Cycle Man

Tim Wood is called "Cycle Man".

He has for the last several month been ending his writings with "You Have Been Warned".

He has been bearish throughout this "upturn".   He is bearish.

I link this as one of the few "public" writings that he puts out.  He has a pay service also, which is a little complicated to understand, but I think brings real value.

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

Link below is to a 1996 speech by Margaret Thatcher.   Listen to it while you are doing some honey-do projects. 

http://www.cyclescelebrities.com/audio/thatcher-lady-margaret-princeton-nj-1996.mp3

Chart of Charts --- Not Enthused

The 5 Day Moving Average went Bullish

I try not project bias by making a future prediction on stock prices.

Many elements are in play here.    Very tricky.

Here is the Chart of Charts.

UK News Reports and Olympics

I read some UK news reports, because they seem to be more brutally honest...even whilst they have an economic situation that seems pretty dire, ALSO. 

And think about the Olympics.   A massive gathering celenbrating sports and the highest level of human physical endeavour.   Very emotional.   Very strong feelings generated.  Methinks bullish in a way, really undeniably.   And the Chart of Charts shows a strong "something is going to happen".

GMAK on Evil Speculator continually talks about the "broken clock" that we are living in.   I agree.  Things do not make sense, and there will be a resolution of sorts coming. 

Get Outside and get some nature, and get a real perspective on what is going on!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1250610/Euro-dips-growth-currency-zone-grinds-near-halt.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250647/10-000-City-bankers-hit-1m-jackpot-Grotesque-payouts-set-double.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1250734/U-S-Star-Wars-laser-plane-shoots-ballistic-missile.html

And somehow this link below on Fashion, fits in with EVERYTHING.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250711/Alexander-McQueens-family-hold-mothers-funeral-day-suicide.html

Trading Lesson....don't panic, swim confidently and with a pre-made plan

These are my dogs.   We took them to a nice little swimming and cliff diving hole in the Yama of Pearl City, Oahu.   The water is 8 to 10 feet deep and you can jump from up to 25 feet.   Sweet little place.  

Trade like the big dog....confidently and with practice.   The little dog is like the average retail trader.....excited and unskilled, and not-enthused with results.

Savior of Greece Appears to be Challenged

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

BERLIN (AP) - Germany's economic recovery unexpectedly lost momentum in the fourth quarter as output failed to grow from the previous three months, official data showed Friday.
The preliminary data for the October-December period show gross domestic product was unchanged compared with the previous three months, after quarterly gains in both the second and third quarters brought Europe's biggest economy out of a deep recession.
The German government's Federal Statistical Office identified exports, the traditional driver of the German economy, as the "only positive contribution."
Otherwise, imports, consumer spending, and capital investment all fell, dragging the economy to stagnation.



When compared with a year earlier, the country's GDP decreased by 2.4 percent. However, that decline was markedly smaller than in the third quarter of 2009, when it sunk by 4.8 percent on the year.

Germany went into recession in 2008 as demand for its exports dried up amid the global economic crisis.
After shrinking for four straight quarters, including an 3.5 percent slump in the first quarter of 2009, the country technically emerged from recession with growth in the second quarter of 2009. That, in part, helped the 16-nation eurozone to improve economically.
The Federal Statistical Office will release more detailed data for the fourth quarter at the end of February.
Analysts seemed optimistic despite the stagnation.
"The situation of the German economy is fundamentally far better than it looks like from a statistical viewpoint," said Andreas Rees, the chief German economist for UniCredit.
"Just look out your window and you know why," he said. "The harsh winter weather is depressing construction activity."
Looking forward, Reed said that "The odds have risen that the first quarter 2010 figure may disappoint as well." 

And ever wonder why news and financial reporting is so bad....it's the owners of the media.  They have a vested interest.

http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main?gclid=CLS0_qW87J8CFRD7agodYDbrfQ

Contact Information

No More Give-Aways & Bailouts
Stand Up For Your Rights
Call, Fax or Email Washington Now
-----
Contact Any Elected Official
USA.gov
-----
CALL:  Tim Geithner    202-262-2960  or  202-262-2000
FAX:    Tim Geithner    202-622-6415
Treas.gov
-----
Christina Romer, Head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors
cromer@econ.berkeley.edu
-----
CALL:  The White House     202-456-1111    comments
                                                  202-456-1414    switchboard
FAX:    The White House     202-456-2461    fax
WhiteHouse.gov
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Contact Congress
Senate.gov
House.gov
Roll Call Congress
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.htm
http://financialservices.house.gov/contact.html
http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Moment of Recognition

At some point, too big to fail will be thrown under the Hummer.

Will it be Greece?

Or maybe 2 more PIIGS get "debt extensions", before the hammer comes down. And once people realize that the "backstopping", the clear stealing from taxpayers is no longer going to continue, and the Ponzi is recognized for what it is....then TSHTF quickly.

Like 1 week, and you will be in Terra Incognito. Prepare now, and by that I mean this three day weekend.

Peter Schiff --- usually good stuff, and PIMCO from Munich comments on Greece

Black Swan Call Whistle (Is actually a put, not a call) - entertainment

Just for clarification....the Black Swan Pattern, is a failed double bottom.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14684343@N00/86864127/
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cygnus_atratus.html

Bears are Thinking....

Lots of Bears are thinking...boy I want proof this market is going down, I don't want to get burned like that H&S short play from July....maybe I should lighten up my shorts and puts....be responsible.

It's a 3 day weekend coming up.   MM's never sleep.

Blackswans are delivered by cruise missile on the weekends or holidays. 

PRU has low short interest.   I had puts on PRU when the G-team made shorts on financials illegal.

Haven't gamed PRU in a while.   I will short on weakness.   They just did earnings.

EUR is also interesting, playing this long

ES

This market is done, stick a fork in it.

The EW structure of this end of wave 2 is nearly perfect.

JNK and LQD are dropping like rocks.  Bond traders are smarter than their equity slinging cousins.  

Greece was thrown under the bus, rhetoric non-withstanding.

And there is some mystery meeting of central bankers in Australia.

Haven't had a margin call in a while....Don't have to fix it until Tuesday....

I bought a Black Swan whistle....will try calling some in over the weekend.

This is Important

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100211/D9DPPJ180.html

Read this, and comment!

EURO live Action

Ticker Tip & Topstep Video on EUR/USD

So you don't have an FX account, but you want to play some currencies. There are lots of ETF's out there to make this happen, but beware...FX trades 24 hours, until Friday afternoon, anyway. Your chosen ETF probably doesn't. You could find your face gapped off.

Ticker Tip

UEO --- double short the Euro.

Know your Greeks

That phrase has a whole new meaning these days.

Could a country be thrown under the bus like Lehman Brothers?

Greece has to refinance a bunch of bonds. If the ECB doesn't recognize Greece as investment grade, then they have to go elsewhere for financing. What rate would you give your money to Greece for? 20%?

Maybe the ECB throws Greece under the bus and then Multinational Investment Banker/Brokers swoop down to pick the meat off the bones....buying up everything on the cheap....roads, infrastructure of all sorts, power plants, historic ruins.

Athens has to refinance €54 billion, or $74 billion, in public debt this year, €20 billion of it in the second quarter. It faces a crunch at the end of the year if Moody’s joins the two other major credit-rating agencies in downgrading Greek debt below A grade.

Living in this broken clock, the game is complicated.

If ECB assists Greece in a re-finance, the basic problems are still there, but now they have a higher interest payment to make. If there is a "handout" of money to reduce their debt, then the other PIIGS will expect the same.

It seems clear that interest rates need to go up all around.

Big Bens speech is below...

Chairmen Frank and Watt, Ranking Members Bachus and Paul, and other members of the Committee and Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Federal Reserve’s strategy for exiting from the extraordinary lending and monetary policies that it implemented to combat the financial crisis and support economic activity.

Broadly speaking, the Federal Reserve’s response to the crisis and the recession can be divided into two parts. First, our financial system during the past 2-1/2 years has experienced periods of intense panic and dysfunction, during which private short-term funding became difficult or impossible to obtain for many borrowers. The pulling back of private liquidity at times threatened the stability of major financial institutions and markets and severely disrupted normal channels of credit. In its role as liquidity provider of last resort, the Federal Reserve developed a number of programs to provide well-secured, mostly short-term credit to the financial system. These programs, which imposed no cost on the taxpayer, were a critical part of the government’s efforts to stabilize the financial system and restart the flow of credit.1 As financial conditions have improved, the Federal Reserve has substantially phased out these lending programs.

Second, after reducing short-term interest rates nearly to zero, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) provided additional monetary policy stimulus through large-scale purchases of Treasury and agency securities. These asset purchases, which had the additional effect of substantially increasing the reserves that depository institutions hold with the Federal Reserve Banks, have helped lower interest rates and spreads in the mortgage market and other key credit markets, thereby promoting economic growth. Although at present the U.S. economy continues to require the support of highly accommodative monetary policies, at some point the Federal Reserve will need to tighten financial conditions by raising short-term interest rates and reducing the quantity of bank reserves outstanding. We have spent considerable effort in developing the tools we will need to remove policy accommodation, and we are fully confident that at the appropriate time we will be able to do so effectively.

Liquidity Programs
With the onset of the crisis in the late summer and fall of 2007, the Federal Reserve aimed to ensure that sound financial institutions had sufficient access to short-term credit to remain sufficiently liquid and able to lend to creditworthy customers, even as private sources of liquidity began to dry up. To improve the access of banks to backup liquidity, the Federal Reserve reduced the spread over the target federal funds rate of the discount rate–the rate at which the Fed lends to depository institutions through its discount window–from 100 basis points to 25 basis points, and extended the maximum maturity of discount window loans, which had generally been limited to overnight, to 90 days.

Many banks, however, were evidently concerned that if they borrowed from the discount window, and that fact somehow became known to market participants, they would be perceived as weak and, consequently, might come under further pressure from creditors. To address this so-called stigma problem, the Federal Reserve created a new discount window program, the Term Auction Facility (TAF). Under the TAF, the Federal Reserve has regularly auctioned large blocks of credit to depository institutions. For various reasons, including the competitive format of the auctions, the TAF has not suffered the stigma of conventional discount window lending and has proved effective for injecting liquidity into the financial system.2

Liquidity pressures in financial markets were not limited to the United States, and intense strains in the global dollar funding markets began to spill over to U.S. markets. In response, the Federal Reserve entered into temporary currency swap agreements with major foreign central banks. Under these agreements, the Federal Reserve provided dollars to foreign central banks in exchange for an equally valued quantity of foreign currency; the foreign central banks, in turn, lent the dollars to banks in their own jurisdictions. The swaps helped reduce stresses in global dollar funding markets, which in turn helped to stabilize U.S. markets. Importantly, the swaps were structured so that the Federal Reserve bore no foreign exchange risk or credit risk.3

As the financial crisis spread, the continuing pullback of private funding contributed to the illiquid and even chaotic conditions in financial markets and prompted runs on various types of financial institutions, including primary dealers and money market mutual funds.4 To arrest these runs and help stabilize the broader financial system, the Federal Reserve used its emergency lending authority under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act–an authority not used since the Great Depression–to provide short-term backup funding to certain nondepository institutions through a number of temporary facilities.5 For example, in March 2008 the Federal Reserve created the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, which lent to primary dealers on an overnight, overcollateralized basis. Subsequently, the Federal Reserve created facilities that proved effective in helping to stabilize other key institutions and markets, including money market mutual funds, the commercial paper market, and the asset-backed securities market.

As was intended, use of many of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities has declined sharply as financial conditions have improved.6 Some facilities were closed over the course of 2009, and most other facilities expired at the beginning of this month. As of today, the only facilities still in operation that offer credit to multiple institutions, other than the regular discount window, are the TAF (the auction facility for depository institutions) and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which has supported the market for asset-backed securities, such as those that are backed by auto loans, credit card loans, small business loans, and student loans. These two facilities will also be phased out soon: The Federal Reserve has announced that the final TAF auction will be conducted on March 8, and the TALF is scheduled to close on March 31 for loans backed by all types of collateral except newly issued commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and on June 30 for loans backed by newly issued CMBS.7

In addition, the Federal Reserve is in the process of normalizing the terms of regular discount window loans. We have reduced the maximum maturity of discount window loans to 28 days, from 90 days, and we will consider whether further reductions in the maximum loan maturity are warranted. Also, before long, we expect to consider a modest increase in the spread between the discount rate and the target federal funds rate. These changes, like the closure of a number of lending facilities earlier this month, should be viewed as further normalization of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities, in light of the improving conditions in financial markets; they are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and should not be interpreted as signaling any change in the outlook for monetary policy, which remains about as it was at the time of the January meeting of the FOMC.

In summary, to help stabilize financial markets and to mitigate the effects of the crisis on the economy, the Federal Reserve established a number of temporary lending programs. Under nearly all of the programs, only short-term credit, with maturities of 90 days or less, was extended, and under all of the programs credit was overcollateralized or otherwise secured as required by law. The Federal Reserve believes that these programs were effective in supporting the functioning of financial markets and in helping to promote a resumption of economic growth. The Federal Reserve has borne no loss on these operations thus far and anticipates no loss in the future. The exit from these programs is substantially complete: Total credit outstanding under all programs, including the regular discount window, has fallen sharply from a peak of $1-1/2 trillion around year-end 2008 to about $110 billion last week.

Separately, to prevent potentially catastrophic effects on the U.S. financial system and economy, and with the support of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve also used its emergency lending powers to help avoid the disorderly failure of two systemically important financial institutions, Bear Stearns and American International Group. Credit extended under these arrangements currently totals about $116 billion, or about 5 percent of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. The Federal Reserve expects these exposures to decline gradually over time. The Board continues to anticipate that the Federal Reserve will ultimately incur no loss on these loans as well. These loans were made with great reluctance under extreme conditions and in the absence of an appropriate alternative legal framework. To preclude any future need for the Federal Reserve to lend in similar circumstances, we strongly support the establishment of a statutory regime for the safe resolution of failing, systemically important nonbank financial institutions.

Monetary Policy and Asset Purchases
In addition to supporting the functioning of financial markets, the Federal Reserve also applied an extraordinary degree of monetary policy stimulus to help counter the adverse effects of the financial crisis on the economy. In September 2007, the Federal Reserve began reducing its target for the federal funds rate from an initial level of 5-1/4 percent. By late 2008, this target reached a range of 0 to 1/4 percent, essentially the lowest feasible level. With its conventional policy arsenal exhausted and the economy remaining under severe stress, the Federal Reserve decided to provide additional stimulus through large-scale purchases of federal agency debt and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that are fully guaranteed by federal agencies. In March 2009, the Federal Reserve expanded its purchases of agency securities and began to purchase longer-term Treasury securities as well. All told, the Federal Reserve purchased $300 billion of Treasury securities and currently anticipates concluding purchases of $1.25 trillion of agency MBS and about $175 billion of agency debt securities at the end of March. The Federal Reserve’s purchases have had the effect of leaving the banking system in a highly liquid condition, with U.S. banks now holding more than $1.1 trillion of reserves with Federal Reserve Banks. A range of evidence suggests that these purchases and the associated creation of bank reserves have helped improve conditions in private credit markets and put downward pressure on longer-term private borrowing rates and spreads.

The FOMC anticipates that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. In due course, however, as the expansion matures the Federal Reserve will need to begin to tighten monetary conditions to prevent the development of inflationary pressures. The Federal Reserve has a number of tools that will enable it to firm the stance of policy at the appropriate time.

Most importantly, in October 2008 the Congress gave the Federal Reserve statutory authority to pay interest on banks’ holdings of reserve balances. By increasing the interest rate on reserves, the Federal Reserve will be able to put significant upward pressure on all short-term interest rates, as banks will not supply short-term funds to the money markets at rates significantly below what they can earn by holding reserves at the Federal Reserve Banks. Actual and prospective increases in short-term interest rates will be reflected in turn in longer-term interest rates and in financial conditions more generally.8

The Federal Reserve has also been developing a number of additional tools it will be able to use to reduce the large quantity of reserves held by the banking system. Reducing the quantity of reserves will lower the net supply of funds to the money markets, which will improve the Federal Reserve’s control of financial conditions by leading to a tighter relationship between the interest rate on reserves and other short-term interest rates.

One such tool is reverse repurchase agreements (reverse repos), a method that the Federal Reserve has used historically as a means of absorbing reserves from the banking system. In a reverse repo, the Federal Reserve sells a security to a counterparty with an agreement to repurchase the security at some date in the future. The counterparty’s payment to the Federal Reserve has the effect of draining an equal quantity of reserves from the banking system. Recently, by developing the capacity to conduct such transactions in the triparty repo market, the Federal Reserve has enhanced its ability to use reverse repos to absorb very large quantities of reserves. The capability to carry out these transactions with primary dealers, using our holdings of Treasury and agency debt securities, has already been tested and is currently available. To further increase its capacity to drain reserves through reverse repos, the Federal Reserve is also in the process of expanding the set of counterparties with which it can transact and developing the infrastructure necessary to use its MBS holdings as collateral in these transactions.

As a second means of draining reserves, the Federal Reserve is also developing plans to offer to depository institutions term deposits, which are roughly analogous to certificates of deposit that the institutions offer to their customers. The Federal Reserve would likely auction large blocks of such deposits, thus converting a portion of depository institutions’ reserve balances into deposits that could not be used to meet their very short-term liquidity needs and could not be counted as reserves. A proposal describing a term deposit facility was recently published in the Federal Register, and we are currently analyzing the public comments that have been received. After a revised proposal is reviewed by the Board, we expect to be able to conduct test transactions this spring and to have the facility available if necessary shortly thereafter. Reverse repos and the deposit facility would together allow the Federal Reserve to drain hundreds of billions of dollars of reserves from the banking system quite quickly, should it choose to do so.

The Federal Reserve also has the option of redeeming or selling securities as a means of applying monetary restraint. A reduction in securities holdings would have the effect of further reducing the quantity of reserves in the banking system as well as reducing the overall size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.

The sequencing of steps and the combination of tools that the Federal Reserve uses as it exits from its currently very accommodative policy stance will depend on economic and financial developments. One possible sequence would involve the Federal Reserve continuing to test its tools for draining reserves on a limited basis, in order to further ensure preparedness and to give market participants a period of time to become familiar with their operation. As the time for the removal of policy accommodation draws near, those operations could be scaled up to drain more significant volumes of reserve balances to provide tighter control over short-term interest rates. The actual firming of policy would then be implemented through an increase in the interest rate paid on reserves. If economic and financial developments were to require a more rapid exit from the current highly accommodative policy, however, the Federal Reserve could increase the interest rate paid on reserves at about the same time it commences significant draining operations.

I currently do not anticipate that the Federal Reserve will sell any of its security holdings in the near term, at least until after policy tightening has gotten under way and the economy is clearly in a sustainable recovery. However, to help reduce the size of our balance sheet and the quantity of reserves, we are allowing agency debt and MBS to run off as they mature or are prepaid. The Federal Reserve is currently rolling over all maturing Treasury securities, but in the future it may choose not to do so in all cases. In the long run, the Federal Reserve anticipates that its balance sheet will shrink toward more historically normal levels and that most or all of its security holdings will be Treasury securities. Although passively redeeming agency debt and MBS as they mature or are prepaid will move us in that direction, the Federal Reserve may also choose to sell securities in the future when the economic recovery is sufficiently advanced and the FOMC has determined that the associated financial tightening is warranted. Any such sales would be at a gradual pace, would be clearly communicated to market participants, and would entail appropriate consideration of economic conditions.

As a result of the very large volume of reserves in the banking system, the level of activity and liquidity in the federal funds market has declined considerably, raising the possibility that the federal funds rate could for a time become a less reliable indicator than usual of conditions in short-term money markets. Accordingly, the Federal Reserve is considering the utility, during the transition to a more normal policy configuration, of communicating the stance of policy in terms of another operating target, such as an alternative short-term interest rate. In particular, it is possible that the Federal Reserve could for a time use the interest rate paid on reserves, in combination with targets for reserve quantities, as a guide to its policy stance, while simultaneously monitoring a range of market rates. No decision has been made on this issue; we will be guided in part by the evolution of the federal funds market as policy accommodation is withdrawn. The Federal Reserve anticipates that it will eventually return to an operating framework with much lower reserve balances than at present and with the federal funds rate as the operating target for policy.9

Conclusion
To sum up, in response to severe threats to our economy, the Federal Reserve created a series of special lending facilities to stabilize the financial system and encourage the resumption of private credit flows. As market conditions and the economic outlook have improved, many of these programs have been terminated or are being phased out. The Federal Reserve also promoted economic recovery through sharp reductions in its target for the federal funds rate and through purchases of securities. The economy continues to require the support of accommodative monetary policies. However, we have been working to ensure that we have the tools to reverse, at the appropriate time, the currently very high degree of monetary stimulus. We have full confidence that, when the time comes, we will be ready to do so.

Trade Ideas Feb

A good video that shows how WaMu was stolen by various collusion by JPM and others, and then the "insiders" tried to pick the rest of the bones bare, throwing out inane arguments on why the shareholders should not even get a voice in splitting up remaining assets.

Visulaization of where the money went

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-gram/

Check out the site above.   Charts and graphs bring it home.   The "elite" strong arm their way towards stealing more wealth from the workers and middle management, whilst 95% of the people are distracted with their daily distractions.  And it continues to get worse.

Fear Factor and EEM/Spy Versus Spy

Comment Please

Ol' Bucky takes a break

Investors Intelligence had dollar bulls pushing high numbers again...like 90% not sure of exact number.

See Finviz below, Buck took a break.

Correlation between USD and Equities appeared to be breaking a few weeks back, but they are back in lock step.



John Mauldin also has good stuff, used to read him,
He is another one of the warning experts who thought the "recession" might be a little stronger than normal, then when it became the "great recession" he was pimping out "I told you so", I get so damn tired of that.  No one can ever be wrong....at least if you are "an expert". 

Idiots can perform much better....you just say, I was wrong on that ES and NKD short trade, and my stops did their work.   Next trade!

Caution Will Robinson!

Last 3 Mondays were not ramped on the weekend.  Maybe the G-Team (Gov and Goldman) was worried that their tactics were getting too obvious, with the Trim Tabs guy promoting the Gov intervention in "free markets".

Are we going to get more ramping or is this a short sweep?  when ES is sitting at 1060, 1120 seems absurd, especially as EVERYONE is now talking about the terrible fundamentals, except Cramer of course, who is finding jewels in the retail sector.

Comstock - Good Research, these guys aren't bought. And Below, Rap Economists

Operating Earnings Definitions:

Mark to Myth
Wishful Thinking
Ignores "One Time Charges", as in Ignores Huge Losses
aka Bullshit

Reported Earnings Definition:

The Ones You Try Not to Report
If You Lie Alot, You Could Get In Trouble
Closer to Reality Than Operating Earnings

Charlie Minter says S&P may go to 550 and it may go lower.  Charlie nailed Greece, Portugal, and Spain in December 2009....pointing them out as "Banks aren't the only problems"



Hyperinflation and Deflation both have amazingly strong arguments. How can that be? Shouldn't a smart person be able to figure this out? Markets are TRICKY, that is their nature.

Fear Factor and Hopefully -- a Position Trade on Nikkei Short

The position trade taken above is working out....triangle broke nicely. This trade could go to 7000 or less every hundred points is worth about $500 on 1 future. A move to 7000 would therefore be worth about $15,000. Nothing to write home about, but beats the heck out of a G-Team ramp job.

My UWM double long got stopped this morning. Imagine that....finally, a non-ramp over the weekend, I guess the trader boyz got to watch the superbowl.

Daytrading TWM double short.

Also took ES shorts right before the market moved down at end of day. It is only 3 points away from my stop, and hope it moves more down, as this would also turn into a long term position trade, as long as I am not whipsawed out of this position.

SPG -- an old friend/enemy/enema
This stock is highly gamed. It looks ready to tank, however, I hear that Obama's next plan under the guise of helping small business, is really just a way to hand money to commercial real estate. That would be, your money. I haven't investigated that though.

Protectionism and Tariffs

We posted a "cycle of deflation" way back when.

We are still somewhere in the mid-portions of the downward movement. 

http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/2009/07/cycle-of-deflation.html

Now with China attacking US Chickens, things have heated up alot.  This trend should continue, with tariffs and other  new "creative fees" being implemented, and countries also try to devalue their own currencies so they can sell more easily to other countries.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-announces-antidumping-apf-3775355440.html?x=0
This is very negative overall.   It adds to everyone's "actual cost" of goods because in some cases the most efficient producers are facing a headwind, and less efficient producer's are effectively rewarded.

Short Tyson chicken at the open?  Maybe this news escaped most people's attention because of Superbowl.   I would like to do a little research on what kind of foreign sales the big Chicken companies have, esp to China.  See attached table, getting ready for tomorrow.

I am thinking that there could be some put sellers who have ask prices out there, and they may not change them by the morning.   It may be possible to pick up some chicken puts on the cheap.

 All three ticker above had large increases Friday, SAFM is the speculative chicken producer with around 10% short float, PPC was bankrupt last year, TSN is heavily exposed to China.

TSN has decent option liquidity
SAFM has low liquidity on options, but the big /ask spread is not that bad.
PPC has very low liquidity on options, spooky low.

And something unusual to keep in mind.   Chinese love chicken feet.   Americans don't.   This revenue source could be almost completely eliminated.

The US is a food producer.  That will be a good thing for the future.

Performance Results of Chart of Charts in great detail

Summary--Market Tops have played havoc with many mechanical systems. I don't think this market top is "Over" I think it has a few Bronto Head Swings in it's death throes (DTOB pattern - Death Throe O' Bronto).

Euro is really due for a bounce, technically, although Greece and fellow poster children are one of the Black Swans currently in drone mode over the entire world.

I am betting on a near term bounce in US Equities, EEM should follow, and then EEM should "outperform on the way down"

Buy and Hold is Dead, and Superbowl!

One of the few "advisers" that I read daily is Thomas Kee.   He has various strategies, that just shooting from the hip, have annual returns of say 25% to 75% in up or down markets.    That is not "swinging for the fences" yet if you have a significant nest egg built up, the build up of wealth over time could be great in that range.  If you have a $25,000 trading account that you want to turn into $1M in 2 years....well, you are more likely to just "blow up" than achieve your goal.   You could buy all Dec 2010 puts in your account, and that might just turn into $1M, or you might find Obama implementing QE 2.

"This weekend_s Newsletter is best served in the form of a message.  I am going to start with a frank, and somewhat interfering statement that might offend some people, and then follow it with an action plan.
If you have not already taken steps to protect your wealth you are a fool.
I do not say that lightly.  In fact, I know many people who would think that I am a fool for being so blatant with my audience, but I am not in this to make friends.  Even though I have been able to find very good people thanks to my efforts, this is a business."
>

Thanks for continuing to speak frankly….those who aren’t ready for it….well they will get what’s coming. Many are deluded by CNBC, which is really all ex Goldman employees.  Lots of “innocent” people will go down.  But there is no entitlement that is entitled, there is no guarantee of fairness as our human right.   Those who only react when their back is against the wall will not have optimal results.

On that note---I have to get ready for Superbowl....always distractions :-)

But first I will check the futures and Asia open...wondering if the G-Team (Goldman and Gov) will be enjoying the Superbowl, or maybe they let a few junior traders still ramp the futures markets while the whole world is entranced with the record setting (62 each) 30 second commercials costing $2.7M each.