SB-tiger

UltraShort ETFs: At a Tipping Point?

The double shorts do a very poor job of tracking. They do a decent of tracking only in the very short term - week or so. The fund sponsors somehow seem to be able to get away with it.

However they are somewhat better then single shorts., use them for what they are worth.

Ten Reasons Why Gold Isn't Above $1,000

I am fully convinced gold is in a bear market. Dollar rally and commodity price plunge is suggesting deep recession and deflation. Risk aversion is leading people back into safe havens like yen and dollar not to gold.

Down the line the dollar printing activities will lead to inflation, but that is a little bit away.

Will sell my GLD, NEM, AUY (all at significant losses). Live to fight another day.

I think the market will go down a lot more, unfortunately covered my shorts too early. Will put new shorts in the next rally.

Goldcorp: Implosion Offers Shiny Opportunity

Nothing unique about Gold Corp, all gold miners have fallen by similar amounts.

It is simply a bear market, nothing not even gold shines in a secular bear market, live with it.

Why Oil and Gold Are Headed Much Higher

Gold price action is surprising. Deleveraging of hedge funds is plausible explanation but can not explain it all especially with such huge amount of money on the sidelines. Central banks are selling- but rationing it out- mints are out- hard to explain that either. Another conundrum I guess.

I am holding my position – will accumulate if it falls further.

Program Trading, Dark Pools and Gold

Getting to the crux of the matter gold – price moves are crazy – contradicting all prevailing logic. Pointing a finger at program trading may not be a complete or safe assumption. Central bank selling could be another plausible explanation. It can’t be deleveraging, redemption, sector rotation, or aversion – the down moves been very big, But overall it is another conundrum.

Gold / Silver Ratio Tops 80 to 1

Gold price action is surprising- gold should be rising- but it is falling a lot. Are central banks selling gold? In these kinds of environments they would/should sell aggressively. They are not selling mint gold with the excuse of shortage.

Any body has a clue on this.

Sentiment Overview: Downright Gloomy

There is likely to be a trading rally this week. Will it last, very unlikely – confidence is shattered in the: markets, leadership (GW-Paulson-Bernanke), banks,..

Ultimately it will only be gold.

Using History to Plan Near-Term Investing

********************* Live to fight another day **********************...

It is different each time. With so many large financial institutions failing it has set the panic, very justifiably. There was no bank failure panic in ’73, ’87 or ‘01. With all the derivative exposure that no one can fathom the risk– there is a lot of real fear. Every asset class has crashed nothing seems safe. What do you do with your money – cash or gold?

It will likely get lot worse before things turn around. Selling out is a very valid option still - live to fight another day.

Apocalypse Dow: The Search for Scapegoats

Yes the guilty must be punished. Just because there is plenty of blame to go around does not mean nobody is to blame. At the end of the day there lot of victims, lot of us have lost a lot of money – even sitting on the sidelines – seeing our investments and 401Ks evaporate.

Everyone is to blame - Home buyers, lenders, securitizers (Wall Street), rating agencies (major culprit), Fonie/Fraudie (a Ponzi scheme), Congress (promoting housing – we are not a socialist country).

* Rating agencies must be disbanded
* Fonie/Fraudie –already are in conservatorship – but still continue the dubious “mission”
* Wall Street – the ill gotten bonuses must be clawed back – what they did was accounting fraud. Paulson- he got away with $ 600Mi.
* Congress – vote these fools out – replace them with a new set of fools
* Regulators – Fed/SEC/FDIC – first sleeping at the switch, then lying under oath “All is well” – heads must roll.

Take the first step vote your Congressman out.

How Low the S&P 500 Could Go

************ Too Late to Short Not Too Late to Sell ***********

Yes there is plenty of downside. Markets are about sentiment- that is why we have bubbles and eventual bust. The mood is real bad now- everyone wants the “get me out of here trade”. Redemptions, deleveraging, hedge fund blowups will have an even larger toll.

It does not matter whether S&P actually goes down to 600 or 700 – you do not have to pick the bottom, within +/- 10% of top or bottom is great.

Last week we saw no upside rally – one would have expected especially with all the policy moves. Friday late rally was in financials – we know that sector is only for suckers. This is a very bad sign. With G-7 petering out, next week we should see more of the same.

Only way to play the market is on the short side – sell every rally – we will get one anytime now. At some point down the line start rebuilding the portfolio, ways to go for that.

Is Gold A Sucker's Bet?

Gold is definitely a safe haven, may or may not be an inflation hedge. What asset class you can invest in today’s market – not stocks, not bonds, not real estate, not copper or oil – so gold is the only thing left. Gold has withstood the test of time as a store of value and as a means of trade/currency.

Deflation will hit a lot of asset classes – but all the “fiat’ money will have to find a home.
In times like these gold will thrive. Author’s essence of the argument is wrong. Recent downward pressure on gold prices (including Friday) is due to redemptions – the same hedge funds etc were levered into gold.

Gold is not a sucker’s bet it is the smart choice – diversification, risk aversion.

Yes buy gold, most analysts suggest 5-10% of your portfolio should be gold- in these times you should actually be over weight in gold.

Potash Corp: Liquidity Trouble Ahead?

Commodity cycle is bust. New capacity will come online – completely upsetting the demand-supply equation. Producers will end up with too much debt – trying to build capacity, consumers are short of money – lower prices and less demand – downward spiral.

Yes Potash (and everyone else) likely to go much lower.

Stocks Plunge, Again

Too late to short, not too late to SELL.

Cash and fetal are the only two positions in this market. Don’t fall for the value trap, it is deleveraging and risk aversion – current value is of no consequence – we don’t know what the real value would be. If buyers/consumers don’t have money or credit it is game over. Apple may have cool products or fertilizers help crop yields – without money nothing will move. The reflation that the central banks are attempting will take a long time to take traction. D-word is in, long haul ahead.

Stocks can go down to any level at this point 800, 700 who knows where we can end up in the next couple of weeks, or even tomorrow. Nikkei is down 11% already today.

S&P 500 Price Growth: 1927-Aug 2008

More important point to note form an investment perspective is S&P is at a 10 year low. Even if you dollar cost averaged into S&P, last 10 years, you would have lost money. Treasury's would not only have preserved your capital and also would have given at least 3% return (I don't know the exact number is) vs. 1.62% for the S&P.

So equity investment has been a complete scam - Wall Street gets the big bonuses and salaries paid for by us investors. All confidence is lost – systemic risk has been realized – it is worldwide meltdown. The system must be broken up completely.

Meanwhile we are going way down as was clearly evidenced by the post bailout reaction. Bailouts are becoming bigger and bigger but the rallies are becoming smaller and shorter. Finally we had the biggest bailout, the grand daddy of them all, and the market actually went down.

From a technical perspective all support levels have been pierced - 200 d ma, 220 w ma, next support seems to be at 800 the 2002 low.

So just brace yourself, get out stay out.

The Real Reasons Fertilizer Stocks Are In the Dirt

The commodity bubble has burst. The valuations are based on current future price of the commodity. The prices are coming down rapidly - share prices are following.

Commodity prices are very cyclical. On the up move all kinds of stories are written - Chinese protein intake, world population growth,....But we know as demand increases supply quickly follows - the glut will crash the prices. There is no peak supply story for fertilizers.

This bubble was created by the hedge funds and the Wall Street marketing machine, they made their quick buck. Lot of gullible investors are now left holding the baby and dreaming.

With the deep recession and the great unwind on hand beware of commodities. These are the classic falling knives – they may not just cut your hands the big ones may actually behead you.

No position in fertilizers, out look very bearish.