Monday, June 16, 2008

PM post.


I have a sinus headache today that is still unabated. So it has been one of those days.

My beef tenderloin was wonderful. I elected to grill it whole (made a paste of garlic, olive oil, thyme and rosemary, salt and pepper). My husband seemed concerned that I was going to ruin it, as I we've not much experience with this grill. I had no concerns, and I put his to rest.

It was nice to visit with our Father's--but it was a long day for me.

My son is the proud owner of a used 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX. They went up to Baltimore area today. They are on their way back, so I have to stay up. My son is very excited. It is exactly the car he wants.

It is a manual shift which he does not know how to drive. I overheard him say that "he was familiar with the concept". Well that doesn't mean much! Mark is driving the vehicle home and my son is driving the truck. It's a long day driving to Baltimore and back. I remember well when I drove to get Daisey. Hard to believe that I've almost had her a year.

I've been spending some time on the FINVIZ.com site. I have a link for you in the tabs above. It is just fantastic. I hope that you will visit it to see how it might fit with your stock research needs.

I heard Dennis Gartman say on TV today that if someone put a gun to his head and asked him about oil that he would just ask the person to pull the trigger. Oil, coal and steel--they've been unbelievable performers. I still think the coin toss on the BRIC countries is going to be the overall tell. To my eye it is the last bastion of hope for the market. I believe they are slowing, and I see news to that fact (mostly on Bloomberg which does a pretty good job covering Asia.) But it does not appear to me that the commodity stocks--the last to leave the party stocks--are reflecting that. I'm happy to stand mostly aside in all of this.

I do have some SEP 35 GE calls. A stupid stock trick assuredly!

I'm almost done with my Reminiscences book. All I can say is, "Wow!". The scheming and thievery--and I doubt that it is much different now. It has really shaped my perspective. It also gives me a new appreciation for technicals in terms of its specific use in the "sold to you" plays. And when the big money unloads, it is indeed sold to us.

GS is out tomorrow. I cannot imagine that they miss.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"T. Boone Pickens: Saudi production increase of 200K bpd will "not do much"

He's really talking his book a lot lately.

Leisa - any opinion on Uranium?

Looking at the longer term charts -Uranium seems to peak first in the Energy cycle.

However a lot of the contracts are coming up for renewal soon.

And the old contracts were at really low prices.

So it could benefit some of these beaten down stocks.

And in the long run - China isn't going to waste it's financial resources buying $150 oil and burning coal till you can't breathe - ultimately it will turn it's attention to other energy means.

--

Isn't it odd that with a supposed Energy Crisis and the supposed Green movement - that there would be no interest in Uranium as a fuel source - it costs a fraction of fossil fuels.

When I was travelling in Turkey a while back - I met a brit - a consultant - who worked for all the big oil co's...

He said that the world is swimming in oil.

And so the Oil Companies don't want to expand production and they discourage the use of alternative energy and nuclear energy

Also I read somewhere a while back that Exxon is spending more on share buybacks than on exploration - enough said...

Oil: and artificial market - if ever there was one.

nice

Anonymous said...

Wall Street knows the news flow...

At the end of last week as negative news flow came (which was known to them ahead of time) they bought in and sold puts.

Then market moves up as oil fell and GS good news - market gives signals to TA types - maybe move up to some short term support or break it slightly - then Wall Street sells out and those puts are now worthless.

Now market goes lower - negative news flow and worries about MS and FDX - everyone wants to short the news (again known to Wall Street)

Support levels look like they will be taken out or are taken out slightly - then we reverse.

.. wash rinse repeat...

nice

Anonymous said...

"The final decline"

Everymove has a final decline...

Particularly those ones that happen every 4 years - or at least once or twice a decade...

During the final move - EVERYTHING DOES DOWN usually...

According to the cycle for years ending in '08 - this decline should happen in the early Fall ahead of the election...

No cycles are perfect - the Bears seem to be counting on it happening now... will the bears win this one - or get the timing wrong again?

nice

Anonymous said...

,, should have read

During the final move - EVERYTHING GOES DOWN usually...

(that means oil, gold, fertilizer and all the favs)

If during the final move down these things hold up - this portends the stagflation/split type of market - until the end of the decade...

Oil is probably the key - the Trend is weakening - but still up... USO types will probably try to all bail out at once if we drop - otherwise people will see support holding and jump back in...

..nice...

Leisa♠ said...

NG--I really do not know what to make out of any of this. Inflation news and industrial news were not good today. Financials are vulnerably, and interest rate cycle is not friendly.

I don't have an opinion on uranium. I do think that nuclear energy makes a lot of sense. In fact I was looking at a company today that disposes of nuclear waste. The name a ticker escape me.

The oil market is crazy. If Dennis Gartman is confused (and he seems to be a straight shooter), then I feel quite comfortable being confused as well.

Thanks for your stream of comments.

Anonymous said...

Leisa

Most of the gyrations seem to be noise - related to movements in the oil market and fear about earnings being reported the next day - with the banks still being sold down.

As far as the oil market - something is really screwy there - all the futures contracts out to the end of this decade (DEC2010) recently went to a new marginal high.

Someone is still scrambling to buy(cover?) oil contracts (probably rolling over to longer dated contracts).

So Gartman is probably right about staying out - however small players can maybe take advantage of this participation fear of the institutional investors - as if oil makes a move either way - they won't have gotten in yet - so one can trade in front of them.

It is also possible that quite a few large oil companies/energy trusts will have hedging losses if they didn't predict the recent move correctly (or at least they won't have benefited from the move higher in oil prices since they sold forward at lower prices)

The earnings next quarter though for oil stocks should be huge if they are rolling over and locking in now to higher prices...(assuming someone wants to buy at these prices)

All this is probably part of the game to keep the S&P500 afloat - since other than non-semi tech and a few sectors - other sectors are having declining earnings... so why not boost the S&P500 with the oil stocks....

You are right about the interest rate cycle - if commodity contracts go into a deeper contango - the Fed Funds rate will be blatantly negative - he can hold it there if he wants - but the rest of the yield market will begin pushing on the string against him.

Based on the profits of GS - it looks like they made all the right moves including probably the oil market.

.. In short we are dealing with a hoarding situation.

Funds, institutions, foreign countries, despots, even producers - are all hoarding supplies of metals, energy etc...

Until something changes - they continue to hoard - BUT when that change comes - the market gets flooded with supply....

have a good evening all..... nice