20080929PM

DOW 10,365.45 -777.68 -6.98%
NASDAQ 1,983.73 -199.61 -9.14%
S&P 500 1,106.39 -106.59 -8.79%
CBOE Volatility VIX 46.72 +11.98
Market volume wasn't as huge as expected considering the percentage decline. There simply were no bids.
Gold and silver up.
Wall Street banker's bailout narrowly failed. A bailout will not fix the fundamental problems of unsound money, mark-to-myth accounting, and unreasonable leverage.

GMO 4.28 -.7. This was sold out late last week. It had been a long-term hold with covered calls sold. Those covered calls expired a week ago, a stop was put in place, and this non-precious metal miner was fortunately sold.
ICO 5.61 -1.06. Average volume. Coal miner. Put on buy watch list.
GNCMA 9.18 -.41. Less than average volume. Telco. Put on buy watch list.
WF 26.26 -7.54. 52 week low. China finance company. Was short until issued a "buy in" last week.
TLT 97.25 +2.75. Am long. Expect worldwide central bank rate cuts tonight.

20080925 1417

DJIA 11,057.03 231.86
NASDAQ 2,196.96 41.29
S&P 500 1,212.30 26.43

If/when bailout passes, expect some pop in financials and overall markets with weakness in precious metals.

PAAS 24.72 -.76. Selling today for 7.4% gain. Good silver miner, though stepping out to take funds out of this sector for a few days.
FIG 13.61 +.62. Up 10% since going long yesterday afternoon. Expect it to go higher short-term. Look to sell soon on upspike.
HOMB 27.88 +.4. Financial has shown relative strengthh the past few weeks. Big up volume week of Sept 15 2008.
TLT Expect we have seen an intermediate-term low IF the bailout passes. (MarketWatch) -- Treasurys declined Thursday, pushing two-year note yields up for the first time this week, on expectation that Congress will approve a financial rescue plan in some form.
Two-year note yields (UST2YR) rose 17 basis points, or 0.09%, to 2.19%.
WF 36.27 +2.58. Broker sent a "buy in" so I am forced to cover this short. Big price spread 35.63 bid 36.02 ask, so this can violently squeeze higher.

20080924PM

DOW 10,825.17 -29.00 (-0.27%)
NASDAQ 2,155.68 +2.35 (+0.11%)
S&P 500 1,185.87 -2.35 (-0.20%)
Low volatility day. Heated Congressional hearings about Fed/Treasury on Wall Street bailout.

ZYNX 5.48 +.08. Zynex Inc., said Wednesday it has secured a $3 million line of credit to help it finance continued growth. ... “We further believe that we are equipped for having our stock traded on the American Stock Exchange,” he said.
WF 33.69 -.89. Am short. Broker today said they will buy in the position in two days if I don't cover the short.
SPG 93.69 +.18. Day range 91.28 - 96.25 so it is volatile. Component of SRS (2x short commercial real estate). Consider short at 99.
ICO 6.98 -.22. May try to short at 8.

20080924 1351 FIG

Dow 10,903.79 +49.62 +0.46%
Nasdaq 2,177.12 +23.79 +1.10%
S&P 500 1,195.53 +7.31 +0.62%
30-yr Bond 4.3770% -0.0570
Apparently the financial no-short list is being expanded (GM, F) and will be extended.

FIG 12.34 +.19. Buying this financial that has shorts that will need to cover.
ZYXI 5.5 +.1. Building cause for a move higher, possibly when they list on AMEX.

20080922PM

DJ Industrials 11015.69 -372.75
Nasdaq 2178.98 -94.92
S&P 500 1207.09 -47.99
CBOE Volatility VIX 33.85 1.78
Oil and metals set multi-year records for one-day gains.

PAAS 25.78 -2.66. Silver miner. Supposedly well run and low cost producer. Stay long.
WF 30.92 -6.58. Stay short. Shortable Chinese financial. Retested multi-year low from last Thursday. Can quickly test low 20s.
JAVA 7.69 -1.05. Gave back gain from Friday. Near 52 week low.

DGP Can buy here for quick run to 25.

20080919 1047

DOW 11,313.29 +293.60
NASDAQ 2,251.79 +52.69
S&P 500 1,239.12 +32.61

Markets had a huge upside reversal yesterday on talk of limiting short selling. It was announced that short selling would be restricted in about 800 stocks, and today the markets are again having a huge up-day.

This type of blatant manipulation and rule-changing is destroying people's ability to trust in a fair and orderly market. People are quickly losing any idea of the markets being fair, which may lead to people simply leaving the markets. When people who rationally bet on market declines leave the markets, who will be there to take the other side of trades?

Apparently politicians and regulators believe markets (except commodities and gold/silver) should always go up, and will take what manipulative and socialist steps that are needed to ensure markets go up. The markets and underlying economic problems will still need be worked through, so this temporary reprieve may get the politicians through the upcoming elections and into 2009. Problems still need to be addressed, particularly in the overvalued housing and commercial property sectors.


The Fix Is In for Stocks
By RANDALL W. FORSYTH | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
But underlying economic fundamentals need to be addressed in addition to the crumbling capital markets.
THE OVERHAUL IS COMPLETE, or nearly so.

In less than a fortnight, the American financial system has been all but remade top to bottom.

First, the mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were formally made charges of the federal government (in every sense of the word, to the tune of $200 billion initially.)

Then, two of the most storied names on Wall Street, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, were set to disappear -- the former into a purchaser, Bank of America (ticker: BAC), the latter in the bankruptcy court.

And American International Group (AIG) was bailed out by an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve, granting an insurance company a lender of last resort.

And when that failed to calm the market, imperiling the continued independence of last remaining major U.S. investment banks -- Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) --Washington on Thursday gave notice it would do whatever it took to stop the pain.
...

20080917PM

DJIA 10609.66 -449.36 -4.06
Nasdaq 2098.85 -109.05 -4.94
S&P 500 1156.39 -57.20 -4.71
Crude Oil 96.65 5.50 97.16 (last/change/settle)
Gold, Dec 870.0 89.5 850.5 (last/change/settle)

ACF 9.76 -.60. July 15 low 6.26. Financial short candidate.
CMED 32.92 -7.09. Keep wide trailing stop that will close out this short. 52 week low is 32.52. Below 29.32 and it goes to 25.
GNCMA 8.76 -1.15. Closed at low of day.
ZYXI 5.61 +.13. Stay long. Needs much more volume when testing 6.14.

20080915PM

DOW 10,917.51 -504.48 (-4.42%)
NASDAQ 2,179.91 -81.36 (-3.60%)
S&P 500 1,192.70 -59.00 (-4.71%). Closed below 1215 from July 15 with more volume. Can go a couple hundred points lower in the next couple weeks. Expect tomorrow's open with a gap down.

Last Change Settle
Crude Oil 94.52 -6.66 95.71
Gold, Dec 790.8 26.3 787.0
Credit leverage is continuing to unwind, causing everything to trade down.

AIG 4.76 -7.38. Down 60.79%. Huge insurer. If AIG goes under, everyone with AIG policies will be without insurance.
LEH .21 -94.25%. Filed bankruptcy this morning.
SDS 74.01 +6.6. Bought today.

CMG 56.11 -.59. 52 week low.
CUBA 6.00 -.40. 52 week low. 20% dividend.
FRO 45.32 -4.64. Shipper. 52 week low is 34.
JNPR 25.21 -.60. Average volume.

20080911 1129

DOW 11,191.65 -77.27
NASDAQ 2,220.17 -8.53
S&P 500 1,224.11 -7.93
Metals continue to drop.

DGP 13.99 -.59. Sold for a $2.2 per share loss. This was in a tax-deferred account with long-term positions, so the stop was wide. Clearly this was not the bottom in gold and at this rate of price destruction, $670/oz will arrive soon.
PAAS 18.85 -.77. Staying short. Silver typically has more volatility than gold with sharper pullbacks.
TRE 2.21 +.03. Suffered severe pullback the past week. 52 week 1.93 - 7.25.
ZYXI 5.2 +.2. This looks to explode when the market turns up.

20080909PM

DOW 11,231.06 -279.68
NASDAQ 2,209.81 -59.95
S&P 500 1,224.55 -43.24
People are scared and are moving to cash and deleveraging. Markets are oversold, but this time of heavy selling can keep itself going when buyers are scared to step in.

LEH 7.79 -6.36. Massive volume. No Lehman-specific news.
AIG 18.37 -4.39. Possible short.
HOMB 26.85 +.46. 52 week high. Surprising any financial is doing so well.
BLK 210.80 -12.92. Possible short. Merrill Brokers Press Pimco, BlackRock to Buy Auction-Rate Debt

TRE 2.13 -.62. Big volume at these lows.
PAAS 19.10 -1.69. Shorted today as a play on silver price decline.
X 93.69 -13.92.

20080909 1339 Commodities

DOW 11,315.90 -194.84
NASDAQ 2,222.66 -47.10
S&P 500 1,234.27 -33.52
Platinum 1233
Gold 779
Silver 11.44
Markets giving back much of yesterday's gains. Was yesterday's volume from short covering?
Commodities continue to sell off.

DUG 45.24 +4.52. Sold at end of day yesterday to remove hurricane risk. Up big today.
PAAS 19.20 -1.59. Shorted today. Silver may test 10, which will affect this miner.
MOO 41.19 -3.46. More commodity selling.

20080908PM

DOW 11,510.74 +289.78
NASDAQ 2,269.76 +13.88
S&P 500 1,267.79 +25.48
World and USA markets were up with volume.
Treasury took over Fannie and Freddie, which effectively bails out their bond holders.

DUG 40.72 (UltraShort Oil & Gas ProShares) Sold near end of day at 40.78. Wanted to close this exposure in case a hurricane shakes up the energy supply. DIG is the opposite.
FNM .73 -6.31.
FRE .88 -4.22.
PAAS 20.79 -1.78. 52 week low with volume. Silver miner short for a few months?
COP 74.69 -.74. Potential short term buy.
PG 72.37 +1.59. Six month high. 52 week high is 75.18.

Jim Rogers: How the Federal Reserve Will Fail and the One Sector Every Investor Should Be In
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
Keith Fitz-Gerald

VANCOUVER, B.C. - The U.S. financial crisis has cut so deep - and the government has taken on so much debt in misguided attempts to bail out such companies as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - that even larger financial shocks are still to come, global investing guru Jim Rogers said in an exclusive interview with Money Morning.

...
In 1918, the U.K. was the richest, most powerful country in the world. It had just won the First World War, et cetera. By 1939, it had exchange controls and this is in just one generation. And strict exchange controls. They in fact made it an act of treason for people to use anything except the pound sterling in settling debts.

(Q): Treason? Wow, I didn’t know that.

Rogers: Yes…an act of treason. It used to be that people could use anything they wanted as money. Gold or other metals. Banks would issue their own currencies. Anything. You could even use other people’s currencies.

Things were so bad in the U.K. in the 1930s they made it an act of treason to use anything except sterling and then by ‘39 they had full-exchange controls. And then, of course, they had the war and that disaster. It was a disaster before the war. The war just exacerbated the problems. And by the mid-70s, the U.K. was bankrupt. They could not sell long-term government bonds. Remember, this is a country that two generations or three generations before had been the richest most powerful country in the world.
...

20080905PM

Dow 11,220.96 +32.73 +0.29%
Nasdaq 2,255.88 -3.16 -0.14%
S&P 500 1,242.31 +5.48 +0.44%
30-yr Bond 4.2760% -0.0050
Yesterday was a big down day. Today closed nearly flat. Woudl be looking for a bounce early next week ... though the mortgage bailout is a huge unknown.


Government may soon back troubled mortgage giants
Friday September 5, 11:12 pm ET
By Alan Zibel, AP Business Writer
Government may soon take over troubled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is expected to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as soon as this weekend in a monumental move designed to protect the mortgage market from the failure of the two companies, which together hold or guarantee half of the nation's mortgage debt, a person briefed on the matter said Friday night. ...

Jim Rogers Fires Up CNBC

Jim Roger's smacks down interviewer's suggestion of Keynesian "solution" to bailout investment banks.



Jim Rogers says ECB countries should cut taxes and Europeans should have more babies.