The Learning Curve by Muckdog

4th of July

2008-07-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July!

July 3rd Thoughts and Randomosity

2008-07-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough few weeks. It hasn't been pretty. The stock market has tanked. It's a bear market in the DOW and Nasdaq, and the SP500 is but a few points away. Close enough. Grrr.
I remain 100% long and the recently-lame Black Box remains on a buy signal. I'm contemplating my trading strategy for the 2nd half of the year. I'm underperforming the index a bit, but not by too much. Still, I've passed on chances to become less aggressive on previous bounces. I anticipate some kind of move up, and not sure if I'll get less aggressive on it or not.
I don't think the economy is horrible in itself. I think fuel prices are just a huge drag on it right now. I don't see an end to it, because none of the politicians are talking about it much (policy wise). Quite confounding. Quite annoying. Losers.
Checkout the Clipmarks in the sidebar, and also notice the last blog entry. Cool utility for quick and dirty clipping and commenting from around the web.
The Dow in Euros. Very dramatic chart.
From the Business Pundit, 8 Companies Behind the 4th of July.
From the WSJ, stocks have been negative for10 years. That's just in the US. Hasn't it been about 30 years since the Nikkei peaked?
I made the mistake of buying an HD DVD player last year. Talk about the last bull to the party. Shortly thereafter, Blu-ray won the format wars. I had some gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, so I picked up a Playstation 3 over the last weekend, so now I can do HD all over again. And games. Not exactly "pick up and play" like the Wii, though.
From Normxxx Ruminates, Economy Extends Job Losses.
China Mobile working towards iPhone deal. (Disclosure: Long AAPL).
Paul Kedrosky's book recommendations...
Did you see the movie Mad Money with Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes? Now I know those two names make you instantly think "red carpet awards" coming, right? (Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, or whatever they're called). Not. Even. Close.
My friend told me to rent Mad Money in Blu-ray to see if it's any better.
Loss is the Rite of Passage to Wealth. I kind of named the blog after what this article is talking about. Going down the learning curve, figuring things out, etc. Although it comes across as a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
David at The Shark Report on the close notes, Don't forget all the bulls who anticipated great stuff for drug stocks with a W administration- note the index is down about 25% during his 7.5 years in office. So watch out for what folks are predicting with an Obama or McCain win. Fade it?
What? From Market Power, the Seattle Supersonics are leaving Seattle for Oklahoma City. Check it out, for the economic impact to a city. Cool.
Eh, I've had it for a day. A week. A first-half of 2008. I love long Summer weekends. BBQ. Pool. Beer. Sunshine. Etc. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Economic Growth Greater Risk Than Inflation

2008-07-02T22:14:00.001-07:00

Well, the PCE came out last week at just over 3%, and core PCE was just over 2%. Inflation is very low and energy prices continue to kill consumer spending.

clipped from www.marketwatch.com

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A top Federal Reserve official suggested Wednesday that the outlook for U.S. economic growth remains worse than the inflation forecast, raising the possibility that the central bank might be in no mood to hike interest rates to combat higher commodity prices.

In a speech in Israel, Fed governor Frederic Mishkin said that it will take some time for the financial system to get back on its feet and accordingly, will continue to depress growth.

Mishkin characterized the likely pace of recovery in financial markets as "slow."

This "suggests the U.S. economy will be subject to substantial headwinds for some time," he said.

Excerpts from the Bear Market

2008-07-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Grrr....

Stock Pain Continues: Bear Market Arrives. Investors looking for some good news as the stock market headed into the second half of the year were disappointed today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points and officially entered the much-dreaded bear market territories.
Wall Street Makes it Official: The Bear Market is Here. No more waiting: We’re now in a genuine bear market for the Dow Jones industrials and, for the second time this year, for the Nasdaq composite. The Dow closed today at 11,215.51, down 166.75 points, or 1.5%. That left the blue-chip index off 20.8% from its record closing high of 14,164.53 reached on Oct. 9.
DOW Enters Bear Market, Oil Hits New Record. Wall Street resumed its sell-off Wednesday after oil hit a new record and a bearish analyst report renewed concerns that General Motors Corp. could run out of cash. ... Oil surged to new records above $144 a barrel as the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. supplies and as investors worried about tensions in the Middle East.
What Kind of Bear Market? (From Wall Street Workbook).
Anatomy of a Bear Market (from Bluedog).
DOW Drops into Bear Embrace. (CNBC) I think it’s about the weak economy, says Tim Seymour. I don’t think traders really care about the actual numbers in the Dow. Anyone who had anything on their books got out because they’re afraid Thursday could be messy ahead of the holiday, adds Guy Adami.
Bob Brinker's bull market turned bear. What if Bob Brinker proclaimed a secular and cyclical bull market, a "favorable" outlook for 2008, predicted new highs, forecast the S&P at 1600's, kept all Model Portfolios 100% invested with stock market allocations, -- and a bear came to visit?
It's Official, If a Bit Silly, We Have a Bear Market. Economists continue to debate if the U.S. economy is in a recession. This is also silly; the statistical calculation depends on how high the government says inflation is -- and it says it is low. Everyone knows it is not low. Rather than split hairs whether the economy is in a recession, let's just say that it stinks. Period.
Our Depression: More Hard Times Ahead (from Mammoth Lakes Daily News).
New Quarter; Same Trend; Secular Bear is Settling In. Yes, the secular bear market is here. In fact, it’s been here for a while – and it’s going to stay for a while. So, the time has come to ignore the talking heads who keep calling a "bottom" that could be years away. U.S. stock investors are nowhere near the "point of recognition," or the mid-point of the dominant trend when participants see that trend for what it is.

Etc. You get the idea.

Market Reversal Thoughts

2008-07-01T13:43:00.001-07:00

I wanted to wait until after the market close to see if we had a reversal from the early morning selling. We got it.
Internals? Well... Hmm. Decliners lead advancers. Not so good. But up volume was better than down volume. Better. Volume was very high. Nice on a reversal.
The theory of retesting the March lows still holds, and it looks as if we could muster a rally here. We're also at the beginning of the month where new money is dollar-cost averaged into mutual funds. Although, I bet mutual fund flows will show that investors were pulling money out of stocks most recently and investing in something else. Folks do tend to make emotional moves at just the wrong time.
We shall see.
I remain 100% long. Black Box has been on buy signals on most everything the past few. (Of course, I've ridden this thing down from the 1400s. Just being honest).
AAPL was up nice. (Disclosure: Long). Looks like there is some excitement about the 3G iPhone launch next week. When I went in, I thought it might help buffer the stock. It turned out to be a sell the news event initially, but AAPL is holding up okay.
AAPL released their pricing plan. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm eligilble to upgrade to get the $199 deal. That's fine.
I don't own Netflix (NFLX) stock, but I love the service. Many do! I only get the one-at-a-time service, but I also recently bought the Roku Netflix streamer or player. I've been catching up on older movies. For example, Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen. LOL.

Hands-Free Tuesday

2008-07-01T10:37:00.001-07:00

Hands-Free Tuesday

Well, it's July 1st and the big impact on Californians today is the ban on hands-on use of a cell phones while driving. Drivers must now use hands-free devices. Tech stores around Sacramento are proudly displaying bluetooth and wired headsets in the front of stores.

Of course, now we'll have accidents because folks are fiddling around trying to untangle their headset wires or trying to figure out why they're not getting a bluetooth connection. Or maybe, folks will take "hands free" literally and will try to use their feet to use their cell phone. "This is clearly within the law, officer." There are always loopholes.

There is some fine print in the new cell phone law. First, you can be hands on in case of emergency. Does "My bluetooth batteries died" constitute an emergency? Drivers under 18 can't use a cell phone in a car at all, hands-on or hands-free. And I wonder if the new law applies if you stick your head out of the car window and use the cell phone? Or if you take your hands completely off the driving wheel? "Well, I wasn't actually *driving*, officer."

In any case, I believe the law is more legislative overkill. I can't wait for the Simpson's episode where there's a robbery happening in plain site, while the cops are diverting all of their attention to finding folks using cell phones in their cars. "Drop your donuts. Lets get 'em, boys." You can picture that, right?

The What Inflation? Watch

2008-06-30T09:20:00.001-07:00

The Fed (and others) keep jawboning inflation. They say how worried they are about inflation. They claim inflation is running too high. But did you see the PCE numbers that came out on friday? Here's the number that includes everything:

The May PCE deflator came in at 3.1%, which is slightly below expectations.

It's also important to look at core inflation, ex food and energy. If the inflation hawks were right about increasing oil prices increasing the costs of everything else we buy, certainly we'd see the impacts in the core PCE, right? Take a look:

The hated core, ex food and energy, saw a modest increase of 0.1%, and was up 2.1% from the year earlier. Both measures were much better than expectations. The core is important to look at as it would indicate if rising food and energy prices were percolating down and contributing to a more generalized inflationary movement.

Over the past year, oil prices per barrel have gone up approximately 100%. The inflation hawks keep telling us that this drives up the costs of everything else. But the reality is that when you're sending more money to the OPEC cartel, you have less money to spend at home on everything else.

I don't expect the Fed to raise rates during the remainder of 2008. There is an election coming up, and the Fed prefers to remain on the sidelines. With inflation running low, and the economy sluggish because of high energy prices, the Fed will continue to keep rates low.

Yes, that is a pic of Alla Kudryatseva.

TGIF Randomosity

2008-06-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

March 10th closing low 1273. Today's closing low 1278. Lets cling to the "retest" theory over the weekend.
Well, if there's nothing better to cling on to, that is. Say... Jessica Biel?
Amidst the gloom? After-tax incomes and spending show big gains. In otherwords, "It's the worst economy ever since the great depression, so thank goodness we have more money to spend."
Jason: Bear market nearing an end. Hope so, J. Although, techincally, we're down about 18.2% from the October 2007 highs. NOWHERE NEAR A BEAR MARKET! But it does feel like one. And we're all about feeeeeeelings, right?
Greg Mankiw: Don't trust anyone who can't see into the future.
Barry Ritholtz notes that the VIX isn't showing any panic, yet. Somebody look under the hood: Check the VIX's panties for lumps.
"VIX's?" That doesn't seem right, but in my brain grammer exists on the "other side of the tracks". We're moving forward with no apologies.
Say, how is that Members Top Picks contest going over at Kirk's?
From Ugly Chart, USC lab creates 3D holographic display. Oooh, I can't wait until the porn industry gets a hold of this! Woohoo!
Barrons says that housing may have hit a floor. Hopefully, they don't mean "the seventh floor," because then there'd be more to go.
From Naked Shorts... Cox hardens for a big finish.
TGIF!

Worst June Since Great Depression!

2008-06-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

"But alas, the market sucks."- Adam Warner.
What else can be said? Time to fire up the charts, check to see if any divergences are out there to give any bulls remaining any hope whatsoever.
It looks ugly. It feels ugly. And we're being told 24x7 just how ugly it is.
For example, Worst June for DOW since Great Depression.
Afterhours? Palm disappoints. Well, how can they stay in business much longer anyways? This isn't ten years ago. There are other, better, products out there.
So I give you non-ugly: Scarlett Johansson.
Accentuate the positive!

The Citigroup Follies

2008-06-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, the Black Box had a buy signal on Citigroup (C) last night. But the folks at Goldman Sachs must use a different market timing strategy, as they came out this morning with a downgrade of Citigroup. Heck, they're recommending to go short!

Thanks for the heads up! I'm sure this call saved a lot of people a lot of money.

Not.

The Distinguished Stock Market

2008-06-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

In the "life imitates art" category, we flashback to a speech made in 1993 by Eddie Murphy in the movie "The Distinguished Gentleman." Murphy plays con man Thomas Jefferson Johnson and runs for Congress. Does ths clip remind you of a Barack Obama speech?
But back in the "reality imitates fear" category, the stock market selling off heavy this morning. The catalyst? Bad attitudes! A Prozac and an enema for everyone!
As everyone, even Yahoo Finance, is noticing, we're at levels not seen since March. So I'm on the "retesting the lows" bandwagon. But obviously, if we're looking for market divergences from the previous trip down here they will be hard to find.
The Black Box? It was on buy signals last night for the emerging markets, financials, and Big Pharma. It liked ETFs EEM, PPH and FXI. It also liked individual banks C and PNC. Of course, those are all being torn to shreds this morning.
Watching, er, hoping, for a reversal.

Black Box, Fed, and Education

2008-06-25T10:20:00.001-07:00

Checking out the Black Box last night, it had a buy on semiconductors and a sell on oil. FWIW. This generally means that the Nasdaq 100 won't be far behind with a buy signal.
The market is up today before the Freakies make their intentions known, but you never know what kind of volatility will hit once Bernanke makes his statement. Stay tuned.
The Freakies have been jawboning inflation in between meetings, so I'm wondering if their statement makes just a casual statement about being "vigilant" against inflation.
California spends 50% of its budget on education. That's $57 Billion. How are we doing? "...three in 10 students who enroll in California public high schools fail to graduate." Noice! In addition, "The California High School Exit Exam tests students at an eighth-grade math and reading level and, to pass, requires no more than 60 percent on either section. As a result, more than 55 percent of California State University freshmen require remedial instruction in math or English." Woot!
The Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters has more in Education Data tell a sorry story. Must reading for those curious why it seems we're faultering in education. The silver lining in the story is the charter schools doing well compared to public schools. Maybe that's the direction we need to go in.

Lazy Tuesday Stuff

2008-06-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

I guess we're all kind of waiting on the Fed, eh? It'll be interesting to see what they say about inflation this time.
Yet another down day in the market. I think we're just retesting previous lows. I'll run the Black Box tonight and see what it has to say. It's been hit-and-miss lately. Nothing outstanding.
From Yahoo Finance, A rebound in financial stocks helped partially offset some disappointment over weak consumer sentiment, falling home prices and an earnings warning from UPS.
Oil prices are up 98% compared to one year ago!
Consumer sentiment in the dumper. Maybe because we're constantly told how bad it is out there. Meanwhile, what blu-ray movies are you watching this week? I don't mean to be flip, but I'm not seeing recession-like pain out there. And you?
Hat tip to Greg Mankiw for the links. Don't blame speculators for the high oil prices.
Obama opposes McCain's proposal for 45 new nuclear power plants. I guess that makes me oppose Obama. Energy is the #1 issue.
So other than oil prices, where is the inflation? Wal-Mart has Banquet TV dinners for 86-cents here. Subway has 12-inch sandwiches for $5. Okay, what did I say about being flip? Anyways. Not that pricey.
Bob McTeer: Not a recession yet.
Barry Ritholtz: Lets Get Technical. Ah, the debate on the value of technical analysis. I'm a believer. But I'm also a believer in a non-cluttered work space. Have you seen folks who draw charts with what seems like millions of indicators?
I watched "We are Marshall" the other day. I liked it, but it was a bit long. These kinds of movies that are based on true stories tend to have me hitting the internet afterwards, and looking up information and pictures. What a story.

Muckdog Makes Hall of Shame!

2008-06-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

You're on Notice!

Barry Ritholtz listed me on his Hall of Shame! It is a both an honor and a privilege, BR.
Wow, I haven't even prepared an acceptance speech. But, I'd like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ, thank the troops, and pray for world peace.
Here's my blog entry that received the accolades: Thinking About Butterflies Randomosity.
I believe Barry has an interesting blog. Those interested in financial opinions should subscribe to his RSS feed.
In the end, all anyone has to offer are opinions. I don't know if my opinions are any better than the guy on the blog next door.
But I do try to keep an open mind and review information before making my opinions. I'm not one to have a pre-formed opinion, and then search out information that validates my views. I think that opens the door to obscure data reference points and charts.
I like the standard government data releases. They're fine for me. I can accept that they change over time and that they're not perfect. I pay more attention to what the Federal Reserve does, than what the Federal Reserve says. I view the latter as mostly a comedy show.
That's it.

Another Retest

2008-06-22T00:28:00.001-07:00

First, kudos to the folks at Roku who created the Netflix streamer. Very nice. Received it yesterday, hooked it up today. No problems. Easy breezy. Have a few movies and TV shows in my "Watch Instantly" queue at Netflix, and am ready to go. Quality is okay at 480p. And hopefully hi-def is on the way in the future. So now, I can watch the most-recent DVDs in HD via my NFLX subscription, and catch up on stuff I've missed via streaming.

You know, when the market rallied off the March lows, I thought that was it. I thought we were going to head higher and stair-step our way back to new highs. My thought process there was that the bad news was mostly known and that earnings would rebound in the second half of the year. The market had gone down around previous lows, and the bounce up seemed to be working fine. Well, except for the volume.

What's changed? Nothing really. I believe what we're seeing is just pessimism. High fuel prices are making news headlines every few minutes. And while that's not a major impact to most of our budgets, it is something that we see and that we're aware of every time we go to the filling station. Yes, we do cut back on Starbucks a bit. But many folks have adjusted by using mass transit and by making that next car purchase one that gets better MPG. In addition, we have campaign season going in full gear, and the party out of power is going to continue to try to spread gloom and doom to the best of their ability. This is not the time to talk up the economy when you're trying to convince the voters to punch the chad with your name on it.

What to do? I remain long. We haven't had a recession. GDP hasn't gone negative in any quarter yet, despite the predictions from the gurus, quarter after quarter after quarter. Who listens to those guys, anyways? This one may be flat, but folks are out there spending their tax rebate checks. Look at Best Buy's recent report, for example.

What else to do? Focus on the fun. It's Summer! Don't let the gloomers get you down.

On FedEx Vehicle for Delivery!

2008-06-20T09:07:00.001-07:00

What? It's the Roku Netflix Player! Those of you who subscribe to NFLX are aware that they have a "watch instantly" feature, where you can watch movies on your PC. But who wants to sit at their desk in front of their monitor watching a 2-hour movie? This is a box that hooks up to your TV (via ethernet or wifi), and you can watch anything in your NFLX instant queue on your TV. Price? $99.

I know there are other options out there. The reviews of the product are great, though the comments indicate that tech-savvy folks may want to explore other options. For example, Apple TV does a bunch more, but the purchase price is much higher and you have to buy your movies for download. NFLX lets you watch all the movies you want instantly included with your monthly subscription price.

You could also drag cables all over the place to hook up your desktop or laptop to the TV. But then you're spending money on additional cables, and have to have a PC fired up, running, burning electricity, and making noise.

Granted, the number of instant movies available is small. Mostly older movies and older TV series. But $99? Cheap enough to buy and try.

Boston Celtics Randomosity

2008-06-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well! Madness at the Fun Factory distracting me from any kind of diversions the past week. But it's only fair to give mega-kudos to the Celtics for blasting the Lakers back to the West coast. It wasn't even close. The saddest thing was to see LA basically throw in the towel in that second half Tuesday night. Boston was the better team. The East was best.
Celtics cheerleader Alexis is happy about it.
On to the market... It's options week, and you know what that means! According to my playbook, it should be a positive sort of thing. Down a little over a percent on the SP500 so far. The gloom and doom is thick in the air. Everyone is hanging on oil prices these days.
It used to be a bad saying to say "You're getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking." But as a commodity, it's on fire! Maybe coal will be the "in" gift this holiday season.
John McCain calls for 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030. I think that's a start. Glad to hear somebody say it. That's the one issue I've been waiting to hear somebody, anybody, bring up. We need an alternative to burning fossil fuels.
I was thinking about getting a hybrid car. But now this has me worried. It turns out hybrid owners are trading in their vehicles. Why? Health fears concerning electromagnetic fields created by the hybrid batteries, says John Dale Dunn, a policy advisor for the American Council on Science and Health.
It only took about 30 hours after the end of the NBA Finals for my coworkers to bring up the NFL and Fantasy Football. The wait begins. In the meantime, time to start digging into the NFL news to see what players got traded, drafted, retired, or incarcerated since last season.

Mid-year Roundtable

2008-06-17T22:26:00.001-07:00

Okay, I was looking for a picture of the Round Table Pizza guys. That quickly changed to girls, but then there were pictures of Eva Longoria with Domino's pizzas. Since that isn't exactly "Round Table," I decided to compromise and just post a picture of Eva Longoria.
Anyways, the point being that this weekend is Barron's Mid-year Roundtable issue, and I'm all over it!
Also, Eva Longoria is not pregnant, so I'm sleeping much better tonight knowing I'm not on the hook for that. Phew! Another close call, Muck!
The biggest breaking news this weekend? Lenny Dykstra with the Cyrano de Suttmeier (h/t to Adam Warner).
(This entry has been sitting in draft mode for a few days... LOL.)
Congrats to the Celtics.

This and That

2008-06-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

Lets be honest. The market doesn't look very good, does it? Despite the low volume bounce, when it sells off it sells off fierce. My playbook thinks that pre-options weakness should be bought heading into options week. Staying long. Concerned about the summer swoon, but we may have had it. The question is whether enough buying power is out there and if they're remotely interested in stocks. Or if they're just on their new Nintendo Wii Fit, getting in shape for bikini season.
Better make it flour toritillas on your next trip for Mexican food. Corn futures rose for a seventh straight day Thursday to a new record, as rain in the Midwest raised concerns that the grain's production will be reduced. Futures have jumped nearly 20% since June 3.
Strong retail sales boosted by tax rebate checks. Cash from government stimulus checks helped push U.S. retail sales up at twice the rate expected in May but the strength could be fleeting as households contend with soaring prices and the worst housing slump in decades.
But both Subway and Quiznos have foot-long sandwiches for $5! What inflation?
I think a lot of folks are taking those tax rebate checks to Costco and Wal-Mart. Maybe to Best Buy today to buy their new 80 gig Playstation 3 with Metal Gear Solid 4. Maybe to the casino to bet on the Lakers at home tonight.
The media is convinced that this is a great depression or something. I'm not seeing it anywhere in my daily travels, though. For all the recession talk the last few years, we haven't had one quarter of negative GDP. Nor have we had massive layoffs. Just remember 1981, 1991, 2001. It's not like that at all. Not even close.
Yes, AAPL had negative divergences and seems to have had a "sell the news" reaction on their iPhone 3g news release. Stopped out, but put back on because of a gut feeling that the stock may bounce as the July 11th date approaches. Yeah, not a great chart. I know.
I still plan on getting an iPhone. There are some other nice phones coming out that I've had my eye on. But I'm ready to try the Apple experience. Plus, since it comes out in July, it'll give me something to do in the off hours to kill time before football season!

Apple Hits and Misses

2008-06-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

When folks think about Apple, they think iPod and iPhone. Maybe some think Mac. But behind the big hits are some ideas that didn't work out. Apple's Most Notorious Flops.

The Newton. Pippin. (Not Scottie, the video game machine!) Etc. Check the link for more Apple misses. Kind of an entertaining stroll through AAPL. In retrospect, it looks like they've had the right ideas along the way, but the technology wasn't quite there and the audience wasn't quite ready. Now, we've arrived at the same place, together.

Of course, the iPhone is not a flop. AAPL is likely to capture even more market share with the low-price entry point of their new phone. The new capabilities of the phone may put some other companies at risk, too. I think Blackberry and Nokia may be in trouble. I also think with the iPhone GPS, Garmin may be in trouble.

Reading over the iPhone specs at Engadget, I think the thing that disappoints me is the lack of A2DP bluetooth. That is, wireless stereo. I don't like cords! But a minor annoyance, as I rarely use my wireless headphones to listen to music on my existing HTC Touch phone. (Battery charging is a drag, and my headphones always seem to be on their last leg of energy).

My current phone runs Windows Mobile 6. It's a powerful machine, and I love it. But yes, I do have to reboot frequently and the battery drain is incredible in daily use. I have a charger at home, at the office, and in my car. Always ready to rejuice! Windows Mobile is a bit clunky, and AAPL's iPhone OS works so much more smoothly. The User Interface is much more inpressive. Someone on one of the message boards said, "The only product Microsoft could make that wouldn't suck, is a vacuum cleaner!"

Disclosure: Long AAPL.

iMonday Randomosity

2008-06-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

As I was watching the Engadget live-blogging of the Apple 3g iPhone conference, I saw AAPL trading down big. So I bought some AAPL near the lows. (Just a trade, not a recommendation). This is a nice upgrade to their phone, and the price point is perfect. $199 for the 8 gig, $299 for the 16 gig. And the latter is available in white.
I'm going to get one. July 11th. Set an alarm on your Outlook calendar! Maybe I'll line up at Best Buy now! (Uh, no. I can wait a day or week or whatevah).
And this one time, in band camp... With parents cutting back and costs rising, camps are forced to modify services, which could impact everything from bug juice to bowling. Bug juice? Anyways, an interesting look at how summer camps are dealing with higher costs of energy. They're adjusting! Enrollment numbers for camps are roughly the same. Interesting, considering folks are depressed about the economy.
Why is the Fed so dumb? Bernanke was jawboning inflation last week, and that leads to fear and concern. Treasury prices declined Monday, pushing two-year note yields up the most in two decades, amid further concern that accelerating inflation will pressure central bankers to raise interest rates. The key word here is "concern." Because the fears of inflation haven't materialized in any of the numbers. We're over 3%. Oooooh.
Inflation is not accelerating. Heck, the new iPhone 2.0 is going to be $199. How many hundreds of dollars is that from iPhone 1.0 last year? C'mon. Plus, it has a GPS, slices bread, and gives a great hand job. So we're getting more functionality out of the same device at a much cheaper price.
(Yes, we may have to take public transit or carpool to the Apple store to buy our iPhone 2.0 because fuel is expensive. I get that. But the prices of things other than fuel and some food items aren't accelerating in the least).
Crude oil drops 3%! WHAT? Seriousness alert! This country needs an energy plan. We need nuclear power plants. Lots of them.
From Yahoo Finance, we learned that financials struggled today and McDonalds had nice earnings. Last week was Wal-mart with the nice earnings. I think we know where those tax rebate checks are being spent!
I went to the Angels-A's game yesterday. Walk off grand slam by Mark Ellis in the 12th.

iPhone Blow by Blow

2008-06-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

If you're anxiously refreshing the Yahoo Finance page to get your Apple iPhone news today, try Engadget's running coverage.

Isn't that all that matters today?

Sell the Loss Reaction

2008-06-06T10:30:00.001-07:00

The heck with Yahoo Finance. I'll write the blurb today!

Investors fled from stocks on Friday as the Celtics easily handled the Lakers in game one of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. Asian stocks initially rallied as Celtics guard Paul Pierce was carried off the floor with a leg injury, only to violently sell off as Pierce returned to the court moments later.

"It was quite a roller coaster ride, up and down, up and down, up and down," said investment specialist Tia Tanaka (not pictured, to keep work safe).

Wall Street had priced in a Lakers Finals victory in five games. As reality set in that this is unlikely, the bulls did not want to be caught long heading into the second game Sunday at Boston.

"Investors will have plenty of time over the weekend to reflect on the series and their asset allocation," added Tanaka. "I've been recommending to my clients who want a happy ending that they overweight the Asian rim over US stocks."

Okay, the market is selling off BIG! today.

Oil is spiking up, because folks must've left their SUVs running in their garages overnight. It's becoming obvious that we have to act to reduce our oil imports. I don't think the government is nimble or agreeable enough to get this done, so it's really up to us. It's going to mean buying a hybrid the next time you hit the car lot. It's going to take ridesharing and mass transit. Another idea is trading a typical 5-day, 8-hour, work schedule for a 4-day, 10 hour, work schedule. Employers will have to allow more telecommuting where feasible.

Here in Sacramento, we have a big project on our major downtown freeway going on. The lanes are closed down. I heard on the news that our mass transit system has seen a 30% jump in use the past week. That's fantastic, and hopefully folks will continue to use mass transit once the freeways are open.

The job losses were also higher than expected today. While recessions typically have millions of job losses, we're nowhere near that and it's highly unlikely.

I think the market is on sale today, and that those who get their market orders to buy in will reap in some big profits down the road.

Post Game One Randomosity

2008-06-05T22:39:00.001-07:00

OK. Well. Unfortunately, I stayed at the Fun Factory late and was watching the game on the gamecast ticker. Came home around halftime. I think the Celtics defense forced the Lakers into some low-percentage shots, and the Lakers had poor clock management. Hopefully, the Lakers will figure out how to keep a lead on Sunday.
Ah, the market. Of course I'm a little concerned about seasonality, and that we're at the top of the trading range. But I'm just bullish over all the pessimism. I think with the campaign season heating up, there will be more pessimism in the headlines. I'd love to see Wall Street scale that wall of worry.
Buy on the Dip has a Game One vid up in "The WEST is the BEST?" entry. But I think during the regular season, the East had the strongest few teams, while the West was more balanced. But I agree with his sentiment. Go Lakers! Scroll down and read the next few posts there for some individual stock stuff.
Government Conspiracies and Your Money, from Dr. Jeff.
Stock Chartist wonders, "Obama bull market?"
Be your own butcher and save! From Wall Street Fighter. You don't even have to stop at chicken. Get a huge frozen cow carcass and work it over like a punching bag for a few days. You saw Rocky, right?
And of course, a preview of Hillary's concession speech: “No matter the outcome of the presidential race this November, the year 2008 is a watershed for Democrats. For the first time in the history of either party, a woman selflessly withdrew from a race she was winning to lend a merciful, helping hand to a young African-American in his time of need.”

Work. Spend. Play.

2008-06-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Market up despite the gloom and doomers. Wasn't it just the other day that they were declaring the bear market rally over? Who wants a do-over on that call?
I remain 100% long, Nasdaq heavy.
Paraphrasing Yahoo Finance, today's rally was based on good news from retail and jobless claims fell. So, you think folks are out spending those tax rebate checks? I do. Good luck to the bears expecting a negative GDP in the 2nd quarter. I don't think it's going to happen.
The Black Box gave a major buy signal on financial stocks last night. JPM came to the top of the list. No positions for me yet. I wasn't near a PC this morning.
Life at the Fun Factory? My fun meter maxed out about 7:45 this morning, but I have to stick around anyways.
Lakers-Celtics tonight. It's the biggest understatement on the planet to say that I'm looking forward to relaxing with a few beers in front of that tonight.
CHEERS! Maybe some randoms later or some LIVE BLOGGING during the game. It'll get better after the 3rd beer, too. Promise!