Propaganda

Remember the US government staged propaganda fabrication the beginning of the Iraq war? An event that American media endlessly exploited. They toppled a statue of Saddam in Baghdad and everything was supposed to be a triumphant victory with garlands of flowers – instead we’ve had endless war.

Glenn Greenwald has another excellent piece on American Media’s complicity in propaganda. The government or ruling oligarchy itself doesn’t have to censor – the media will do it for them. Remember how opposition to the Iraq  was beaten down by cries of patriotism. Nothing’s changed.

Repealing Health Care

The non Partisan Congressional Budget Office has put the “savings of the Obama Health Care Bill at $143 billion through 2019.” Link to story here & here. The American Public is so propagandized over the imperfect health care bill by our media most do NOT realize it would save money. Remember the Tea Party and their uber wealthy backers shouted down reasonable debate using  the biggest LIE of the year – a government takeover of health care.

So if the Tea Party & Republicans are all about cutting the deficit why are they willing to add $143 billion to the deficit as their first pice of legislation?

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KISS & Stocks (Keep It Simple Stupid)

If you don’t understand a term look in up at Investopedia.com dictionary

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!

DOUBLE CHECK ALL DATA, I MAKE MORE THAN GRAMMAR MISTAKES

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Index	Percentage	Volume
Dow	+0.27%	flat
NASDQ	+0.78%	up
S&P 500	+0.50%	up
Russell 2000	+1.18%	-

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Technicals, Fundamentals & Analysis

Investors411 record - 6 years of beating benchmark S&P 500

• Another heavy volume day. – Sure looks like some fresh money is coming back into market.
• Yesterday – A bear raid in commodities, especially  gold & silver (see below)
• Yesterday – ADP (independent company) comes in with a surprise outstanding gains for  jobs last month – +297,000
• Tech general AAPL on three day breakout run = bullish
• “schizophrenic.” pattern (from yesterday) swings back to bulls.
• Big new is still Friday’s monthly government jobs report. +140,000 expected, but many are expecting more because of ADP data.
• Bonds got crushed yesterday – This is bringing money out of bonds and hopefully into stocks.
• Weekly jobs data & retail sales key fundamentals for today.

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Reading The Tea Leaves

The ““schizophrenic.” pattern changed back to the bulls. The bulls case got far stronger because of volume and some surprising excellent jobs data.

A Bear Raid - Mea Culpa. I got caught in a bear trap yesterday. It happens. You learn from it and move on.

As most of you know I strongly believe in setting trailing stops to limit losses. One big big secret in investing is LIMIT YOUR LOSSES.

Two days ago I recognized warned and sold a gold position. Quote from yesterday “firmly believe that yesterday was nothing more than a bunch of traders trying to panic the gold market and drive the price down, so they can buy.”

The bears were coming, but I had missed out on selling my silver ETF that afternoon. I did have a trailing stop in place. The trouble was SLV opened 2% lower and plunged.  I got stuck with a -6% loss because my stop got blown up by both the overnight drop and the rapid decline at the open.

The gold/silver bears got some more amo from the surprising ADP jobs report which sent the dollar higher and that usually pushes gold/silver lower.

Aside - I strongly believe both gold and silver will be higher in the long term. Why –  global economic circumstances continue to deteriorate (Europe, housing, slow return to job growth, a stupid war etc.) , worldwide price inflation kicks in and/or  governments especially the Fed (QE2)  increase the money supply too rapidly.  Not all these have to occur – just some for gold/silver to rise.

Bottom Line – I got caught. So what lesson can be learned. to limit losses. I almost always use a 5 to 7% stop order on everything I buy.

• Buy the Dip – The original purchase was not on a dip and therefore the losses were larger.
• Perhaps more important check in on prices at the close of the day. If you check stocks once a day it should be near the close. If a sector or news has started momentum building then don’t wait for tomorrow because prices could open much lower.

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Positions

• UWM
• SLV - (Silver ETF) Got stopped out at open at 28.41 for -6% loss (see above)
• REMX -(ETF for Rare Earth Metals) Sold 1/2 at 26.12 for +6% gain

Not a great start in ETF trading for the year – +10% in UWM, +3% in REMx (1/2 sold), DGP -3%, & SLV -6% = +4% overall

YSL#3  had an outstanding day yesterday

Under consideration

UCO -(2x oil prices) Very erratic, waiting till correction it settles.

REMX (Rare Earth ETF) - Will consider more on a dip. Paul has posted an excellent piece on Rare Earth metals in comments section. Would consider adding to position if price falls to about 24.

EWZ (Brazil) & LBJ ( 3x Latin America – majority Brazil) Obviously the later is more risky because its leveraged 3X. Waiting for larger pull back on both.

UYG (ETF that does 2x Dow financials) XLF is the financial ETF. - The major shadow banks have the backing of the US government & the Fed. The recent BAC /Treasury/Fannie Freddie decision was the latest in a long line of NOT holding banks accountable and their accounting is non transparent. Remember these are the Shadows that are behind 8 million more Americans being unemployed, the dramatic fall of housing prices and a worldwide “great recession.” Broke out two days ago and pulled back yesterday. Both overbought at this time

DGP – Will buy back into this 2x gold ETF on dip.

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Look for Paul R’s always enlightening remarks on stocks and sectors in the comments section of the blog. See POSITION section of blog for lists of potential stocks & ETF’s including ”YOUR Stock List.” (YSL#3)

Was getting Saddam worth it?

Blood, Sand & Dollars

Obama last night gave a major address on Iraq as we have decreased the number of US troops (private mercenaries?) to 50,000 supposedly “non combat” troops. One can give Obama some point because he brought the troops out faster than McCain would have.  But lets look at the fractured mess of blood, sand & dollars left in Iraq and its impact on the US & the world.

• The fractured coalition of former US support and condemnation by UN for this war has seriously undermined our worldwide credibility
• How many lies, distortions and fabrications told by the US government to its citizens and the world?
• The strengthened positions of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, & the Taliban as US occupation acted as a recruiting tool for every terrorist group in the world and kept troops tied to Iraq.
• 75,000 US troops killed or wounded in both combat & non combat rolls. Many more coming home with deep psychological problems.
• Costs on the ground will go over $1 trillion and according to nobel prize winner Joe Stiglets and additional $2 to $4 trillion caring for those returning etc.
• Up to 4 million displaced Iraqi’s. 1.7 million still living abroad. Who really knows over the  projected 100,000 dead Iraqi’s there really are?
• Stalemate in Iraq elections for over six months and majority of officials friendly to Syria or Iran.
• A country in shambles, corruption rampant, and police stations still getting blown up. (level of violence has decreased from two years ago, but still higher than when we first invaded.
• The damage to our constitutional laws and international laws were deeply wounded in this disaster.

The list could go on & on. Nailing a brutal dictator that was an insignificant threat (the Germans’, French, Russians, UN and others realized this) to us was simply not worth the cost.

Israel & Peace

It’s fashionable for some to lay the blame on Israel in the upcoming peace negotiations. They have made mistakes. But how do you make peace with Hamas when on the verge of peace talks they ambush 4 civilians (one pregnant women) and hold a 3000 person joyous rally in celebration of and taking credit for the “heroic “massacre of civilians?

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KISS & Stocks (Keep It Simple Stupid)

If you don’t understand a term look in up at Investopedia.com dictionary

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!

Index	Percentage	Volume
Dow	+0.05%	up
NASDQ	-0.28%	up
S&P	+0,04%	up
Russell 2000	+0.06%	-

Technicals, Fundamentals & Analysis

Investors411 record – 5 years of beating benchmark S&P 500

Mantra for the month - The Black Box/High Frequency Traders BB/HFT control the majority of trades. Jim Cramer -”BB/HFT make up 80% of trades.”

Sure was a whole lot of volume going on for a flat trading day. In Wall Street technical language they call this “Churning.” More often than not a big battle like yesterday between bulls & bears means a reversal in direction. In this case that would be a rally.

YOUR stock list is now contained in the POSITIONS section of the blog. It’s at the bottom.

Another strategy that some of YOU are using is more conservative and it involves buying stocks with high dividends. Here another list of the top 10 dividend stocks of the Dow. The obvious benefit of these stocks is the second revenue stream from dividends for long term investors. Example CVX offers 3.4% or VZ 6.3%.

The same, but longer term buy/ sell strategy can be used. But when conditions are oversold and the Dow is lower and at a certain date in the future sell when conditions are overbought. Use the MO as a guide.

Significant Indexes

• The Dollar (USD) [Anything daily price move over +/- 0.50 is significant. Dollar moves inversely to stocks] The dollar rose +0.03%. and closed just above its falling 50DMA. For Stocks = Neutral
• The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) [measures cost of world trade. Also proxy for China & emerging markets] Again rose a marginal +o.04%. After a 5 week rally the BDI has flattened out. Now consolidating. = Neutral
• McClellan Index – (MO) [The rough guideline is over +60 = overbought market = sell positions or short stocks, & -60 = oversold market = buy stocks.] MO rose  to -32.52.  We’re on the minus side of Zero, but not yet near -60. Therefore = NEUTRAL

Reading Tea Leaves

Sure looks like the calm before the storm – flat markets & neutral forecasting indexes. One anomaly was a massive -3.33% drop in the price of oil yesterday.

Overall think the BB/HFT’s are setting up for a rally. Flat dollar & MO on the negative side of zero. The “churning”  has also been a fairly reliable indicator.

Nation Building in Iran, Afghanistan etc. is a trend that’s is is doing serious economic harm to the UA.

Positions

The  Positions Section link to latest & former buys and sells  - These are positions I actually own

Current positions - Small position in EWS (Singapore)

USO (commodity-Oil) hit the stop I had placed on it. This position is now closed with no gain or loss. Still plan to buy USO & UCO (ETF that is 2X USO) on dips lower.

Long Term Outlook – NEUTRAL

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!