July 2009

In order to stimulate business and keep mortgage rates low the government is doing everything it can to hold interest rates down.  How long they will be able to borrow money from the rest of the world at these rates is a major question.   In December of last year USU09, the 30-Year Bond future, was trading at 139+;  it is now at 119-07.   There is still upside pressure being applied to the daily chart, but the indicator is in an extended area of the chart and should turn over soon.   To restart a move lower from the current high, price would have to go through 116-20 and then the first price objective would be 113-31.  Price has met resistance at the 60-minute target price, D, 119-05, and now price is trying to move higher.   The resistance points for the move are 119-14 to 119-20, and then 120-04.  I don't believe that price will reach D at 120-20, but stranger things have happened. (IT)

There was nothing on TV tonight, we weren't going out, and I finished the book I was reading, so I started to look at charts.  After Friday there is nothing that I looked that said higher.  If you are long I would definitely tighten up your stops before the opening on Monday.  I looked at about 40 big time stocks and ETFs and found that all have hit an entry price for a down move and there was dowside pressure being applied to all of them. Looking at daily charts, SPX has a P of 852, the INDU found temporary support at 8271 and the next support area would be 8114.  If that number is hit there is a longer term cycle with a projection down to 7591.  On the quad Qs the short cycle projects down to 34+ . It should be noted that none of these prices would void the up moves.  We are in for some big time moves unless there are some very good earnings reports.   There should be a try to close the opening gap created on Friday.  Whether it will be successful or not we will have to wait and see.  If it does occur it should provide a good place to short this market until things indicate a change in direction can happen. This is just one man's opinion.  Ira.

Taking their cue from our cautiously optimistic, if factually challenged, Fed chairman, mainstream purveyors of news have been spewing propaganda for months about a "recovery" in the second half. But do investors actually believe this poppycock? We never would have imagined so, at least not before Thursday. But when the broad averages plunged on weak payroll numbers released ahead of the holiday, they buttressed the conclusion that Wall Street was genuinely surprised by the economy's punk performance. How punk? In percentage terms, unemployment increased by just a tenth of a percentage point, to 9.5%. But what seemed to throw investors for a loop was a spurt in job losses, which totaled 467,000 last month. That is significantly higher than in May, suggesting that the jobs component of the economy is getting worse, not better.   This could not have surprised those who get their economic news from newsletters rather than from the major networks, CNBC, and other officially sanctioned mouthpieces of the status quo.  In general the newsletter world has been far more bearish on the economy than prime-time peddlers of the Commerce Department's statistical swill. While the latter tend to interpret, say, a moderate slowing of the collapse in home prices for a month or two as great news for the builders and for the economy as a whole, the latter tend to see a meaningless statistical blip. Speaking for ourselves, you could say we see the glass as half-full - but of hemlock. One economic fact alone should give any optimist pause, to wit: There are at least a half-dozen state governments teetering on the edge of bankruptcy - including California, the world's sixth largest economy -- and quite a few more in very serious distress. Under the circumstances, it seems incredible that anyone besides Kudlow or Abby Cohen

The break on Thursday was a serious move down and left a gap.  If this market runs true to form, price should try to close the gap.  Right now price has gone through P for the down move at 893.  The target price for this move down -- what Rick would label 'D' -- is ____ with support at _____.  This is all on the daily chart.   The lower time frames have support levels at ____ and _____.   The current downside pressure being applied to price at this time on the lower time frames could cure itself during the night session.   For price to make an assault on 1000 and 1100, ES would have to go through _____.   At this time it would take a 5-point upward retracement to start a bull trend.   If short here, use a 2.00-point stop and look for the next move up or down. (Ira Tunik)

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks], will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."                       --Thomas Jefferson

Brace for Sordid Tales of Waste From a friend who works in a local scientific lab comes word of the kind of economic stimulus that might have been better spent building, say, a truly world-class miniature golf course, or perhaps drilling for oil in the men’s room of the county court house.  While either of these ventures might at least have created a few new jobs, the government has instead chosen to buy an MRI scanner for $1 million-plus and give it to a lab that has no budget to hire a technician to operate it. Our source notes that the lab already has an MRI... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Goldman Heating Up, but Will It Spread? We thought it would be a good time to look in on our favorite bellwether, Goldman Sachs (GS), since the extraordinarily well-connected banking firm’s shares have been sharply on the rise lately. As long as this is the case, it makes a stock market selloff most unlikely. GS has rapidly emerged from a funk after having spent nearly a month in purgatory - its penance for a wilding spree that that culminated a penny above an important... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Don’t Be Fooled by Gold’s Tired Look Gold futures eased lower yesterday, apparently too tired for the time being to continue treading water. The Comex August contract settled at 927.40, down a little more than one percent on the day.  If you’re a long-term investor looking to do some bargain-hunting, however, we’d advise waiting for even better prices, since it looks as though the futures... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Savor These Days of Trashy News We ought to savor the luxury of fleeting times such as these,

We took a swipe at Gov. Mark Sanford in Thursday's commentary, characterizing his adulterous saga as "comic relief" for a nation unable to face up to more serious problems. However, in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, reader Marianne Ferrari of Phoenix offered some good reasons why Sanford deserves better.  See if you don't agree: "If Mr. Baker is right that Gov. Mark Sanford's honesty was "cringe-making" when he professed that he actually loved the woman with whom he committed adultery, then our social order has, indeed, turned upside down. Was it really icky when Mr. Sanford went off-script by facing the public alone and offering the truth without excuses? Or was it an uncommon display of character and courage to stand there by himself, rather than forcing upon his wife the gratuitous humiliation of standing beside him? Even Mr. Baker can't suppress a backhanded compliment. "There was, for once," he writes, "no adoring wife standing by her man, gazing dewy-eyed at the flawed hero." "Unfortunately, even the compliment smacks of moral relativism, because that "dew" is really the tears of shock and shame, and because it takes but little ethical common sense to realize that making a woman stand there under such circumstances is nothing less than spousal abuse. Any man who would put his wife through that doesn't love her. And he's not a hero. "Mr. Baker was appalled when Mr. Sanford offered this honest commentary on the human condition: "The odyssey that we're all on in life is with regard to heart." Described by Mr. Baker, it becomes an excursion "through the cheap literary landscape of forbidden love." Of course Mr. Sanford did harm his family by having an affair and lying about it, and he was wrong to leave his state ignorant of his

Just inches from the old recovery high at 151.25, Goldman somehow still looks less than menacing.  Once above the peak, however, the stock would become an odds-on bet to reach a minimum 153.89.

We'll give Jobs the edge over Sergei and his overrated crew at Google any day. If  Apple can push above a midpoint resistance at 145.20, it should be good for a follow-through to at least 157.53.