Open Thread

Getting packed up and set up for the trip to New York tomorrow. This is an open thread to post anything interesting and I will be checking in on the comments over the next few days. Have a great week!

Have a good night.

Take a Break on Friday Night

I was able to find a dentist that could see my right away today. They re-cemented my crown and it feels fine. That was so annoying.

I may post something tomorrow night, but then I will be off until Wednesday as I trek to New York City for The Big Picture Conference.

Take a Break on Friday Night
Another wild ride today for markets. Up big, down big, it's all over the place. I am hopeful next week while I am busy some clarity will come. Earnings start in earnest next week, you know what to be looking for.

Ok, Of to the show!

Friday Night Entertainment
Let's see what I can find to present.

Hugh Ferriss - Charcoal Art
Stumbled upon some amazing work by Hugh Ferriss, whose works influenced the idea for the city of Gotham in the Batman series. Love the work, here are two examples:

Much more at this expansive link:
Hugh Ferriss: Delineator of Gotham

Fun with Photos
Let's see what we can see.

Serves him right for wearing that T-shirt:

see more Very Demotivational

Yes ladies, even across time and space and through a TV men can stare at boobs:

see more This is Photobomb

Film Clips
What to see on movie night.

I love Tom Hanks and Leonardo in "Catch Me if You Can" and I highly recommend a watch:


"The Mask of Zorro" was very well done. Here at the start of the clip, a new Zorro is given the mask:

Nice.

Rock Blogging
Musical chairs without the nasty competition since 2007.

One of the great things about being a blogger and having a solid reader base is that you get to see people go through life, just like you do. Luckily I have many long time readers and one great one is known simply as G. Back in 2007 (I think) G started reading and commenting as a young man very concerned about how things where going in the economic world. Later on, G joined the military and I was sad to not hear from him for a long time. He popped back up at "private G" and said he was doing well. As of late it is now Lieutenant G, and he is off to airborne special ops soon! Can you believe that! All my best G, and thanks. G asked for Skynet Symphonic (Terminator 2 Remix), so here it is:

Be safe my friend.

Author Jennifer Hillier requested some old school Adam Ant and "Goody Two Shoes":

No drinks even, Jennifer? Come on! You must do something bad!

Reader Gawains was looking for Slade and "Mama Weer all Crazee Now" and I did not know they did this song first (Thinking Quiet Riot):

Nifty.

"Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann was the pick from Sovereign Bohemian and features one of the most mixed up lines ever in music (its not wrapped up like a, well, Google it):


Ozzy's "Waiting for Darkness" is a tune I have always loved:


Ok, two songs left!

The Dan Band doing Bonnie Tyler's immortal "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and yes it's full of bad words:

Thanks go to the movie "Old School".

Last call! Grab a girl or the closest drink:

Ok, I stole this from The Reformed Broker! But what is better than elementary school ,kids doing a live "Enter Sandman"?:

That little girl plays a mean axe!

Have a good night.

Swinging Thursday

I was having a pretty good day until one of my dental crowns pulled off, now I am a bit annoyed. No matter, it's Thursday night. Have a mini vacation coming up starting Sunday in NYC. If you ever wanted to meet me, and you a fellow blogger/writer in NYC, well here's your chance.

Get your requests in for Friday night. Make it count!

Swinging Thursday
Markets are rolling this week and at this point meeting strong resistance overhead. We could discuss chart levels, sentiment, and other stuff but you have probably seen that all day. What I like about this week, and this is news, some stocks started to act somewhat normal, making trading them something I could do without being in fear a 20% drop in 1 minute was going to happen any second.

When swing trading (2 days to a week or two) I use Japanese candles coupled with the awesome iBankCoin tool, The PPT. This allows me to screen for the kinds of looks I want, and quickly. My way of picking stocks can work in almost any market, as long as there is some kind of trend. Up, down, or sideways is ok. Where candles become just things to try and set a room mood to get lucky in is heavy wash out down markets, rip roaring up markets, or 100 point S&P 500 range-bound sideways markets. They just don't work well and I know that. They have not been working for a while. I stopped trading while the drama happened.

They worked well this week.

Now you might think that of course in a melt up market they all worked but it has not been that way for all the rallies so far. This week was different.

I bought the stock NI on Tuesday and the stock CVLT on Wednesday. I sold NI for a +3.5% gain and CVLT for a +5.5% gain today. Here are charts for them with crappy arrows for entry and exit. I am short on time so it's the best I can do:
NI

CVLT

What was good about these two stocks is that they were the only two positions I had and I knew solid exit points, even if the market tanked, would hold. This allowed me to put more money into both than I would normally. They were large positions. NYC here I come with a bit of cash for the trip!

Right now I am thinking that it's best I am going on a mini vacation. Earnings get going next week and I cannot shake the feeling like things are still not fully priced in to the downside. That said, when my charts start working and news flow is neutral one can see how this market wants to run. It's just a tough show.

"Discretion is the better part of valor."

I don't need to catch THE bottom or even be close. When markets get settled I know I can work them, it's just still not time. Soon I hope, and I have a whole room of Pelicans to work with.

Have a good night.

Loss of a True Visionary

I got stuck with errands and things, so a bit short on time tonight. It makes little difference that I am not doing a post though, news has come that Steve Jobs has passed away.

I crack on Apple plenty and I will most likely never buy a product of theirs (I am too PC ingrained) but I am not stupid. Steve Jobs return to Apple marked some of the most innovative products of all time. Jobs was able to fuse the new era of Internet with products people wanted to use. I think it fair to say Apple has changed the world in the last decade, and probably most of that can be attributed to Steve Jobs.

If you want to see the news try out the very cool News feature at iBankCoin:
iBankCoin Financial News

Apple Inc has a memorial up on their main site tonight as well:
Apple Inc

Have a good night.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

Another banner drive home in the rain. Looking forward to a New York mini vacation without driving.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired; I used to go to bed so high and wired" -Ozzy, I Just Want You

This morning started off shaky for markets and the S&P 500 quickly fell to 1074, which was about 9 points higher than the 1065 I mentioned last night as a long term support area. Things rallied from there, but later in the day the all too familiar fade came, and things started looking very bad. Then what?

Markets exploded higher going into the close in a wild move of panic buying. There were some rumors of Euro banking bailouts and all that but it just seemed like shorts had packed it in for the day and maybe everyone was just sick of feeling sick about the markets.

I still have not seen the kind of wash out capitulation that would make me super constructive on things, and we may never get one at this rate. This action is not healthy, but it is what it is. Can it last a few days? I think it could and I even made a buy today.

I have been watching the stock NI for some time. Here is a daily chart and you can see the reversal candle today right at $20.50 which is a key price for this stock:

I bought some stock before the close. I am not ready to commit much to this market, it still has to negotiate some very serious hurdles, but for the time being it seems a run may be in place.

In case you want to get all glassy eyed and party with this market, I would point you to one of the best essay's I have ever read which was published today. Josh Brown's "Season of the Witch" is the absolute must read for anyone here. Small snippet:

Now there are those who look at the recent data and say that it is only a slowing of growth, not an actual economic contraction. "So what if year-over-year GDP declines below 2%," they'll say. My response is that they may be right - but they should be aware that every single instance of Y-O-Y GDP growth slipping beneath 2% since 1948 has led to a recession. Every single time we've slowed down to this extent in the last 60 years we've gone down to the zero line (11 instances) and into negative territory (10 instances). The ship is not so easily turned.

This earnings season upcoming will be the final arbiter for how active I want to be in the markets going forward. Sick of feeling sick about the market? I understand, and maybe a rally will improve morale out there. Just don't forget there is some important information coming soon that demands your attention.

Have a good night.

Worth Waiting For

It was a Monday. Enough said. Posting will be light this week as I have to take training for the incoming robots we are getting at work so I am not sure what time I will getting home most of the week. I am a part of the robot revolution cog, I have no choice!

Worth Waiting For
Markets took another hit today. There are plenty of danger signals and while I do not get the feeling that real fear has arrived, people are rightfully frustrated at how non-constructive the markets are for anything but quick trades. Even I, the most patient of the patient, am getting both bored and annoyed with all the churn.

I am going to start with a couple of charts and then discuss what could be waiting on the other side of this long market correction.

This is a weekly chart of the S&P 500:

The boxed areas are the bottoming process for the 2009 low (5 months)and the 2010 low (3 months). We have been going down for 2 months now in the current iteration of market chaos. I have noted 1065 as the next support line and that one goes back over a year. S&P closed at 1099 today.

The next chart is for the inverse S&P 500 index fund, SH:

The green arrow is when I had opened a position in SH. I was shaken out of that in my trading account (along with PSQ). I have noted that a run to the $50 range is likely.

So what do both charts say? Unless we are about to enter into some kind of massive recession, it is my stance that markets are closer to finishing up the downside move than just starting to crash. As Josh Brown says, a recession is not the end of the world, but they hurt.

Earnings season is starting next week (Alcoa: AA reports October 11th) and that is where there is going to be some clarity given to the markets. Has a slowdown started? How severe? What about guidance going forward? Big questions that need answers.

I have been in cash for the trading account pretty much all summer. This weekend I allocated more funds to the account. Why?

I think we are 2-3 weeks from seeing closure. My bias at this point is for a washout bottom to occur, then some basing through earnings season. With that pressure relieved, I think things can move higher. If not, and things deteriorate even more, then shorting via index funds is a viable way to make trades.

Keep in mind Europe is closer to bailout approval, the FED must be getting nervous (Bernanke speaks tomorrow, watch for some hints at QE3), and I think people are getting pretty sick of feeling like shit about the market. Very scientific, I know.

It's worth waiting for the other side of the tunnel here. Instead of scalping pennies on fast trades, better sentiment and better numbers could make good stocks move 10-25% in weeks going into years end. Maybe I can catch that move and then all the momentum players piling in toward years end can make finding winners easier than since the new year. It's very possible. In any case, a few more weeks of waiting and watching is not that hard to do. Plus if there is a crash, I would miss that too!

Have a good night.

Saturday Stuff

Just hanging around on a Saturday night. Let's see what is interesting.

Reader Book Review for Jennifer Hillier's "Creep"
I believe I have the best set of readers out there. Many long time readers have been with me since the beginning (Watchtower, 4 years!). Reader Gawains is another long term contributor here in the comments section. I sent Gawains a copy of Jennifer Hillier's novel "Creep" a while back. He was kind enough to send me a review of the book (that I passed on to Jennifer) but I figured I would put in on the blog to highlight Gawains effort and a well written review of a book I really liked. Here is Gawains:

"Okay, let’s see. We’ve got sex addiction, serial murder, dead co-eds all over the place, a kill room, dismembered bodies in the basement, one in Puget Sound, anxiety, paranoia, lust, rage, stalking, obsession, disguises, rohypnal, kidnapping, bondage, sensory deprivation, adult diapers, psychological manipulation,, a professor with a serious problem, a fiancé with performance issues, a graduate student with hidden secrets, a girlfriend who is totally depraved, a private detective who doesn’t see the big picture until it almost kills him, a last minute rescue (by a Texan with a Remington 700 no less—and for those of you who don’t know, in the original Dracula, what kills the evil vampire is not a cross or a stake, but a Texan with a Bowie knife), and another killer left on the prowl. Sounds like a mosaic of modern America.

When I was a kid, my mother and sister had this thing for serial killer books, true crime novels. They would read them, and every morning at breakfast they would talk about their nightmares. Hell of a way to start the day, you know. So, finally, I started reading them. Helter Skelter, Bundy, Gacey (to this day I am afraid of clowns), the Hill Side Stranglers (that one scared me the most), I read them all. It caused me many sleepless nights, so I am well versed on this particular pathology.

As an English professor, I didn’t really teach “English.” Yeah, sure, I gave the obligatory lessons on grammar, syntax, punctuation and spelling, when I noticed recurring mistakes my students were making. What I actually taught was The Scientific Method. I never taught creative writing, although I did teach some classes on literature, which is to say literary criticism and interpretation. The same pattern applies. The key to writing an effective novel is to create interesting and believable characters, put them in situations, and see what happens. Of course, the author has an idea in mind, but it’s all about how the story unfolds. My mother read this book in one morning. She couldn’t put it down, even blew off work to finish reading it. (If you had any idea how rare that is, you don’t know her; she’s a workaholic.) But she doesn’t read the same way I do. She reads the story. I look more at how the writer structures, organizes and develops the story.

What Ms. Hillier has done in this book is off the map. Her characters are twisted, the situation bizarre, and the outcome unpredictable. I found this book engaging, though I rarely read in this genre, which is the psychological thriller, but I found it interesting. There are many plot twists, unexpected developments due to misdirection. And at the end, nothing left but fear."

Thanks!

Odds and Ends
Random stuff for Saturday night.

-Centralia Pennsylvania has an underground coal fire that will burn for, well, forever.

-My friend David Batista knows way too much about the game Gears of War 3.

-Do you know who Xenia is? You do now.

-Enjoy this one in a million paper airplane shot!

Have a good night.