.*.

U.S. Dollar Testing Resistance

Bad Dog, you just don't understand....unless the dollar hits rebound head and shoulders resistance, it will have retest flexibility, unless it sees a double top (or botom)....on the other hand, if the 50-day moving average and 100 day moving average converge, it means the dollar is rangebound between them, and will stay rangebound, until its movement causes a divergence of the aforesaid 50 day and 100 day moving averages. Once this occurs, it will begin to retest the upper or lower range of the previous range, until it breaks through, either up or down. Get it?

Markets Historically Overbought: Dangerous to Enter New Longs Right Now

If I don't buy, and the market goes up a lot, I will be remorseful to the extent of a 9 on a scale of 1-10. If I buy, and the market goes down a lot, I will be remorseful at level of 5. I will also buy some more, then wait. Even Jeremy Grantham (!) says the market is fairly priced (that is, not overpriced) for the first time in 2 decades. I'm buying. Good Luck, longs and shorts.

Exxon Apostasy: A Closer Look at the Oil Giant's Real Valuation

Oh and one other thing. Yes they have a lot of cash. But unless you expect them to buy reserves at below market price for oil (possible, but not easy), then simply exchanging cash for reserves of equal value does not increase the value or earning power of the company.

Exxon Apostasy: A Closer Look at the Oil Giant's Real Valuation

Hard to argue. Revenue = price x volume. Extraction and refining costs have not gone down. With reserves constant, price must rise if revenue is to go up. If price does not rise, revenue cannot go up. Atr present XOM is stuck with a revenue linked to $45 oil. Earnings of $4/share sound about right. What am I missing?

France, Just Try Life Sans Google

The French are reflexively anti-American...my French friends tell me so. Why? Because we speak English, and England is their historical enemy from time immemorial. England burned Joan of Arc at the stakes. Seriously. This IS what they told me. The French language used to be the international language of diplomacy. Now English is. There are 100 reasons for jealousy. Nevertheless, I will tell you that the French know how to live better than we do..in food, family time, wine, enjoyment of life in general. yes, they are whiney socialists much of the time, but we have our problems, too. And France is my favorite country to travel to.

Why the Muni Bond Market Is in Decline

PIMCO is doing the right thing....maybe they had to, but it is always the correct thing to suspend dividends to get back into leverage compliance rather than sell distressed securities at the bottom of the market to get back into leverage compliance. Why do these bone-headed fund managers do that--sell at the bottom to redeem the AARPS leverage? [They are required to get to a max 2:1 ratio]. Because they think investors are so bone-headed that they respond only to current payouts, not to preservation of capital. It is sooooooooo stupid--destroying the funds to save the payout--temporarily. I want to tear my hair out.

Is Goldman Sachs Sounding an Exaggerated Alarm?

Correct....the big boys want big stimulus.....Bit business is often in favor of big govenment. That is why so much vigilance is needed.

GE, Goldman Bond Spreads: Unrealistic and Unsustainable

Thanks BS Detector.....good comment. I was a bit concerned about GE and other bonds I bought. they "look" like a great deal, as do preferred and convertable bonds. What do you think....? I realize the CDS mkt says "maybe not".
Thanks

Did JPMorgan Almost Fail?

Dorque

Stop Yelling About FDIC Limits - In Fact, Just Stop Yelling

This author's point sound like it is being made by a prissy dorque, though I am sure the author is sensible in all other respects. The point is not there are administrative alternatives. The point is to stop the panic. Panic is often partly irrational. Th solution is not to send depositors through administrative hoops to try to protect their money--set up 10 bank accounts...? Come on! Yes we know we can do that. In fact I have done it. It is a royal pain in the *ss, not to mention putting my name, social security number and address on another 50 computerized, never-to-be-erased, hackable junk mailing lists. The 100K cap has been increased....never?...... is not even indexed to inflation. Small businesses that want to make payroll out of a simple account cannot do it. Promontory might be a solution but I don't know much about it, and anyway, it is a response to a pig headed delay by Congress to address the real problem, which is a paltry sized limit. It should immediately be made at least $10 million, and indexed to inflation.

Google's Chrome Sounds Like 1970s Pressure Cooker

I am no techno geek, but dgcaste and RickRussell make a lot of good points. Tell me if I have this correct: Microsoft is nearing the apex of its innovation curve...in other words, how much better can Office and IE get? Answer: Not much...because they are already satisfactory. So....Microsoft's massive cash flow is dependent on something that cannot be made much better. Therefore the cash flow will stagnate and dwindle. On the other hand, Google, who also has a massive cash flow, is linked to the evolution of...well.....modern life itself: Google will always be reporting what is "new" in culture, and selling ads to the viewers, like TV did 50 years ago. Microsoft is the Saturday Evening Post, Google is TV and Radio, wrapped into one. The new Chrome browser is an entry into the 10 year old browser wars true.....but....its purpose is not necessarily to break ground....rather it is to incrementally grease the skids to use Google services even more than is currently done with Firefox/IE and others. Do I have this right? If so, it is an ephiphany. I now realize why my Microsoft investment is stagnant for 5 years, while Google has taken over the world......

Oil: The Inconvenient Truth

This was kind of like reading a stream of conciousness essay experiment. Wasted my time. Nothing new, interesting, creative, or particularly logical.

NBC Refuses Pickens Plan Ad

One more comment. I wish we as a people would not panic about energy cost. Yes, it is going up, and that is not good. But it is not terrible either. It is just normal, like growing old, and sometimes getting a cold. It happens. When goods and services get scarcer, their prices rise. (Thought experiment: What would happen if their prices did not rise?) For instance....when whale oil prices rose at the turn of the last century, guess what happened? People went looking for alternatives. When they found it in the ground, whaling became an enterprise of the past. Lamps burned oil and a new era was formed. Government had nothing to do with the successful transition--it was all done by citizens in their roles as engineers, businessmen and women, and entrepreneurs. The depletion of oil truly represents nothing more dramatic than a transition: a transition from liquid oil extraction to all of the following: Nuclear ($30), gas ($30), wind ($100), membrane bioreactor (waste gas capture) ($100), shale ($120), oil sands ($100), coal gasification ($90), geothermal ($200), conservation ($50 and up). By the way, those numbers represent the price of oil at which those technologies become competitive with oil in a big way. Guess what happens when oil permanently reaches those prices? Absent government inteference, entrepreneurs will build new industries and make lots of money (as they should) supplying those sources of energy. All of those sources except shale and sands are very, very environmentally friendly. If you are a friend of the environment, you should pray, PRAY for the depletion of oil, because it will cause us to transition in an orderly fashion to nuclear, geo, wind, & membranes (no CO2 emissions). So everyone, please don't panic about energy. Panic only if the government gets involved doing anything other than leveling the playing field (pollution control) and honoring contracts. If it begins taxing and spending, predicting winners and loser, promoting an "industrial policy", look out. We will be in trouble. By the way, consider some benefits of higher gas prices: less driving, CO2, gas guzzlers, sulfur, NOX emissions, highway deaths/injuries, hospital visits, suburban sprawl, etc. More trains, stay-home vacations, family time, electric cars, hybrids, conservation, etc, etc. To summarize, increasing gas prices cause us to use less of a noxious, dwindling resource (good), and cause entrepreneurs and investors and engineers and business people to vigorously create profitable alternatives (good). If the government will get out of the way, in 100 years we will be talking about "drilling" the same way we we now talk about "whaling".

NBC Refuses Pickens Plan Ad

Please, Please PLEASE, Congress don't "do" ANYTHING about Energy. Except of course, GET OUT OF THE WAY!! Every time government "does" something about a problem, the problem worsens or creates even greater problems. Look at most of our most pressing problems: they are either PERSONALLY self inflicted (divorce, unwed parents, drug addiction, chronic unemployment, obesity, diabetes, lack of education despite education being available for free) OR government caused: lack of drilling leading to foreign oil dependence; stubbornly blocking nuclear energy leading to foreign oil dependence; government subsidized burning of food for energy (corn) leading to global food inflation and starvation; destroyed inner city schools due to government protected unions in control; lack of school choice for the poor due to the same unions; government funded public housing (drug and crime hell-holes); confiscatory tax rates leading to lack of investment in just about everything (energy, infrastructure, jobs, growth); government spending every cent of social secuity receipts instead of saving it; needless foreign wars; the list of government funded depredations against the our citizens GOES ON AND ON AND ON. The BEST thing possible for our country would be for government to return to being efficient and limited, that is, back to its original constitutional purpose of law and order, and leaving the citizens alone, including their money. Thank you. PS, you pay 50% of your income in taxes. If you don't believe that, add it up. Obama wants it to be 80%. McCain wants it to be 60%. Not much difference.

Making Profits Through Understanding Market Psychology

Well put Ron. Once in a while a technical analysis factor like this will work for a while, until it doesn't....best bet, do the homework. That is what Cramer preaches, & Dorsey, Lavallier, Buffett, Graham & Dodd and so forth. To me, the central investing truth of our time is that the masses are getting fleaced by the Investment Industry, because the masses are terrified to take responsibility for their own savings & investments. People will spend 100s of hours learning how to garden, grow green grass, or fix their car. But they won't spend 10 hours researching a well diversified portfolio of stock to buy and hold. Result: As Bogle teaches us, over a 30 year time horizon, they hand over 80% (yes eighty) of their gains to their mutual fund managers and brokers. So so sad.