I literally have cases of cases of water left over.  And a ton of batteries.  I’m thinking of having a giant block party.   Thanks for all your concern!

Water receding, well sort of…

 

 

 

Everyong got up at 530 am from the sirens.  So what do we do?  Well, since we live on an island, I guess we have to get… gas?  I said screw this line.

The collective IQ of the tourist in Hawaii is a possilbe 135…

As far as I can see, Tsunami warnings is great for business.  These lines were insane.  Never again.  I’m stocking up on a year supply of Spam….

And I had plans to go fishing today.  :/

Developing…

Update 7:43 AM

Okay, just came back from McDonalds.  Spent $30.  I’m going to try this coffee… the real disaster so far is that Star Bucks is closed!!  So I call one of the workers (I’m tight with them) and she says they don’t have to go to work.  I say get to work! 

Lines everywhere!  Gas stations, drive-thrus, Kmart, Target isn’t even open yet and there’s a line out the door.  I then realize, “Hey, I’m on a tiny island.”  Oh well.  I’ll use this day to wash my car.

Update 11:28am

Still waiting for action.  Watching the TV with live webcams around the island coast, and it looks like a great day to go to the beach.  There is one guy in the water.  What an idiot.  But I’m jealous.  Just finished vaccuming house, and washing clothes.  I just want to make sure I do whatever needs to be done while we still have electricity.  Meanwhile, I’m entertaining the idea that a earthquake with double digits on the Richter scale is going to hit some time this year.   Largest ever was 9.5 in Chile, … hey that’s the same place today.  Wow, did the Nets just beat the Celtcis?

Called this.  Meanwhile, education stocks are holding ground.  Down very little. 

I would be careful with buying this market dip.  Although we are down, it’s not really a good score for the bears and shorts.  I’m going with the two-day chart, and we haven’t really moved much on the big three (Nas, SP, Dow) which is probably why we are seeing some late day buying.  So, although the market is showing some red, it’s not as dramatic as I imagine it could be.  It will take a multi-day reversal to get the correction I’m looking for.  IBD calls  them distribution days.  Let’s see if we can get some of those next week.

Stocks to watch: 

(CAGC: 29.20 -0.44%)   - buy point triggered yesterday.  pullback from highs.

Big Lots, Inc. (BIG: 35.88 -0.25%)

Tenaris S.A. (ADR) (TS: 44.22 +0.68%)   …big hit today after earnings.  Would have been a great CC play no?

Owens Corning (OC: 24.82 +0.49%)

Links:

How to Fix the NBA  … how do you fix an industry that spends $11 million easy on guys to give out high-fives?

Get your Weezer Snuggie, better yet, get your WTF-Blanket.

An interesting industry I’ve been tracking is the real estate and home building sectors.  Today it was announced that new home sales dropped 11.2% last month dropping our annual pace to 309,000 units, the lowest level on records going back nearly a half century.  Sheesh.  No wonder people are switching careers.  Just take a second to observe what is going on in your own community.  I’m sure many of you have friends who are realtors who now have an 8-5 job, but the glimmer of hope that the market will rebound for them is probably at record lows too.  Shift.

… bad news is that it wasn’t planned to be this way.  Despite all the government help there is to help new buyers and troubled home-owners, the rates of new home sales is trending down.  If you’re familiar with tax law, then you probably noticed that the Government is trying hard to make you spend money in 2009 and 2010.  So, I guess the solution out there is to spend our way out of debt?  I really don’t know how to solve these problems, and I’m quite neutral on politics, but at least I can see cause-and-effect reverberations in the stock market…

Back To The Books

While the Government is occupied with putting band-aids on little bruises around the economy, the American individual with the backs to the wall will usually begin to take things into their own hands.  That’s why, when certain industries (home, real estate, mortgage loan) are troubled, look for the education stocks to start to rock.  A few you can pick up are getting close to break-out points, and you can’t ignore the accumlating volume over the past few weeks.  Aloha!…

Career Education Corp. (CECO: 29.92 -0.56%)   …top pick in industry

Apollo Group, Inc. (APOL: 63.362 +1.98%)   … leader, and measure for the industry.  And they charge a butt load on tuition.

ITT Educational Services, Inc. (ESI: 109.49 +1.21%)   … Intel’s big bid for investing in tech means more jobs for tech people.  This may have some effect on ESI’s enrollment numbers

DeVry Inc. (DV: 65.80 +0.03%)    … another stock getting ready to breakout.

Added to longs:  SIRO (35.80)

Buying the dental dip.

Monitoring overall market showing volume thinning on sell side.  Only Nasdaq’s move is significant.  Bottom line is that market does not know where to go this week, and if it cannot sustain is short term rally we could see some hard selling late Thursday.

New long:  SQNM (5.76)

Going for the late day trade long.  Target is 5.90.  Risk is a nickel.  :0  Let’s go!

 

Currently I’m working on taxes.  I just want to mention two extra schedules that you may want to include in your taxes that many people overlook (sorry, these are non-trading related.  I’ll give you some of those tips later). 

If you file 1040, include Schedule M called the “Make Work Pay” credit.  It’s worth 400 for singles, and up to 800 for joint minus any other Obama economic recovery payments already received.   Good for 2009 and 2010 so far.

If you file 1040, and pay real estate taxes on your house but you do not Itemize (you don’t file Schedule A), then file Schedule L to increase your Standard Deduction.  Good for 2008 and 2009.

If you bought a new car in 2009, you can deduct the state taxes.

And finally, you have until April 30 to buy a new house to take advantage of the $8,000 new home buyers credit.  You can claim on 2009 or 2010 return, up to you.  For more details, check out this site:  http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2009/02/15000-first-home-buyer-tax-credit-in.html 

So basically, thanks to America going wild with the real-estate market a few years ago, spending ourselves into a recession, we have all these new Government tax provisions to help stimulate your back pocket.  Don’t be cheap, hire an accountant and save some money, or get into your private airplane and crash it into your local IRS building.  Up to you.