[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmKgnjqWmx0 450 300]

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The growth, it appears, will be in interest rates. 

And before Spring, I should imagine.

I picked up some more TBT today.    Prospective homebuyers may want to think about locking in their rates, should they choose to go the mortgage route.

Gold and silver and many other commodities seem to be indicating we are witnessing yet another inevitable result of the abused dollar.   I think treasuries yields are about to give up the same ghost, no matter what Mr. Bernanke has planned for them…

Forgive me for my peevishness as of late.   I completed a large opus today, the stress from which I am perhaps allowing to leak out from my very pores and upon these pages.  

 Now, I must rest.

My best to you all.

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What do I always say to you about dire times?  You want to buy gold, silver… and pasta of course.   What are you going to do, eat heavy metals that are far more useful worked into cheery adornments and dental hardware? 

No, of course not.  

In times of rising food prices, you want to eat staples that will fill your belly while providing you the carbo-rush you need to get you through those crucial trading hours between early morning sugar frosted bombs (and coffee) and late afternoon Butterfingers bar from the vending machine (and cawfee).

You need pasta to fill your demanding gut.   With some red gravy, or maybe some butter, or a light slathering of pesto.   You want the hot hot penne, the tri-color wagon wheels, the masticola.   So, it seems,  do many others, if judging by today’s nice action amidst Col. Kurtz’s “horror the horror” market show (brought to you be Procter & Gamble) will attest.

Check what this li’l beauty did today among the carnage that is all things not precious metals:

Now granted, this sucker had good numbers today… with expanding gross and net operating margins.   That’s all good, but you know that the real reason for [[AIPC]] ‘s increasingly good numbers is “the new frugality.” 

Embrace it, pop it in your mouth, swish it aroun your tongue.   It’s the latest thing.

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Not the latest thing is the relative strength of gold and to some extent, silver, in this downdraft.   Yes, even with [[UUP]] threatening $25 again, and the dollar index (DXY) being over $85 this afternoon, it seems the PM’s are holding their own.   This bodes very well for them on any reduction of the dollar’s recent climb.

That said, my perfomers today were [[GLD]] and [[SLV]] , Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] and Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] , and [[EXK]] and [[GDX]] , IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]] and Royal Gold, Inc. [[RGLD]] , my favourite here.

I like all the PM’s until further notice… they’ve decoupled from the dollar, and that can only be a good thing.

I also got hammered today in Monsanto Company [[MON]] and [[TBT]] , as was so kindly pointed out by my own personal troll.   Amazingly, I bot some more MON just below $60, though not far enough below.  I continue to like both names.

I am near exhaustion level, ladies and germs, business is that crazy.   I’m sorry I didn’t get to post a new one to you intraday today, but I will try to be there, at least through the comment section, in doozy dozy days like today.  Be safe, as Fly says, but look for the rebound here tomorrow.

My best to you all.

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Note, upper left corner — “The Perfect Sammich”
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To the chagrin of Bears and cash horders everywhere, the unemployment numbers were magically re-arranged in unicorn land to gallop forth and match the pixie-dust retail fabulations we got yesterday.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to take this moment to thank The Gap Inc. [[GPS]] for saving America. It’s quite obvious that all those laid off investment bankers and advertising execs are putting their latest model Research In Motion Limited (USA) [[RIMM]] and Apple Inc. [[AAPL]] communications devices to work via banana-skin-tight tee shirt sizing down at the Mall of America.

Let’s face it, late stage consumer meltdown (“don’t get mad, go shopping!”) is the only logical answer to our employment resurgance (only down 35,000 jobs this month, President Obama, we thank thee!)– Coo coo coo joo, Urban Outfitters, a nation turns it’s plastic cards to you… hoo, hoo, hoo.

Hoo, hoo, hoo. Now, get back to folding!

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We didn’t get our [[HUI]] touch of $415 yesterday, and that annoyed me, but only temporarily. I think we may get just enough dollar strenth today (DXY rose to $80.89 this morning on the good news that the mall employee to mall attendee ratio was flattening). Same goes for Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] which got as low as $14.33, but did not fill Monday’s gap at $14.24.

I’d keep my PM buys in there at those levels, as I think those gaps want to be filled. Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] is a different story, as it fell quite a bit yesterday on typical pre-employment number chicanery trading. I would be buying it right now, as I think yesterday’s washout was a last wriggle before it heads back to the recent highs in the high $17 area.

All that said, I expect to be lightening up on some of my option plays, perhaps as soon as early next week, as I think we’re due for a pullback after fighting the overly bearish for the last week or so. As they pile in, we shall pile out — if only temporarily — from our higher risk positions. That would include my [[GDX]] and Monsanto Company [[MON]] calls, not to mention the previously discussed Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] , though north of $16.00 for that last.

Expect the dollar to begin to weaken here (watch [[UUP]] with DXY), after absorbing some of the glow of cheap brandy acclaim from today’s numbers. I still like [[TBT]] , however, as I think the treasury markets will recess in unison with their underlying currency. Chickens & eggs and all that.

Best to you all, and enjoy your smelter sammiches (sic).
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We all have a lot of fun on this site with our ongoing theme of pushing wrinkly dissembling bearshitters down open manhole covers, steel fire escapes and empty elevator shafts,, but time in South Florida can really change one’s perspective.

Brothers and sisters, there are fewer more important imperatives for the ongoing health of our civilization than a reverance for our elderly citizens. Think of it — our aged are our only living link with history. Each is a conduit to the past alive and inextinguishable. Those of you lucky enough to still have all four grandparents still with you and sentient (I have none alive) have a veritable treasure trove of personal and historical information unique to your own ancestral past.

Even those of you with living parents (I’m one for two, unfortunately) can still reach back to a period before your birth where those before you confronted the same irascible problems and uncomfortable situations you struggle with every day.

Let’s not be hubristic. There is not brave new world, and the errors and intransigencies of this life have been painted and repainted on the walls of caves and castles many time before this. Why not take the opportunity, while it’s available to us, to plumb the depths of history, even as it stands before us, weathered, mellowed and perhaps past the cheap cynicism that mars the not-yet old.

Reach out — today if you can– and have an elderly friend or relative over for lunch or dinner. Ask them about their youth, and what times were like for them and their family. You will be well compensated for your time and interest, I promise you.
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What do you know? [[SLV]] is kicking Dungeons & Dragons Geek arse in a plummeting-down-the-elevator-shaft fashion. Who’d a thunk it?

Platinum has awoken as well. Dont’ forget about Stillwater Mining Company [[SWC]] , North American Palladium, Ltd. [[PAL]] and [[PTM]] . I share with you my good will, and my winning ways (ahem [[TBT]] ) as I head off into the mists of South Florida, to do “kids stuff & shit.”

Best to you all.
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We be coursin’ out o’ the far lip o’ the storm and here it tis at her strongest.    With the power o’ yon circlin’ vortex, it will try to drag ye to yer briny doom deep in the cold confines o’ Davey Jones’ Locker.   Take heed, lads!

Make an eye on yon dollar representative [[UUP]] — note how he’s strooglin’ and dancin’ like a half-mad murth’rous boocaneer at the end o’ a strip of fine English gallows hemp?    He’s tryin’ tah break ye lads, and his murth’rous brither, $DXY has shot all it’s grape over $81.00 as oirly as this morn!     They’re after ye traisure lads, as shore as I was born a palsied pain and boirnin’ boyle to the British Empire’s arse!

Aim yer guns down, lads, right below the waterline of yon King’s Federal Admiralty First Rater, the H.M.S. BernYankme, for her three decks are festooned with dollar cannon, ready to sink ye with all hands aboard, and yor sparkly traisure o’ silver and gold as well!   

But beware the storm that assists yon bewigged and brass-buttoned scurvy Federal Redcoats, blowin’ out of the South Mediterannean, and the Aegean Sea.   Tis driving the dollar to new highs against the warped and besotted Euro.   Fill the lifeboats with [[DRR]] and other provisions such as meat pasties and cane sugar.   Despite the dollar tide being up near a full 100 basis points, [[GLD]] and even [[SLV]] are riding the storm well, which gives me good cheer, even as my cutlass runs red down it’s fuller, and my beard sizzles with ball and gunpowder.

[[SVM]] and [[PAAS]] which were laggards last week, seem to be holding out the best in the silver circus.   [[EXK]] , Hecla Mining Company [[HL]] and [[CDE]] are next in line, with my favourite (sic) Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] taking the worst of the tsunami wave for the rest of her crew.   

The cautious among ye will await the drop o’ DXY below the $81.00 sea line.   At that point, I think even the Treasury Bane [[TBT]] will be boardable without fear of it becoming a Jonah.   Me three favourite golds, Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] , Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] and IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]] seem to be holding up in that order as well.

Hold hard mates, I see a calm horizon when this sqall be done.

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In or Out?
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The Whale is threatening, its maw dark and deep.
Should you leap?

Truly the Whale can take you places, no? If you can handle the tight accomodations, the rancid air, the weak light, the pulsing, peristaltic movement, that is.

No one said this was going to be easy. Nothing worth accomplishing ever much is.
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I like everything I’ve recounted before here (just page back and note the silver and gold miners, and the Cree, Inc. [[CREE]] I have chosen for my March Madness pick and the Veeco Instruments Inc. [[VECO]] I did not, but own still). Also, don’t forget [[PAL]] and [[PTM]] .

I also like [[TBT]] as long term hold, as Treasuries are doomed. Anyone who tells you different or tries to game a quick-slick-Rick-trade in long bonds via [[TLT]] is merely sticking his tongue in a razor sharp blender whilst daring a two year-old to play “hammer the peg” with his tiny wooden hammer poised over the “Crush/Chop/Puree” buttons.

It’s just a matter of time, imho.

As a bonus, and today, only, I like coal here as well. It’s another commodity that the Chinese love, and God knows, we burn most what we love.

Try Massey Energy Company [[MEE]] here for starters, since Stanley Druckenmiller likes it, and he’s George Soros’s smarter (read “Republican”) partner. I also like Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. [[ANR]] and even the old discredited Jacksonian, Natural Resource Partners LP [[NRP]] — even if only for the fat dividend.

Last, but not least, I think United Parcel Service, Inc. [[UPS]] is getting ready to run again. Since it rules the Transports, I think that means the Trannies will run as well. Dow Theory gives you Paul Harvey’s “rest of the story.” Bad news for Bears.

Again.

Ciao for now.*
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*Extreme apologies for my recent lightness here. It seems that 2010 looks like it’s going to be a pretty damn good M&A year. That’s nice, since 2009 sucked quail eggs… however, it also means I’m going to be running around like a chicken sans chapeau for a bit. Catch you on the high side.

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