Bill, When I first stumbled on to your site I was happy to see Suncor in your list. It has been one of my core holdings for some time and been thinking of adding. I'll wait for your timing.

SKF? I backtracked to 7-27-08 for this comment:

"TIS Group analysts believe the government will ease standards for writing down all illiquid assets. For instance, regulators might allow banks to take years to write off bad mortgage loans rather than making them mark all to market right away. That would immediately improve the earnings outlook for banks, which would lift their stock prices."

Something to watch out for.

There is also a Oil Sands ETF by Claymore, CLO, which has a fairly competitive(for Canada) MER of 60bp.

Good morning.

Here are your Cara 100 Ratings Changes:

AMAT - Target Priced Raised from $20.50 to $21.00 @ Credit Suisse.

----------------------------------------------------

Note to Craig: CNSL Downgraded to Neutral @ Credit Suisse.

Have a great day everyone.

A Handy Guide to Stock Investing:
http://slopeofhope.com/ImageProxy?imageid=1670

colin twiggs: "Gold, Crude, Euro, Aussie Plummet"

http://tinyurl.com/54qccl

spot gold: "next level of support 770...target for the break-out is 700."

crude: "headed for medium-term support at 110...longer term target 100."

also note the Phil Flynn quote at the bottom: "Sometimes the best trades are not the winning ones that put money in your pocket; sometimes they are the ones that get you out of the market at the right time."

all of the above worth pondering...

The Claymore Canadian Energy Income Fund is available to U.S. investors as ENY. You can read about it at etfconnect.com. Here's a short blurb:
"The universe of companies includes over 35 Toronto Stock Exchange listed Canadian royalty trusts and 25 oil sands resource producers that are classified as oil and gas producers."

Gold: Soon To Find A Floor
10:47:00, August 12, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/56q5gc

Gold should soon find support, despite the setback in crude oil prices and a steadier dollar.

Historically, precious metals are highly correlated with the dollar (negatively) and oil prices (positively). As the oil strength and dollar weakness of the past year unwind, gold has faced downward pressure. However, several factors suggest that gold should soon find support and begin to edge higher in both absolute terms and relative to oil. Specifically, the setback in crude prices will help to alleviate inflation angst at the major central banks. This, coupled with rising economic pressure on the ECB and BoE to abandon their hawkish stance may bring lower European real interest rates, which is bullish for gold by increasing the supply of fiat money. In addition, gold ETF demand is recovering after a brief pullback and our model indicates that the "fair value" of gold is in the low $900/ounce zone and rising. Finally, gold tends to be less sensitive to a global economic slowdown than industrial metals or energy. Bottom line: Gold is likely to find support around $850/ounce and then edge higher. The gold/oil ratio should continue its oversold bounce over the next few months.

Thanks BH! Sold CNSL into the recent strength, looking to enter again in the 13's and hold for the div. Just waiting.....

post olympics beijing- there are going to be channels opened over the next 2-3 years...after shoes/toys/autos, what's next?

perhaps the cara blog can come up with ideas for the next (more sophisticated) wave in chinese exports (japan made that leap fairly quickly, within 10-15 years)-> pharmaceuticals? diagnostic equipment? Yao Basketball? Xiao-phones?

there's more to trading than financial instruments...with an international community, posts and emails replace the ideas they used to jot down in silicon valley coffeehouses...think it over

David- cannot believe SU [correction SUN] is trading around 44...if oil continues to drop, writing puts for a basis in the 30s would be on my list of longer-term strategies...

Cara 100 Update:

AMAT - Target Price Lowered from $18 to $17 @ RBC

----------------------------------------------------

One firm raises the target, another lowers it. Is it any wonder that the 1st four letters of analyst spell A-N-A-L ?

2nd: The path of least resistance with massive labor pools of skilled workers. I'm thinking automotive, airliners, computers.

very good article by Evans-Pritchard, a Euro bear in the broadest sense of the word. makes an interesting counter-point to those who see Euro-zone weakenss as something for the US to rally in the comparative fight to devalue eachothers currency.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Stage two of the gold bull market is just beginning

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

August 12,2008

A war breaks out in the Caucasus, pitting Russia against a close ally of the United States. Inflation reaches a new peak in the euro-zone. The CPI reaches the highest in Britain since Bank of England independence. Rampant inflation sweeps the developing world.

All that glitters is not reliable in these uncertain times Yet gold crashes. It has failed to deliver on its core promises as a safe-haven and inflation hedge, at least for now. Why?

Four possible answers:

1) Nobody seriously believes that Russia will over-play its hand. The world could not care less about Georgia anyway. Ergo, this is a bogus geopolitical crisis.

2) The inflation story is vastly exaggerated in the OECD core of countries that still make up 60pc of the global economy. The price of gold is already looking beyond the oil and food spike of early to mid 2008 (a lagging indicator of loose money two to three years ago) to the much more serious matter of debt-deflation that lies ahead.

3) The seven-year slide of the dollar is over as investors at last wake up to the reality that the global economy is falling off a cliff. Indeed, the US is the only G7 country that is not yet in or on the cusp recession. (It soon will be, but by then others will be prostrate). As an anti-dollar play, gold is finished for this cycle.

4) The entire commodity boom has hit the buffers. Looming world recession (growth below 3pc on the IMF definition) trumps the supercycle for the time being.

Gold has fallen from $1030 an ounce in February to $807 today in London trading. It has collapsed through key layers of technical support, triggering automatic stop-loss sales. The Goldman Sachs short-position that I have been observing with some curiosity has paid off.

For gold bugs, the unthinkable has now happened. The metal has fallen through its 50-week moving average, the key support line that has held solid through the seven-year bull market. This week is not over yet, of course. If gold recovers enough in coming days, it could still close above the line.

Courtesy of my old colleague Peter Brimelow - whose columns on gold are a must-read - note that Australia's Privateer point and figure chart has also broken its upward line for the first time since 2002. This is serious technical damage.

So have we reached the moment when gold bugs must start questioning their deepest assumptions. Have they bought too deeply into the "dollar-collapse/M3 monetary bubble" tale, ignoring all the other moving parts in the complex global system? Nobody wants to be left holding the bag all the way down to the bottom of the slide, long after the hedge funds have sold out.

Well, my own view is that gold bugs should start looking very closely at something else: the implosion of Europe. (Japan is in recession too)

Germany's economy shrank by 1pc in Q2. Italy shrank by 0.3pc. Spain is sliding into a crisis that looks all too like the early stages of Argentina's debacle in 2001. The head of the Spanish banking federation today pleaded with the European Central Bank for rescue measures to end the credit crisis.

The slow-burn damage of the over-valued euro is becoming apparent in every corner of the eurozone. The ECB misjudged the severity of the downturn, as executive board member Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi admitted today in the Italian press. By raising interest rates into the teeth of the storm last month, Frankfurt has made it that much more likely that parts of Europe's credit system will seize up as defaults snowball next year.

As readers know, I do not believe the eurozone is a fully workable currency union over the long run. There was a momentary "convergence" when the currencies were fixed in perpetuity, mostly in 1995. They have diverged ever since. The rift between North and South was not enough to fracture the system in the first post-EMU downturn, the dotcom bust. We have moved a long way since then. The Club Med bloc is now massively dependent on capital inflows from North Europe to plug their current account gaps: Spain (10pc), Portugal (10pc), Greece (14pc). UBS warned that these flows are no longer forthcoming.

The central banks of Asia, the Mid-East, and Russia have been parking a chunk of their $6 trillion reserves in European bonds on the assumption that the euro can serve as a twin pillar of the global monetary system alongside the dollar. But the euro is nothing like the dollar. It has no European government, tax, or social security system to back it up. Each member country is sovereign, each fiercely proud, answering to its own ancient rythms.

It lacks the mechanism of "fiscal transfers" to switch money to depressed regions. The Babel of languages keeps workers pinned down in their own country. The escape valve of labour mobility is half-blocked. We are about to find out whether EMU really has the levels of political solidarity of a nation, the kind that holds America's currency union together through storms.

My guess is that political protest will mark the next phase of this drama. Almost half a million people have lost their jobs in Spain alone over the last year. At some point, the feeling of national impotence in the face of monetary rule from Frankfurt will erupt into popular fury. The ECB will swallow its pride and opt for a weak euro policy, or face its own destruction.

What we are about to see is a race to the bottom by the world's major currencies as each tries to devalue against others in a beggar-thy-neighbour policy to shore up exports, or indeed simply because they have to cut rates frantically to stave off the consequences of debt-deleveraging and the risk of an outright Slump.

When that happens - if it is not already happening - it will become clear that the both pillars of the global monetary system are unstable, infested with the dry rot of excess debt.

The Fed has already invoked Article 13 (3) - the "unusual and exigent circumstances" clause last used in the Great Depression - to rescue Bear Stearns. The US Treasury has since had to shore up Fannie and Freddie, the world's two biggest financial institutions.

Europe's turn will come next. We will discover that Europe cannot conduct such rescues. There is no lender of last resort in the system. The ECB is prohibited by the Maastricht Treaty from carrying out direct bail-outs. There is no EU treasury. So the answer will be drift and paralysis.

When EU Single Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy was asked at a dinner what Brussels would have done if the eurozone faced a crisis like Bear Stearns, he rolled his eyes and thanked the Heavens that so such crisis had yet happened.

It will.

Gold bugs, you ain't seen nothing yet. Gold at $800 looks like a bargain in the new world currency disorder.

Bull Hunter re: price targets- Isn't that what makes a market? Two different side!

Going golfing

David- strike the above post re SU...speed-typed my way to SUN instead...SU is still above 50, which is far less unbelievable...sorry for any momentary shock to SU holders...

Last Friday the max pain numbers on the major indices, DIA/SPY and XLF were off with the prices way above them. Today they are almost dead on, which is quite remarkable. XLF has actually gone -0.9% below so the danger now is that we may have gone overboard. 20-minutes delayed prices and difference are at http://nexalogic.com/maxpain.html

ALOHA !!

I am off to Honolulu soon so I will be out of the loop for a few days ...

Jock ... I just read the Seabridge drill results and overall 43-101. I gotta say the grades are not there. Everything is way below 1g/t ... I would not want to be mining less than 1g/t grades in this environment. The copper grades suck ... Whats the Au Eq? I am comparing it to the grades I recall from Northern Dynasty(NDM), but I sold off NDM over a year ago because I just can't see less than 1g/t grades getting past rising expenses. We have two things pressuring profits in mining. The paper containment of spot prices(downward) and the rising cost to mine(inflation/supply) ... its squeezing profit margins, so micro mining techniques and higher grades is the only solution or at least much higher grades! Why are the big mining companies so hot to reduce costs? Its mostly because they are mining lower grades. As a comparison on copper grades ... Seabridge has assays of .35(top end) Cu and NDM has .68(top end) nearly double and way more Cu tonnage in their 43-101. Then one Aussie miner I own has their Mt. Monger property sporting Cu grades of 8% ... yikes! What happened did someone drop some pre 1980 pennies in that core? I can't believe I have to say "pre 1980"!! HA!! Man, 8% Cu now thats high! Of course we still need to see some more tonnage on that property but thats a great start!

I would consider "grades" more ... thats all I am saying! I think investors will move to the grades route more and more and reward high grades rather than high ounces And small mining rather than big mining. Look at Newmont, just off S&P watch and with spot prices up 100% over a few years ago!

In one word ... "G-R-A-D-E-S" ...

Okay ... gotta go!

CALM!

David, I believe your commodities view on a hard to soft switch makes sense. 
1. Global econ may very well slow temporarily = less need for metals, etc. 
2. People will still need to eat and any earlier announced shortages cannot have been filled.
I strongly suspect selloff in most was due to financials taking profits to raise much needed cash.

Thanks Mackinaw & BirdDog for canada funds

2nd Ave,

Whew! Thanks for the quick correction to SU price. Got my pulse moving for sure

:-(

:-)

David- SLW just hit your 10.70 stop..

ALOHA !!

dr. cosa ... I will just say this and this is what I have been hanging my hat on regarding global monetary policy for years. It boils down to one simple question ...

Show me one political party now in power that wants to lose their power?

They will inflate first. Why? Well, because it is their drug of choice and has been since 1971 and they do not want the masses in revolt and these guys in power will even start WW3 to stay in power! Wars are highly inflationary ... period! There has never been a "deflationary" war! The deflation occurs when all confidence is totally lost in the "inflation" solution! I mean ... c'mon ... how old is this play book anyway? Jeez ... it only dates back to the Romans and we citizens still fall for it! If it was not so pathetic I'd be laughing!

What this Georgia incursion plainly points to is Russia's BACK BABY!!! The BEAR IS BACK! Man, does the US look like a wuss ... With friends like the USSA who needs enemies! Putin will guarantee HIGH oil prices for the West, because as I have stated here so many times before he knows that low oil and commodity prices sunk the USSR(really it was socialism, but he has abandoned that to a large degree). He is up for revenge ... what good ex-KGB agent isn't? This is his ploy to offset the US and UK controlled futures markets! He knows "real wealth" when he sees it and he wants the ruble to play a major currency role because he knows the value of currency now. Denominate EUROPE'S oil and gas in rubles and watch what happens! This guy is "kick ass" smart! He's going to have OBAMA for lunch!

There are some great solutions for America, but US voters don't want to vote for solutions they still insist on voting for the problems ... namely the same old tired crap the Reps and Dems have always offered up from their bank masters! Hence the USSA!

GRMN - Out @ 37.06; bought on 8/5 @ 33.90 after 4-day AZ.

Re: Forex vs. Gold

The gold price correction is the result of exogenous factors related to foreign exchange rather than moves in the dollar. The dollar move is unprecedented, but may be directly as a result of widespread long trades in commodities collapsing over a dollar short. There would have been many long/short trades in currencies which also fell apart. Certainly the vast commodities trade in long oil/short dollar would have required that the $US rally.

Really, the fundamentals haven't changed for the better in the least. The oil sector is behaving as the liquidity conduit as if it were precious metals, but this will soon to be proven corrupted. But the vast majority look at gold as a mere commodity. So its logical that gold be seen as vulnerable to commodity crashes.

First, I have to congratulate dr. cosa on his decision to divest from the gold sector long before the plunge yesterday.

Some of the charts that I've been following are turning out to be a cogent explanation of gold markets.

My investment thesis was that if oil prices were to decline, then the loonie would be hit, setting a support under the gold price in Canadian dollars. Its one of the few gold price charts that have not corrected to its 89-week EMA:

stockcharts.com

http://tinyurl.com/6q2gd7

(this may indicate that the loonie will recover somewhat against the $US resulting in a full correction to the 89-week EMA of the Canadian dollar gold price)

Any adjustment of the foreign exchange values against gold in $US will result in support for the gold price in other currencies.

Daily price moves in foreign exchange values can be monitored via Kitco.com.

You can see how the following examples of currency trades correlate well with the gold price:

stockcharts.com

¥/$

http://tinyurl.com/66oeum

€/$

http://tinyurl.com/5ot7qb

Looking Ahead =>

One the one hand, you have the ECB evidently backing into a corner having to cut rates if the recession takes hold there. But the caution is that the yield curve does not call for it, especially on the short end of the curve:

http://www.ecb.int/stats/money/yc/html/index.en.html

On the other hand, you have the JCB with its chronically low interest rates of 0.5% and wholesale inflation at 7%. They are at great risk of an inflationary recession, requiring a rapid increase in rates. The bond market in Japan is not making any indications that this is required.

My assumption would be that the € and currencies like the Swiss franc decline against the ¥, should reason prevail and they cut rates in Europe while raising rates in Japan. Otherwise, the inflationary recession in Japan will be intense.

A decline of European currencies against the ¥ should result in the same move in gold prices as we saw when the £ and the loonie declined against the ¥ without changing their value much against the dollar.

stockcharts.com

£/¥

http://tinyurl.com/637hod

Looking at the silver/gold ratio, against the CDNX, we are seeing that the venture exchange and the decline of the silver/gold ratio is "catching up" to the gold juniors:

stockcharts.com

silver/gold

http://tinyurl.com/6jwprp

An excellent chart of the Gold/Silver ratio by Gary Tanashian may be pointing to a similar move in the ratio as occurred from Aug 07 to Mar 08:

http://biiwii.blogspot.com/2008/08/usd-gold-oil-ratio-gold-silver-ratio.html

F6

kaimu:

"There's no such thing as a former KGB agent."
-- Vladimir Putin

F6, thank you. You clearly see the relation ship between commodities/oil/gold and currencies which is quite refreshing. Most people only look at gold in USD, or the DOW for that matter, which is not correct IMO.

ALOHA !!

Old Goat ... Very funny and damned accurate ... I'll have to change my verbiage on that score!

Whats really scary for the US Peso now that it has been rallying is the USA and its economy and banks have to PUT UP OR SHUT UP! I see this as a huge setup for a US Peso crash of mega proportions, especially if there is any of the least bit of another Bear Stearns or bad economic data. Of course it can all be manipulated, but not too long!

Go back and read what happened prior to and during the Great Depression and that was when money was actually worth something!

TTM - Out @ 10.00 +7.8%; bought @ 9.29 on 7/31 based on out-of-date but still "in play" RSI7 buy alert criteria.

Is the Dow going to bounce off the 11,500 number and rally back up? I haven't been able to trade this week. I hope I didn't miss a chance to short the Dow close to 12,000. Maybe I will get a chance this week or next...

OG- CALM will probably keep hitting new highs until the short interest drops...the only people able to sell are insiders, and i don't think they're interested in selling right now..

OG- if there's anyone here planning the trade and trading the plan that seems to be you...all of your recent trades have been on the mark...congrats..

Mark Twain’s Thoughts on 3 Topics You’d Rather Not Discuss

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. —- Mark Twain

http://tinyurl.com/5pnakj

XEC/PXD - Daily EMA(5) & SMA(9) crossing up; macd(4,8,9), rsi(7), adx(4,4) appear positive. Disc: long XEC/PXD from 8/11. Not advice; DYODD.

kaimu - That's right, "ore grades" This is what makes a minor miner a major.

ALOHA !!

The Treaty of Maastricht ... when has there ever been a "treaty" that has not been broken?

from a purely TA perspective, pull up a 1 year chart of the SKF w/ RSI-7 and Slow Sto.
its a break-out masterpiece.

almost TOO perfect non?

Anyone here read the Grandich Publications newsletter?

I just got their email and it had this written in it:
"Due to serious illness, Grandich Publications has to suspend operations. For those concerned with Peter Grandich's well being, we ask for you to pray for his complete healing.

Peter is unable to check email at this time"

I wondered why I haven't received much from him lately [gold bug newsletter]. Has anyone heard anything about his condition?

2nd - RSI(7) method seems to generate good, relatively low-risk entries as it basically codifies and mechanizes buy low/sell high. I'm having trouble with the "sell high" part, as I am too short-term oriented for my own good and "always sell too soon." I can't resist taking profits when they are there to be taken--especially if I don't like what the daily and hourly charts are telling me. [Jesse quote re not getting rich taking 4-point profit in a bull market comes to mind...] I doubt I will ever ride a position all the way up to where it generates a sell alert (though I would consider selling short or buying puts on sell signals).

With respect to recent closing positions, I am concerned that I am harvesting only my winners, and perhaps doing so prematurely; unfortunately I have some legacy losers which have become "investments" (another word for "corpses"). I do, for example, have a WFMI position which I need to dispose of, and should have ditched yesterday.

SNDK and GRMN exits were timely, though I wish I'd sold the GRMN into this morning's pop.

I feel SKF is dangerous in front of options expiration, especially with low volume trading. The vested interests may take the financials up into Friday and then dump those positions next week.

Since their 52-week highs last October, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index has lost 18.5%, the S&P 500 Index is off 18.2% and the Nasdaq Composite Index has fallen 15.1%. At the same time, the broader U.S. economic picture has darkened considerably with gross domestic product (GDP) a slim 1.9% and consumer confidence in the toilet bowl rather than the punch bowl.

Adding insult to injury, sentiment is worsening. Even perma-bulls are tempering their expectations and volume remains decidedly concentrated on the downside.

Yet, at the same time, the Dow puts in two barnburners like those last Tuesday and Friday when the index rose 331.62 and 302.89 points respectively.

Which begs the question… what do we make of the rallies?

Two words – “bear trap.”

http://tinyurl.com/5tmbx3

moab - Thu/Fri might also be days to buy SKF in anticipation of bank closings. What's your thought?

TRIN has been declining since the open, which hints at a turnaround coming.

kaimu,
...but US voters don't want to vote for solutions they still insist on voting for the problems ... namely the same old tired crap the Reps and Dems have always offered up from their bank masters!
------
I would, just once more before I die, like a candidate I could vote for. (My last was Barry Goldwater.)
The only excuse we have for letting our nation devolve into this mess is the fragmentation of our society into easily manageable special interest groups. With racial divides, gay/straight, conservative/liberal (without a scorecard ?), etc. no single group can field a candidate strong enough to set the country back on its original set of goals. (see Preamble to the U.S. Constitution)
We need an Andrew Jackson.

US companies with foreign revenue. I can see more pain here as Europe's economy hits the skids.

Ahmen Grym, You said a mouth full!

airlines taking a hit...

DE, Deere selling appeared overdone. Went long earlier.

moab
RE:TRIN
I see that. Where would you put TRIN to believe a turn around is really possible?
TRIN <0.95 ?

Also do you follow TICK ?

OG- you're not the only one selling early...if i had given my gold position another 2 and 1/2 hours of trading time, i'd be much happier.

SiO2 - You may be interested in Tim Knight's remarks re Deere this morning:

http://slopeofhope.com/2008/08/oh_deere.htm

"[D]on't underestimate just how far a stock can go down." -- Tim Knight

My SLW & TSO are doing well today. Hopefully both will turn green for me soon.

UXG [LOL]... Word on the street is, when it falls below 1.00 it will be the first ever
"BOGO" [Buy One Get One Free] on Wall Street.

TRIN is showing that the volume is not there on the declining stocks compared to those rising. It is a divergence from the declining price.

I'm not saying a turnaround is coming, though that is my bet, but that the TRIN declining makes it much more likely that the selloff is a fakeout than if the TRIN were increasing as the selloff continues.

I thought the SEC had said they were continuing to support the naked short ban. What am I missing here?

2nd - Try a 2-1/2yr gold position and you should do quite well, don't you think?.

ALOHA !!

The Treaty of Maastricht ...

The Euro is just a German Mark and even the Germans don't want to be a Euro! Naturally since the USDX is heavily weighted against a Euro any Euro crash would be USDX positive which initially would be bad for gold. Yet here is the crux ... all currencies are "fiat", so would it be constructive for the USDX and the Yen and the Pound to let the Euro crash? Would not that act cast some serious doubt on other paper currencies? I say none of them can allow the other to crash ... rally yes but crash no! I have said many times the US Peso is the World's Reserve Currency and if it crashes then the entire fiat system is gone, especially given the amount of US Debt held overseas. Yet all economies and banks are in trouble and the only bastion of wealth left after the real estate bust is the global stock and monetary markets and some of them are even problematic. If the governments of the World allow deflation to take hold then the last bastion of paper wealth ... "banks and their stock markets" are doomed. If you are in power in the FIAT WORLD would you allow that to happen? NO ... I ask once again ... "Who in power wants to voluntarily give it up?" Deflation is where we are headed but not before the powers that be abdicate those powers by force. What are the forces? There are market forces, there are monetary forces, there are political forces, but the biggest force of all is the natural force of the human condition. If your studies of economics do not include human nature then it is a waste of time. Austrian based economics is a study of human nature and the human condition. That is why I say the FIAT MONETARY SYSTEM is based on the human condition. This is also why I am critical of the Keynesian economics now being lauded at every Ivy League College in America. It is an economic study for the support of a fiat monetary system. If you ever want to be CEO of JP MORGAN then you best never mention Ludwig Von Mises!

Without Newton's Laws Of Motions(published in 1685) we could not have a NASA space program that sent men to the moon. Imagine if Newton's Laws had to rely on the ten versions of the CPI ... that still can't even define true "inflation" in the USA! Economics taught in America today is as manipulated as the supposed free markets are! Our dollars and our economy are based on lies ... then what good are "promises to pay"?

Moab

Thanks for the response.

I been watching the TRIN / TICK on a 10min delayed chart.

http://tinyurl.com/6bs3xq

[Near bottom of page. Have to keep refeshing it]

OG thank you. He seems to be looking at DE from a purely TA point of view after results and he is a holder of puts! I am looking at fundamentals. I bought SEP calls, they are up 20%. Like anything else, it's a quick trade in this market where anything can happen.

commodities are back in vogue: oil, gold, eggs...

Gold stocks have had quite a bounce from their lows. Although I was a bit early (last week mentioned I was waiting for 42 NEM, 46-47 AEM, and 30 for GG)all positions have nice profits and I am selling Sept calls against AEM and GG after their near 15% run. The gold chart still looks bad, the US dollar looks like it has put in an intermediate low, and climax runs usually run 50-55 days (which points to a mid September low as does 180 days from the March 15 top). If these stocks double bottom or go to a slight new low bargains will abound.

SKF - There's confirmation traders were buying up SKF on the pull backs, just waiting for Aug 13th.

TGP - 52-week low is 22.85; now @ 23.07.

Disc: Long TGP.

Keynesian economics - I think I had studied some of that in my past. Hmm, gotta go back to review this W/E, kaimu, thanks for jogging my memory as this takes me back to some really awsome statistial analysis and applications for differential equations....

Pookster, could you expound on your SKF confirmations? Thanks

Hmmmmm....."differential equations...." - Newton also thought up the differential calculus, did he not?

TGP - oldgoat - I'm assuming this is not intended as a long-term holding... There's a lot of domestic production coming on line, and the US is the Saudi equiv in terms of nat. gas, right?

SKF - One more big push today? 2nd, chime in here...

nemo - I should have been more specific, I should've said banking shorts were building in anticipation of today's SEC short rule expiration.

Pookster on SKF

20% in 2 days, would make sense to be taking profits to get the price back down by Friday to take it into the weekend. Especially if you're ascared some new NSS rule gets announced.

Banking index trying to break the downtrend line on the 5 minute charts.

pookie -

"Long-term" is not in my vocabulary.

TGP is Cara Global 100 company with recent RSI7 buy alert. Entry point seems relatively good, with obvious nearby stop point to contain risk. JMO/DYODD (as you obviously have).

SKF Sell limit @$130 for 1/2 of my position.

Below quote is from Michael Panzer at FinancialArmagedon. Can someone confirm that statement in the third paragraph below regarding the ban on short sales being lifted today is accurate:

"...Diehard bulls also point to the recent turnaround in the financial sector. To be sure, the one-month recovery in the shares of banks and brokers has bolstered the broader market. Indeed, given the role that financial shares played in undermining investor confidence over the past year or so, it’s not surprising that some investors would view hefty gains in the financial sector as a reason for optimism.

But why are financial stocks doing better? Is it because the bad news is fully factored in? Or, as is more likely, is it due to technical factors? No matter how you slice it, it is hard to ignore the fact that the sector bottomed following a July 15th "emergency order" from the SEC barring naked short-selling in the shares of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and 17 large investment banks. Many of these stocks have also seen their short interest ratios drop over the span.

But starting on Wednesday, that ban is set to be lifted. And investors will have to focus, once again, on the fact that this critical sector has yet to come to grips with a surging tide of red ink and a litany of legal and other woes."

Fairly heavy buying of September well out-of the money BAC puts, 16,000 in the 20-22s. Also 11,000 August 25 and 7,000 August 17.50!

Kaimu
Give me some grade and lots of tons at near a 52 wk low --- NAK @~US$5.66
Between east and west deposits 4.2B tons @ .79%cueq containing 63.8B lbs Cu, 76.3 MM oz.Au and 3.85B lbs/MoS2.
Have a good trip

Note also that UBS has really low $ puts open in September, including 2.50s. Rings a bell somewhere...

Max Pain says DIA and SPY are dead on, amazing. XLF is oversold (http://nexalogic.com/maxpain.html).

[Bill Cara note:

As I have written, when a bank fails, their assets including their people move to a stronger bank. UBS is no longer the strongest bank in the world. It's not even on the Cara 100 list anymore.

This article has a lot of info on UBS, like the fact 140 relationship managers departed last quarter. http://tinyurl.com/5flcop

I skimmed the article, but didn't see where the clients withdrew $45 billion Assets Under Management.]

Oldgoat
RE: Not selling higher

You're still making money right? Greed my be good in a Gordon Gekko sense but in markets this volatile "Green" is good. Take it while you've got it.

Gotta go feed ducks, they're honking at me.... back in a couple hours.

Si02,
The BAC puts must be speculation that the lawsuit against Countrywide by West Virginia will snowball out of control and sink BAC.

Rob.

What does everyone think about the CPI numbers tomorrow?

Undoubtedly our more massaged numbers will look better that Europe's more realistic numbers.

Does that mean continued dollar strength and oil/metals weakness resumes tomorrow?

Will stocks rise as well? maybe another 300 point Bear rally?

I'm thinking about dumping my puts today and dipping into some calls.

Rob.

Uranium miner Paladin Resources (PDN.to) up 19% today on already double volume. No news of course. One I hold and have traded off and on for a while.

Denison Mines (DNN) up 24%, earnings released this morning, but on the surface don't see anything to warrant that increase in share price.

Cameco down 5%

weird

I just saw that I got lucky this morning -- SLW did not do a fake plunge to take out my stop and instead gapped up, like a good citizen, and rallied to hit my sell limit order. :) Now it is even above the level when I bought my previous bunch of shares ($10.7), and so I may sell them as well if I see SLW turning south. Maybe Bill is right and this is just a rebound rally that will fail...

2nd_ave: why are you focusing on Sun out of all refiners? It seems to have established a firm uptrend after hitting the bottom, while VLO didn't do it yet. Since VLO is not a "weak" company, maybe it is a safer bet now? On the other hand, being inside a rising trend of SUN is also nice...

Is it time to start buying into SKF? Its 6 month chart seems to show that SKF has bottomed and is now on the rise -- am I reading the chart correctly?

Uranium is flying today.

Si02

Where can I learn more about these max pain spread sheets you are posting? They look intersting. Thank you.

proudpapa, it's all Cameco. Heavy flooding going on at Cigar Lake, mine cannot be worked on at the moment, this has caused Uranium to jump taking all radioactive co's with it. U.to up 13%.

Hi all -
CCJ down on further problems with dewatering Cigar Lake, which has the potential to further delay a big souce (~10% of current demand) of U3O8 past 2011-2212 - a big mover for all junior uraniums today.

ProudPapa

Cameco (CCJ) released an update on remediation at their Cigar Lake uranium mine that was negative (haven't had a chance to read fully). So remediation will take longer than expected and meanwhile all other U producers are the beneficiaries.

Since SLW is in a moonshoot now, and I don't know how high it will go (and I am willing to sell some shares as soon as it stops rising), I have placed a trailing stop order on SLW $0.1 below its price (at $11.12). Let's see fow high it will be "pulled up"...

Kim,

http://www.billcara.com/archives/2008/08/bill_caras_community_chat_mon_14.html#c67042

Also, you can just Google "Max Pain Theory".

Luggie says,
"Hi all -
CCJ down on further problems ... a big mover for all junior uraniums today."

Not for the one I am holding - RSC - Very small position, down 6.7% today.

David - I think 2nd is focusing on Suncor, which Bill mentioned above in his post. Is that right, 2nd?

I'm still holding VLO...that thing is having a really hard time doing much. Looks like the inventory report was good for it today.

I'm watching SRS right now and hoping it comes back down to $80 again...

so how should gap ups in the junior uraniums like today be traded? I guess the npv has actually jumped, so fundamentally the 20%+ gains should remain. But in reality they will probably all fall back and resume downtrend, especially given the dropping oil/gas prices and reduced incentive that gives to going nuclear.

So expect on a retrace and sell on the big jump today? Or hold on expecting a higher trading range?

APMEX says they are experiencing a US Silver Eagle shortage (see
http://apmexdealer.blogspot.com/2008/08/silver-gold-shortage-announcement.html ).

OK, it didn't take long. :) SLW got up to $11.24, my trailing stop was pulled up to $11.14, then SLW took a swing down and my trailing stop was hit. So I sold at $11.14 the shares I bought at $10.7. It is not a large gain, but more importantly I have reduced my position in SLW and I'm ready for another plunge, if it were to happen. And if SLW continues up, then I will make money on the shares that I am still holding (about 11% of my portfolio).

Proudpapa

Its important to distinguish between junior U producers and junior explorers. Their are a whole lot of cruddy little uranium exploration companies that popped up over the few years that I wouldnt expect to have much correlation w/ the physical U market.

LNG - Anyone else been keeping an eye on this one? I think it looks like it may make a late day move.

If I am interpreting the action correctly, it looks like the MM has been periodically trying to drop the price below the $3.75-85 level over yesterday and today but doesn't seem like many shares are getting shaken out today (looking at today's small volume.)

I'm looking for some volume to kick in at the 3PM ET and a move up to the mid-$4s going into the end of the week.

32,929 September puts bought on BAC, including mine.

UNG: very good opportunity tomorrow.

I see more than 39,000 OTM August puts bought today in BAC. Those expire on Friday. What do they expect to happen between now and Friday close in BAC??

PXD - Out @ $60.00 +11.1%; bought @ 53.99 on 8/11
XEC - Out @ $53.81 +8.1%; bought @ 49.76 on 8/11

OG - good job on PXD and EEC. Nice!

Are we sure that all of the BAC puts were bought? One needs to look at whether the bid or ask price was hit to make sure.

OK, I am back home now for the rest of the day. I see that DBA took off without me -- placing a buy stop order at $34.1 would have worked out great. So now the DBA chart has clearly turned around. But how does one buy DBA after several up days in a row culminating in a 6% up day? The reasonable thing is to wait for at least $1 a pull back -- but what if it comes only after DBA reaches $38? Those who like to enter on a buy signal -- what entry strategy would you use for DBA right now?

teich: good question. Interesting how "buying" is not referred to as the same as "selling". Well, Sep 25 puts are trading near the high of the day, I don't see a price drop during the day. If a market maker is willingly writing lots of puts the price would drop. What do the experts say here?

Great discussions today here.

Hi SiO2,

So this is evidence that Max Pain predicts (or has predictive value of) where, in terms of price, a security will be in the run up to expiration?

David,

Just a thought: should probably wait and see if it breeches 37 on higher than average volume and then look for a pullback. That's the next resistance.

SiO2:

You can see whether a put is sold or bought if you look at level-2 data.

When you said "Sep 25 puts are trading near the high of the day", it does not necessarily imply that the puts are bought. If I want to sell cash-secured puts, where I don't mind ending up owning the stock, of course I'd like to do it when the put prices are high (or when the stock price is depressed).

David,

If I was thinking of buying any DBA going forward, I would wait to see if it pulls back to ~$35. If it does, then I would start buying when it shows some strength AFTER that. Say at around $35.30.

for those of you who respect Minyanville Professors, a great perspective on Gold and silver today. It's in line with what Bill has been saying. The entry point is near?
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/gold-metals-silver-currency/index/a/18493

valleyrat, "one month no evidence makes". I am just doing a study of all $ involved this month and will figure out who made the money at EOD Friday.

teich, thanks. If I have cash secured puts and I sell 10,000 of them wouldn't that depress the price? How is the seller going to find buyers for such large amounts?

teamonfuego/David- that's right, i accidentally typed SUN instead of SU this morning...

CP- nicely done, half out at 130...

CALM- thinking of another position...

WFMI - Out @ 19.25 -12.1%; ill-timed purchase on 8/1, a few days before the organic material hit the ventilating device. One less corpse to carry around.

Hit the ball well today. So did the Pookster from what I can tell.

IMHO, WFMI does not belong in the Staples sector of Cara 100. From what I gather, it sells expensive organic-like stuff? My shopping experiences the last few months have found those sections of stores completely empty of shoppers and their items are starting to appear on sale at deep discounts.

Oil Rises $3 After Bigger-Than-Expected Gasoline Supply Decline

-Crude oil futures rose more than $3 a barrel in New York after a U.S. Energy Department report showed a bigger-than-forecast decline in inventories of gasoline as refiners shut units and imports fell.

-Gasoline supplies dropped 6.39 million barrels to 202.8 million barrels last week, the biggest decline since October 2002....

Refiners are cutting runs and imports plunged because demand is so weak,'' ..... ``Refiners weren't making money so it made sense to shut units

-Crude oil for September delivery rose $3.78, or 3.3 percent, to $116.79 a barrel at 1:29 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $117.43 a barrel and are heading for the biggest one-day gain since July 30. Oil traded at $113.88 a barrel before the release of the report at 10:35 a.m. in Washington

- Refinery Operations
Refineries operated at 85.9 percent of capacity, down 1.1 percentage point from the week before, the report showed. Analysts forecast a 0.5 percentage-point drop.

-Inventories of crude oil fell 316,000 barrels to 296.5 million, the department said. Supplies were forecast to rise 300,000 barrels, according to the median of responses by 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

http://tinyurl.com/5krtvm

LNG started moving right at the 3pm ET I mentioned earlier, just made a new HOD and moving up nicely

Regarding this article from The Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk
Stage two of the gold bull market is just beginning
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
August 12,2008

Don't get carried away with its explanation of how the machinery of the EU and especially the European Monetary Union work. There's quite a lot of nonsense in there.

The big benefit of the EU is that its members stopped having wars with each other. This has proven to be a big money-saver.

Nobody is going to get off "Scott-free" if the US takes a hard fall. The US is a great customer. It buys a lot of merchandise and it borrows a lot of money from Europe and Asia. The EU will feel a little bit of the pain. IF YOUR BEST CUSTOMER IS HURTING, YOU ARE HURTING.

But don't shed any tears for Europe, boys.

REG CROWDER
http://knol.google.com/k/reg-crowder/international-investing/6dyptd3yjxyq/2

Mackinaw, nemo: thanks for responding to my DBA query. It looks like both of you agree that I should wait for a pullback before buying it. So let's see how the pullback will look like...

Billy,

Excellent call on LNG. You should listen to that man.

Long URZ

Billy, what indicated to you LNG would pop then?

David- UAUA, would you have been a buyer at 11.40?

in a market where i'm tempted to say "i don't see any way to make money is this market unless you're day trading" it's amazing how well the buy signals on the Cara 100 have worked...

CCJ-off~4% equals gains of: 5%-USU, 30%-URRE,
18%-DNN,11%-PNP:T,26%-URE:T,13%-UUU;T, while the cruddy ones--WUC:V,UNI:V & SLX:Aust. are flat. Should sell them all, but love the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. Happy trading of the prices - guess i should do that now and then

SiO2
I followed you into DE this AM getting some at $65 and adding at $64.2. Thanks. Are you holding thru the weekend or exiting in the next half hour?

SiO2:

I agree that there is pricing pressure when one tries to sell 10,000 puts. However, since a put is a derivative, its value depends strongly on the price of the underlying (delta ~ -0.5 is common).

I notice that BAC is tanking big today, where the Aug $30 puts have a delta of -0.63 .

I don't know the real answer, but there are always two sides to each trade.

Don't tell him, he cracked wise with me yesterday:)

Nemo, looking at the chart from this week, the huge upspike on Monday afternoon came very abruptly and brought in momentum trading that took the stock up to $4.50ish.

The chart indicated to me that those who had bought into Monday's fervor were getting shaken out as the stock trended down into the high $3 area.

Watching today's action, LNG kept in a tight range near the $4 mark w/ little volume. When the MM dropped the price into the high $3s, volume finally began to kick in. There was an ascending pattern of these drops, an initial drop to about $3.80 earlier today and each time this pattern occured, the buyers came in at a higher price on the drop. I.E. first buying at $3.8, then $3.9, then $3.95.

What I concluded was that this was a sign that not much was being shaken out. The 3PM ET time frame I arrived at is b/c volume tends to pick up at that time and also b/c margin calls go out (i.e. forced sales). Whomever was suppressing the price probably wanted to shake shares free at margin call time so they could gobble them up.

So either I was right or just lucky.

APMEX says they are experiencing a US Silver Eagle shortage (see
http://apmexdealer.blogspot.com/2008/08/silver-gold-shortage-announcement.html ).

Same situation in continental Europe. Many coins out of inventory with the bigger German dealers(largest bullion market in Europe).
Many have stopped offering Silver Eagles and Silver Maple Leafs.
One dealer, www.westgold.de, had their third best turnover day yesterday.
So it seems that recent low prices are met with high fysical demand.
Disclosure: long silver

Billy Sundance....

You get the prize today me man. Yowza

Beautiful half hour trade....beautiful 50 cent move yo.

ya gots to buy em, and ya gots to sell em.

LNG in at 4.02
Out $4.44

As more people use the RSI-7 D/W/M signal, does it have the potential to become a self-fullfilling prophecy, at least in the short-term?

SKF -

Anyone buying on the pull-back? I kept hearing about more pain & puts on financials.

DE in at $64.63
Out $67

Oldgoat - Yes, I studied Newton's works for several years under the auspices of Ewen,Topper and Linne. and became addicted. Those guys were a huge influence. Diff. eqtns, cont. integration., Transform analys., (Fourier and Laplace), continuous and discrete system analysis. Tried to continue into Bayesian theorms (the connection I made with Keynes today) for inventory control applications but failed to capture the interest of my employer.

Watching the numbers fly and reviewing stock charts brings back memories of long nights working with derivatives of sinc functions.

Or the trading-edge of the strategy may fade. i.e. "trader's effect".

Bill -
Forgot to thank you for this little gem yesterday
"What I learned in life, not being born wealthy, is that, when seeking independence, everything is a test. Unless you know that, and then decide to win your objective, which requires your fighting back those who would put you down, and challenging yourself to be all you can be, you will lose. You will never be self-reliant.

The capital market is nothing more than life itself. We are the market; the market is just another test. With one another’s help, we’ll be able to say to the world, “We’re getting by, nicely, thank you.”"

Much appreciated.

I track about twenty gold miners on a page in my IB account. Sixteen of them were up today.
Which ones weren't?

WGW, UXG, PMV, GIX.

Which ones do I own?

WGW, UXG, PMV, GIX. :-/

SKF - Never recovered above it's peak of $130, so didn't hit my sell limit. Still holding for more bad news.

So where did the money go today, energy?

BP - Maybe tomorrow your baritones will join the chorus? Could be!

Anybody looking for a target on UYG? I've got $18 on my radar at the moment...

westcoaster, sorry, I was away. I did not sell. I have Sep 70 calls, bought at 1.20. Usually I sell once they hit 100%, but did not place the order. I like DE and it was clear a rebound was coming. BTW, please do your DD before following my leads!

I also bought MAA.V today at 1.45 (potash play).

Tomorrow there is a terrific opportunity showing up on UNG.

Thanks, Billy

Awwwww, sharkster-I was just funnin' ya'!

Valley Rat,

On the RSI-7, if too many people use it, the effect will be wiped out. As a matter of fact, maybe we shouldn't tell people about Bill's book...

LNG - I was in at $3.97 (over yesterday and today) and out at $4.46 just now. The investor in me wanted to hold but the trader had to sell most of it - I did keep a tiny position for a possible UAUA style rally.

Congrats Shark/Westcoaster. Shark - I wouldn't have had LNG on the radar if you hadn't pointed it out Monday.

Billy,

Turns out LNG reported earnings today.

By "just now" I meant "at the close".....got caught up w/ something before I could publish that post

SiO2 - I don't clearly see the UNG opportunity you are mentioning. Are you anticipating a good day for the nat. gas sector in general? If so, I would go along with this prediction.

SiO2
I slept in this AM and when I got on, all the Ags were up strong, plus I knew DE had been getting pounded down for a while, so it made sense as a way to get something out of the rally.
Thanks for mentioning it earlier

Nemo - LNG 2nd Q earnings (Lack thereof) came out Monday 8/11 late in the trading day (inciting that big spike)......

nemo - Perhaps we should only tell the right people about Bill's book!

Bill said - "after the oil and metals prices reach a cycle bottom, boom times in Canada will return, and one of the reasons is that the majority of major corporations there are high quality."

Now looking for the cycle bottom, wondering how we'll know when/before it happens. Maybe todays activity is indication we're at bottom now?

Day traded LNG at 2.85 a few days ago and thought I was so "smart" when held on a day or two extra and had my limit hit at 3.20. Oh, the special torment of getting out of a trade right before the "big move". Beats a big loss, of course, but still, it's a special kind of nagging feeling.

As far as I'm concerned, this LNG thing is the best example I can remember of us (this blog) sharing info and profiting. Me and Blowout caught the first part of the move, Billy and Westcoaster the latest bit. Let's see what tomorrow brings. Would like to reload at 4. And if history is any guide, it'll be possible.

BP - LNG - That's all rear-view psycobabble. What could you have done to avoid your mistake? That's what I would like to hear about... Currently, I have to assume you believe there was no way to have forecast, and participated in the event.

My theory is, it seems like analysts expectations for bull rally earnings are set too high, and perhaps vice-versa.

What do you think?

I meant Bear rally.

shark - Would you mind taking a moment to re-hash the fundamentals surrounding the LNG party?

I have a feeling that LNG might be heading for a gap up tomorrow IF the commodities run continues. As we have seen w/ UAUA after that $5 fence is hopped things can get pretty nutty, pretty quick. As I understand it the $5 threshold is usually a cut-off for mutual funds (they cant hold stocks under $5).

So, A mutual fund-heavy stock will correct if the share price drops under $5? Is that our fundamental?

It sounds like the LNG party is all about some observation pertaining to price action which shark noticed a couple of days ago...

I'm glad you guys are able to make some dough, but I'm wondering about your sanity right now. It's beginning to look like sharks demon has been unleashed again.

Long time lurker. First time caller. LOL. Been using Bill's Triple RSI scan (THANK YOU KORVUS) for some time now. I've set up various RSI scan of the DJIA stocks, ETF's (esp 2x bull and 2x bear), gold miners, bonds, etc so I can cover a lotta ground quickly since as we know "There's a bull market somewhere". ROFL.

Just to share. I went long AEM in the past few days as it went below RSI 10 on the 7 day. I've had a few nice capitulation plays like HANS and ANF, buying Friday at the open and turning 10-20%. I also look at the options to determine if there's any upward pull.

I also run the RSI on stocks mentioned in this area to see if there's room to run.

Bill's work has improved my trading immensely and Korvus's work is essential to implementing Bill's processes.

Thanks to u both. (And I won'd

OOPS.

And I won't ask if it's time to buy gold.

"Now looking for the cycle bottom, wondering how we'll know when/before it happens. Maybe todays activity is indication we're at bottom now?"

Of course Mr. CP, you will be running the time series charts for EWC and you'll see it sink below 30 on weakness.....then rise above 30 as we likely hear the next leg of the commodity run is on. Of course you will be watching it like a hawk along with the rest of us and we'll all catch it just off the bottom and make an S load of money.

Or you will just put EWC in Korvus' magic RSI machine and buy when it says buy.

Or you will watch time series charts for all of the major components of EWC (provided by Bill this AM) and buy the EWC when they are giving buy signals.

#'s 1 & 2 seem like the better bets.

CP,

Yeah, definitely not trying to turn this into trading psychotherapy.

I bought LNG on oversold RSI indication and sold it on nice overbought readings, so I'm done navel-gazing ;-)

Craig & BP - Thanks, I understand the concept of the plan now. Ready to trade the plan, preparing dry powder...

Billy-Oh yeah, duh, misread the date

The LNG party?

Simple. I brought the beer, and Billy brought the chicken wings. Oops. Sorry. What I mean to say is...

So the chicken's hear the falconer?

Here is the story. I could just tell you outright, but that wouldn't be fair to you.

Since it's pretty simple to figure out, if you really care, and I don't doubt that you do, here's your homework:

Take a good look at the LNG chart, the daily first, (for my piece of this success) and the 10 or 15 minute chart for Billy's contribution today. Tell me what you see. I promise to tell you if you really look and can't figure it out, but Chicken, this isn't rocket science. It isn't even a game of chicken, although it can feel that way sometimes. Get back to me tonight.

shark - Assuming you're serious about your comment; If you can get 6 of the posters here to say they also think I don't care then I'll stop posting here and go elsewhere. Otherwise, you can lighten up and drop the tone, as far as I'm concerned.

"I don't doubt that you do" Oops, I read "I doubt you do"

Oops sorry, I was fooled by the double negative.

Natural gas- in the interest of making money, I would suggest reading SiO2's posts about UNG and following his lead...type in "SiO2 UNG" in the Cara search field, and you should find what you need...

Cara 100 Watch-out:

ABB Ltd, the global provider of power and automation technologies to utility and industry customers, is dipping down in the Daily and Weekly RSI (7) territory. This is a really good company. IMHO, it's not time to buy, but if you keep an eye on it, you'll be happy if you buy at the right time.

I sold my DIA puts today for a small loss. I also sold my SLW calls for a bigger gain. I sold my COF puts for a Three cheeseburger gain.

I bought some DIA Jan calls betting the massaged CPI number will resume the higher stocks/lower commodities play.

We'll see how it plays out.

Rob.

Si02,
Nice work with the Max Pain theory data. If that proves to work most of the time, we could be one step behind the professionals and safely in their shadow.

Rob.

re: "Take a good look at the LNG chart"...
First...I am a member of densa so if you are going to try and educate me please strap on your extra patience.
I see a stoch and macd crossover on the daily chart and a sharp spike on the fast stoch. Now for the densa part. i don't know how to do 1-5-15 minute charts on Shartcharts. On IB I can do minute charts and I see big volume on price rise and low vol on price falls. Until the 3.05 tp 3.10 spike in price I see no telling indicator.
Any enlightenment from you will earn my gratitude...and who knows, maybe a prize.
peace
Gray

correction; Stockcharts

Chicken, relax. It's English I'm speaking here. I mean you no ill-will. And if you'd stop posting here because of anything anyone says to you what does that say about you? Now go do what I said and look at the goshdarn
charts and tell me what was going on.

Photogray, be patient and the answer will be revealed, tomorrow at the latest. I just want to put chicken through his paces, unless he'd rather email Vad and wait for him to hit shore. My only tone chicken is one of knowing that nothing that's given for free is of any value, only what you learn for yourself will make any lasting impact. If I just tell you it's a waste of both our time. If you figure it out yourself then you grace us both and we're all better off. Now show me that you DO care.

Blowout Preventer,
that is hilarious. I know the feeling exactly. I've given up on trying to trade the junior's. Held on to way too many, without using any sort of rules/discipline (stops), and watched some fall heavily, stupidly. ie over 95% with cnu.v (what a bargain)...
i've got a blind faith mentality with the rest of them. pointless to sell at this point. cutting my losses will net me about 50-60% of my capital invested. not pretty.
serves me right for thinking that they had to go up, not knowing really what i was buying. buying hype and waiting patiently for 50 baggers.

no more money into my portfolio this year. my plan is to focus on quality going forward. no more "heavy" gambling. i'm going to start doing my homework, using the indicators, and most importantly, stop relying on the words of 'gurus' and newsletter professionals as if they were gospel.

Bill, I must say that your morning chat introductions are something I look forward to.
Jock, thank you for introducing me to Otto's website.

Happy trading all!

shark - Ok, I'm back from putting the ducks in their pens for the night. There's quite a few new ducklings, and to get them to go where you want, you've got to get the mother duck to lead them. Mother duck wants to hang out with the other ducks and getting everyone in their respective pens is the goal. A flock of twenty two now...

RSI - I've gotten as far as Bill's daily list, just to give some indication of my progress. Haven't had much success at implementing that, as the "accumulate" stocks I chose mid-June turned red almost immediately, remaining that way until recently. I assumed "accumulate" was a buy indicator, never saw any sell indicators, so I'm concluding I don't properly know how to use the tools. That's ok, I can learn that part as I do have some abilities....

Anyway, Bill's book should arriving soon, and I'm anticipating that will help me catch up with the group in terms of getting my arms around the RSI tools. It just was not apparent to me how and why all the fuss in respect to LNG. Now I think I understand. Simple enough. Trying to explain through this forum might be too difficult, I hope to simply reference Bill's book.

aside: Mean while, I had located another RSI "calculator?", from the google site but haven't attempted implementation.

Tell me what you think (read Bill's book?) and I'll take it from there. In otherwords, if someone were to instruct me to look at the "supercalifragilistic" chart and ask me what I saw, I would conclude that the stock was either trending up, or down, and that's about all.

LNG-- It looks to me like starting Monday at 2:35 it started experiencing a huge up move on high volume while the pull-backs have been on low volume. Even though daily volume has been declining for three days it has held above it's 50 day SMA.

The chart does look good for a buy but I would like to see a higher volume up day in the next couple of days or a successful test of the 50 day on higher volume to confirm the uptrend before I went long.

But for a trade, I could see buying on weakness and selling into strength. The chart seems perfect for short-term set-ups like that.

Rob.

Oh yea, Don't forget that I did say it would take a minimum of six thumbs down to stop me from posting. Do you think you could muster that many from this forum? I doubt it seriously!!! Ha!

Mackinaw - Why is it you can make only two trades per day? Personally, I wouldn't want to make more than that anyway, but I'm curious.

Ok, to cover all bases, I examined the LNG chart, here is my commentary:

Following the open, the price almost instantaneously went from 3.7x to 4.0 with a brief overshoot to 4.1, at a rate of 0.04/min. From there, the price was range bound at 4.0 until a brief downward disturbance to 3.85 occurred at 1:15pm, with a full recovery back to 4.0 by 1:30. The price stayed range bound until about 3:10pm, increasing from there at an average rate of 0.83 per minute into the close to end at 4.5. After hours, the price gaped up another 1.8%, for a total gain of around 19% for the day.

Conclusion for day's activity: Traders made some good cash just after open and just prior to close. Following close, the gains continued another 1.8% for those who didn't sell.

Tomorrow: I wouldn't want to be an owner and find my capital sucked out from under my feet because I didn't sell this strange price activity prior to close. There is no reasonable explanation that I can think of to make me believe this stock is not a dangerous trap for traders.

Overall conclusion: This stock does not show long term promise as the US market is or will soon be flooded with product.

One more comment - In my mind, MXC would have been an easier trade today than UNG.

MXC did 40K shares today... not enough to be "playable". In addition, MXC has spreads wider than a barn door. It was a nice short at 55 though.

Fine, that's all I've got to say. It's nice to know you're such an expert. Good luck!

Hey, did anyone read about Silver Standard Resources writing down 57 million in ABCP (asset backed commercial paper) to 27 million. It was part of a cash saving program they had instituted to help bring their project in Argentina into production (220 million capital and they had 190 million if it). They are now suing the Dominion Bond Rating Service (the first to do so). I guess they rated these papers as R-1 High.

Sorry if this is a repost, I was not able to keep up these past few days. My other life is getting busier and busier every day.

All the best.

Someone in the above discourse was asking for the next angle on the growing economy of China. Please read the below article from AAP in Perth which describes how the medium term platinum supply shortage is expected to continue and demand from China will grow as well.

The global shortage of platinum is not being reflected by the low price of the precious metal, says explorer and budding miner Platinum Australia Ltd.

The platinum price has dropped more than 30 per cent over the past four months, from its record $US2,301.50 per ounce in March to its current level of about $US1,470 per ounce. Prices for platinum and other precious metals fell overnight to the lowest level in more than seven months as the US dollar improved against the pound and euro. Platinum Australia managing director John Lewins told AAP that the platinum market was in deficit last year by 500,000 ounces (oz) but there was demand of seven million oz. Mr Lewins said he predicted there would be a larger shortfall this year. Platinum producers Impala Platinum Ltd, Aquarius Platinum Ltd and Xstrata's takeover target Lonmin plc all expected lower production this year, Mr Lewins said.
Power supply problems in the world's richest platinum-producing nation, South Africa, was making it costly to mine the precious metal, constricting already tight supply, he said.
Significantly increased demand was expected from China in coming years and its industrial consumption of platinum lagged behind other nations, Mr Lewins said.
Platinum was a key, non-substitutable ingredient in catalytic converters, which were used as part of a car's emissions control system, and more cars were taking to China's roads, he said.
Mr Lewin said the platinum market was in deficit but its price had been driven downwards largely by the poor economic sentiment in the US and weaker vehicle sales.
"Latterly, weakness in Europe is being seen too and that relates to the autocatalyst issue."
He said a catalytic converter in a diesel car comprised as much as 75 per cent platinum - a much higher proportion than in petrol cars, where palladium could be used as a platinum substitute.
Diesel vehicle sales were expected to rise thanks to their 30 to 40 per cent better fuel efficiency, he said.
"Last calendar year in China, the production of vehicles went up by 26 per cent - the fastest growing vehicle manufacturers in the world - but they are producing virtually no diesel light vehicles at the moment.
"This is projected to grow.
"They have introduced a clean air act in Beijing and Shanghai and are just about to introduce it to the rest of China this month, which means more catalytic converters.
"It's a strong potential market for diesel vehicles, which therefore means platinum."
Platinum Australia expects to bring its low-cost, high-grade, open pit Smokey Hills mine in South Africa into production this month.
The company aims to ramp up to become a 250,000 oz a year producer, with the addition of its Kalplats project that is also in South Africa.
"We plan to move into the mid-tier," Mr Lewins said. "Our cash costs are low at $US300 per ounce."
He said Xstrata had picked a perfect time to launch its $10 billion bid for Lonmin, which was underperforming and had lost staff.
"I think 44 per cent is a good premium ... and they will get it close to where they are now."

Lonmin is ramping up their defense against Xstrata, why couldn't Aurelian's board at least try that? I'll tell you: THEY SOLD THE SHAREHOLDERS OUT FOR FOOLS AND ARE POCKETING THEIR EASY MONEY. Not suprising given some names on the board.

DJIA scan shows WMT, MCD, and JNJ in sell alert. Guy was pushing JNJ on NBR.

Good Morning.

Here are your Cara 100 Ratings Changes in play today:

NTES - Target Price Raised from $26 to $28 @ Brean Murray

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Have a great day.

I do hope the 'in vogue' portrayl of the potash and fertilizer continues and demand continues to remain strong. Now if only there was more interest in growing the supply (My FOS has been beaten down).

This morning number for inflation, and slowing economy and we have stagflation coming more and more evident: STAGFLATION
Bill has been talking about it in WIR and daily report

Chicken,

What I was referring to in LNG was an upside breakout from a long sideways consolidation on the dailies. Once the breakout was confirmed on good volume etc...it was valid and buyable. It's a lot like what the turtles used to do.

Check out the turtle trading rules, they're on the net and provide a good starting point.

sharkster,

the A/D line had been increasing steadily on LNG since last Friday.

I think a valid question for LNG should be:

Why did it drop from 41.84 in the past year to a low of 2.47 a share. Obviously there must be tons of overhead supply waiting to ditch.

Is LNG like TASR or TZOO? Moonshot then crash forever.

Rob.

Yeah I know but I wasn't even discussing indicators, just the price action itself.

Rob,

I would think the answer is, "Maybe?" Are you looking at it for trading, or as an investment?