Improve your aim!

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I don’t have a whole lot of commentary time tonight but I wanted to get this in because a number of you were fretting about today’s action.  True, we did some pretty nasty technical damage on the price of gold, but not yet enough to convince me to run screaming.   That’s doubly true with the faithful indicators of The PPT signalling oversold on the GLD trading vehicle.

I am seeing a lot of oversold conditions in the miners as well, as many of you are probably uncomfortably aware.  This is not the time to be sinking your dough into highly leveraged bets, as the dollar can get away from us very quickly with an index break towards $80.00 and an escape from the double top condition we had just a week ago.  That means those of  you messing with AGQ better steer clear… y’hear?

Gold itself — the commodity — has been very good about respecting it’s 34-week EMA ever since the 2009 lows when the precious started making its epic comeback.  I believe that weekly line will hold again this week, but beware — we may get a tail on this candle before Friday (note the other tail penatrations of the line in the historical chart below), and you may want to lighten into tomorrow’s expected bounce as  a result.  Here’s the chart:

Remember, it’s better to be safe than sorry at this juncture.  Don’t be a hero and let’s play small(er) ball while we figure out which way the dollar is going to resolve itself.

My best to you all.   Tomorrow, I will endeavor to get a short economic piece out challenging Mr. Henry Blodget’s latest brainstorm declaring that it’s not actually entrepreneurs who create jobs… but “demand.”  (NOTE: as of right now, the post has been taken down or the link is dead… I think Blodgett realized what an ass he’d made of himself, but let’s give it to tomorrow to see what’s what).

I can retell the tale tomorrow, but suffice it to say that if this is the latest liberal shibboleth being trotted out to attack classical economics (and basic common sense), it needs to be nipped in its exceedingly innumerate bud.

Best to you all.

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6MMW-NJmt8&feature=related 450 300]

Sublime Christmas Beauty

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Mid-month Christmas ruminations…

I’ve always been a big fan of the Christmas season*, even if that appreciation has morphed from that typical childhood manic Santa-Greed, to that middling “purchasing for others” egotistic patronage phase, and finally now onto the “enjoying the little ones’ joy” segment.  For what it’s worth, this last bit has been the best.  You wish they could stay small forever, but even into their teens, the kids are a treat on Christmas morning and throughout the holiday season.

But as I’ve gotten older I’ve also realized that Christmas is about more than rejoicing with my immediate family and friends, it’s about attending to one’s community as well.  I like to think of the season as a kernel to build upon for the new year — and as a reminder of what the heck we’re doing here in the first place.

Christmas is a gentle ego aide —  that helps me remember we are not here to build wealth or careers or even organizations — or at least we are not here to strive for those goals for their own sake.  We are here to serve one another, to serve the least and even the greatest if that is the call.

I was therefore dismayed to hear an older gentlemen (50’s) the other day say he “was just about Christmas’ed out,” (this was December 10th).  I first thought to myself, “how cynical,” but then upon further reflection I realized this was probably an indication of seasonal depression, most likely caused by a prematurely arrested Concept of Christmas.   If one saw each Christmas as a wholly commercial exercise, bracketed by obligatory holiday parties and regimented relational visits, I could see that getting rather tiresome as one approached a half century on this planet.

But instead, if one could see Christmas as a challenge… or even as an annual quest to find the right person, group or community to serve for the season, and perhaps even for the new year, then Christmas becomes something else, something even more wonderful than the joyous mornings of our wrapping paper youth.   And I’m not just talking about the quotidian forms of charity, although those are certainly important and necessary.  I’m talking about reaching out to that Bob Cratchit in your life if  you are a boss, or that Ebenezer Scrooge if you are an employee.

Someone needs you, right now.   What better time to take that excuse to reach out, and to offer a hand — even anonymously– to those in need of a friend or a patron? Take this Season and make it special, and carry that extra joy with you into the new year and onto the next.    I promise you will never be “Christmased out” again.

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*(Please be assured that when I mention “Christmas” as the season, I recognize that the December Holiday Period is a time of joy and familial reflection for many cultures and faiths, just as the New Year is a time for renewal for us all.  I believe the prescription mentioned above is a fitting one for all men and women of good will, not matter their affiliation, or lack thereof. )

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As of this writing, the dollar is rallying again, and flirting with that $79-$80 range that has been been our “top” since last January.   All I can do is wait and see if Santa is going to be good to the little PM trader girls and boys.  If we breach our late November highs, then I will be shaving down to more cash, but until then, I will be eating samiches (sic), and thinking about bell ringing.

My best to you all.

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gm9q8uabTs 450 300]

Europe is not lost if there are guys like this still fighting the Euro Movement

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No, not that kind of “hope,” — not the kind that comes with all kinds of government takeovers of your private person and property. Not the kind we’ve been enduring for three plus years, and two before that in the joint houses of Congress. Is there anyone out there who still supports further meddling with businesses, with your healthcare, with your very livelihood? Is there anyone out there who still thinks they’re being helped by your friendly friend from D.C.?

Even you poor people? Are things looking up?

Minorities? Has your lot improved? Environmentalists? Peaceniks? Feeling better about things?

How about you, union guys? Is it a brave new world out there? How are dues coming? Membership?

Farmers? Miners? Small manufacturers? Hey — even you, the guy who had the great idea about converting biomass into usable fuel. I’m sorry, what’s that? Your project was beaten out by a stampede of better-lobbied inferior competition?

And you, the Wall Street smart guys, with your Ivy League degrees, and your Alden loafers, I turn to you last, as I know you best.

Look around you. Where’s that guy you used to play squash with? What happened to the Asset Backed Debt department this year? How come you have to make do with one shared pool secretary instead of Helda working on your shit alone?  Glad you wrote that check four years ago to the good looking guy with the nice smile and the airy aphorisms that really didn’t have much of a point?  Was that little bit of feel good– that cocktail party affirmation– was it worth it?

Has it been worth it, people?

I think I know the answer, but I don’t want this to be about “I told you so.” I would rather turn it into an educational opportunity, if I might. I believe that if most intelligent people read Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, they would think very seriously about not only how this country works in very easy to grasp economic terms, but how it has grown to become the most free and strongest on earth. I highly recommend this tome (or the 4th edition, out recently) even for those of you who have no interest whatsoever in math or economics.  Professor Sowell breaks it down in very easily understood terminology.  You won’t be disappointed.

And after finishing that “good meal,” I don’t think they’d fall for the next guy with the cute smile and demagogic one-liners.  That’s just my take.

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Nothing has changed in my recent investment approach.  I continue to be long silver and gold names that I’ve detailed here already.  I continue to hold because of quotidian reasons like “seasonality” and the tendency of Santa Bernank to want everyone to have a holly jolly Christmas, as I’m sure you will agree.

On EXK! On RGLD! On SLW and AG!

Come GDX! Come EGO! Come AVL and IVN! Dash away! Dash away! Dash Away All!

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The Giants let another one slip between their fingers, to the hated Cheeseheads, no less, despite giving them quite the scare for perhaps the first time this season.   Moral victories, however, count for scheissola in this part of the season.  

That said, at least the Crackboys also lost — inexplicably — to the Arizona Cardinals, who I believe are working with a tenth string QB out of Mail-it-In State.    We play them next week and then again two weeks after that and if we can’t beat those sad sacks, well — it’s time for head coach Tom Coughlin and his trusty offensive coordinator Captain Kangaroo Gilbride, to pack their bags and just GO.

But I don’t want to hear a damn word from any of ye’s (sic) about the Giants’ recent four game collapse.  I especially don’t want to hear about how great the Pack, or that long haired narcissist Clay Matthews are.   What the hell is wrong with this guy anyway?  He’s like a woman with that shit.  Why is it so damn greasy the whole game?  Does he throw a bunch of conditioner in there so it’s nice and greezy (sic), so no one can grab him by it? 

Just get a haircut, Laughing Boy.

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Right now the dollar is struggling to re-assert itself despite it’s being leveraged against every shit currency in the free world.  Despite all that, currency traders are wising up and beginning to bid the “savings plays” up again, chief among them the yen.    So, even as the dipshits at  S&P do the Fed’s bidding by trying to scare the German’s pants brown, the dollar still struggles to even achieve today’s earlier highs. 

Curious, no?

You won’t see me running about, flibberty-gibbet style, sorry.  I just don’t have the time for it.   I’ll stay in the gold and silver plays I limned for you last week, thanks very much.  I still own some GSVC as well, btw, and even some WNR (the calls I wrote against them twice have all expired, too).  

I really hate to say “I’m with Teahouse,” but at least it’s not like I’m sitting on the fans’ side at Foxboro or going door to door for Ketchup Usurper John Kerry, right?

My best to you all.

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I put these charts together last night for you, but I was too wiped out to write anything in conjunction (I got home real late last night).  

Turns out that may not have been such a bad thing.   You’ll see what I mean when you see the charts.  

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Sometimes in the beginnings of a trend or cycle change, you can take advantage of some otherwise extremely risky pinless hand-grenade type plays that would otherwise be off limits to all but the most eyeball-sunburnt screen jockies.

I think this is one of those periods, and I’ve got two stocks for the “piker community” and a third for the Gentleman (and Ladies) of The PPT that look like apt candidates for some “follow fun.”   Not coincidentally, these three stocks were all up double digits yesterday, and two of them were up 20% or more. 

 Keep in mind that “pinless hand grenade” is a generous description of these little buggers, for if that is an apt description of biotech, then the apt description of this sector — the “rare earth metals” — is more like “loosely wired suitcase nuke with a broken clasp.”  Play very tiny if you choose to do so — for fun really, as your real meat will be carved from the husks of the gold and silver bears (Hellloooo Palo Alto!), and these should be considered nothing more than the most amusing of “amuse-bouches.”

First let’s look at QRM and check my buy and sell zones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note that I did these charts last night… and you can see that I thought that we’d run into some pretty immediate consolidation… which we did.  In fact, I thought this one would be a little bit easier as it had launched the day before off it’s 20-day EMA.  I figured that would provide some good support, post consolidation (the box area), but that one might want to wait till it launches once again (as I’m almost sure it will) past that boxed consolidation zone.   As I type this, QRM is trading at $3.02 with a LOD of $2.98.

Now let’s look at serious pocket rocket AVL.  I figured this one would have a nice sell-off this morning, due to it being up almost 24% (!!!) yesterday, and I was not incorreuct (sic).   Right now, it’s down almost 6.3% to $3.14 with an LOD of $3.11. 

Want to guess where $3.11 is on that chart below? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Yeah, right about now I’m feeling like you can just call me “Neo” and I’ll stop all the bullets and the black suit guys for you with a wave of my hand.

But that shit never lasts so take advantage of it while you can.

Best to all.  PPT’ers look for #3 in the “Notes section” of The PPT.

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ah blah

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(Or not?)
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Today, it seems everyone’s getting all excited about earl, that black gold concoction that keeps the Enviroweenies up at night dreaming up new ways to keep you off your Harley or leafblower of choice.   But don’t be fooled by it’s recent price appreciation.  It’s really only doing that to piss off my friend, Mr. Cain Thaler, of the Ascendent Dollar Theory.

What’s really going on has nothing to do with Israelis and Iranians playing tit-for-tat on the atomic apocalypse scene, nor does it even have anything to do with whether or not the Keystone Oil Pipeline gets approved by President “Jobs? Whattaya mean, Jobs?” Obama. 

No, it’s not even about the price of earl at all.  In fact, here in the real world universe, the price of earl hasn’t moved even one bit from yesterday.   What’s moved is the price of the dollar.  And it’s not just the price of the dollar versus other crappy fiat currencies, either.  It’s the price of all commodities versus the dollar.

Since the beginning of  November, the CRB Commodity index is up almost 7% from it’s October low at $291.75.   What’s more, that low was almost a perfect 61.8% fibonacci retrace of the May 2010 low at $247.16 to the April 2011 high of $374.48! 

Imagine all that stuff bottoming while the dollar was still ascending?  And now, it seems the dollar is retreating off what could very well be a double top formation.

Are you getting excited yet?  

More charts later….

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