So is Our Market Timing Off, or Not?

The problem with making market calls is that you are bound to be wrong. It seems our view at the moment is a bit off of the market beat.

Frankly, we missed out on this current market run and are shocked at the where we are now. Even more to the point, the economic drivers seem to have deteriorated over the last month. The 10 year note is still hovering around 5.26% and oil is closing back up toward $70 a barrel, having settled at $68 this past Friday.

However, the recent inflation news through the PPI and CPI were a relief, given the tame core CPI number. For the moment the FED is on hold and will not be raising rates or on the flip side lowering them either. Although restless with our allocation (it seems this never changes), we still maintain a defensive posture. The S&P 500 is roughly 6 points away from its high closing price of just a few weeks ago. From a technical standpoint, the real test is at hand.

Comments

[ikkyu:]

Greetings,

I cannot tell what your investment horizon is from this article, so it would be hard to tell if your timing is off/on. Maybe you are talking about the recent 3 day rally? Maybe, you are talking weekly, monthly, yearly?

My timing has been horrible on a weekly basis! I am thinking of switching to leveraged indexing :) Even my volatility plays have suddenly lost their volatility.

best of luck,
john

2007 Jun 18 07:42 AM

[NeilEzell:]

John, if it makes you feel any better I would be really surprised if your timing has been worse than mine. Having lived through the dot com era I panicked and dumped all my non tax deferred funds june 7. My stradegy this year seems to be one I invented, "sell low and buy high". I'm not an astute investor as you seem to be, no idea what leveraged indexing means. I'm just a simple mutual fund buyer. Unfortunately at age 54 I can't work due to custody of an 11 year old autistic son and the only child of elderly parents in very bad health. Luckily no dedt, own a modest home free and clear and a reasonable nest egg from my former fast food restaurants I was forced to sell. But whats reasonable these days with expectations of rising inflation at my age? I can't afford to set on the side lines and can't risk investing and taking a large hit. Hell of a spot to be in. Any suggestions given the limited information I mentioned other than move to third world country where 1 million $ still looks impresive?

Best of luck to you and hopefully me too. Neil

2007 Jun 18 11:44 AM

[Sr. Pessimist:]

America is a slave society. It is the rebirth of the Roman slave society. Rome didn't survive the social philosophy teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, so they modified their deist slave brainwashing regime to distort the true teachings of Jesus into a distorted form of capitalism. The Roman Catholic Church has evolved in its brainwashing activities to the point where it controlled people well enough to create the disunited, capitalist slave society of America, which is dominated by popular Christian sects, all of which are abominations of what Jesus really meant to teach people. The brainwashing combined with the capitalist dictation creates a capitalist society. I wasn't born with a silver spoon up my butt. The author of this article wasn't, either. Nobody that works has control over money. Corporations, which are modern versions of Roman slave camps, are not controlled by workers. They control workers, and because of that the capital is unpredictable. The market does anything the bourgeoisie wish, despite the expectations or wishes of the proletariat. The market represents the capital status of corporations. Up or down, nothing matters. Value is apportioned into capital by the working proletariat, capital itself is distinct from value so long as the proletariat don't respect capital as an entity of value. However, it is only with this recognition of value of capital by the proletariat that money matters. The numbers in the market are not predictable by anybody besides the bourgeoisie, who in fact control the numbers. The value underlying the numbers depends on the proletariat. What we see is a further separation between value and numbers. Capital is becoming more distinct from value than it used to be. So although the economy is doing poorly, the market is doing quite fine. This shows a huge difference between the health of the financial status of a slave camp (an inhuman corporation) and the slaves (humans supporting the corporation).

So my suggestion is to be more precise. In ones head, from now on, if we are to consider a "market," there is capital, and there is value, and they are distinct. If you talk about capital, you must be privy of the bourgeoisie to be accurate about the numbers, but if you talk about value, you must be privy of the proletariat to be accurate about the true worth.

I was wrong, but because I was mistaken. Money has absolutely no connection to worth, and it never has. I changed my mind, though.

2007 Jun 18 12:18 PM

[NeilEzell:]

Well said Brian. I happen to be a Christian but not what I would call a nutty one. In fact many people at my own church consider me a lost soul because I do not hate the "evil Moslems" or people of other faiths, or no religious faith at all. If I recall the Bible correctly Jesus tried to teach us that. When he ask us to love our brother I don't think there were any disclaimers attached that ruled out anyone. So we just worship , stay silent, go home and try our best to live as He ask. Looking for other churches has proved to useless, there all pretty much the same unfortunately. On the subject of money and or call it value, the real Jesus that appears to be forgotten by today's church didn't have high regard for it at all. He had nothing against the wealthy, but He didn't consider a persons assets as a measure of their worth. I think that's a lesson we could all put to good use regardless of our spiritual thoughts. Having said that, we still have to meet the basic minimum fixed cost of life, food, clothing, shelter, etc., now and in the future. How to do that is the big question most of us face.

You obviously have given great thought and study to historical economics. I can't see a flaw in anything you have written. I have never been a true conspiracy theorist, but it does appear that more than in anytime in history there is a conspiracy to create a world with two classes, the very wealthy and multitudes of poor people, or what you call slaves. We appear to have learned little from the infamous "tulip bubble", 1929 market crash or the more recent dot com bust. Even a simple mind like mine though can clearly see that no money or things of monetary value was thrown in a fire. It just changed hands, and overwhelmingly the exchange benefited the wealthy, reduced much of the middle class and devastated the poor. Our government supported corporate world is structured the same now as then, only worse. The wealthy will emerge even wealthier when the dust settles after a big down turn, middle class reduced again and the poverty level class will grow in number. In the unlikely event of no large pull back in the market, the rich will benefit with their investments while a large majority will take a further step back due to not being invested, it takes all they have just to survive. Either way the wealthy win and the middle class and poor lose. I'm not a communist but there has to be a better way of wealth distribution, or as you might call it more survival value for the majority and fewer benefits for those that can lose a fortune and still have more than they could ever need or use. Even our middle class are tricked into contributing to the problem by greed and the pursuit to possess more than they need. Eventually most of them will pay a heavy price.

I'm not bright enough to offer a solution the powers that be would allow. But I long for and dream of a life my Grandparents lived in the deep country of Alabama. They had very little of what we call valuables, but through hard work on their small farms they never went hungry, had adequate clothing, shelter. Waste was a sin, frugality was an enjoyable hobby. Did not envy rich people and were thankful for what they had. Although they lacked in formal education I was taught a particularly valuable lesson. They considered the lack of money as a state of finances, and poor was just a state of mind. They never felt poor even though they had very little money and shared what they had with people less fortunate. Their priorities were very commendable, and they were happy. In real terms they were extremely rich.

2007 Jun 18 03:06 PM