forced to tell shareholders they have been pumping up their earnings by under funding their pension plans."

There you have the definitive and final indictments against capitalism. The dirty MF's are filthy cheat even against the sacred covenants which have been entrusted to their care. They cannot be trusted to care for the future of our children, ourselves or even the cows and the sheep in the fields.

They are dishonest, filthy, greedy, gluttonous swine who are only fit to slaughter in the most horrendous ways. They are almost as bad as the Communists.....there must be a better way....after slaughtering the capitalists !!!!!

Just the kind of commentary we would be better off without.

Thanks Quasi. I'll keep my eyes open for an IPO. Back in the day, I would religiously read Red Herring and envy the venture capitalists who were buying up all of the great private companies for a song.

ronbon- i can understand your outrage, but the kind of behavior that prompts it has nothing to do with capitalism (or any other 'legitimate' economic system). it's just human nature at its worst, and the four adjectives in your last paragraph come closer to an explanation...

We would be better without commentary?

Jesus, I thought this was America. What happened to free speech?
Now it's the USSA?
Apparently we should all shut up so the merchantilists can enslave us and our children.

I *might* be a pseudo neo-merchantilist but I can handle opposing views without any trouble or telling people they should shut up.

If we're supposedly the greatest nation on earth you would think we could have some confidence in such a view. If not, than anything will surely be a wrench in the gears to our true position.

Pictures say a thousand words.

LOL!
I'll even put up *something* of an opposing view...
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"

I dedicate this to Kaimu who I would love to meet in person.

The Trouble with Normal
Bruce Cockburn, Toronto, 1981

Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

re RFID and privacy...see "Enhanced Driver License"

Bill,
I hope I didn't insult you or anyone else.
If so I certainly didn't mean to.

I only hope we can all be respectful of each person's point of view without silencing discourse.
Hopefully I'll be here Monday AM.

Have a great weekend.

craig- "I'll even put up *something* of an opposing view.."

now you're in my backyard, my man...(truly) understanding the opposing view (and being willing to try) is key to understanding anything in its entirety...and definitely something i try to accomplish before and after entering a trade...

closely related skill is questioning conventional wisdom (which can range from buy-and-hold to the mundane- just last week i was listening to 'sticks and stones' from my 6-year-old and tried to explain that it's total bullshit...bones heal in a few weeks, but he now understands that words can often affect us for a lifetime [and of course, whether for good or bad is up to us, as DaveB alluded to earlier today]...

finally, if there is such a thing as verbal aikido, i'm reminded of the woman who (supposedly) had the pleasure of meeting both disraeli and gladstone in the 19th century- and proclaimed gladstone as the most intelligent man she had ever met, but disraeli as the man who made her feel she was the most intelligent person she had ever met...

just musing on a saturday night ;)

make that "made her feel she was the most intelligent person HE had ever met"

Keep musing my friend, you know I read all you say with the utmost respect.
Without an open mind, what do we have?

"They are dishonest, filthy, greedy, gluttonous swine who are only fit to slaughter in the most horrendous ways. They are almost as bad as the Communists.....there must be a better way....after slaughtering the capitalists !!!!!"

I truly wonder if anyone realizes how similar these kinds of statements are to the bolshivism of the past.

Just don't give in to the revenge of the apocalypse nerds.

re: jsmcgraw

Okay, who else had to look up the word 'mountebank'?

Jeez, jsmcgraw, how 'bout some everyday synonyms
like hustler, swindler, huckster, fraud and quack? ;)

Does anyone know why there is such a difference in the YTD-to-3 Mon Cara ETF table, such as XLE YTD -4.34% and 3 MON 4.01% for a 8.35% swing?

Sorry - ignore last post.

I did. FYI, Wikipedia redirects to 'Charlatan'.

I wish all will just talk about stock and which one to buy and make money in
Shortest period of time

One can not criticize capitalist system and expect to make on it

We have the best capitalist system, the best stock market system and
Most people who run and manage them are honest and decent people with well being of American people in mind

That is my view

craig- appreciate your friday background post->i can almost always understand your POV on things, as we both came of age in the 70's...i know you have a daughter in her twenties...i have an 18 year-old son, 16 year-old daughter, and 6-year-old spoiled brat->at 53, that makes me an old dad...i have this theory that no one in our generation feels like an adult for the simple reason that it's taken all of us longer to reach maturity (it's OK to be listening to the stones, but to be still attending stones concerts?), or that we somehow 'sense' our life expectancy will be closer to the 90-110 range ;)

more seriously, i think we do more than sense that SS and Medicare are in jeopardy, and i believe the boomers will ultimately take responsibility for it...in some ways, we benefited early in life from the sacrifices of our parents, and we will in turn sacrifice late in life for our children...i can see myself working well past age 67, not so much for the money, but out of fairness to the next generation...we are beneficiaries of one of the most amazing periods in history in terms of scientific, medical and technological advances, and i see no problem with using all of them to extend our useful working lives->can't be traveling and playing golf for 30 years, right...what's surprising (or not) is when i meet other parents at my 6-year-old's grade school->half of them seem to be my age, and we all look and act like we're 15-20 years younger...the obsession with exercise/diet/clothes/even plastic surgery may have something to do with it, but i suspect it's more related to our early (preschool) diets, routine medical/dental vaccinations/exams/prophylaxis, and (for most of us) relatively stress-free work enviornments...our image of 'adults' from an earlier time does not compute in this environment->i'm still at college weight (6'1, 170), still threatening my wife i'll be growing a pony-tail after retirement (at least i've got all my hair, man LOL), and still wondering if i ever really got around to deciding what i'll do when i grow up-> honestly think the answer for our generation lies in what we'll be doing from 67-100-> redemption (personal or collective) may come when we sacrifice entitlement for the economic salvation of our country...

vinod- sometimes 'making money in the shortest period of time' requries an understanding of history, our economic and political system, and ourselves...hence (what seems at first glance to be) digressions from the topic at hand...but i understand what you're saying...

As usual, Prieur's site has an outstanding roundup of news stories that provide an excellent companion to Bill's WIR.

Inflation really seems to be coming to the forefront now.

And is the following a sign of the times?

During our regular Saturday walk this weekend my wife and I passed a section of a main thoroughfare where people park cars they want to sell. Usually the cars are ones you would expect -- older, high miles, ones that wouldn't fetch much in a trade at dealership.

This weekend, however, we saw two cars in excellent condition, and with low miles: a BWM and Volvo, both offered for less than $10K. That caught my attention.

I see this as anecdotal evidence that the consumer is scaling back ... significantly.

n2s- low-mileage beemer for under 10K- where? just kidding, although the time will soon come when my son will not be...

hello everyone,

am wondering, has anyone taken a look see at the recommended{OEYCC.X} OEX option trade "Vinod" posted?

Seems to me that if one traded calls and puts since the recommed it would have yielded quite a sum.

I would appreciate any comments on this going forward. TIA

2nd, You pretty much nail it for me. 53, and very concerned for our kids and theirs....

My Dad is comfortably retired and worked his butt off to retire early at 55. That isn't going to be a possibility for me, which is fine as you are quite right, I don't feel my age.
I suspect my music collection is similar to yours and we have a meeting of the minds frequently. You are more diplomatic than I am....:>)

Today the local news confirms #2son's observations. $3.50 gasoline in Seattle, $4 diesel....think about that one. What/who uses diesel? Trucks, trains, ships, tractors. They were reporting heading for $4 gas....who knows about diesel. They *finally* pointed to the failing $USD as the cause and not supply. It took this long to report it. Embedded inflation....it's going to be a long one IMO.

The other stories just point to one of those days...to laugh with/at....a monkey in Spokane chases and bites several children before being trapped, and a hay truck driver (a 40 footer) gets stuck under an overpass at the Sea-Tac airport.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa!

Having just read my 10:06PM posting last evening, it appears that the Manhattan, wine and even liquer of a party Saturday evening got the best of me, and I apologize most profusely to Bill and all Caraistas.

The actions which were referenced were taken by a few, not the many; and they were deserving of the most severe LEGAL action, not individual or mob violence.

Unfortunately, in the current era of Corporatism so prevalent in our nation, little action is likely to occur. Would that the upcoming election were to drastically alter that atmosphere, but I am not holding my breath.

Changes in Portfolio Value Beginning value as of Feb 1 $121,765.18
Transaction costs, loads and fees -$598.62
Change in investment value $8,640.04
Ending value as of Feb 29 $129,806.60

I did cut and past from fidelity
This happen because of this site and credit
goes to all of you
Thanks

VINOD ! Well Done and CONGRATULATIONS !!

QUENTUSUREX: RE: Your question on what to hold overnight on friday. Here are my set of decision making rules that you can play with on your own..modify, improve to suit your reward/gain tolerance. I didnt see these rules on Friday, so I passed..though my gut was saying another gap down. :)

I rarely hold overnight after been slaughtered in January. When I do hold overnight..I use these decision making rules:

1) Price Momentum Divergence - I use RSI(5) and money flow percent on 30/60 min charts.
2) Stock at or near resistance levels
3) Candlestick reversal pattern on daily chart
4) SPY or QQQQ showing similar divergence
5)Take the trade in the reverse direction of OB/OS condition. Overbought = short.

See FXI momentum divergence here on 30 minute chart on 2/4, 2/19, 2/27:
http://tinyurl.com/2y6jjo
(Thanks to QUASI for image conversion and tinyurl)

I didnt take the 2/4 gap down trade as it was sitting on 200dma..but you can see the profits it would have yielded if I did. :(

LArge gap downs slicing thru the 200 dma yielded nice follow on trend down days. SO..its a nice heads up on what to watch for the next day, and make up for discipline over conviction.

Good luck..go easy if you use overnight holds... I do miss the overnight profits.Nothing like last year when I can wake up to gap ups in DRYS , EWZ and FXI and just load it up on pullbacks.!!

QUENTUSUREX: P/S If you were reading the posts here...I_Loser was giving a heads up on divergences.. There were price volume divergences on the SPY and DIA. Its a clue ...not when..but more..possibility of a reversal. I look for 3 things..a pattern, a confirmation, and a target to enter/exit.

The pattern was price-momentum divergence at resistance.
The confimration was the SPY divergence
The target was the mid channel of the trend line for the 2/27 trade.

I_Loser: Mabye you might want to change your monniker? The readers may listen more..to your insight on divergences, GREAT CALL!!. :) Just a thought..hope you made lots of money the last two days.

2nd- can't agree more with your comment about "sticks and stones". I abhor physical violence but I think words can be even more hurtful. I try to make this point to my 12 and 6 year olds.

Jock or Bill,
If you're reading this and you happen to meet with Mr. McEwen, Mr. Sheridan and/or Mr. Hobkirk would you please get some clarity on the close relationship which they are apparently building between Guyana Gold, Aranka and Gold Port? It looks like heaps of assay results will soon be released and that now is a good time to buy the "region" but, I can't tell through which of these three companies the benefits will flow. I believe that Mr. McEwen, Mr. Sheriden and Mr. Hobkirk will ultimately decide this with how they structure future financing and share swaps. Thanks, Fred

Hi,

Now that there is a significant probability of POG hitting 1.000 USD right this coming week, the time has come to think a little about why this is happening and what this will mean for the immediate and mid-term future:

Since 2001, we are witnessing the end of the industrial revolution, and the dawn of the information age.

In this rapidly changing world, FIAT money is no more than bits and bytes on some Central Bank's computer.

This would be great, EXECPT for a simple detail: we live in a planet with limited natural resources where money can be limitlessly expanded at the simple stroke of a key in some keyboard, but the resources available on the planet remain scarce.

WIKIPEDIA will tell you that "A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and/or services. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value. A currency is the dominant medium of exchange."

Several FIAT currencies were introduced in history, and they all ended up in hyperinflation.

Why?

Because politicians could not control their ambition to keep their power, even if that meant the destruction of the currency. No wonder that all the several FIAT currencies that the world ever saw lost their function as store of value, as they were more and more detached from reality (aka inflation).

As this inevitable process developed, all fiats went to their true value: 0

You see, the original function of money was to INTRODUCE a mechanism of distribution of scarce resources among people.

When FIAT money is printed at high speed, it becomes further and further detached from its original function of distribution of value.

Why is this a problem today?

As we proceed from the industrial revolution to the information revolution, Billions of people want to have access to YOUR lifestyle, and are working hard at it.

You know, if I hadn't seen richess, I coule be live happily being poor.

With the information age, everyone on the planet has seen how we live and wants a car, a PC, a mobile phone, travel, etc.

These people want food, coffee, they want to buy chocolates for their girlfriends, they want to LIVE the American Dream.

Do you think this is a problem for the FIAT currency in a world where natural resources are scarce?

Forget your old industrial revolution mind framework.

Forget about getting a safe job, working hard, hoping that the company will take care of you, and that the government will take care of your health and social welfare.

Forget it.

Social security, medicare, etc. etc. are BS, as they are backed by.... you guessed well – a fast debasing FIAT money!

Do you really believe you will have any of this “protection” in, say, 20 years?

Wake up and smell the burning toasts!

In this new environment, as governments debase their currency, as a means of preserving the power of the classes over the masses, middle class is TOAST.

Gone.

(stop reading and think about this for a moment while the concept sinks in)

So what about gold?

A few days ago I saw someone on the Internet referring to Gold as God’s money.

It is the only single surrency that has outlived all other currencies since the dawn of mankind.

Period.

Not surprisingly, the Gold Bull has started, and is now finishing the first stage (stealth accumulation).

As the 1.000 US$ mark is reached probably next week, the gold bull will enter its second stage: growth.

The growth stage is usually the longest phase of any bull market in duration, and greatest in growth.

Later on, when the US wooden nickels are widely seen as worthless, the general public will wake up and for a few months POG will go into a blow off vertical top, as the herds come in to get slaughtered by you, the wise investor, who will be selling into that strength.

It is fairly conservative to say that POG will be cheap enough until we see a median price family home cost about 40 ounces of gold. That is when POG will start being expensive.

So, as Bill rightfully pointed out: the Trade of a Generation (TOG) is in front of our noses. Long Gold, short US debt. The time to go long gold has been around for a while. The time to short US debt will be here soon.

Who will want to hold debt in a fast depreciating wooden nickel?

Nobody.

What about short term trading?

Short term traders are waiting for 1.000 and will sell once that price is reached.

Only to buy again, more, on the ensuing 2% or 3% pullback.

Investors will not even bother. 1000 will be surpassed soon after such pullback.

Enjoy.

Cheers mates!

If anyone lucky enough to be at PDAC has a chance, check out Roxmark Mines Ltd's booth. I found this info on their website. I have been following them and they have a nice JV with Premier Gold (PG.TO) in Geraldton-Beardmore with an existing mill and history of production. Could be mining by 2009 I think. Any extra info would be extremely appreciated. I think it may be worth it.

PDAC Booth:
No. 513, shared with Greenstone Development Corporation
Metro Convention Centre
South Building
March 2 to 5

PDAC Hospitality Suite:
University Room
Hilton Hotel
145 Richmond Street West
5 to 8 p.m.
Monday March 3
Tuesday March 4

Also eagerly awaiting info from those meeting with Laramide Resources!

Earnings off the cliff:

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3024-industryearn.html

maromatics - If I recall correctly, Bill thinks the time to buy gold is coming up AFTER a major downturn, and to short long bond after the flight to quality trade is finished...but I'm not sure if that is correct. He may think shorting bond now makes sense.

I'm sure he'll update those thoughts soon.

maromatics "It is fairly conservative to say that POG will be cheap enough until we see a median price family home cost about 40 ounces of gold. That is when POG will start being expensive."

just wondering how that comparison came about...

maromatics:"Short term traders are waiting for 1.000 and will sell once that price is reached.

Only to buy again, more, on the ensuing 2% or 3% pullback."

I thought we were looking for a pullback to $800 or so?

Maromatics..g034..Caraistas

Re: TOG

Appreciate your input on the "TOG." Seeking any sage advise as to which instrument may be the best play for a tax deffered retirement account (401/457). I'm fortunate that I have access to a self-managed account (i.e majority of most mutual funds & ETF) within said retirement account. Understand that most would advise to purchase the actual physical gold, but current situation would dicate investing within tax deffered account framework. TOG would for me be more of a intermediate to long term investor position verses short term trader.

Any input or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!

NZ250 (New Zealand index) down 1.1% to start Monday off. I have no idea what this might mean for other markets, but thought I'd share anyway....

Dave

RalphSE,
Why are subscriptions to your Daily Market Breadth Report closed?
YYZ

g52- i'm planning to keep it simple...for a retirement account, buying a mix of GLD and GDX (depending on the Gold:XAU ratio at the time) + shorting the long bond via RYJUX or RRPIX (1.25x) should do it...

Is there a 15K minimum to get into RRPIX?

Maromatics,
thought I was reading Kaimu till I checked the byline :-)

RRPIX- according to Fidelity, minimum is 2500 for non-IRA accounts, 15,000 for IRAs...also a short-term trading fee of 75 if held less than 6 months...

RRPIX minimum $4000 IRA/retirement accts/$5000 investment accts.

TOG:
Gold 50DMA $896.58 200 DMA $763.62

RRPIX/RYJUX My understanding (please correct me if I'm incorrect) when Helo Ben/FOMC doesn't cut rates or if/when Europeans cut rates which helps $USD. Sooner or later the rate cuts stop and then the whales will exit treasuries which will then fall and $USD gains strength.
They will at some point need to pull excess liquidity they have flooded system with, RRPIX/RYJUX then do well.

The timing to me doesn't need to be concurrent as gold may pullback on *temporary* $USD strength (helping RRPIX/RYJUX) with gold rebounding later.

PS: got my info from Scottrade. I don't know if each broker has different minimums?
IE: Fidelity/Scottrade.

woolybear,
Fido is pricey for non-Fido funds. Try Scottrade - min 5k (IRA 4k), $17 fee. Similar fund is DXKSX, min 2.5k, no fee.
Disclosure- long DXKSX (underwater)

All,

As the cash keeps coming into my account via the long gold positions, in a way reminding me of what happened in the world 1979, here is what I am hearing today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLGa4X5H2c

leave this paying in the background as you read the rest of my post, for a more interactive feeling

:-)

Go34,

Will we get a major downturn?

2nd,

To make that math, you need to discount both the price of gold, and the price of housing to inflation.

- Price of gold discounted to inflation:

http://goldprice.org/inflation-adjusted-gold-price.html

- Price of housing adjusted to inflation:

http://www.speculativebubble.com/images/homevalues1.gif

Now,

- considering that, discounted to inflation, 1980 Gold reached 2.176 USD, and that, discounted to inflation, in 1980 the median house price was around 100.000 US, there you have a ratio of about 45 ounces of gold per home.

However,

- The measure of inflation used for both these calculations is the published CPI, not the real inflation.

therefore, I have extrapolated, in absence of further data, that a conservative peak would be around 40 ounces per us home (more or less) as the propper time to leave the US gold market and buy rela estate.

By the way, today the ratio is around 350.000 USD median US home / 975 ounce = 358.

So, as you see, POG has "room" to multiply by 9 in its ratio to housing before this bull run ends*.

I know you will say that this would mean over 8.000 US an ounce, and that I am crazy. But I do think you will be surprised as to the force of this gold bull, and the speed of the debasement of the US wooden nickel.

Writersblock,

I was refirring to the immediate pullback that will come as soon as we touch 1.000. Short term there is at this point nothing pointing for a correction. If, as and when that comes, we will have to look at it from a TA standpoint before we define entry levels.

Cheers!

craig- i agree that the trade need not be concurrent- in fact, i have a hard time visualizing the timeline for the paired trade...

reposting the timeline as i understood it back in february- obviously, welcome any/all comments:

For the trade of a generation to occur, there has to be a DISCONNECT (similar to the one bill spotted in ’82 when he recommended buying Canadian savings bonds yielding 15%).

Normally, the POG increases with declines in the USD.
Normally, long bond prices increase with (successive ST) interest rate cuts.

Scenario (my assumption only, and it may be totally incorrect):

Market drops (led by financials).
Bond prices (initially) spike on flight to safety.
Bond prices further spike as Fed cuts (discount) rate to zero to support banks.
This may be as high as bond prices can possibly go->so you short bonds.
Does it really matter which bonds you short (long-term[TLT], short-term, muni[CXE], coroporate)- would appreciate thoughts on this…

Simultaneously would (initially) see a precipitous drop in the USD.
Normally this would spike the POG.
Fed does all in its power to support the USD, including “increase the margin requirements in the commodity markets with respect to precious metals and oil.”
So instead of going up, POG drops on attempts to prop the USD. (Is this where the DISCONNECT occurs? Does the long gold trade hinge on an unexpected and severe drop in the POG?)
The POG may then drop further on forced margin selling.
At this point you buy (physical) gold.

Timing of the trades:

1) The timing of the short bond trade is pretty clear.

2) However, a whipsaw (or not) in the POG would appear to give you up to three possible trades:
a) Buy gold on (any) near-term weakness->sell as the market and the USD decline.
b) Turn around and begin to short gold as you make your last sale.
c) Buy again if/when the Fed succeeds in propping the USD.

maromatics- LOL why do i feel like i'm getting lessons in playing craps from a player who's hitting on all cylinders as he talks->hope the streak continues...

Who knows if we will get a downturn in POG. Bill thinks so, but if we have some type of derivative failure, then there will be no downturn, we will be trading above $1000. His point is that one morning we may wake up to find commodity margins increased in unison with the global exchanges, forcing margin traders to sell. The money printing central banks around the world would find this beneficial. The selloff would be over in weeks and provide the launching pad for the ToG. Btw, that launching pad would be populated by many fearful longs, most of whom would be flat when the price started to rise again and wouldn't get long again until the price was much higher. (definition of whipsaw).

Watch the tape for signs.

g034- OK, thanks for the clarification...

2nd_ave,
I think you want to short the bonds with the lowest interest rate and the longest term as any rate increase by the Fed will have the greatest impact on the delta yield. (Example a 50 basis point increase will have more negative impact on the value of a 4% bond maturing in 2020 than on a 9% bond maturing in 2012). The way to go for a virgin bond trader like me will have to be the RRPIX/RYJ