The iBC Blogger Network is in Effect

Here is a post I wrote several weeks back, which is my take on financial blogging. It would be helpful for those of you who want to blog, or are looking to take the next step. You can sign up for our new iBC Blogger Network by clicking here.

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Writing about the stock market involves acknowledging that the majority of your readers have a clear financial interest in your analysis. This is not a blog about stamp collecting or how to cheat on your wife without getting caught, but rather the idea is to offer up as much timely market commentary and potentially actionable ideas as possible, in addition to my thoughts and experiences about the strategy behind trading and just about all forms of gambling. While I am not a financial advisor giving you specific advice, the readers get to decide just how relevant I am to them.

As you would see in a democratic election or in the stock market itself, here in the blogging world the aggregate opinion of the readership is what matters more than any individual person. If they think you offer value, they keep returning to read your work and even tell other people about your site. Over time, readers of websites offering financial commentary correctly have a very low tolerance for inferior work, since money is on the line and time is of the essence. Beyond the quality of work, you have to consistently deliver fresh content in rapid fire manner. You should regard your most recent post as yesterday’s newspaper in the sense that if you rest on your laurels, you can forget about building traffic. This is frequently seen in the financial blogosphere with plenty of smart, talented traders and writers who disappear and/or fail to update their blogs with any sort of frequency just as quickly as they had initially gained attention.

While other websites become content in their pussified “comfort zones,” iBankCoin has just completed its second consecutive blowout month of website traffic. Membership to both The PPT and 12631 Trading Service is right at all-time highs, and our competition is teetering on collapse due to tough stock market conditions and a lack of incorporating a constant, burning desire to improve into their business ethos.

As most of you know, we are eliminating “The Peanut Gallery” shortly in favor of “The iBC Blogger Network.” If you have been considering giving the financial blogging game a try, this is your opportunity. You will be privy to our enormous web traffic, and all it takes is time, effort, and a little bit of luck to build readership. It is not about once a week, or once every two week blog posts full of braggadocio and cheap shots about your hindsight winning trades, since the readers will quickly see through that and make a swift exit. The key is pushing yourself to put out both quality and quantity.

At the end of the day, like most things in life, there is a huge gap between being capable of doing something versus going out and actually doing it. Becoming a successful financial blogger with a broad and loyal reader base is extremely rewarding, but is also as much of a challenge as anything else you can attempt with no start up capital required. If you have been toying with this idea, then with the upcoming iBC Blogger Network there is only one choice for you to make: Go for it.

 

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The recent Herman Cain political ad features his chief of staff smoking a cigarette and blowing it into the camera in a close-up shot. Until recently, smoking cigarettes was widely accepted and accommodated virtually everywhere in America, with smoking allowed in airport lounges, aboard airplanes themselves, inside Michael Bloomberg’s beloved New York City bars, restaurants, and even in college classrooms. Recently, there has been an understandably strong backlash against smoking, given the obvious health issues associated with both first and secondhand smoke.

Despite that, smoking continues to epitomize the essence of “cool” in movies and television. If you disagree, check out the GIF above of Robert DeNiro’s Jimmy Conway character in Goodfellas (1990). That particular scene, in which he stares down a man he wants to kill, with Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” blaring in the background, is not nearly as poignant and memorable if he is not intensely inhaling that cancer stick. Besides, have a look at the stylish film noirs from the 1940’s and 50’s, with Humphrey Bogart or Edward G. Robinson smoking cigarettes, or the World War II hero coming home from the front line, hooked on smoking three packs a day. Looking at current movie stars smoke cigarettes today has me thinking there exists a certain sense of nostalgia about yesteryear and the idea that, perhaps, America’s greatest days are behind her, occurring in the middle part of the 20th century. In other words, smoking cigarettes is a slice of Americana, dating back to the Jamestown Settlement. And that is coming from a non-cigarette smoker (I smoke an occasional cigar).

Speaking of nostalgia about America’s greatest days, those old-fashioned government bonds caught a nice bid on Monday, as reflected in the chart of TLT below. After a straight drip down to its 50-day moving average, I believe Treasuries should give us some great insight the rest of this week as to whether they are on the other side of the mountain, or rather we are going to see another leg higher in this powerful bull run.

There has also been much written about “correlations” between asset classes, with traditionally a strong Dollar and strong Treasuries equating to the quintessential risk-off trade of stocks and commodities heading lower. However, both gold and silver saw impressive action on Monday alongside Treasuries. The Dollar was rather flattish, all things considered. So, it will be interesting to see if the aforementioned correlation becomes untangled, and precious metals rise with Treasures.

Either way, it is tough to ignore the strong buy volume that accompanied gold and silver’s rising prices, as well as many miners, on Monday. They both look eligible for long swing trades here, albeit with the headfakes we have see out of their respective ranges over the past several weeks. Nonetheless, upside confirmation over the next several days should put the precious metal bears on the run in a major way. My top two gold miners here, with respect to the technical setups, are BAA and EGO.

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Direct Vimeo Link Click Here

 

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My analogue of the GMCR to NFLX long-term charts continues to pique my interest. As you know, Netflix is now destroying more and more capital by the day, whereas before it was argued to be the best stock that ever traded in an open, free marketplace (wink, nod). At issue is whether Green Mountain follows the path of Netflix. Fundamentally, I recognize that there are difference sets of circumstances at play. Frankly, that is almost always the case when creating an analogue of two charts.

What is most captivating is that Green Mountain had actually seen a steeper and more ferocious rise to its top before rolling over, which is quite the accomplishment given Neftlix’s appreciation in recent years. The old axiom of “the bigger the top, the bigger the drop,” could easily be at play here. Either way, Green Mountain bottom-picking and buy-and-hold-forever longs ought to have recognized and respected protective stop-losses, in the event that the charts remain analogous.

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First of all, if you come to this blog like some pervert in Times Square circa 1986 looking for a cheap thrill, I can assure you that you’ve come to the wrong place. The photos here are carefully selected and require a certain depth of intelligence to analyze, within the context of my title and content in a given post. I do not simply “post pics of hot chicks” on my blog, like some of you neanderthal scalpers on Twitter accuse me of doing. In sum, expect to be challenged here on an intellectual level. If not, take your readership over to most of the uneducated mooks who populate other areas of the financial blogosphere. The average “chessNwine” reader is highly refined, educated, socially well-adjusted, and well-versed in many disciplines.You are expected to assimilate into this culture like greenhorns off the boat at Ellis Island in the 19th century.

As for the market, you can see below that we had a precise, causal “touch” of last Tuesday’s resistance at 1233 on the S&P 500 this morning. Only now, it is acting as support. This is what the bulls are looking for here. Also note we spent plenty of time last Friday in the 1230’s. The longer that area can hold as support, the better off the bulls will be. Until we lose that area, you are better off getting smoke blown in your face by Herman Cain’s Chief of Staff than you are initiating swing shorts.

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