Featured Trades: (WHAT OUT FOR THE BLACK SWANS) 1) Watch out for the Black Swans. It is not my intention to ruin your day. But I may well do that if you read this piece. While traders pile on their longs with reckless abandon, and retail flows into equity mutual funds turn positive for
Featured Trades: (BEWARE THE COMING COLLAPSE OF GOLD), (GLD), (SLV), (PPLT), (PALL), (GLL), (DGZ) 2) Beware the Coming Collapse of Gold. Last year's sure thing is rapidly turning into this year's sure loser. After bringing in a torrid 29% return in 2010, the barbarous relic has only managed a flaccid 7% loss so far this
Featured Trades: (TOUCHING BASE WITH KARL DENNINGER) 1) Touching Base With Karl Denninger. I managed to catch up with my friend Karl Denninger, the peripatetic founder of the Florida based Market Ticker, a highly entertaining and prescient, if not irreverent daily blog. Karl is convinced that the current move up in equity markets is
Featured Trades: (VOLATILTIY INDEX), (VIX), (FFIV), (SPX) 2) Buying Straw Hats in the Dead of Winter. I am one of those demented people who buys flood insurance when the sun is shining and sun tan lotion by the gallon from Costco in the dead of winter. I am such an inveterate bargain hunter that I
Featured Trades: (DAVID HALE ON THE ECONOMY) 1) The Choppy Road Ahead. Recently, I managed to catch up with my old friend, David Hale of David Hale Global Economics (click here for their site). While swilling a few gin and tonics within the oak paneled walls in the bar at Chicago's exclusive University Club, he
Featured Trades: (BIG TECHNOLOGY), (CSCO) 2) Time to Ring the Cash Register on Big Technology. Given the worsening technical picture for the market in general, and technology stocks specifically, I am selling my Cisco Systems (CSCO) March, 2011 $20-$22 call spread at the market. With the stock here at $20.82, I see a middle market
Featured Trades: (MY PERSONAL LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATOR) 4) My Personal Leading Economic Indicator.? I just flew over one of my favorite leading economic indicators yesterday. Honda (HMC) and Nissan (NSANY) import millions of cars each year through their Benicia, California facilities, where they are loaded on to hundreds of rail cars for shipment to points
Featured Trades: (THE MUNI BOND MYTH), (MUB), (JNK), (TBT) 2) The Muni Bond Myth. Have I seen This movie before? Two years ago, analysts were predicting default rates as high as 17% for Junk bonds in the wake of the financial meltdown, taking yields on individual issues up to 25%. Liquidity in the market vaporized,
Featured Trades: (SPX), (SPY), (SSO), (GLD), (CSCO), (DIG), (YCS), (FXE) 3) Ringing the Cash Register for the S&P 500. It's time to ring the cash register on my leveraged long position in the S&P 500 ETF (SSO). I am therefore unloading the position at market here at $49.57, and not bothering to wait for the
Featured Trades: (SPX), (BAC), (CSCO), (DIG), (SSO), (GLD), (TBT), (JJG) 1) Time to Tighten Up Those Stops. Well, the party couldn't go on forever. Yesterday, the S&P 500 took its first 1% hit since November, and the NASDAQ took an even more severe spanking. Like in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, risk has made a
