Happy New Year!

That eve once again is upon us.

Market Themes for 2012
After 2011, I am going to skip the "this will happen" sort of thing for 2012. I think it will be best to be ready with an open mind. It is likely several things will present themselves in the first 3 months of 2012 which will be important for the entire year. I want to be ready to see them.

As for my own ideas for the New Year there are three things I want to be more diligent about which would have made a big return difference in 2011:

-Allowing runners to run. It was reactive to jump out with a small to medium gain in a trade that was working. Not many, but several of these trades became longer term winners if held through a bit of volatility. Identifying the most sound moves up will extend gains.

-Focus on extreme sentiment inflection points and place the correct, forceful bet when the time comes. If the manic market continues, these spots may prove to be both somewhat common and very profitable.

-Do not trade so much. The first half of the year I would open my best 2-3 ideas, and then add on 3-5 other ones I felt had promise. I will work to stick to my best 3-6 ideas at a time (usually in short term account looking to play a 2 week resolution of a pattern or target) and give them the right amount of attention.

I feel very fortunate to have broadly expanded the readership of Economic Disconnect in 2011. I have to thank many people for all the links, ReTweets, and kind words that allowed this to happen. It's amazing really.

Let's keep it running in the New Year.

Happy New Year

In the New Year try to do one thing that I suggest; email, leave a comment on a blog, or talk to someone you have wanted to. Take a chance and you never know where that may lead you.

Evening Music
Going to load a few of my favorite songs of this year (I heard them for first time, maybe older than 2011) and a New Years Eve performance.

"Two of the Lucky Ones" by The Droge and Summers Blend:


Nightwish's tearfully pretty song "Sleeping Sun":


I tend to spend New Years right in my living room, its just safer and more fun. In 2006 The Bangles did a performance of "Hazy Shade of Winter" that just rocked the house:


Have a good night.

Happy New Year in 2011!

Hello out there!

I hope everyone had a great holiday week. I basically took the whole week off from doing much of anything and it was very nice. Slowing things down can be fun too. I wanted to share a few recent items as well as a few words.

First off, the big snowstorm that came early last week turned out to not be too bad here. Maybe 8 inches of snow, but it snowed for like 18 hours so it seemed like more. Luckily it was the super light stuff, easy to move. Here is the House after the storm looking very pretty all wintered up:

Don't bug me about the house color, it is atrocious and will be repainted next year I think.

For Christmas dinner I made a 7 pound Prime Rib on the Big Steel Keg. I had never cooked in the cold air before (it was about 20 degrees) and thus I had some temperature control issues as the cold air was like jet fuel for the lump charcoal! I had wanted to cook the roast for about 4-4.5 hours at 300 degrees, but it was more like 3 hours at 350-375! The meal tasted wonderful, but there was only medium done meat, no medium rare to rare was achieved. What can you do. Here is the roast before:

And after it was done:

Still looks great at least!

The last news item refers to the new addition to the family! A little kitten was adopted from our local Humane Society! Long time readers may know that I love cats very much. When my last cat died a while back I was seriously hurt and it had taken a LONG time to even think about another cat. After about 6 months of trips to the Humane Society (who do a great job!) I found a new companion, her name is Jessie and she is a torti mix who is as sweet as it gets:

Of course all tortoise coat cats have a wild streak and she set out right after the Christmas Tree ornaments as fair game:

Little monster!

Our Pug dog Norman was upset for the first couple of days with a new competitor, but he has settled in well now. It is fun to have a cat again.

I know I am supposed to say something memorable or uplifting going into the New Year. I guess I am going to come up short. 2010 was at times great, terrible, successful, a mess, fun, and sad. I would imagine most can say that about any year. All I know is I am committed to getting myself rolling in 2011 and that means some real work on my trading. I kept a bunch of models of various things I had wanted to work on and they would have done really well (what didn't in 2010?) but I was just not into it. In 2011, I want some money! I am looking forward to writing more as well. Who wants Friday Night Blogging back?

Most of all a fresh start is always the promise of New Years, and that is a good promise indeed. I wish everyone a wonderful 2011 and I would hope the promise of a fresh start will help you as well.

Have a good night.