Dow drop Monday 1,000 points?

Lot of scare scenarios out there this weekend. Politics stifling the economy again. The purveyors of this fear are likely those that feed themselves on fear to begin with. For those of us who are all in, this is what risk is all about. I reduced my positions down to 82% from 99% last week but that is going to do nothing for my active list in the morning. When your doctor tells you only a small percentage will catch pancreatic cancer from a drug, and you are one of the small percentage that works out to 100% in my book.

One old trader in my young days used to tell me every dollar was like a son to him. I thought to myself, well in that case it may depend on how many sons you have. Here is one rule I mediate on in many of these disaster situations we have today. The time the big boys buy is when there is blood in the streets. So lower prices attract buyers, thank you to all us speculator men. If you want to be a buyer in a fire sale you have to think ahead and have a cash flow to keep your expenses going until the seeds come up. Sam Hill

picturing the funny mentals

Charts tell the truth and they are cool. The funnymetals tell their own greedy story....  ..en travail

gold dipping season

You cannot discover new
oceans unless you have
the courage to leave the shore.

Think all the usual suspects around here still are sitting tight waiting for the low volume of August to pass under the bridge. My sense is that many of them are upwards of three quarters in stocks. So like the market in general they are not talking up any particular view. Their posture is anyway, that they are not too worried. However, stories are cropping up in the press about the canal putting a crimp in the "recovery." Oh well, whistling past the canal is what speculators are getting paid for. Sam Hill General Editor

turning on a dime

Changing your mind on a dime is one of the best rules one can follow.  After taking small profits in BAC, watching it go higher and higher can sour the spirit without you noticing it. So why did I not jump right bac in?

IBD managed mutual fund index topping

In Sunsetter Sam Hill's view the IBD managed top mutual fund index has run out of target room and more likely to decline than rise at this point. This he says is true no matter what eventually happens. Anything new in the mix can change anything else in the target range. Still, longer term everything rises because all money has to get out of dollars eventually and this forces up the price of stocks. Dollar declining in value since FDR as his political economic philosophy found inflating the dollar meant inflating the markets fleeing the dollar. 

a managed index chart shows the best pix forward

If you want a picture of where the market is going just check the Investor's Business Daily mutual fund index chart of the largest funds. This is better than most indices that include everything willy nilly, because the mutual fund index is a managed index of the best charts thought to be rising right now. The current chart shows a break in the uptrend setting up a decline when the recent series of highs were each lower than the one previous. This gave a sell signal ten days ago.

resting your money

Sometimes you just have to rest the money and it is worth it just for that reason alone. Of course, if someone does not know the risks in markets, especially today it seems, then they might not want to do any resting, which could increase their rewards as well as their risks. One can envision doing well for a long time only to lose it all in an instant, like going over a cliff. When a fed chairman keeps reminding us of a financial cliff in the fall, this should really whisper in the ear. Never argue with the fed is an old adage for a reason.