Wednesday, April 30, 2008

20080430 1426, After Fed Announcement

DJIA 12,967.91 135.97
NASDAQ 2,438.51 12.41
S&P 500 1,398.24 7.30

Market indices selling down after announcement from Fed. I didn't check the announcement words, I just watched the action and then shorted FEED.

FEED 16.55 -.46. Shorted intraday after Fed announcement. Selling off quickly. Looking to fill gap down to 15.75 quickly. October 11, 2007 high was 16.36.

20080429PM

Dow 12,831.94 -39.81
Nasdaq 2,426.10 +1.70
S&P 500 1,390.94 -5.43

ICXT 6.02 +.27. Potential short. Thinly traded.

Commodity related stocks sell off, some significantly.
FEED 17.01 -1.95.
ICO 7.99 -.15.
MOO 58.42 -3.13.
PDS 24.92 -.57.
POT 181.49 -12.01.
RIG 146.98 -5.24.
TRE 4.92 -.18.

Friday, April 25, 2008

20080424PM

DJIA 12848.95 85.73
S&P 500 1388.82 8.89
Nasdaq 2428.92 23.71
Hong Kong 25628.18 -52.60

ICO 8.26 +.06. Day range 6.95 - 8.40. Impressive rally from the morning lows after earnings last night. Covered short at small profit.
TRE 5.31 -.23. Metals were down. Shorted during day. 52 week low is 4.5.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

20080423PM

DJIA 12,763.22 42.99
NASDAQ 2,405.21 28.27
S&P 500 1,379.93 3.99

ICO 8.2 -.73. Shorted near the close, to hold through earnings. Reported a wider quarterly loss ... shares fell 7 percent to $7.65 in extended trade.

AEM 64.15 -4.38. Going lower.
FIX 13.23 -.17. Light volume. May want to pull back - a dollar or two.
MELI 51.4 +.8. Light volume. Testing top of gap.
SBUX 17.85 +.15. Consolidating since mid-January. Earnings released after hours. Going lower.
RJET 17.45 -.51. Huge volume. Day range 11.23 - 18.16. Frontier Air, in bankruptcy, cancelled contract with RJET.
SYNM 1.05 +.17. Has upside potential.
VMW 60.84 +2.82. Big volume. Day range 60.55 - 64.88. Open 64.63. In gap, closed near low of day.

China volatility:
CHL 89.31 +4.73.
FXI 157.61 +8.91. Articles the past few days about China equities off 1/2 this year.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

20080422PM, Inflation Planning

DJIA 12720.23 -104.79 -0.82
S&P 500 1375.94 -12.23 -0.89
Nasdaq 2376.94 -31.10 -1.31

ICO 8.93 +.46. Big volume. 52 week high shortly after open, then lower. Intraday short closed for small gain.
BAC 37 -.61.
GMO 9.05 -.47.
PDS 26.6 -.55. Closed below previous day close. Can quickly retest 24.
GW 7.03 -.2. On volume.
VMW 58.02 +1.95. Earnings after market closed, and up big. Consider short at 72.

Commentary on planning for inflation this year:

ARE YOU KIDDING US JOHN?
Posted On: Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Author: Monty Guild & Tony Danaher


Hello and warm wishes to you this April21, 2008.


ARE YOU KIDDING US JOHN?

In the three way battle for worst economic policies, Obama has a narrow lead but both Clinton and McCain are close behind.

In our opinion, there is a simple and accurate one word description of John McCain’s proposed economic policies…terrible. Is he really a Republican? I doubt it after seeing his proposals.

One thing is sure, if any of the three were to implement the economic policies that they have so far proposed, inflation would take off like a rocket in the U.S. I know it is early, and they all are pandering to the mass of uninformed and economically strapped voters. I also know that their wild ideas will probably not be implemented in full, but come on folks…your economic ideas are inflationary, with a capital “I”.


THERE IS A BIG TREND WHICH WE SHOULD ALL BE AWARE OF…AND INVESTMENTS SHOULD BE POSITIONED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE.

THAT TREND IS…

INFLATION IS HIGH AND RISING IN EVERY GEOGRAPHIC REGION OF THE GLOBE

We research about 20 countries carefully. We research about 30 industries and about 400 companies worldwide.

We have been talking about the coming inflation for two years now. Individual countries started to notice it about eighteen months ago, and a few months ago inflation finally came to the public’s notice on a worldwide scale. However, the seeds of the current price increases were sown at least two or three years ago. What is more important is that the growing season for prices is nowhere near complete.

A few salient points for those who want to protect themselves from the current and oncoming inflation.

1. Inflation takes a long time to incubate. Its soil is the fertile ground of irresponsible monetary policies that take the form of governmental money creation.

2. Countries then institute price controls and government imposed export curbs.

3. Shortages develop in world markets for commodities.

4. Inflationary psychology lags inflation by a long time, but once inflationary psychology begins to grip the populace there is a scramble to acquire and hoard goods instead of money, bonds or bank accounts.

5. Citizens of inflation ridden-countries wish to hold something other than cash, bonds, bank accounts and income producing stocks. The psychology begins to be, “Every day that I hold cash it is losing value to the inflation rate.” So countries and investors take the following actions: People buy stocks, hoard food, gold, oil, commodities and other resources and in normal times. If credit is available, they hoard real estate. Currently, real estate can be hoarded in the developing world but in the developed world there is a credit liquidation going on due to an increasing illiquidity in the credit markets…simply put, real estate cannot be easily financed so hoarders go to other assets.

6. Countries begin to raise taxes on extractive industries or even force them to sell their companies to the government at low prices. Then the government operates them inefficiently with political goals in mind. A politically operated company is usually grossly inefficient, production falls and prices rise even faster.

7. Investors begin to call their money managers, stock brokers [financial consultants] mutual funds managers and ask “how can I stay ahead of inflation?”

8. Before this stage hits (it is about 6 months away in our view), you are wise to be invested in the industries and companies which benefit from inflation.


WHO BENEFITS FROM INFLATION? ENERGY, GOLD, FOOD, BASE METALS AND THE FAST GROWING COUNTRIES, SUCH AS CHINA ALL BENEFIT.

LET US TAKE THESE AREAS ONE A TIME AND BRIEFLY DISCUSS OUR INVESTMENT STRATEGY FOR EACH

ENERGY

In the past six years (having owned a lot of energy investments while oil has gone from $30 to $116 per barrel) we have invested in several sectors. Currently, we are focusing on those companies which find energy or provide services in finding energy in harsh environments, in unpopular countries, and in offshore deep water environments where most all of the big new discoveries are taking place. We focus on the foreign and harsh environment companies because of the expertise that they possess, in the form of country contacts, and/or technical expertise that will be very valuable in finding energy located off the beaten path. The reason for this is that the energy investments on the beaten path are more highly priced. In our opinion, bigger profits can be found off the beaten path.


GOLD AND SILVER

For the past six years we have focused on precious metals of the following type. When owning mining companies, we favor companies with a royalty model or with a model that uses equity financing and no debt with derivatives attached. Companies who do not sell forward future production as collateral to pay off their loans, and whose growth model does not use derivatives (selling forward future production to get the mine started) are preferred. Such companies are few.

For those who do not want to own stocks, buy precious metals ETF’s assuming they are solidly and fairly constructed.


FOOD

Food prices have only been rising for a couple of years, and for that long we have been focusing on it. Food prices will rise much more because politicians are starting to manipulate food prices for their political gain. They are installing price controls, export controls, tariffs and other artificial boundaries which have always led to long-term inefficiencies and problems. These actions tend to cause long-term price increases as they spread incoherence in the farming, distribution and consumption process.

Investing in food is easier now due to the proliferation of ETF’s, especially grains. Many ETF’s exist to buy grains in several countries. Meats are harder to buy because meat producers consume a lot of grain and grains will rise a lot more in price longer term. In addition to grain ETF’s we like to buy fertilizers. We have analysts focused purely on fertilizers, which has been a very successful investment area for us.


BASE METALS

Base metals are in huge demand to build the infrastructure of China and other fast growing countries like Russia. The world’s biggest sellers of base metals are Brazil, Canada, Russia, Australia, U.S., and Africa. To a lesser degree other Latin American and Asian countries also sell base metals.


FAST GROWING COUNTRIES

Most economists agree that it looks like the growing countries, especially China, India and Brazil have decoupled from the U.S. and Europe. They are growing, and growing fast. While Brazil is still growing much slower than the other two, its income distribution plan has worked only because the commodities that it sells are rising rapidly in price. Brazil and India must develop more manufacturing and services to supplement farming and commodity sales.

China is a phenomenon, and thus far a very successful one. China is a commodities importer. China has a much more developed manufacturing sector, and now its growing consumer sector is developing.

Even though there were huge snow storms in the first calendar quarter throughout southern China, the GDP growth was stunningly good. The government is trying to slow inflation and is raising interest rates. Thus far, there has been little effect on Chinese economic growth.

To us, Brazil and India are OK if you focus on special companies, but both markets are more vulnerable than China. China’s stock market has fallen 50% from the highs while corporate profits grew about 25% in the last year. In our opinion, some Chinese stocks are getting quite cheap and amount to a good long term play.


GIVING THANKS

Thanks to the many important members of our network who do not work at Guild Investment Management Inc. They are our friends and contacts who provide us irreplaceable information about their area of expertise, be it company, industry or country information. Thanks to these key contacts for all of your wisdom: By Cartmell, Jeff Cohen, Tom DeHudy, Steve Emerson, Earl Gould, Larry Jeddeloh, Lars Lindgren, Gary Mintz, Dan Norcini, Barry Sahgal, Ron Silverton and of course Jim Sinclair.


AND FURTHER THANKS TO ALL OF YOU…OUR READERS.

20080422AM ICO

ICO 8.82 +.36. Shorted at 9.05. Earnings on 24th.

Monday, April 21, 2008

20080421PM

DJIA 12,825.02 -24.34
NASDAQ 2,408.04 5.07
S&P 500 1,388.16 -2.17
10yr Note 98.219 -0.0312
FTSE 100 6,053.00 -3.50
Nikkei 225 13,696.55 220.10
Hang Seng 24,721.67 523.89
Oil 116.63 0.47
Gold 917.60 2.40

Reports of limited grain shortages at retail stores on USA coasts.

ABX 43.14 -.62. Sell to high 30s.
ANO 3.88 -.05. Light volume. Long term hold.
AUY 14.1 -.39. Potential short.
GMO 9.52 -.34. Light volume. Hold.
NEM 45.08 -1.19. Potential short.

ICO 8.48 +.74. 52 week high with volume.
PDS 27.13 +.68. Hanging near 52 week high.

AGM 33.1 -.33. Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp.
BAC 37.61 -.95. Bad earnings report. Light-ish volume - surprising with bad earnings released. Didn't sell down hard, so maybe this is setting for a short squeeze.
DBA 37.4 -1.6. Sell.
MELI 51.84 +1.59.
MF 12.88 -1.54. Couple days of big percentage moves.
PCH 44.6 -.54. May split off a unit. Look to buy near 40.


M3 money supply
:
http://jsmineset.com/cwsimages/Miscfiles/6090_MoneySupply2.pdf

Thursday, April 10, 2008

20080410PM

DJIA 12,581.98 54.72
NASDAQ 2,351.70 29.58
S&P 500 1,360.55 6.06
10yr Note 99.656 -0.4688
FTSE 100 5,965.10 -18.80
Nikkei 225 13,061.77 -50.12
Hang Seng 24,187.10 202.53
Oil 109.57 -0.62
Gold 931.80 -5.70

PDS 24.01 +.22. Day range 23.56 - 24.50. Sold this long yesterday.
AMR 9.87 +.7. Cutting several hundred flights per day for safety checks.
COF 49.62 -1.01.
TSCO 37.66 +.92.
WM 11.42 -.03.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

20080409PM

DJIA 12,527.26 -49.18 0.39%
NASDAQ 2,322.12 -26.64 1.13%
S&P 500 1,354.49 -11.05 0.81%
10yr Note 100.125 0.6562 0.66%
FTSE 1005,983.90 -6.30 0.11%
Nikkei 22513,111.89 -138.54 1.05%
Hang Seng 23,984.57 -327.12 1.35%
Oil 110.19 2.33 2.16%
Gold 937.50 19.50 2.12%

PDS 23.79 -.31. Trailing stop sold out this long position.
FRNT 1.79 -.18. Consider a bear option spread.
RVBD 12.49 -.29. Also consider this for a bear option spread.
TXCO 13.67 -.23. Consider a short here.
WM 11.45 -.36. Consider a bear option spread, or a short.
TSCO 36.74 -1.47. Potential short.
COF 50.63 -2.88. Like peers, looks to go down. Short and look for 40.

20080408 PM, IPI

DJIA 12,576.44 -35.99
NASDAQ 2,348.76 -16.07
S&P 500 1,365.54 -7.00
Light volume all around. Earnings.
IMF plans to sell ~$6B of gold.

CTXS 33.14 +2.3. Takeover talk.
WM 11.81 -1.34. Monster volume. Diluted shareholders with contract to dilute in future at 8-something. Why is this still at 11?
TGB 5.5 -.14. Looks to retest 5.
PDS 24.1 +.06. Light volume.

Intrepid Potash Inc. told regulators Monday that it expects to fetch between $24 and $26 per share in a planned 24-million-share initial public offering.

Denver-based Intrepid Potash, which produces potash and langbeinite, is a unit of Intrepid Mining LLC.
...
Intrepid Potash has applied to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "IPI."

Friday, April 04, 2008

20080404 1300

DJIA 12,673.33 +47.30
NASDAQ 2,386.11 +22.81
S&P 500 1,378.78 +9.47

PDS 23.91 +.98. Trailing stop is in.
ORCL 20.37 -.31. Consider possible short near 21.


Good simple explanation about the current credit/derivative problems. Audio by NPR.
Our Confusing Economy, Explained
Listen Now [39 min 8 sec]

Fresh Air from WHYY, April 3, 2008 · Perplexed by the U.S. economy? You're not alone. Law professor Michael Greenberger joins Fresh Air to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis, credit defaults, the shaky future of other types of loans and what we can expect from the U.S. financial markets.

Greenberger is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the director of the University's Center for Health and Homeland Security.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

20080403 PM

The VACATION TIME was great.
Many positions taken out by trailing stops. Had tried to use wide stops, which resulted in selling out at low prices. Next time taking time off, either keep the stops tight or preferably just close the positions.

ANO
PDS 22.93 +.11 on very light volume. Sell here.
VGZ

DUG 36.06 -.14. Ultrashort Oil & Gas Consider buying here.
FXP 77.42 -7.17 UltraShort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Proshare

Short candidates:
AUY 14.38 -.19.
LOW 24.32 -.26.
PCU
XLB 42.49 +.76. Materials Select Sector. Short here, looking for 40.

Long candidates to start watching:
GM 21.59 +.62. 5% dividend. Look to buy around 20.
PHO 20.21 +.07. PowerShares Water Resource