Best of the Web Thursday

Short post tonight.

Best of the Web Thursday
Markets saw some minimal losses today. Whether profit taking or other, it was needed if this is going to be a big run. I was so busy last night I had no time to really have a action list ready for today. It worked out as most names I have an eye on provided better entry points by day's end. I will do a full workup this weekend and be ready for next week.

Not one to leave you with no content though.

Why not check out the great Tumblr that Josh Brown (The Reformed Broker) and I co-author:
Things Apple is Worth More Than
Yes, it's back!

My man Jake of EconomPic had a great post on Leading Economic Indicators and some changes that were made. Please swing by and check it out, very important:
The New (And Improved) Leading Economic Indicators Shows Expansion

ChessNwine will keep you from getting too excited, long or short with a well thought out, reasoned take in his market recap for today:
Stock Market Recap 01/26/12

Robert Sinn (The Stock Sage) explains profit taking and has a great look at what subscribers get to see in his daily updates (Full disclosure, I am very happy to be one of the early adopters, excellent tool for trading) via the SMS service:
The Bulls Ring the Register

Good luck and remember it's Friday so get your requests in for Friday night.

Have a good night.

Tuesday Tour Around the Web

I was at work early today then stayed late. A bit short on time and tired so it's a blogfest where I find all the best stuff from the web and compile it for you. Yes, you are welcome.

Josh Brown penned a missive today that brings up a great debate point along with a historical event:
In the Name of Corporate Profitability, 1781 and Today
You really need to read about the Zong Massacre. Here is the debate point:

There is a question now about whether or not productivity gains and the ability to "remain lean" will allow Corporate America to maintain these historic levels of profitability. I would answer that perhaps companies can keep this game going awhile longer, but at what cost to the country around them?

This is key. If companies were to hire more here the costs would eat away at margins huge and hence stock prices. The time lag for when people would gain by higher paying jobs may be a poor time for stocks. And as we know, stock prices matter more than anything else. Going to think on this one a bit.

Erik Swarts of Market Anthropology has a wonderful big picture post up that I really think is worth your time:
A Few Thoughts
He drops Wikipedia use in the article which will always grab my attention.

iBankCoin's ChessNwine has an important article up tonight and it's a must read for any market participant:
The Two Most Important and Least Discussed Aspect of Trading
Readers know that I am not a trader that relies on market returns for income. I don't know that I ever could do that. But whether you are trading for a living or trading to build wealth for the long term you have to be very aware of one thing: your bankroll. How you make decisions will be HEAVILY influenced if you "need" a certain thing to happen on a trade. The best way to need any result is to have too much money that you cannot lose at work. From Chess:

There are plenty of talented traders out there who blow up their accounts not because they got outmaneuvered by the guy (or robot) on the other side of their trade, but because they were simply not bankrolled properly and felt compelled to overtrade in poor market conditions to try to “pay the bills.” Well, I have news for you: If you need to trade to pay your electric bill and utilities, then you are in the wrong profession. Being properly bankrolled also gives you the peace of mind that you do not have to, in fact, trade all day, every day.

There is more in the article so take a look.

I don't know what is going on in Iran. A missile compound over there was clearly destroyed and news about that is very thin. Tensions have been rising in the area and we all know those losers are insane. Zero Hedge takes a look at Pimco's Oil price thinking should something happen:
Pimco's 4 "Iran Invasion" Oil Price Scenarios: From $140 To "Doomsday"

Not market related but the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity is set to land at Gale Crater on Mars this summer! The new rover is a monster! Check out the section on how they plan to land it on the surface of Mars, very complicated:
Mars Science Laboratory
Cannot wait.

Have a good night.

Best of the Web Thursday

Out of time and everyone will be watching Obama and football anyway so here is a linkfest. Get your requests in for Friday night as well.

I closed all my positions today for a net 2% loss. Still no traction.

Linkfest
Stuff you should see today.

Josh Brown takes this quote from Bernanke today:

"Even taking into account the many financial pressures they face, households seem exceptionally cautious."

and makes 10 simple yet very important points. Check it out here.

Today's must read is Kevin Depew's latest "5 Things You Need to Know: Our Microwaveable Depression" as this is just the best.

High Chart Patterns Blog tells you exactly what is going on right now in chart form:
Middle of Nowhere
These guys are very sharp.

Mark of Illusion of Prosperity has a wonderful post on seafood prices that was very interesting:
Seafood for Thought

Tony of Macro Story always has the day's round up I want to see:
Market Recap Thursday September 8, 2011

Hat tip to Kid Dynamite, this great post on a possible "Operation Twist" by Bond Girl has this perfect line:

"The duration of the Fed’s portfolio is not what is standing between us and economic prosperity. Get real, people."

Love it.

Have a good night.

Linkfest for Tuesday

Starting a bit late after dinner clean up and lunch preparation took longer than usual. Don't ask. As such it will be a link fest!

Market Operations
I am going on vacation the last week this month so I was going to go to all cash before I left. As I took a few hits the past few days it seems like a good time as well! I am out of everything except my stop was missed in PAAS so I still have it and I am holding a position in WNR as well.

Links
Where else are you going to get tales of Maple Syrup production, Cigarette Arbitrage, the low down on ETF', Silver coverage, and Toilet Replacement drama? Only one place friends:
Kid Dynamite - Content is King

The Downtown Man himself, Farmer Brown angles a question in an interesting way today. It would be worth your time to think how you would answer and what that may mean for the long term, big picture:
The False Hope of Higher Prices

Like we did not know:
Big banks are government-backed: Fed's Hoenig

Fans of alternate history type thinking may find this one really fun:
Would a Soviet Moon landing have forced the US to go to Mars?

Have a good night.

Here I am Stimulating the Economies

This summer has been especially amazing weather wise so the last two days of rain have not bothered me that much after last summers debacle of a season. It was actually nice to wear a long sleeve shirt in the cool misty air for once. Still, hoping for some better weather by the weekend.

Stuff You Should Read
I am short on time this evening so here are some items I think are worth a look if you want some real content.

-Interfluidity offers his take on the Treasury meeting with bloggers.

-EconomPic has a great post up relating mortgage rates and home prices. My favorite line:

While I am not claiming that prices will fall off another cliff soon, there is a significant risk of a further decline... especially if rates don't stay this low (for this reason I do expect rates to stay this low).

I have to admit I was wrong about how hard the Fed would push to keep rates lows and wrong about how willing the markets seem to play "stocks say economic recovery, but bonds say collapse, let's just keep going!".

-Illusion of Prosperity updates the "Cartoon Physics" graphs and the results are almost creepy in predictive value.

-Zero Hedge had this item titled "Gene Noser's 5 Suggestions On How To Regain Our Market Back From The Robots" which I though may fit in with our robotics discussions here, but it was just about algos.

-There is no bond bubble and debt markets are not being saturated with liquidity. In this way 100 year corporate bonds make perfect sense.

Here I am Stimulating the Economies
I did my consumer zombie part and stimulated the economy. Our kitchen was all original and while that would be great if it was a classic corvette or something, it was not working out for me as a room in the house.

You may wonder why a "doom and gloomer" would do such a thing? Why "waste" money? Why not buy gold and toilet paper? Well, the kitchen was almost unusable space; the cabinets did not even close anymore; I was sick of it. I had the cash to pay for this set aside for over a year but the designer we worked with last year was a total flake so we stopped the planning last go around. We will also not be going anywhere unless I win the lotto and retire to the Bahamas so this is not a trick to try and jack up a resale value. This was just for the wife and I.

That said, we kept withing a budget and did not over improve the kitchen. A basic overall was the plan and other than falling in love with a silly expensive granite, we kept things pretty tame cost wise. We gained so much space by dumping the monster wall cabinets the room seems twice as big now. All in all I am very pleased.

On to the visuals! I will try to keep the pictures grouped before/after in about the same shot to make it easier to visualize. Please note that my Pug dog is a camera ham and if we are taking pictures he tries to get into the shot.

Coming in to the kitchen from the hallway you could see the huge in wall electric oven. I hate electric ovens and wished for a real gas range. Here is the look before:

So what we did was move the refrigerator into the newly enlarged area where the old oven/microwave was. With the monster cabinets gone we were able to make a little alcove station for the new microwave and a nifty butcher block counter:


Here is the sink area and counter with a huge closet cabinet before:

Here is the new counter area and new sink/faucet:

The old cooktop gas burners (I hated these things!):

Brand new oven area with an awesome gas LG Range:

I have already used the oven twice and I am in love!

The fridge used to be on the opposite side of the room (hello pug!):

You can also see the crappy linoleum floors here. Another before picture of the corner:

Now this entire corner is one of those revolving "lazy susan's" . How did they get that name anyways?

Here is the huge wall of cabinets that ate up all the space in the room (Pug alert bottom right!):

And now the open wall after with new heater line:

The wife found the artwork I have dubbed "Ode to Pug". You can see the new floors here as well. Great cost saving tip, skip the tile! Here in New England the winter makes a tile floor not much fun when the cold sets in. This floor is a composite interlocking tile that is free floating so it stays warmer in the winter. Very cost effective as well!

Here is another shot of the granite we liked; thing is there is no more of it as the quarry from where it came started giving up stone that looked much different. We lucked out that someone cancelled their order for the slab we ended up with:


More space and much better functionality. Just what a scientist needs!

Still some things to finish up on:
-The main light does not fit the room anymore so I await the wife selecting a new one any day now (good thing she does not read my blog!).
-The trim around the window and doors as well as the garage door does not match the new cabinets. As I love to stain wood and make mitre cuts myself I will remedy this when the summer is over.

There will be other little things but I am pretty happy with the end result. Awaiting the final bill in the mail any day.....

Have a good night.

You Are in Good Hands

Well I am about out of time for a post once again! Monday's can be rough. At least the Celtics won game 2 of the NBA finals but of course I got sucked into watching the whole thing late last night. Not fun at 5am this morning.

You Are in Good Hands
I don't have much to offer for tonight. I think the market weakness was not good considering what I discussed Friday and Sunday. I think the US bond auctions finish up this week so I would expect a rally after that. Liquidity needs to find a home, yes?

I did notice that the volume on the late day sell off was really low, this is the inverse of the usual pattern. What delicious irony it would be if program trading pumped up a fake market and then walks it back down again. Unreal.

You are in good hands if you use the blogroll on the left. Plenty of great stuff. Some items in particular:
-Tim Iacono reviews the three part series on Gold by the WSJ's Brett Arends. Mr. Arends comes to the conclusion that gold maybe, could be a bubble and offers an idea on options to "play" the gold market. More paper games?

-John Hussman wonders if markets are nervous about the next US Mortgage meltdown:
Markets Aren't Worried About Greece Or Hungary, But Rather The Next US Mortgage Crisis
We should know real soon!

-The Automatic Earth has been very sharp as of late, so stop on in. The site is expecting to revamp and expand their work around the beginning of July, so if you appreciate the site like I do why not throw a few bucks in their donation bin to help out?

-The Housing Time Bomb reviews 2 scenarios for the bond markets going forward. Worth the thought experiment.

-The Evil Speculator has a great post that is very technical in nature. Complete with hilarious video, you should be aware of the TRIN index. The author points out quite a few things that agree with my nervous stance.

Have a good night.