Australian Dollar -- AUD/USD weekly chart

while I was emphatically bullish on the Australian Dollar for the majority of the past year, the trend's gone plenty far enough, in my opinion. I haven't got new targets completely worked up yet, but the chart below gives a preliminary sketch, at least against USD. I'll examine AUD more in depth soon enough.

Saturday morning trendline -- XME:XLP ratio

of the components of the Equity ETF Index, XME was down the most this week, while XLP was down the least (all 40 symbols ended down on the week). so I figured I'd check out the ratio between the two extreme performers.

this ratio has been the epitome of the sell Defensive / buy Cheap Pieces of Shit trade that has been developing for about 11 months now. a violation of the trendline will signal that the revaluation turned reflation turned bubblet turned fortune cookies are the new world reserve currency turned 'waterloo' and the alamo too super duper bull market slash debutante ball has, ah, taken a different turn, I guess.

search of the day -- Government Bonds charts compared to s & p 500

got a search hit for the phrase:

Government Bonds charts compared to s & p 500

here are some charts for you:





and here is an updating point and figure chart of the USB:SPX ratio. each box is 1%.

Index Data

closing values for Friday, October 30, 2009:

Trend & Value 50 Index:

960.85 (down 2.67%)

Equity ETF Index:

945.75 (down 3.20%)

China Small Cap ADR 25 Index:

869.05 (down 4.60%)

Large Cap Dividend Top 50 Index:

975.00 (down 2.00%)

T&V Gold Stock Index:

577.46 (down 1.49%)

------

every stock in the T&V50 down. every symbol on the ETF index down. every stock on the Dow down. 96.4% of S&P 500 stocks down. one note of caution for bears: the China small cap index held Wednesday's low, as did EWZ, the Brazil ETF, and SLX, the Steel ETF. plus, the price of Gold held up rather well today. I am not sure how important these anomalies are just yet, but they definitely need to be examined.

panic, what panic?

same chart of the Panic Ratio as Wednesday, but updated.



have you started listening to the market yet?

Gold ATR(1) P&F -- another one

pretty close to the same as the last one, just 21.5 instead of 22 points per box. interesting that we see the same chart pop up twice in three days. well, I think so.

Index Data

closing values for Thursday, October 29, 2009:

Trend & Value 50 Index:

987.19 (up 2.07%)

Equity ETF Index:

976.96 (up 2.76%)

China Small Cap ADR 25 Index:

910.96 (up 6.92%)

Large Cap Dividend Top 50 Index:

994.86 (up 1.61%)

T&V Gold Stock Index:

586.18 (down .11%)

------

good rebound across the board today. could be considered just a counter-trend rally at this point. Chinese small caps still down nearly 9% for the week for example. steel stocks still down 7%. etc. I mentioned yesterday that any rallies that developed could be sold after a day or two. well, that's one day. tomorrow's action will probably prove even more important than today's.

learning to read

I've been assigned the task of teaching a four year old boy how to read. I have never tried this before. pointers anyone?

search of the day -- forward pe ratio of s&p chart

someone just arrived to this here blog via this here google queary:

forward pe ratio of s&p chart

the search brought up this post I wrote about a year ago:

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2008
S&P 500 P/E Ratio Update

...pretty good post I gotta say, vintage Trend & Value.

anyway, I haven't a chart of the forward P/E sought by the searcher. if anyone does have updating charts (or can make them) of the trailing and forward P/Es, send them over. I'll give you a free subscription to the newsletter if I can use them.

well in the post last year the Forward P/E was 11.9, while today the analyst community are projecting earnings now to give a forward of 17.85. today's forward is 50% higher than last year's. the market would have to fall by a third to get back the perceived value of last year. that would take the Five&Dime back below 700, a little lower than what I've had in mind recently, but certainly doable I suppose.

by the way, the median forward P/E for the Trend & Value 50 Index is 13.73. the median trailing P/E is 17.35. the lower valuation of my index versus the S&P is probably mostly due to the fact that companies actually have to post a profit to be included in the T&V50 while the people at S&P will accept any old loser.

S&P 500 rising wedge finally violated

now this pattern has been visible from space for a couple months, but I see that it has finally broken the supportive trendline on the log-scale equivolume chart. (it started to break down much earlier on a regular log-scale chart. on the arithmetic equivolume chart the line has not broken yet. on a arithmetic time chart it broke today also.)

another letter for the Archives (Seabridge Gold - SA)

I have made another back issue of the Trend & Value Letter available to the public at the Old Reports page:

Trend and Value Letter 05_15_2009.pdf

I suggested shorting SA way back in May! the position would be profitable by now (and in fact the stock has finally hit my first downside target) but damn, what a wild ride in the meantime. I make the report available not to brag (cus my timing was way bad) but because the report gives you a fair example of what you get when you subscribe to my little newsletter service. so check it out.

Index Data

closing values for Wednesday, October 28, 2009:

Trend & Value 50 Index:

967.22 (down 1.89%)

Equity ETF Index:

950.71 (down 2.92%)

China Small Cap ADR 25 Index:

852.03 (down 7.24%)

Large Cap Dividend Top 50 Index:

979.09 (down 1.04%)

T&V Gold Stock Index:

586.85 (down 1.91%)

-----


China small caps are down nearly 15% on the week so far. can we call this a crash yet? ...but, it does not seem that selling has become indiscriminate just yet. the Dividend index is holding up fairly well, indicating at least some demand for 'quality' or 'value'. if the demand for yield starts to collapse then all hell breaks loose. tick tock.

the biggest mover on the T&V 50 index was VALE, down 6.31%. EWZ was biggest mover in the Equity ETF index, losing 6.39% for today's session. ignore Brazil at yer peril, says Goldman Sachs. I couldn't agree more!

Panic Ratio update (VIX:IRX)

resistance identified a couple weeks ago has been breached. this is going to be good. stay calm:)

UDN -- US Dollar Index Bearish ETF

as my sister loudly sings (if you can call it singing) "Proud to be an American" from the kitchen, I am trying to concentrate enough to post these charts...

four red candles in a row. (that's bad)

Arms Index(es) charts

daily charts of TRIN and TRINQ with Padovan moving averages 16 through 351. looks like the trend has been shifting away from accumulation and towards distribution for a bit now.

some of the higher beta segments of the market have practically been in crash mode all week (Steel down another 5% today, Chinese small caps down near 6% for the day so far, &c). large cap US stocks have held up much better than all the other pieces of garbage trading hands, and I expect that to continue, but even here the underlying structure of the market is deteriorating.

but so far I am having trouble detecting any panicky odors. perhaps participants have been so desensitized by all the little corrections the past months that in hindsight didn't amount to anything but 'buying opportunities'.

even I, one who has been waiting for this type of action as a signal that the Pump's been turned off, am trying to contemplate how the markets could shake this off and continue on with the reflation. but pro-liquidity scenarios are looking less and less tenable now.

any rallies that ensue from here can be sold after a day or two. the next few issues of the newsletter (subscribe at top of blog) will have much more detailed assessments of the markets we cover, and maybe even a few more trading ideas.



(note: stockcharts wouldn't generate a log-scale chart for TRINQ, so what you have here is a regular arithmetic chart. the Arms Indexes really should be viewed with log charts, but still I think that regular scaled chart of TRINQ paints an adequate picture here.)

XLF:SPY ratio -- red flag?

Steel -- breaking down

another beta segment of the market behaving poorly...

Index Data

closing values for Tuesday, October 27, 2009:

Trend & Value 50 Index:

985.84 (down .34%)

Equity ETF Index:

979.32 (down .95%)

China Small Cap ADR 25 Index:

918.54 (down 4.19%)

Large Cap Dividend Top 50 Index:

989.37 (up .19%)

T&V Gold Stock Index:

598.28 (down .59%)

------

wow, China small caps are down like 8% in the past two days. meanwhile FXI has barely budged. that's odd.

weekly chart of FXI with GLD overlaid

just something to chew on.

Gold ATR(1) Point and Figure Chart

over on the right of the blog I keep a point and figure chart of Gold set to ATR(1), so every day the chart looks different according to the price range traded that day. a 'kaleidoscope' as one nice lady put it.

well the latest one is a work of art. each box is $22. you can see that there hadn't been a negative price objective since last year. the rally has almost a parabolic look to it. and it shows that the latest column has hit the bullish price objective right on the money.

Index Data

closing values for Monday, October 26, 2009:

Trend & Value 50 Index:

989.18 (down 1.08%)

Equity ETF Index:

988.76 (down 1.13%)

China Small Cap ADR 25 Index:

958.75 (down 4.12%)

Large Cap Dividend Top 50 Index:

987.53 (down 1.25%)

T&V Gold Stock Index:

601.83 (down 1.21%)

(explanation of the Trend & Value 50 Index available here. explanations of the others coming soon.)

Introducing: The Trend & Value 50 Index

the Trend & Value 50 Index is designed as a broad and even measure of the equities market. it's not price weighted like the Dow Averages, but neither is it weighted according to market capitalization like the S&P benchmarks. rather, each of the 50 components are weighted equally.

while the T&V 50 has a fraction of the components as the S&P 500, we believe that it will more accurately reflect health of the Corporate System as a whole. this assertion can best be supported by explaining the parameters chosen when originating the index.

your author's initial idea was to construct an index of the largest stock (by market cap) of each 'industry group', but it turns out there are like a couple hundred of these 'industry groups' but the finviz website (which I am using as my data source) only allows users to build portfolios with a maximum of 50 symbols. so until we get some computing support Trend & Value will stick to 50 symbols for our indexes.

the minimum requirements for inclusion in the index are as follows:

Positive P/E over past year

Dividend Yield greater than 1%

Share Price greater than $10

Average Daily Volume greater than 1 million shares (though a couple exceptions had to be made here)

of this universe of symbols we wanted to distribute the components as widely across the economy as possible. so it was determined the index could only include 6 stocks from each of the 8 major sectors. and since the index is equally weighted that means each sector only makes up 12% of the index.

further, each of the six stocks selected from a particular sector had to be of a different industry group.

so we took the 6 largest stocks in a sector, where none of those stocks repeated an industry group. so for example the 6 stocks selected from the Industrial Goods sector were ABB, CAT, EMR, HON, ITW, RTN. these made the list even though the 6 largest stocks in the sector are ABB, CAT, EMR, HON, LMT, GD. LMT and GD did not make the list because they are in the same industry group classification as HON.

using this filtering mechanism we arrive at an index comprised of the following 50 companies:

Ticker Sector Industry
BHP Basic Materials Industrial Metals & Minerals
MON Basic Materials Agricultural Chemicals
OXY Basic Materials Independent Oil & Gas
SLB Basic Materials Oil & Gas Equipment & Services
VALE Basic Materials Steel & Iron
XOM Basic Materials Major Integrated Oil & Gas
CL Consumer Goods Personal Products
PEP Consumer Goods Processed & Packaged Goods
PG Consumer Goods Personal Products
PM Consumer Goods Cigarettes
KFT Consumer Goods Food - Major Diversified
KO Consumer Goods Beverages - Soft Drinks
MS Financial Diversified Investments
MET Financial Life Insurance
AXP Financial Credit Services
BBV Financial Foreign Regional Banks
HBC Financial Foreign Money Center Banks
RY Financial Money Center Banks
TEVA Healthcare Drug Manufacturers - Other
HLF Healthcare Drug Related Products
BAX Healthcare Medical Instruments & Supplies
MDT Healthcare Medical Appliances & Equipment
JNJ Healthcare Drug Manufacturers - Major
PPDI Healthcare Medical Laboratories & Research
RTN Industrial Goods Aerospace/Defense - Major Diversified
ITW Industrial Goods Diversified Machinery
ABB Industrial Goods Industrial Electrical Equipment
CAT Industrial Goods Farm & Construction Machinery
HON Industrial Goods Aerospace/Defense Products & Services
EMR Industrial Goods Industrial Equipment & Components
HD Services Home Improvement Stores
CMCSA Services CATV Systems
DIS Services Entertainment - Diversified
MCD Services Restaurants
UPS Services Air Delivery & Freight Services
WMT Services Discount, Variety Stores
T Technology Telecom Services - Domestic
MSFT Technology Application Software
QCOM Technology Communication Equipment
CHL Technology Wireless Communications
IBM Technology Diversified Computer Systems
INTC Technology Semiconductor - Broad Line
ENI Utilities Foreign Utilities
EXC Utilities Diversified Utilities
SO Utilities Electric Utilities
SRE Utilities Gas Utilities
WTR Utilities Water Utilities
UTX Conglomerates Conglomerates
MMM Conglomerates Conglomerates
GE Conglomerates Conglomerates

there are only 5 stocks from the Utilities sector because there are only 5 different industry groups within that sector. the 3 'Conglomerates' on the list were included to make the index an even 50 stocks.

to our knowledge, the Trend & Value 50 Index is unique in its construction; we know of no other index that measures such a broad spectrum of the economy with an equal weight methodology. (the Value Line index may be an exception, but it includes a many small and mid cap companies.)

Component Changes and Reweightings

a stock will be removed from the index any time it drops below $10 in price, produces a negative P/E, or the annual dividend yield drops below 1%. in any of these events the next eligible stock within its sector will fill this position immediately.

if a stock is bought-out or merged or taken private it will also be replaced with the next eligible stock with its sector, but in this case not until the shares stop trading completely and are delisted.

the entire index will be reconstituted and reweighted once a year in late October with selection filters identical to those outlined above.

the Trend & Value 50 Index has a base value of 1000 calculated from closing prices on Friday 10/23/09. we will post the closing value for this and some of our other special indexes after the bell each trading day, so check back often. the first such update will follow shortly.

Gold -- now and 2004

Gold this year (first chart) compared to Gold in 2004 (bottom chart).




explanation being sent to newsletter subscribers in a supplementary email update...

Morgan Stanley (MS) -- update

the positive outlook expressed for MS over the weekend had a bit of validity, it seems..



time to sell the news?

well, yer on yer own there. this really isn't my beat.

nah, this won't hurt a bit...

Bloomberg on the Brazilian tax thingie:

Brazil’s ‘Desperate’ Tax Won’t Slow Real, Cunha Says

EWZ, the Brazil ETF, happens to be a short position in a model portfolio I introduced to newsletter subscribers at the beginning of last week. the position is finally in the green a tad...




but nothing to get too exited about yet.

more or less

Niall Ferguson speaks. the world cringes.



"there has been no stock market rally. the stock market rally is a money illusion rally because the dollar's depreciation has negated all the appreciation of the S&P 500 since march, more or less."

right...



now without doubt the reemergence of Dollar liquidity has done wonders for markets all over the world, but the Dollar index is down about 16%, while the S&P is up 60% since the March lows...

we expect more than gross counter-factuals from a Harvard professor...or perhaps not.

RSX -- Russia ETF

we are seeing volume expand as the price approaches a critical confluence of resistances. if this is not the top, then look for one in the next couple dollars higher.

Hussman -- The Stock Market Has Never Been This (Intermediate-Term) Overbought

Biiwii's News & Analysis page links to this article by John Hussman:

The Stock Market Has Never Been This (Intermediate-Term) Overbought

I think it's worth your time to read. I am not exactly sure what his definition of 'over-bought' is here, though he does mention something about the number of stocks trading above the 50 and 200 day moving averages. if that is the criteria then he is certainly on track, the stock screen that I've been tracking of S&P 500 components trading below the 20, 50, and 200 day moving averages is at an absurdly low 13 now (though it was as low as 11 a few days ago).

Hussman says the only time the Stock Markt has been close to this over-bought was in November of 1980. he shows a chart of the S&P in the early 80s, but for reference I offer a chart of the market here too, with the price of Gold (mentioned in the article) and T-Bonds in the lower panels. note the broadly positive correlation of the three markets over the three year period featured...

and here I brag about something I said while you were asleep (USD/CAD)

unedited excerpt from an actual chat I had with Adam (aka 'guest blogger') in the early morning last Thursday:

adam: ah

4:08 AM I am long usd/cad

because it looks like a farce

me: well, if and when it reverses it should be a good position

adam: 3 h divergence

on rsi

4:09 AM me: 9 down days in a row!!!!

adam: yeah

pretty skanky

someone made a lot of money on that

4:10 AM probably the same people will make it on the way up when they flip sides?

me: who knows

4:11 AM adam: now at the 1H 21 ema

me: looks like it bottomed a few hours ago

4:12 AM at least a near term bottom

should bounce a few points at least

adam: 1.0350s or so

4:13 AM me: 1.043

adam: how did you get to that?

4:14 AM me: just made it up

but

adam: nice

me: draw a line from the june bottom

to the august bottom

4:15 AM that extends through about 1.042/3 now

adam: right

so thats a preliminary target

me: yeah, next few days

4:16 AM if it happens real quick

then the price will probably retrace quickly back a point or two

now this really short-term stuff isn't the type of thing I feature in the pay newsletter, but if you are a currency trader who might appreciate access to my opinions at odd hours, feel free to contact me, perhaps arrangements can be made. (but as a disclaimer, I make mistakes on occasion too, just ask Adam, he'll vouch for me there!)

selected commodity ETFs relative to USO (oil ETF) -- 1 month performance

supplemental chart for the morning newsletter:

Morgan Stanley (MS)

noticed MS was higher yesterday, while most other Financials took a hit. MS should outperform the other big symbols in the sector from here. those ratio charts below look rather bullish.

Over the Line?

2 ratios to keep an eye on over the next few weeks. Pop or plunge, but probably not sideways.

VIX chart at BIIWII

Gary seems to think the VIX is looking nice. here's a link:

Have you ever seen such a lovely consolidation?


and I'll add a chart of my 'Panic Ratio' here. was just about to put this in the newsletter, but what the hay..



if the ratio can break above the resistance there, that should spice up the markets.

XLF:SPY Ratio

couple charts to supplement the next newsletter (scheduled for distribution early Wednesday morning).

an early reader writes..

(and the alliterations end about here)

At a quick glance this appears to me to be a REALLY excellent newsletter - congratulations!!!

..in response to the latest Trend & Value Letter, sent to subscribers about an hour ago.

but I'm too busy to give a synoposis. subscribe with one of the options at the top of the blog to begin with this critically acclaimed report.

and thanks for the note, Dale! (a man who has 37 years - at least - experience parsing the words of investment prophets...)

how do you say 'meme' in Quichua?

Otto, we are one hit closer to the April First Prophecy. patience + focus = aspiration

and the search of the day is,,, drum roll,,,:

ecuador gold buying

this day in History

1899 – Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts.
1899 – The Western League is renamed the American League.
1906 – San Francisco public school board sparks United States diplomatic crisis with Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
1910 – Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.
1929 – JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
1941 – Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
1942 – World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance – On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
1944 – Tuvinian People's Republic or formerly Tannu Tuva is annexed by the U.S.S.R
1950 – Television: CBS's mechanical color system is the first to be licensed for broadcast by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
1954 – First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.
1957 – Space Race: M.I.T. scientists calculate Sputnik I's booster rocket's orbit.
1958 – Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).
1962 – Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
1968 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
1975 – The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Andy Kaufman, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as guests.
1976 – George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 is approved by President Gerald R. Ford.

1978 - My Sister Brooke is born! Happy Birthday! Love Ya!

(Brooke and her son Benjamin, Maine, Summer 2008)

1982 – The Mary Rose, a Tudor gunship which sank on July 18 1545, is raised from the sea bed in the Solent Channel, near Portsmouth.
1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
1986 – Cold War: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe.
1987 – Start of Operation Pawan by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka that killed few thousand ethnic Tamil civilians, several hundred Tamil Tigers and few hundred Indian Army soldiers.
1996 – Pala accident: a wood lorry and school bus collide in Jõgeva county, Estonia, killing eight children.
1998 – A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40 people.
2000 – The 100th Space Shuttle mission (STS-92) is flown.
2001 – The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.
2002 – A bomb attack in a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland kills seven.
2007 – The record high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average occurs at 14,198.10 points.

Adventures in Wave Theory -- The 5-3-5 "Expanded Zigzag"

another unusual wave formation we can postulate is the 5-3-5 'Expanded Zigzag' correction. it is similar to an 'expanded flat,' expect strictly speaking they say a flat is always a 3-3-5. we could just say go to hell with the text book and call this formation a 5-3-5 expanded flat, but I don't want to upset the terminology gods, so I have substituted zigag for flat.

I should note that in my own mind and most of my writings I use the term flat to describe a correction that is generally lateral in appearance (having a more or less double-top and a more or less double-bottom). perhaps I should be using the word 'line' instead of 'flat' for these directional descriptions.

"it seems more like an investment...

"...a futures trade from the Nobel Committee...

"...from the man who now literally has the world his shoulders."

ah, 'literally', huh?


heck, he is the secret love child of Ayn Rand and Malcolm X, so maybe he does deserve the award.

Adventures in Wave Theory -- The 5-3-3-3-5 Correction

complex formations are confusing and the one I am postulating here especially so. if you abstract the 3s from the middle you could be left with an unusual 5-3-5 'running zigzag,' with the final leg of 5 waves by definition marking the culmination of the overall correction, even though it doesn't drop below the previous lows. but if you leave them in there, the final 3-3-5 portion of the pattern in itself has the appearance of an 'expanded flat,' which by definition is a corrective pattern within a bull trend.

the final 5 becomes at once a corrective sequence within an established motive sequence (eg wave 2 of 5) and a motive sequence within an established corrective sequence (eg C of an ABC). it is then, to adopt the botanical analogy, a monoecious formation.

I'll do away with air pollution and then all save the whales, We'll have peace on earth and global communion.

and one more for ya, Barry!



and this being the pinnacle of punk, lyrics to read along with might come in handy (though they are on the video too). tell me this isn't prophecy, mother fucker:

Hey Brother Christian with your high and might errand,
Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear a word you're saying.
Hey Sister Bleeding Heart with all of your compassion,
Your labors soothe the hurt but can't assuage temptation.
Hey man of science with your perfect rules of measure,
Can you improve this place with the data that you gather?
Hey Mother Mercy can your loins bear fruit forever?
Is your fecundity a trammel or a treasure?
And I want to conquer the world,
Give all the idiots a brand new religion,
Put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil,
Promote equality in all my decisions
With a quick wink of the eye
And a "God you must be joking!"
Hey Mr. Diplomat with your worldly aspirations,
Did you see the children cry when you left them at the station?
Hey moral soldier you've got righteous proclamation,
And precious tomes to fuel your pulpy conflagrations.
And I want to conquer the world,
Give all the idiots a brand new religion,
Put an end to poverty, uncleanliness and toil,
Promote equality in all of my decisions
I want to conquer the world,
Expose the culprits and feed them to the children,
I'll do away with air pollution and then all save the whales,
We'll have peace on earth and global communion.
I want to conquer the world!

The fragrance of Afghanistan

for some reason this song also came to my mind regarding our Leader's award and US foreign policy... in any case, I haven't posted a Rush song in ages, so here we go.



Our first stop is in Bogota
To check Columbian fields
The natives smile and pass along
A sample of their yield
Sweet Jamaican pipe dreams
Golden Acapulco nights
Then Morocco, and the East,
Fly by morning light

We're on the train to Bangkok
Aboard the Thailand Express
We'll hit the stops along the way
We only stop for the best

Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon
We burn the midnight oil
The fragrance of Afghanistan
Rewards a long day's toil
Pulling into Katmandu
Smoke rings fill the air
Perfumed by a Nepal night
The Express gets you there

Friday Jam

Living Color...comes full circle today.


Neon Lights, Nobel Prize
....
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV

USD/EUR -- 30 Minute RSI

being a steadfast Dollar Bull has been a humbling experience the last few months, but, ever the optimist, I see some positive indications on the shorter term charts of EUR/USD. pretty substantial divergence on the 30 minute RSI the last 24 hours. click the image to view it full size.

Nippy 3 hour charts update

so far only AUD/JPY has climbed above last week's high, while USD and GBP have actually broken below the little upward trendlines. the equal weight JPY index is currently at 91.17, up a bit from the last update, but much.

what gets me is the rather substantial divergence of performance between the pairs. I have always liked the Yen because of its strong tendency to rise and fall across the board, so to see some of the /JPY pairs move in completely opposite directions has me a little stumped here. suspicious too.

Continuous Commodity Index (CCI) chart

ran the same chart as the palladium one on the CCI. similar results. CCI has just met the 38.2% retracement. also at the upper end of the MA web.

CCI keeps finding a way to move higher, even as relatively few of the components themselves are hitting new highs. but that's an index for you.

Palladium chart

the other other white metal approaches its 38.2% target, which coincides with the upper end of the moving average 'web' on the weekly chart. pretty good probability of an intermediate top here in the near future, based on these factors at least.

Wanna Learn Something? Read IKN

sick of price charts and 'technical "analysis"'*?

me too, that's why I have been reading the IKN blog and the premium IKN Weekly.

Otto, in his latest newsletter, in addition to analyzing mining stocks so you can get rich, perhaps not quickly, but much sooner than otherwise, actually explains (really) the Venezuelan Parallel Exchange Rate. christ, I can't even spell Venezuelan or Parallel without out the aide of a spell checker. (I did however win my junior high's Geography Bee two years in a row. plus I used to live at the 45th parallel, and currently live a few miles -- kilometers I think they call them in these parts -- away from Parallel Null, aka 'Mitad del Mundo', home of the world's largest commemorative bottle of liqueur, so I Know a bit about this concept.)

but really, Otto explained the Venezuelan monetary regime. I haven't looked, but I doubt anyone has ever done this before.

then toward the end of the newsletter Otto publishes an article from a fellow by the name of Armen Kouyoumdjian. the article dealt with Brazil. I really wish you could read it, and I'd let you in on the brilliant analysis/critique of the newest Olympic bag-holders, but I have been sworn to secrecy about all that transpires in the pages of the IKN Weekly...

huh? Otto published Armen Kouyoumdjian's article on the blog? well I'll be..

Bringing Brazil Down to Earth, by Armen Kouyoumdjian


click the link. well worth your time.



*double scare quotes -- every Tuesday, only at T&V.

Nippy update -- /JPY 3 hour charts

the rally in the /JPY pairs stalled overnight (right as I was posting the previous update...). the equal weight JPY index is now trading around 90.83. USD/JPY weaker than the rest in the short-term, though you'll notice that none of the pairs have so far managed to break above last week's highs. still in limbo.

92.2 percent bullish

39 S&P 500 components are now trading below their 20, 50, and 200 day moving averages. this is up from 12 (97.6%) when I last looked on 9/11/09.

click here for the list. (it updates daily.)

meanwhile, the S&P has declined 1.82 percent since 9/11. unfortunately I did not get this stat when the market was near its recent top, would have been interesting to see whether the reading was above or below the extreme 97.6% figure.



of the 39 on that list now, only 4 have a trailing P/E under 15, a forward P/E under 10 and a dividend yield greater than 3 percent. click here for the refined list.