Inquisitive about business and personal finance

Gold May analysis - recent run up !

2009-05-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

After my last Gold technical analysis in April gold has a run up.

Market club's monthly and weekly signals had given a buy since the 90 and 89 levels respectively. This may be mainly due to inflation concerns. 99 might be one big resistance that GLD needs to pass through.

RSI has reached around the overbought area but MACD is showing good promise. Going by last times runup ultimate top was formed when both MACD and RSI were at top.

Buy in next dip might be the right thing to do here?

Where is WallStreet headed? Commonly asked questions

2009-04-21T16:55:00.001-07:00

Everyone's cheering the upward move in the DOW, S &P and NASDAQ markets in the last few weeks.

There have been various theories as to what could happen next with the market and how long will this continue. I found a few which I can highlight here:

After a spectacular rally from the lows seen last month, the S&P, the DOW appears to be running into overhead resistance.

Click here for the video.

Investor Sajal has highlighted few key points in his blog in Seeking Alpha. Analysts are making different kinds of predictions from this being a bear market rally ready to loose steam or beginning of a new bull market to a bear market rally that will suck in more traders.

Mick Weinstein gives us a good summary at yahoo finance .

The coming few weeks are earnings weeks which is where the market swings in different directions in one-two day intervals.

In my opinion we will see some back and forth in some target area until earnings season is over. The direction of the market will be decided once the earnings season comes to a halt.

Thoughts?

Finance movies anyone ?

2009-04-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

If finance or business interests you, then probably you can relate to some movies that cover these topics. These Hollywood movies range from comedy to serious and depict how money can change lives.

1. Trading places: A rich guy and a poor guy end up swapping their positions in the game of finance. Watch Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykryod in this funny 1983 movie.

2. Office Space: This one brings the office to the movie theater. Tech programmers can relate most to this silicon valley comedy.

3. Wallstreet: This is about a WallStreet stockbroker who wants to get to the top by using both legal and illegal methods.

4. Rogue Trader: Ambitious, Nick Leeson finds himself as a futures option trader in this 1999 Hollywood movie. I have not yet watched this one. Any reviews?

5. Lost in America: Money Magazine brought this to my attention. Have not seen this movie yet . This 1985 movie depicts the life of a couple who start on a journey and lose their nest egg.

Do you have more to add to the list?

April Gold technical analysis - is Gold confused?

2009-04-11T13:56:00.001-07:00

After my GLD technical analysis in March I decided to take a look at GLD again.
Here is MarketClub's analysis.

Monthly indicator is bullish but weekly and daily are negative.

After being in an undecided territory GLD started its downward spiral making its earlier support now a resistance line.
Using some Fibo and Elliott wave theories I would guess the downward spiral might be of similar length given the one from 98- 89.
If the length of current decline is the same as the one before we would expect ten basis points from 94 which is around the 84 level before some rally.

RSI indicates oversold, MACD is in bearish territory for right now and volume is down. Need some volume to pick up upward trend. Thoughts ?

Tax time for gold or silver

2009-04-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

If you have enjoyed GLD or SLV gains in 2008, you might have had a tough time with reporting the taxes. GLD or SLV lists some monthly sells that it passes to shareholders.
They are also referred to as WHFITs (Widely Held Fixed Investment Trusts).
If you are using any software like Turbo Tax and use auto login's to your brokers website all of the above are listed as gains and added to Turbo Tax.
The issue is its difficult to list cost -basis and hence SPDRs shows how to report the gains. Please see here for details on reporting GLD.

PS: I am not a tax advisor/consultant. Please contact your tax advisor for details.

Some great shopping deals and sites

2009-03-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

I have been a fan of Fatwallet for quite some time now. Recently came through some good deals surfing around the site.

1. Cash back opportunity: Some participating stores offer cash-back if items are purchased via fatwallet. Common names are HP , Sears, hotels.com , etc. Fatwallet collects money in your account until a certain sum is earned and can then mail you a check. Recently while shopping for laptops I found this deal for HP. A 6% cash back for a $600 laptop amounts to around $36 of cash back. Not bad huh !
There are other sites like ebates.com that also offer cash backs.

2. Lending club is offering free $50 for opening an account. Lending club is an online peer-peer lending site.

3. Bank of America offering $50 on opening a new account.

4. When you sign up for veggie club in Sweet Tomatoes you can be eligible for a 15% discount while dining at Sweet Tomatoes. As I mentioned in my earlier post on Sweet Tomatoes have been known to occasionally send "buy one meal and 2 drinks and get the second meal free". I have been knowing of these deals for some time. This is not one I found through Fatwallet.

Please note that I have not personally verified #2 and #3 above.

Besides the above fatwallet lets you subscribe for alerts by entering keyword(s). For example if you are looking for a shredder you can request fatwallet to send you notification if anyone submits a new deal for shredder.

Other sites which are welknown in the world of deals are techbargains.com and slickdeals.com.

Gold technical analysis - different views

2009-03-21T16:03:00.002-07:00

Recent change in Gold price surprised some individuals who were basing their theories on pure tech analysis. Agreed that the gold chart was forming a wedge or trying to make a decision but this time the move was mainly in the up direction due to the recent news of some inflation starting to pour in the market.

Here is stock chart weekly analysis since my last technical gold analysis in early March

Looks like support is now becoming resistance. Lets see how the market shapes up.
Market club's monthly is still a buy:

Weekly is at sell since 88.

Looks like gold is starting is new bull. If it clears its previous highs of around $100 we will have a new target.

Gold technical analysis March 2009

2009-03-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Latest gold charts and movements are here:

Marketclub's weekly, monthly and quarterly signals still signal a buy. The Daily chart which had signalled a sell now moved to a buy territory.

According to Fibonacci retracement we are in the first retracement level. Will we cross it or go down? Elliott wave chartists say this is the wave B?

February 2009 financial links

2009-03-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some cool links for February, more on the trading front since I wanted to follow the market closer. Everyone has their own theory regarding how low can the market go !
1. Carlfutia explains his daily trading lessons with his analysis theory based on George Lindsay.
2. Elliot wave and cyclic theory update in AllAllan's blog posts. The Cycles theory along with techsignal which is a specially designed software that performs scientific market prediction with spectral analysis, synthesis of cycle events, and more.
3. Miranda Professional Blogger's interview by HIB.
4. Michael Lomker trying to make his market speculations in his blog.
5. Dshort comparing bear S&Pmarkets quite nicely.
6. James B. Stewart's theory of buying when the market falls 10% and selling when it goes up 25%.

Dow to new levels !

2009-03-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

Dow breaks to new prices , what's next ? Elliott wave theorists predicts move up to wave 4 which means a rally. Robert Prechter recommends covering shorts after more than a year. What does that mean? Stocks up for a run?

How low can the Dow go?

Short Gold technical analysis

2009-02-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

We looked at the technical analysis of Gold in my last post. I was tempted to a short one today based on the latest happenings based on the ETF GLD

Recently GLD has been dropping and the close for yesterday seems to be a support for 20 day EMA and also one last high.
MACD indicators say we are in slighly overbought market.

Daily chart indicator using trade triangles gave a sell signal at $95. Weekly charts still have the green signal.

Personally I think 20 day EMA and 50 day EMA could be very short term support levels for some intermediate term fall.

Allan's recent Elliott wave blog posts have been saying we are in declining Gold.

What are your thoughts?

Quick fusion brunch food for the economy

2009-02-16T06:18:00.001-08:00

After posting about January effects and gold analysis I wanted to change the subject from the sour economy to something tastier. Here I suggest a simple brunch recipe which gives one energy to sustain and blog in this economy :).
Its called the Avocado fusion sandwich.

Ingredients:
1. 2 slices of multigrain or wheat bread or which ever is your favorite breads.
2. 1/2 Avocado ripened.
3. 1 teaspoon Salt
4. Pepper as per taste
5. Few Baby Spinach leaves
6. 4-5 slices of cut Cucumber
7. 2-3 slices of cut Tomato
8. Indian style dry peanut chutney 2-3 tea spoons

How to make it:
1. Mix the avocado, salt and pepper into a paste and apply to one side of the bread.
2. Top it off with peanut chutney, cucumber and tomato.
3. Spread the spinach leaves on the top.
4. Cover it off with the other slice of bread.

Cur into a triangle to make it look good ! Done.

Where is gold headed ?

2009-02-15T19:57:00.000-08:00

I have been doing some research on technical analysis over the past few months - using technical indicators and marketclub triangles to figure out directions of some common names.

With the decline in stock markets , Gold has become a safe haven for investors and has recently sparked a rally. I usually track value of gold using the ETF GLD.

Marketclub's weekly trade triangles are pointing to an uptrend with both the weekly and daily triangles being green. Here is a weekly chart of GLD.

Let us use the common technical analysis signals using stockcharts.com's interactive signals

The trend line in solid blue indicates strong uptrend however the MACD and ROC signals indicate almost oversold signals.
The stock chart is above the indicator for 20 and 50 day EMA. For a horizon of a month or so the stock looks to be in uptrend with dips.

For a longer horizon the charts below seem to suggest that GLD is well above its 200 day EMA and also broken a key downturn trend.

Do you think Gold is overbought?

Disclaimer: I am currently long GLD. The above indicators are the authors view of the trend from various sources and investments should be based on risk and self assessment.

2009 January effect - did we see one?

2009-02-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

In my last post at the beginning of January titled 2009 January effect we said that many investors believe that January is the month of high returns , particularly for the small caps.
Well, lets check it out:

The NASDAQ ETF QQQQQ moved from 29.46 to 29.06 closed basically flat throughout the month.
I was looking for something to track the small cap market and quick google searches yielded Vanguard Strategic Small-Cap Equity Fund (VSTCX). Dec 31st prices closed at 12.15 and at Jan 31st the fund was at 10.87 down slightly less than 10%.

The S&P 500 went from 902 to 825 down almost 10%.

Essentially looks like all the markets were down in Jan. Is that because we had a stellar December? Did people not have money to reinvest in January?

Looks like investors, still unsure about the economy stopped from putting long orders in January. Lets hope the future months will see a rebound into the positive territory.

Links and new sites for January 2009

2009-01-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

Looking back at January I would like to share some links that I gathered over in January 2009.

1. The Dividend Machine introduced by HappinessIsBetter. HappinessisBetter gives details on the interview with William Spectrino and how one could use stock dividends to achieve financial independence.

2. Interested in free technical analysis of stocks ? Ino.com owns Marketclub.com which gives free technical analysis on a stock with ratings. Sample Forex training video link provided in my previous blog entry .

3. The Wild Investor introduced me to Stocktwits where community members share stock ideas real time.

4. Tickerville. Anyone interested to knowing about technical analysis of the current market and where its headed. Tickerville gives round up of important drivers of the market every couple of days.

5. Interested in learning about Elliot waves and how its useful predicting the markets Allan gives a good insight into technical analysis and his stock picks.

6. Steve features in MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. His blog was recently featured in TV. Check this link.

7. Informed trades gives a daily roundup of technical analysis of markets along with currency trading.

8. Interested in buying stock Warren Buffet style. Mark gives his view of the market and stockpics at Buylikebuffet.com.

9. My Money Blog continues to recommend few money saving tips and some credit card offers and links to cool coupons.

10. Interested in learning about other people's opinion on a particular stock? Check out WikInvest. You can read buy and sell recommendations on a particular stock here.

11. Want to have some free stock picking links? Gorilla Trades is offering free one week access to their site.

Please share more links with me and we can all share the links or follow me on Twitter.

Forex trading explained

2009-01-17T20:05:00.000-08:00

If anyone is interested in Forex trading and wants to know how the following article from Marketclub.com explains how easy it could get.

The foreign exchange market is the biggest market in the world by far. It is traded all around the world, six days a week, twenty-four hours per day.

So today we're going to look at the Euro (EUR) against the US Dollar (USD). Here are some Market Club signals that were generated by their "Trade Triangle" technology.

This new 7-minute video explains some basics of using the trade triangle technology. It is available with no strings attached.

It is very important when you are trading in any market to be very, very, disciplined. You must also have a game plan and understand the rules of the game. If you get into forex trading just on a whim, you're going to be burned... that's almost a definite. If you approach the forex markets with respect and a game plan, you can do extraordinarily well.

The triangles have worked very well lately with the markets.

2008 invesment post-mortem and tips from investment gurus

2009-01-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

Writing up some lessons learned in the brutal 2008 investment year. The DOW lost more than 30%, the NASDAQ and S&P also in the similar or more extreme ranges.
Like most of the crowd my investments performed no much better. What are the lessons learnt and some tips from investing experts which I could have applied for my 2008 investments.
1. Buy and hold might not work all the time. I mean it can if your investment horizon is beyond the bear market zone.
2. Book your losses and help your 2008 tax returns. Once can claim up to $3000 in one tax year provided the same or similar investment is not bought within 30 days. This is the wash sale rule. A strategy suggested by a blogger and the comments there in suggest to sell the fund/stock and then buy back after 30 days . Caveat is one might lose potential gain within the 30 days lost. Other choice is to buy another investment in next 30 days.
3. Investor Business Daily(IBD) suggested cutting losses greater than 8%. Lesson learned: An 8% loss takes 10% gain to make it even. This strategy would have saved me a lot in 2008.
4. Invest in certain cyclical companies - eg. Walmart during downturn. Keep a small goal for return and book profits and cut losses. I do not hold Walmart at this time.
5. Being long in bear markets is risky. If shares are bought then buy and hold will not be a good strategy.
6. Even if I would have followed the 200 day EMA then the long term entry or exit points would have established.
7. Look out for strong sectors and stocks within these sectors (Cramer & IBD).
8. "The stock market is always looking 6-12 months down the link. Present losses are already taken into account". I partially agree with this. The market direction is set this way but day to day dips could be caused due to real time news.
9. Investor Business Daily states never average down. I am not sure if I completely agree with this. Average down with a single company stock could be bad but with a fund might not not so bad.
10. And finally do a post analysis of your buys and sells (IBD) and note them on the stock charts. As Cramer puts it put 1 hr per week per stock.

Can you share your 2008 investment thoughts?

I Bonds or I Savings bonds vs. Certificates of Deposits

2008-12-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

The other day I was wondering about long term investments , something with a horizon of 5-10 years and I came across I bonds or I saving bonds.
thanks to a friend who introduced to me these safe government protected investments.

According to ibonds.info "Bonds have a one year minimum hold time in which the bond can not be redeemed. Additionally, bonds are subject to a 3 month interest penalty if the bond is redeemed within 5 years of the issue date. Similar to other US Treasury Bonds, I Bonds continue to earn interest for 30 years. After that time, the matured bond is worth the face value plus the interest collected over that time."

The most logical comparison that arrives at one's mind is between a CD and an I-bond. How does an I bond differ from
a 5 year CD.
1. CD's rates are fixed for the entire duration of the term. I bonds are inflation protected and have 2 parts , one called the fixed rate which stays the same for the entire duration
of the bond and a variable value which is tied to the inflation core index
2. One can withdraw money from a CD even before one year with an associated penalty ofcourse but atleast its an option.
3. With most banks money withdrawn from a CD before maturity is subject to three to six months of interest. Money withdrawn
from an I bond after 1 year is subject to similar but not neccessarily same terms.
4. Current rate for an Ibond is 5.64 % which ofcourse can and will change in the next five years. CD has constant rates of maturity
5. CD is protected by FDIC values whereas Ibonds are backed by the government.
6. According to ibonds.info "The federal tax can even be waived if the bond is redeemed to pay for education costs." This definitely not the case with CDs.

I bonds rate are weighted more on the CPI or variable rate rather than the fixed part so one should typically not wait till fixed part is higher. Essentially these are inflation protected investments.

Interest accrued on I bonds is on the end of the month, so its advisable to invest towards the end of the month.

Please note that I have not compared I bonds to other available government bonds in this article. CDs are something that naturally occured to me and hence the
comparison.

Is this a safe longterm investment in this recession season?

The January effect: Lets discuss about the 2009 January effect

2008-12-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

It is believed that in January, particularly during the first few week(s) has witnessed gains not seen during other months of the year. According to Wikipedia link for the January effect it is said that this may happen due to profit gains taken in the prior
year for tax purposes and investors put their money back in the market for re-investment.
To see if this really worked lets take a look at the past few years return for the NASDAQ index QQQQ.
In Jan 2008 we saw that QQQQ went down few percentage points. 2006, 2007 saw a modest gain , whereas 2005 saw some decline. 2004, 2003, 2001 and 2000 had some gains
whereas 2002 had a loss.

This result was based on the NASDAQ index. One might need to take into consideration other indexs or stocks (NYSE for example) particularly.
AS per this article it is said that small caps have had some
noticeable returns in January.
However one needs to be extremely cautious to trade small caps such many of them are not doing perform very well.

On the contrary if one could wait till January to sell the stocks the losses could be minimized. This is just another view of the same idea.

Other theories behind the January stock rise state that a lot of people might be getting some year end bonuses or some wait till the new year to start afresh. Cash strapped investors are seen selling just before big holidays -eg. Christmas to raise cash for gifts.

We will analyze the market towards the end of January 2009 .

What will happen in 2009? Will it show a January effect or have we seen a December effect already seen we are in the oversold region already? Please share your thoughts.

Order of the rising sun

2008-11-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

Slightly away from the topic of finance and business I am dedicating this blog entrt to my father - Ramesh Divekar.

Ramesh Divekar, has been awarded the "Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays" (Class V- Culture) in recognition of his outstanding contribution by His Imperial Excellency the Emperor of Japan .

The Order of the rising sun is the second most prestigious Japanese decoration after the Order of the Chrysanthemum.

You can find more information in the Order of Rising Sun WIKI

The official announcement was done on 3rd November, 2008 in Japan, (The cultural day of Japan ) in Tokyo and he will actually receive the award at the Consulate General of Japan, Mumbai , India on December 4, 2008 at a special function arranged in his honor by the Consul General.

Mr. Ramesh Divekar started his career to the land of the rising sun since the dawn of the 1960s , 1963 to be precise. You can find more information in Wikipedia's link .

Ramesh Divekar is the founder of 3smartmonkeys.com.

India Rising!

2008-10-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

Recently a friend of mine forwarded me this video recorded by PBS and termed "India Rising". You can view the video at PBS's website.

The video's main focus is a town Pune, a growing educational town situated 100 miles east of the main metropolitan of Mumbai in Western India.

India's GDP is on its boom in the last few years, recording 9.1% growth in the 2007-08 timeframe according to wikipedia.

The middle class can now afford a lot of commodity items that were taken as granted by rest of the world.

Indians now are shopping in malls for microwaves or refrigerators and also buying condos and driving comfortable automobiles.

To me the above change has already been in place for a few years, but its only recently that its started making news in mainstream America.

Express India's rising food prices article gives the views of President Bush on the same.

What do these economic needs of China and India mean to the rest of the world? There is only so much in the world and one argument is "Should we not share what we have?" Is this the price the rest of the world will have to pay when The World Is Flat?

One positive outcome as depicted in the video is that it encourages innovation by the rise in competition.

Thoughts?

Dollar cost averaging - Another view

2008-10-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy:about.com

In my earlier post about dollar cost averaging or long term investing during down markets I had written how it was beneficial to dollar cost average during a bear market.
This morning I was looking at another article on Investor Business Daily's newspaper. They had a small article on dollar cost averaging specifically for down markets or during markets with bearish trend. This article featured under their Myth Buster title titling "Averaging down can be a poison". The author takes an example of Lehman brother's stock and how one would have suffered major losses in such a condition and instead ask to dollar cost average in bullish markets.

My takes on this and comments are slightly different. My focus would be to dollar cost average on an index vs. a stock. Thus if any particular stock is burned then my risk of loosing all my money is certainly lessened.

The article took an example of AIG and explained how an investor would take ages to get back the fortune spent. I would have rather put money in the finance sector, probably in an ETF or a mutual fund.

Of-course buying during market correction is a better strategy but then who can identify a bottom and then a correction.

One strategy recommended which I might partially agree is too sell off if losses get steeper than 7-10%.

What do you think?

Energy saving tips for today's economy.courtesy Food Network

2008-09-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

With the recent downturn in the economy and increase in gas and fuel price everyone is looking for money saving tips. These money saving tips could be energy saving tips or gas saving tips or even grocery saving tips. In my previous post I talked about a healthy and moderately priced dining out options in the rough economy and recommended Sweet Tomatoes.

Lets see some myths transform into energy saving tips.

Ever thought of cooking salmon in a dishwasher or cooking an egg over your car engine?
Recently while watching the Food Detective Show on Food Network TV I came across these crazy ideas or myths as you call it.
Ted Allen runs the show covering myths around food and drinks along with some not so usual energy or money saving ideas.

How to cook a salmon in a dishwasher:
1. Take an aluminum foil and then apply some olive oil at the bottom.
2. Lay your raw salmon on the oil and then apply some lime juice over the salmon.
3. Carefully cover it up with one more layer of aluminum and then wrap it up nicely so that soapy water does not get in.
4. Load it in your dishwasher with all those dirty dishes.
5. Start your dishwasher with the normal or full cycle.
6. Sit relax and enjoy! At the end of the cycle take out the covered foil and unwrap to see what happened to the salmon !
Food Network claims nicely cooked Salmon thanks to the heat that the dishwasher creates to properly sanitize the dishes.

Late for breakfast , got to get to work quickly? Take that egg break it up and carefully wrap in layers of aluminum foil layered with olive oil and open your car hood. Place it on an engine so that the aluminum bundle with the egg in it does not spill over parts of the engine. The car hood should hold your egg with all the aluminum is in place.

Drive to work , your egg's ready.

I have not tried any of these saving tips but thought these as being quite unusual and worth sharing.

What are your thoughts?

Dining in today's economy

2008-09-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy: http://www.souplantation.com

As most of us know Sweet Tomatoes is one of the famous salad chains in northern US.
"Sweet tomatoes", "Sweet Tomatoes coupon", searches are on an increase in today's economy. I made a quick google adword tool keyword search on Sweet Tomatoes. I saw the second most searched word for the keyword "Sweet Tomatoes Coupon".
Is this the result of people looking for cheap dining options?

If you are looking for a cheap option to dine out with the opportunity of eating healthy Sweet tomatoes is a great option. For around $7.5 for lunch along with a chance to get 10-15% off if you join their veggie club one gets a choice of plenty of fresh salads.

Feeling bored with eating the same salads? Sweet Tomatoes has been creative in creating an Asian week or a Mexican food week where customers get to taste some delicacy.

We recently got a chance to visit the Sweet Tomatoes Asian Week and we thoroughly enjoyed the Asian Ginger broth Soup.

Looking for some Sweet Tomatoes coupons? Type "Sweet Tomatoes coupons" or check out links like this.

If you have more of such ideas please feel to free by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Promote high traffic blog using StumbleUpon

2008-09-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Slightly shifting from my normal finance entries this note is about promoting a blog in general. Recently I came across Problogger's how to promote young blog and have started taking steps towards the same. The big catchaway to promote young blog to become a high traffic blog is to network on StumbleUpon. I have been a passive user of stumble upon.

Leaving the "Stumble Upon" issues aside I am starting the network on StumbleUpon to attract people with similar interests.