Should I Even Bother?

I was expecting moar. Why bother buying more stocks on a lazy Friday, ahead of a scary weekend?

The only thing that’s working for me is TLT. Aside from that, it’s pure garbagio out there. It’s a sea of red for me and I am tempted to buy some utilities. Please talk me out of it. The day I buy the utes is the day I deserve to die in a fire.

With the US bombing Iraq, oil can be a good play here. With Putin talking to Merkel, the whole market is at stake. The German and Japanese markets have been dreadful. On the other hand, both Hong Kong and China have been great. Which ones are important? Should we just chalk it up to “summer time nonsense”? Or, is this a prelude of things to come?

The real question that I have for myself, which touches upon my over-arching opinion is this:

If we are traveling the path of 2000, which I’ve said for months now, is it possible that the August blow off top will be absent this time around? Will we just break down, 2000 style, without that last final push?

I am a slave for symmetry and would hate to concede bad timing. But if I am to listen to my own advice, it would be to tread very carefully here. The decline of 100-200 tech and biotech stocks back in March and April was a warning. The true decline might still happen. I am talking about Armageddon for names like FEYE and SPLK–the sort of loss you don’t walk away from. So many of these stocks are trading 20-25x sales, into an economic slowdown. If we are to have a sense of normalcy, those stocks should trade down to 5-8x.

You do the math.