No Foolin I'm Bullish

Despite all my rantings on the economy and how I think the government is making things worse I am bullish for April. Seasonally speaking the market cycle is bullish this month. Last months break down in commodities on the DBA and the DBC along with weakness in Gold (GLD) and Oil (USO) tell me there is a window of relief from out of control commodity bulls. Even though Australia didn't cut rates last night we are seeing the dollar strengthen against most all other currencies, FXA, FXC, FXE, etc. Dollar strength tends to lead the stock market.

Don't get get me wrong, I am long-term bearish still. I think we will see the CNBC and BTV start marking the end of the credit crisis, calling Bernanke a hero, but the rally will be a sucker's rally. We have another $300 billion in losses coming for our countries financial institutions, we will see interest rate hikes later in the year when the Fed is forced to address inflation, and the rest of the world is now feeling out financial pain. Play the bullishiness while it last but use stops and position sizing!

More Doom and Gloom

I found this article to be very insightful as far as a Doomsday scenario. Remember it doesn't have to be all issues occurring at once but just a few of them back to back, to make life really difficult.

Using your Lobes on Job Numbers

Today market participants and conservative politicos were excited about what they saw as a positive job reports. Wiser commentators downplayed the significance of the report and here is why. The job report doesn't account for illegal migrant workers. Construction jobs are taking the brunt of the bearish housing market which has been perhaps the largest employer of illegal workers. Housing start are so slow now that contractors no longer need to take on the risk of hiring these workers. Therefore, these workers don't go in and apply for unemployment for obvious reasons. So in a reporting sense they don't count.

The unemployment records have been screwed for sometime. First of all we haven't been accounting for the the number of illeagal workers in the past. This means those already low unemployment numbers not only had us at full-employment but over-employment. This was a very inflationary sign through all of last year. Wages on "lower tier" jobs were pressed higher because we were "growing" at a fast pace (Or at least we thought we were and kept building on those inflated expectations.) We Ferengi agree with business owners that paying higher wages is hard on the bottom line.

Sales people who were working in the housing and mortgage fields are also left somewhat an accounted. They may very well be looking for work or they may be dying on the vine. Commission based salesman may hold out for some time because of the nature of the sale business. You cannot be in sales and have a defeatist attitude so many salesman will stay at much longer then they can afford. In the end many people should be looking for some type of back up plan and that takes training.

The point that I am making here is to assess the Economic numbers with a grain of salt. I have only pointed out a few weaknesses in the numbers right now. Perhaps the biggest discretion in the numbers is after a person has been unemployed for so long we just quit counting them. If we had counted unemployment like that in the 1930s then the Great Depression would've been the Fairly Big Recession. In the end many people should be looking for some type of back up plan and that takes training.



The market will once again give us the truth of what is going on. We find this by using our relative strength tool. This time we will examine the Education stocks. These are stocks like Apollo Colleges (APOL) whose subsidiary University of Phoenix you are probably most familiar with. Also ITT Technical Institutions (ESI), Corinthian Colleges (COCO), and finally Career Education (CECO) to name a few that lead the markets back in 2001-2003. We can see in our graph here that money has been flowing into this industry group for about a year. This tells me that the "Smart Money" believes that unemployment and/or underemployment (having a job that doesn't cover your needs) are a much bigger concern then what the economic numbers are telling us.

Bernake: The Dollar Destoyer!

So the word on the street today is the Fed may once again reduce rates. Earthlings have become so scared of a recession that they are willing to destroy the value of the dollar to just delay the inevitable. Look, like it or not we are going into a recession. Short sited Earth bankers and borrowers were willing to lend money to any homo-sapien that could fog a mirror and they are just afraid to let banks pay the consequences. Where are the Milton Friedman lasse faire economists? Why are they so afraid to let the foolish businessmen take their lumps (Ferengi are not responsible for the stupidity of other races)? New financial leaders will rise out of the ashes and they will be all the wiser because of it.

The Ferengi watched in admiration of President Ronald Regan and his understanding of a strong dollar policy, "The Dollar will be as good as gold" was the cry then. Aren't all these FOMC people suppose to be your so called Regan Republicans? Why are they so willing to let the dollar die on the vine?

Money in the currency market flows to the country that is usually paying the best savings rates. The US was the envy of the world and the dollar was strong all through the 80-90s, the strong dollar policy helped the US lead the world in development and strength. Every time Bernake seeks to lower the interest rate to cave to Wall Street traders he further weakens the dollar. Interest Rates are still at very historical lows, maintaining the current rate will at least help to stabilize the dollar. There is no cure for the housing market just give it up already. Let the market shake out and run its course.

In 1929 where we faced similar economic issues and the Fed increase the interest rates in order to strengthen the dollar and combat inflation but then sparked the worst sell off in the stock market. In 1998 the Fed had a similar liquidity crisis thanks to the "genius" of Long-Term Capital Management and all the banks that lent them money. The Fed increased liquidity by lower interest rates at the time to bail the banks out, but the dropping commodity market and deflation made the economic situation favorable for the time and the cuts didn't hurt. This time we are in a harder situation because earth has a liquidity issue created once again by the ridiculous bankers lending for any reason, but the cutting of the interest rates is perpetuating inflation and an already bullish commodity market. Raising interest rates to combat the inflation may put us into 1929 decline but lowering the rates puts into 1970s type inflation. The only logical course from my point of view is to just leave the rates alone. Quit tinkering with it. Allow this economy to play its way out.

Bernake believes that the rest of the world is going to eventually fall into recession just like the US so the rate cuts will eventually be countered by the cuts in other countries. The world is bigger than it used to be. New large consumers like China and India may not bring the kind of slow down we expect. Countries like Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Russia who are profiting from the skyrocketing commodity prices and may make up much of the consumption the US will slack off on because wealth is increasing in those areas. Bernake may very well be right but it seems to me he is spinning the revolver with a few extra rounds.

Ponzi Schemes are Great (When you're Ponzi)

Unless you have been living in the delta quadrant you should know that the housing market on Earth has been in a slump. Although greed is good whether you are Ferengi or Gordon Gecko the prudent investor is always cautious of those who try to guarantee returns. Look at these poor saps in Utah who were messing with the housing bull market and got the horn. Utah Housing Bust

Trading tip, when you are dealing with a market that is hard to unload assets in then you need to make sure you are not the last one out. Ponzi schemes like this show up in every bull market. If you are with a group who promises some kind of return get out.