Silver’s been acting sickly for enough time to start irritating the most patient among us. I can only repeat that after last month’s huge moves, we were do as big a consolidation. Note — not a full retrace, but some pullback here, while the bull tries to shake the riders.

The good news is, gold’s hanging on here, even despite the attempts to knock it flat. It’s down today to $929 on the spot market, from $939.80 — a little bit more than 1.1% for the day. Silver, on the other hand, continues to take the brunt of it, with a 33 cent loss down to $13.60 — or almost 2.4% down for the day. That discrepency cannot hold, as silver is already undervalued compared to gold.

From a technical viewpoint, both the price of silver (POS) and the ETF [[SLV]] are showing similar signs of running into significant support.  I use the ETF here in this example because it’s a little cleaner:

From the chart, you can see SLV’s long term 38.2% fibonacci retrace line lies at $13.14. Moreover, it’s 200 day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) closed at $13.19.

I think there’s a good chance we dip to these levels and begin climbing back before the end of the week. The 38.2% fib line is usually very strong (like it’s inverse — the golden ratio of 61.8%), and it should hold for a solid bounce here. When I see this level, I will be taking advantage of the bounce by taking down a position in the double silver ETF [[AGQ]] , and riding it for at least a swing trade. I may also pick up some more [[EXK]] and any other miners I feel look “opportunistic” at the time.

Best to you.

So they gave Bernie 150 years in the slam. Sounds like a big deal, but I bet he doesn’t do 12… this side of the daisies, at least. Hey fugheddaboudit, he might even escape the above elaborate costume by becoming the “prison accountant” and doing Bubbah’s taxes every year. Can you see it?

Bubbalah, I have news! Yoah tax refund estimates out at 16 cahtons of Marlboro Reds and a case of Mint Jelly Spam. No, dahling, it is no trouble.  You just pay me my “dahposit” of five cartons, and we can get the ball rolling on this new “thing” right away!

He should be fine.

But enough about old Bernie.  Let’s face it, he’s getting what he deserves, and that’s what we’re all about on the Jacksonian Plan too.   Right now, it looks like the market is taking its time taking a decision.   Will she run up to the top of the hill at 960 again, or jump off the cliff righ here at 926-ish, and end it all, emo lemming style?   I admit I don’t know, as today was a veritable “stick in the mud” despite the drop in the dollar and the increase in oil prices.

Earnings are still coming out favourably (sic) in some industries, including health care and selected technologies.  Aging pension filler behemoths like Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson [[JNJ]] , Amgen, Inc. [[AMGN]]  , Merck & Co., Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. [[MRK]] and even good old staple stock Pfizer Inc. [[PFE]] are starting to look like they’ves got some gusto here, and the Jackson’s seem like they want to go into hibernation.  

That doesn’t mean there’s not money to be made, however, and on top of the Jacksons I’ll be watching these nutty juniors like Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] and Rubicon Minerals Corp. (USA) [[RBY]] , and some key techs that The PPT has been alerting me to.   Two I purchased today were Fly’s current hot pick [[ARMH]] and perennial PPT favourite (sic) [[BIOS]] at $6.02 and $5.83 respectively.  I am also waiting on an entry for TEKELEC [[TKLC]] , perhaps tomorrow.  

In the meantime, the only Jackson that I think looks appetizing here is [[TBT]] , as I think it’s getting very cheap again.   I continue to monitor the silvers closely, however, as they’ve been volatile lately.  That said, the spot price of silver is back above $14 tonight, and gold is back over $940 again.   Good signs.

 I promise to make myself more available tomorrow, and keep you updated on the purchases and sales, if any.   Good night for now.

One of the greatest pitchmen of our age, dead at age 50.   No signs of forced entry, or the Sham Wow guy, who allegedly was has an air-tight three-whooah alibi.

What’s with all the dead celebrities?

Police: TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead at home

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa police say Billy Mays, the television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50.

Authorities say Mays was pronounced dead Sunday morning after being found by his wife at home. There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays’ wife, Deborah Mays, says the family doesn’t expect to make any public statements and asked for privacy.

Mays was also featured on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which followed Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

 

We all get busy, so I know this problem plagues a lot of us longer term swing traders and investors.    You take on a small position, justify your trade, and then when it starts doing well, maybe you take a look at selling some of it, but then, having done so…  forget about the rest?

Well, that’s what happened to me with [[EXK]] .  Remember how well that one was doing?  And I even came out and pointed out that it was battling with it’s trendline… here’s the original chart, for reference:

Well it approached it and crashed.  I sold about a third at the time, which is my usual response.  Unfortunately, if I was paying closer attention to this weekly chart, I would’ve sold more on the more obvious retrace direction.  Hindsight is 20-20, but I should have anticipated this result:

Major takeaway —  I need to limit my positions, so I can pay better attention to even small positions like this one.   Think about it, not only did I miss a good opportunity to sell more or all at a significant resistance, but I psychologically barred myself from buying more at the lower support.   Via these mistakes, we breed poor performance.   I will try to do better for myself, and for you, faithful reader.

I still like EXK, by the way, as I do a lot of my smaller miners for the long term.  I just recognize that there will be myriad opportunities to make money in short swing trades in names like one, even as this bull advances.

My friend Mr. Russell was reconstituting today, just as my enemy Mrs. Pelosi was trying to reconstitute our country’s energy markets.  So you can imagine it was a bit harum scarum.

I will come back later, and blog like the wind in the willows (maybe I’ll have illustrative capabilities back by then), but now it’s off to a super important pool party replete with screaming brats.  Ah, parenthood.

Later.

____________

Back, and I’ve looked at the JCHP for today, and save for the bizarro behaviour of usually reliable Royal Gold, Inc. [[RGLD]] , it looked like a general consolidation day for the PM’s, which is natural given the large moves a number of them made yesterday.  Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] continues to look good here, as do a the juniors I’d mentioned earlier in the day (see last post).

I will try to find out wtf is going on with RGLD this weekend. 

The other good news is that the non precious metals — Thompson Creek Metals Company, Inc. [[TC]] and Teck Cominco Limited (USA) [[TCK]] , as well as ag supplier The Andersons, Inc. [[ANDE]] all look like they are uncoiling out of their bullish flags again.  Keep a close eye for volume increases.

Last, be sure to keep an eye on the biotech pinless hand grenades I’ve tossed around over the last couple of weeks.   A number of them did the astral elevator today, I think because of Russell Reconstitution Day.   They included [[HEB]] , [[CTIC]] and ImmunoGen, Inc. [[IMGN]] .

Lastly, Fly’s chip box chomper of the future, [[ENTR]] had a nice gain today, but more important, it rose on huge (almost 16x average) volume.  I did not see their name in the Russell rebalances, so this volume remains a mystery.  Something to look for on Monday, however, as significant volume is usually… well… significant!

The Jackson’s on Friday:

 Update: The Ozzie’s get it right.   Or at least their Senate does.  Let’s hope our own Senate can be as astute when this criminal theft Al Gore bill comes before them.   Hold your reps accountable on this one, people.

___________

—-  Back Among Friends —

______________

C’mon, you know I couldn’t resist a low hanging curve like this one.    But enough about the not-so-mourned paedophile (sic), as it looks like the real Jacksons are breaking out again.  Even with the modified [[TZA]] hedge position, I still came away with a righteous 2.73% up day yesterday for the JCHP.

And that’s not including the sundry “side-bets” I made courtesy of the Chart Addict Casino and Burlesque Review.    I try not to play long there, as it can be “addicting.” 

Yesterday, while the site was down, I played around a little with the Jacksonian Portfolio Presentation again, and while I don’t think I will reveal the actual stock holdings every day, I thought the additional information below might be helpful for you to understand how I am trading within the portfolio to harvest gains and manage risk.   So today, I’ve done away with the “comments” portion in order to show you the actual holdings as of yesterday. 

As a point of clarification, the only change I made yesterday was to sell one half the TZA hedge position at $23.67, taking a little over a dollar loss on 201 shares (I still hold the remaining half).     That left me with a bit over $13,440 in cash in the position.  For the purposes of the weighting, I have cash sitting at an annual return of 2.5%.  

As you will see it was an amazing day yesterday, as silver cleared $14.00 and gold held steady as well, pushing the $940 area (we are flirting with that price again today, despite the rest of the market being down).   I think the miners will likely take a rest today and we may even be in for more consolidation.  The trick is not to get impatient here, and to manage your positions for the next major cycle turn. 

For today, continue to keep an eye on the junior miners, including Jacksonian Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] , and non-Jacksonians NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) [[NG]] , New Gold Inc. (USA) [[NGD]] , Northgate Minerals Corporation (USA) [[NXG]] , Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] , Aurizon Mines Ltd.(USA) [[AZK]] and maybe most important, Rubicon Minerals Corp. (USA) [[RBY]] .  This should be a consolidation day for all of those, so shop with “moth hands.”

As for silvers, they are all strong relative to the market today as the underlying metal is making a nice return over $14 here.  Keep an eye on micro-junior [[EXK]] for action, and also [[CDE]] which seems to be a day ahead of its brethren, and may have a consolidation day today as well.

As for the non-PM’s… I continue to like Teck Cominco Limited (USA) [[TCK]] here, and good old Jacksonian Thompson Creek Metals Company, Inc. [[TC]] might run into trouble again at its 38.2% fib retrace at $10.88.   More in updates to come…

Jacksonian Core Holdings with Cash & Stock Weightings