Dan Schmeidler

Equities Update: Economy Trumps Earnings

My main concern here is how these improved earnings are going to effect the trade on the U.S. dollar. Up until now, rising equities have benefited from both improving economic indicators AND a sell-off in the U.S. dollar. The obvious effects of these counter-trends will sooner or later (have to) reveal themselves within equities and in resistance levels that will become harder and harder to break. That type of exhaustion could lend itself to a nice and smooth downward glide - fueled by the emergence of a strengthening U.S. dollar. In other words, I just don't see how these stocks can benefit from this type of an environment for that much longer.

Jim Cramer's 10 Predictions for 2008

Stop bashing on this Cramer guy. It's pointless and not contributing to any direction on how to treat his stock predictions. If my opnion about him helps, I see him as someone who is simply motivated by his fearlessness of the markets. He survived hell when he was working professionally as a hedge fund manager, and now, he lingers around as a quasi semi-retiree because he feels that this is the kind of enjoyment (for him, at least) that he should have had in the first place when he worked on wall street. He also seems to have some kind of obsession with trading, which he readily would admit to. If you read his book "Confessions of a Street Addict", he will formulate to you $ by $ on how he made his millions. He gives you all the trades (generally by sector, or the maket as a whole), the time, and even the payout $$. This guy had a lot of guts (or the stupidity of a dare devil). He would borrow VERY heavily and cash in on big one or two day payoffs. His timing of the market was everything. Plus the fact that he is probably crazy helps him.