Random commentary.

whoa, whats going on with the markets in the last 15-30 min, this week. I wake up in Japan and look at the charts, and usually there's some kind of reversal (up, down) during that time frame. Like on Friday it seems like some decided to drop some big buys at the end of the day. The volume too is crazy in the last few minutes of trading. Still using small positions on etfs and trading ups and downs.

quote of the day:

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

George Bernard Shaw

Weekend

Had a pretty good weekend. Friday went to the gym and got a good workout. Also watched some Korean movies. Starting to enjoy a lot of foreign films.

Saturday woke up early at 730 and woke up the rest of my softball team. lol, one of my teammates had a hard time to getting up said "man I'm breathing vodka right now". Did horribly in the tournament, but it was fun. Ojeda recorded some of it. I'll see if I can post a vid up later. Did some hw and slept the rest of the day

Sunday went to a friends open house out in town. He had a pretty cool place, a lot better than the barracks!!! Meet a bunch of older ppl who brought their kids and babies. It was cool anyways meeting other people. Played cards; phase 10 and watch some old movies. yeah never saw Goonies before.

Been trading lately

The last week in the market have been crazy. Swinging up and down wildly.
It seems the Dow been hits it daily low midday then rallies back the last hour of trading.
I've currently stationed in Okinawa which makes stock trading a bit weird. The U.S market opens at 1030 in Japan. I usually don't day trade, but it seems the only way to make money is to take advantage of the intra day volatility the market is offering. lol, unfortunately I get really tired around 11 and I got pt at 0530 in the morning. So I look at the futures, and the news, then make some limit orders. Then go to sleep Been trading etfs lately. DXD, DBA, and others. Also set some limit orders for stocks, I want to pick up in long term. My limit orders hit for GE, and JPM.

For the ETFs. I'm using 12% of my portfolio. My limit orders for stocks hit 20%.
The rest of my position is cash about 70%. I'm trying to take small bites when buying stocks.

JPM:7.5% of portfolio
GE: 12% of portfolio

I'm comfortable with my position in JPM at 34.70. I believe this is a good price and will cost average down from there. I'm a bit uncomfortable with my GE position and will hedge, or develop an exit strategy. I think 12% of my portfolio of GE is not good and a 20% of stock in portfolio is a little to much.

For the next week, I plan to hedge against losses by continuing trading etfs, and looking for more opportunities to take small chunks of good stocks. Hopefully over the weekend, traders and investors will take time to calm down and think.

Market Analysis

So whats been happening lately in the markets?I would like to write tons of stuff about it.
but this guy already has.. ( below taken from google forums). Anyways bit upset that I missed the bounce back on Monday, but I think chasing this rally is a bad idea. Have a lot of cash ready to buy, but I guess I gotta be patience, hopefully we'll visit lows. Crystal ball says when the Dow rallies to 10000 it'll fall rite back down. hahahaha.



Market Commentary:


Basically what is happening here is a fight between Deflationary
forces and Inflationary forces.

Credit Freeze, Banks weary to lend, consumers tapped out, business not
investing, De-leveraging of real estate and other assets is all
causing massive Deflationary pressures.. what happens in deflationary
periods.. ALL assets to include stocks, gold, bread butter and beer go
down in price. Jobs go down the drain, layoffs increase. BUT... one
good thing happens.. the DOLLAR STRENGTHENS. Which is what we were
starting to see. Its good if you don't have debt, and your positioned
in cash because your purchasing power goes up. Its bad if you have
debt because it makes dollars harder to come by and there for harder
for you to repay creditors.. and thats the last thing most Americans
need because they are up to their ears in debt. BUT its good for the
extremely wealthy, they don't mind either way im sure, because they
probably have already sold everything including you baby boomers
stocks at DOW 14000 causing them to tank and re-positioning in dollars
to buy up assets during the brief window of opportunity if and when it
presents itself.

AND of coarse the Feds are pumping up inflation to combat the
deflationary pressures on the US.. I am pretty sure China is on board
with helping us inflate our currency as well for the benefit of their
own economy. Inflation isn't as bad as deflation since we get to keep
our jobs, and it prevents civil unrest.. but our dollar value goes
down more, so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in real
terms meaning, your labor per hour of time becomes worth less and your
standard of living goes down... but you get to keep working your ass
off so the blood and sweat keeps the gears of the conveyor belt that
transfers wealth from the working class to the jet class well lubed.

Basically i think what happened today signified the first minor battle
the Feds have won against increasingly strong deflationary pressures
by extreme inflation and attempting to ease the fear banks have of
lending. So deflation may be on the way down but Inflation is on the
way up.. I wonder how banks are planning to position themselves in
this scenario to maintain profitability with the future risks being
both inflationary and deflationary? Maybe both the banks and the Feds
hope with all this money saturating the financial world will give way
to a new bubble somewhere.. anywhere.. I say they should give any
business 0% loans to invest in green energy.. bet that could create
some jobs, spur a lil economic growth and maybe get us off oil.. why
give it all to the banks.. their just going to try to make more money
for themselves, we may as well give it to a sector of our economy that
would make use of it..

All in all I think Its an oscillating process on Inflation and
Deflation. the two will meet somewhere in the middle OR one may win
entirely, but the cycles will probably reverberate faster than most
would imagine as time goes on... Who would have guest it was so hard
to maintain a fiat currency so long?.. I guess the prices in Gold and
the prices in the stock market will help tell us if Inflation or
Deflation is currently winning.. but if you notice prices continuing
to go down in commodities thats bad news, deflation could spiral out
of control... people spend less, business layoff workers, more people
are un-employed so they buy less, more business fail and the cycle
continues down as a depression emerges out of our current recession.
It could be a good reset, albeit a very difficult one, but in the long
term.. inflation will eventually come back full force with all the
current spending, Trillions of dollars chasing few assets around the
world.. prices will have to go up or the feds will need to have sky
high interest rates to remove excess dollars.. Although current the
money supply is increasing as the feds try to free up liquidity the
Velocity of money basically the rate at which it exchanges hands is
decreasing as economic activity is grinding to a halt. So we will see
if their actions are enough to prevent Deflation.. I say, mid-term
moderate deflation, long term, inflation possibly hyper inflation..

I really don't know to what extent holders of foreign debt holders
will play in all this.. also with so much consolidation among large
companies going on with this down turn, I think when inflation does
hit, it will hit hard and fast as there will be less barriers the
dollars flows through before reaching the hands of the public. But we
will see, maybe the two forces will cancel out.. but i doubt it,
because the momentum behind the two seem quite drastic which is why I
believe they will oscillate instead.

BUT the 10 Trillion dollar question is, will we have deflation? if so
when and for how long, and if not, will we have inflation or Hyper
inflation..Its really all up to the feds and how they deal with this
problem. This should clear up some things for some of you traders
wondering why golds going down, why the dollar is going up, and why
the stock market is so crazy.. ... ... it took a few hours of reading,
but i think this conclusion I have arrived at is pretty close to whats
going on... if someone knows the "When" i would love to hear it, as
they same timing is everything.

sa...@xtensiv.net

Trading

In the midst of all this craziness, Buy low sell high. This chart made me laugh

Daily life

Sometimes its cool being in the military. I get to see Humvees, fight planes and helicopters on a daily basis. HAha, still don't they actual names of the things flying by. It just be like "cool there's a helicopter flying by, whats that called again?.. Chinook, Cobra?!?"

Yeah, I was in my room today, and my window started rattling really badly, I looked outside and it was a helicopter (Chinook) fly really low outside, right by the barracks.

Another week

So another week is passing by pretty quick again.

Monday went to work and meet the new guys in the shop.

Tuesday went to a beach bbq at kin blue. Wasn't the greatest beach party, but better than going to work.

Wednsday, played bball at lunch and forget to eat breakfast and lunch. Was really hungry the rest of the day. Platoon sgt makes the whole barracks field day! Rumors going around saying that some congressman is coming by the base to look at the barracks?!?! Pretty hectic night, stayed up late cleaning the lounges and my room.

Thursday, failed room inspections (surprise!), but went on the battle sites tour during the day. It was a pretty awesome tour. Visted a few museums, battle sites, Japanese underground ecampments, and the peace memorial. I'll try to steal some pics latter to upload. Went to school at night and learned a little about html programming.

Fri: Can't wait for it to come. Weekends almost here. Gonna be sleeping.