Interest rates and the market are creeping up. Here’s the S&P over 15 years. Looks good recently.
Much money sits on the sidelines, suggesting that this mini-boom may continue. No reason to suspect a bust — like the dot-com bust of 2000 or the mortgage bust of 2008. My biggest gainers of late include BRKA, WEN, RWT, GOOG, STWD, HON, V and NRF. My biggest loser is JCP (down 3.9%), which I continue to like, but will dump, if it falls further.
Super impressed with Slingbox. It lets me to watch TV channels I can’t get where I am — e.g. a hotel — like The Tennis Channel. It lets me record programs when I’m not at home. Better, it lets me time switch by using the recording features of my FiOS PVR (Personal Video Recorder). Best, my cheap son can watch stuff on my SlingBox by simply connecting over his slow, cheap Internet line and stealing my password.
Only $178 from Amazon.
Articles you must read:
+ Bakken Business: The price of North Dakota’s fracking boom. A reporter travels around the prairie. You’ll be staggered at the extent of America’s oil boom. We’ll soon by producing more oil than Saudi Arabia. From the latest issue of Harper’s Magazine, Click here.
+ Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail. How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it. From the latest issue of Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi. click here.
+ The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz. He was a child prodigy, an Internet pioneer and an activist who refused to back down – even when the feds tried to break him. Click here.
Gold no longer glitters. Probably because we’re all less anxious. The VIX is super low at 12.31.. From today’s Business Insider:
Gold hit a six-month low falling below $1,600 an ounce ahead of today’s FOMC (Federal Reserve) minutes. The precious metal is said to have entered a death cross where its 50-day moving average fell below the 200-day moving average, which means the commodity has fallen sharply and is expected to decline further. The drop in gold prices has been attributed to a rise in real interest rates and decline in fear.
I have a little gold in the form of SGOL (which I prefer to GLD). I don’t believe it’s all over for gold. I suspect that gold will confound the gold naysayers and turn around. Old contrary argument.
The TradersExpo is a bust. I wasted an hour at yesterday’s TradersExpo. I’m not a trader and few people, it seems, are any longer. The place was a morgue. The big exhibitors — Fidelity, Schwab, eSignal, etc. — showed the same stuff you can find on their web sites. Increasingly, I can find little to distinguish one from the other. Their sales staff was bored and unhelpful.
There were many smaller exhibitors showing systems guaranteed to make you oodles of money. Their booths were empty. I’m thinking “If they knew so much, why aren’t they rich? Why are they bothering to peddle their brilliance to the great unwashed and undeserving, i.e. me?”
My biggest skepticism is for VectorVest, who was an exhibitor at the show. I love their latest CNBC commercial which contains these brilliant words:
Has VectorVest discovered the Holy Grail?
A sure-fire trading system
VectorVest tells you when to buy
What to buy
When to sell
Here’s what you can expect — astonishing returns, consistently profitable, easy to use, exceptional reward-to-risk ratio, outperform the market year-in, year-out, You can do this.
You really believe this nonsense? I don’t.
Favorite ironic photos
The Jew and the Arab (totally tasteless joke)
A Jew and an Arab go into a bakery. The Arab steals three pastries and puts them in his pocket. He says to the Jew, “See how good I am? The owner didn’t see anything!”
The Jew says to the Arab, “I am going to show you there is nobody better than a Jew.” He goes to the owner and says, “Give me a pastry and I will show you a magic trick.”
Intrigued, the owner accepts and give him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and ask for another one. The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew asks for another one and swallows it.
The owner starts to wonder where the magic is and says, “What did you do with the pastry? Are you trying to fool me?”
The Jew answers, “Look in the Arab’s pocket.”
The thirsty Arab (second tasteless joke)
An Arab, desperate for water, is plodding through the desert. He spies something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he crawls towards the image, only to find a little old Jewish man sitting at a card table with a bunch of neckties laid out on it.
The Arab asked, “I’m dying of thirst, can I have some water?”
The Jew replied, “I don’t have any water. Why don’t you buy a tie? They are only $150. Here’s one that goes very nicely with your robes.”
The Arab shouted, “I don’t want an overpriced tie, you idiot, I need water!”
The Jew replied “OK then, don’t buy my ties. But to show you what a nice guy I am, I’ll tell you that over that hill there, about four miles, is a nice restaurant. Walk that way; they have all the water you need.”
The Arab begrudgingly thanked him, then staggered away towards the hill and eventually disappeared. Four hours later the Arab came crawling back to the Jewish man sitting behind his card table.
The Jew said, “…I told you, about four miles over that hill. Couldn’t you find the restaurant?”
The Arab rasped, “I found it all right. But your brother wouldn’t let me in without a tie.”
Harry Newton, who continues to clean up. The joy of throwing stuff out is beyond ecstasy.
My favorite daughter, Claire, and favorite son-in-law, Ted (aka Teddles) both have birthdays today. I know the birthday present they can give their Daddy. Does it work that way?
Harry says “No reason to suggest a bust” and everything looks sunny and then the market promptly falls 1.5 percent in one day. Man, at some point you must buy a clue. The time to be gung ho about buying is when it’s raining. When it’s sunny, and everyone on Wall Street is smiling, WAIT. Then, when it clouds up, start to nibble. When there’s a cloudburst, buy big.
” I know the birthday present they can give their Daddy. Does it work that way?” From your mouth to God’s ear! (But, they have to do their part too. That Virgin Birth was a one time thing)
Harry-
You might want to take a look at the Hussman Funds weekly commentary. He has an entirely different view of what is most likely going to happen with the stock market over the next 18 months. Thanks.
http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc130218.htm
This guy has an awful lot of time on his hands…