Bear Mountain Bull

The trading range has been compressing and the moving averages are converging — a break in one direction or the other probably isn’t too far away. As Dave Landry said earlier in the week, “Market participants seldom agree on price, at least not for long.”

CNBC says (so it’s gotta be true!) that only two Dow stocks finished higher for the year:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

Ok, I admit I wasn’t watching the market today. I was watching football instead. I have to get all I can before the season is completely over.

Things rallied into the afternoon again before pulling back before the close, but that put things in the green for the second day in a row and finished the year’s trading on a positive note (small consolation after one of the worst years in market history). Just a couple of days after it looked like the indices might break down out of their trading range, they’re starting to threaten a breakout to the upside.

The Russell and the Transports were today’s big winners:

Bonds slipped, and rates moved higher:
6-month: 0.26%    2-yr: 0.76%    5-yr: 1.55%    10-yr: 2.21%    30-yr: 2.68%.

Internals were positive on the best volume of the week thus far. Advances/declines were 5 to 1 on the NYSE and 3 to 1 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 4 to 1 on both exchanges. New highs/lows were 16/16 on the NYSE and 21/72 on the Nasdaq.

All of the groups were green, led by the REITs (+4.7%), brokers (+4.3%), transportation (+3.5%), banks (+3.3%), hospitals (+2.7%), defense (+2.7%) and disk drives (+2.5%).

Crude and gasoline prices got another strong bounce up – sooner or later, one of these bounces is going to stick. Crude oil was higher by more than four bucks to $44.60 – but has fallen over a dollar from there in afternoon electronic trading. Gasoline jumped more than a dime to $1.00/gallon. Despite the move up in the other fuels, natural gas fell to $5.61/mmBTU. The dollar index moved up to 81.24, but that didn’t stop the precious metals from moving up. Gold gained a few bucks to $880 and silver had a strong day, up to $11.33/ounce.

BMB Note:   Though we’ve seen a couple of good days in the market, they’ve some on low holiday-type volume, and the indices remain rangebound. But they won’t remain rangebound forever, and we’ll eventually get a break in one direction or the other.

Have a great New Year’s Day, and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

The BMB gang would like to congratulate Mac, at the Chart Swing Trader blog, and his wife on the new addition to their ‘portfolio’:

…my wife and I were blessed with a very healthy, very big (8 lbs, 9 oz; 22 inches) baby boy on Monday morning named Luke. Both mother and son are doing very well and will be coming home from the hospital on Thursday.

As the numbers of unemployed workers continues to rise:

Maybe the agricultural commodities will be the next ones to make a turn up off the lows… The DBA ETF represents corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar.

Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com

The near-term market support holds again as the indices get a bounce up after some surprisingly weak holiday action. A late surge saw stocks closing near their highs for the day, as the Transports and the Russell led the way:

Bonds were fairly quiet for another day, with rates mixed across the curve:
6-month: 0.23%    2-yr: 0.73%    5-yr: 1.47%    10-yr: 2.09%    30-yr: 2.58%.

Internals started positive and stayed there, with volume still at ‘holiday’ settings. Advances/declines were 4 to 1 on the NYSE and 11 to 5 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 9 to 1 on the NYSE and 3 to 1 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 10/37 on the NYSE and 12/151 (that’s more new lows than yesterday, with the Naz up 2.7%) on the Nasdaq.

Nearly all of the groups finished green, with only the recently-strong gold and silver stocks (-0.7%) holding back. Leading the winners were the brokers (+5.1%), disk drives (+4.9%), HMOs (+4.9%), semiconductors (+4.6%), REITs (+4.5%), steel stocks (+4.4%), transportation (+3.9%), housing (+3.8%), defense (+3.8%) and banks (+3.6%).

Energy price were mixed. Crude oil was lower by about a buck at $39.03/barrel, gasoline up a penny to $0.88/gallon, and the new front-month natural gas contract is back below 6 bucks at $5.85/mmBTU. The dollar index finished a bit higher at 80.83. The precious metals were quiet, with gold down a few bucks to $873/ounce but silver a bit higher at $10.91/ounce.

BMB Note:   Well, by day’s end, things looked nice, but it doesn’t change much, other than to get back a few days of losses. The market, as a whole, remains trendless.

I’ve seen a bunch of discussion this morning on CNBC about raising the gas tax.

Amazing. All of the talk before the election was about the idea of a gas tax ‘holiday’ to give the consumer a break from the high energy prices. Now that the prices have come back down, they want to put more ’stimulus’ in the pockets of Americans, and take it right back in the form of higher gasoline taxes.

What a country.

…where currencies are concerned these days.

From Bill Cara yesterday:

The Wall St Journal today published a story on how the new weak dollar policy of the US Administration and central bank are hurtful to exporting nations like Germany and Japan. It’s the reason I forecast a G-20 trade war in 2009.

The WSJ story subhead is “Currency depreciation can spur boom in exports, lead to economic recovery”.

The key line reads, “In today’s (economic) environment, few countries want to be the last one standing with a strong currency”.

In a 2002 speech, the WSJ story says, Bernanke noted that the devaluation of the dollar and the rapid increase in the money supply in 1933 and 1934 “ended the US deflation pretty quickly”.

Well, it seems that during the recent meeting of the G-7 in Washington, those sourpuss faces of the leaders was the sign they had just discovered the monetary policy change of the US and none of them liked it a bit.

Gold, by the way, was the top performing asset class during the 1930’s and stock prices, as I have pointed out on different occasions, fared very well with five Bull markets over just seven years, averaging over +92% gains.

I am looking forward to a terrific 2009, $60-75 oil and possibly $1500 gold. Politicians, on the other hand, will be cursing the forex market and spending their time in trade war mediation at the WTO.

The quote of the day from The Big Picture:

Scene: U of Chicago economics class taught by Milton Friedman. After a late night of studying, a student falls asleep in class. This sent Friedman into a tizzy and he came over and pounded on the desk, demanding an answer to a question he had just posed. The student, shaken but now awake says “I’m sorry Professor, I missed the question — but the answer is increase the money supply…”

And let the bailouts roll on…

Gary Kaltbaum looks back over the past year:

I would first like to wish each and every one of you a happy and prosperous new year!

I was deciding what kind of report I wanted to end the year with. Normally, I write about my best and worst calls of the year…but this year, there was just a handful of calls made by me…as there was not much to do except to avoid the carnage. For starters:

For the sheer market calls, this was my best year. I have to thank the market for that. Normally in bear markets, you get strong bear market rallies that can turn an overall bear into a near-term bull. The market did not provide anything like that – so my bear market call and my continued calls to stay out worked wonders. Bottom line, my continued call that the market was in a major bear phase all year long won the day. I love telling my audience not just what I am thinking and seeing but also what I am doing. I have seen many in the past year make the right calls but are still down 50%. Not once this year was I ever heavily invested…and any time I did probe, it was more of a rental probe. With the market still down in the 40s this year, I am still whole…to me, somewhat of a miracle. I repeat…the accounts I have managed are still whole!

Specifically, my best calls:

Going back to early to mid ‘07, I called the major underperformance and the top in FINANCIALS.

Going back to July ‘07, I called the top in the SEMIS and RETAIL.

On the first day of January ‘08, I stated that most of the “high flyers” like APPLE had topped as I thought they would join the ugly parade. On cue, those stocks were smoked as they were propped up into the end of ‘07.

On July 2, I called for a top in the COMMODITIES…as the action that day, yes…that day…was a major sell signal. Little did I know the COMMODITIES would crash. Little did I know OIL would drop from $147 to $35. I just knew a top was in. On that day, many names dropped 10-15% off their top with their highest single daily volume in history. This was a classic sign of a top right from my studies of many bear market tops throughout history.

Throughout the year, I would say the same thing over and over again: “FINANCIALS WOULD GO FARTHER DOWN THAN ANYONE WILL EVER BELIEVE FATHOMABLE!” I can’t tell you how many told me I was insane. This was somewhat simple…yes simple. In my studies of bear markets, the group that leads down will lead all the way down. All one has to do is look at the TECHNOLOGY/INTERNET stocks in the prior bear market. The other point I continued to make all year was those companies that lost money in a bear market would watch their stocks get slaughtered, no matter what they did, no matter who they were, and no matter who ran the show.

Outside of the market, I posed the question about what happens when the market realizes that people like Bernanke and Paulson do not have a clue. Well, we found out the answer. Nothing personal but both are over their head and in the case of Paulson, I have nothing but utter disdain for someone who made trillions in the free market and when his buddies lost on their insane bad bets, he uses our money to make his buddies whole. Bush fell for it, the Dems fell for it and many republicans fell for it. I have news for you, it is not the Madoff incident that is the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, it is the Bernanke/Paulson scheme of conjuring up money out of thin air to reward criminal acts at the investment banks as well as FNM, FRE, AIG and others. I used to believe the Gottis and Gambinos were bad. Wall Street has turned them into pikers. Our government is now being run by Goldman Sachs and no one is upset about this. We all get to decide whether this is what we want for our future…Goldman Sachs alumni running our world. I am going to be a very loud voice against all the nonsense we have been seeing as we continue to watch the taxpayer be castrated all in the name of saving failed companies. The latest scam is letting non-banks become banks in order to access government largesse. The latest being GMAC…

So, it was a great year for yours truly…and not once did I have to give out a target…not once did I have to predict where the market would be at the end of the year. All I had to do was stay one step ahead or in lockstep with what the market has been saying all year. This in spite of all the ridiculous bottom calls…booyah! And this in spite of all the government interference. Speaking of interference that was the only thing that kept me from really shorting the heck out of the market as it was very tough walking into the office and seeing pre-market up 300-500 points because of another bailout.

So…as we close out the year, here is what I am seeing…which could be described as half empty but POTENTIALLY half full. Half empty because there continues to be no monster leadership. There is simply no stocks breaking out of long trading ranges on heavy volume and moving up 20%, 50%, 100% and more. Not one at this juncture. If there is any one characteristic of a bull market, it is this one. Half empty because even after a 50% drop, rallies have been anemic. Half empty because there seems to be a clear lack of volume on the up days. This is another characteristic that always shows up in bull markets…high volume up days. The half full side of the equation…well, not sure this is so great…but the market continues to defend itself at the 8100 DOW level and the 815 S&P level.

LET ME BE CLEAR…a break below these levels…and look out. But if these levels continue to hold, it gives the market a chance to build from here. I suggest we will know soon enough as the market will most likely tip its hand in short order. I must add that if the market decides to get some legs to the upside, it will be led by COMMODITIES again as the whole complex is trying to carve out the same low the major averages are attempting. But it will take time. Remember, unlike the constant bottom callers who have never spent one minute studying bottoms, my studies show bottoms take time and price. Bottoms are not an event…they are a process. So far, markets have held those lows for 12 weeks so hopefully a process is underway. I don’t know how this plays out yet but if we are indeed seeing this process, just remember 2002-2003 took 5-6 months and in ‘87, markets sat around for almost a year before they got going again. So be patient.

I am patient because I know what new bull markets look like. They all have the same characteristics that cannot be hidden. When they show up, I will be screaming it. So far, all we have is 12 weeks of holding lows with a nauseating range being played out.

A word of warning to the wise. As I said, I believe Bernanke and Paulson do not have a clue…and not so sure anyone in the next administration will have a clue either. These people continue to believe the answer to everything is more leverage and more easy money. They continue to shoot the middle finger at all of us…the taxpayer in their never-ending quest to save the day and save their buddies.

Amazingly, it was leverage and easy money that got us into this position in the first place. There has to be only one outcome for what we are seeing these people do. From my studies of governmental policy, especially bad policy, we are only going to see another bubble created…as the fed does nothing but cause bubbles. I suggest watching the bond market. Amazingly, the fed is buying up bonds…WHEN THEY SHOULD BE SELLING BONDS AT THESE LOW INTEREST RATES to pay down all this debt. But no!

I also expect in the coming years to see interest rates get out of hand to the upside, as this bubble will not last…and if nothing changes, a bubble in inflation. The definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. These dudes can now write the book.

I now leave with the quotes of the year and some from years past.

The fact is I could write a book about these quotes…ok…I will. I left out Bernanke quotes because they were too numerous in being 100% wrong:

“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as sub-prime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants … With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers … Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in sub-prime mortgage lending … fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.” – Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, undated.

“Not only have individual financial institutions become less vulnerable to shocks from underlying risk factors, but also the financial system as a whole has become more resilient.” – Alan Greenspan, 2004.

“We have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment.” – Chris Cox defending Bear Stearns to reporters days before Bear goes bye-bye, March 8.

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” – John McCain on Sept 15.

“A senate seat is a f—ing valuable thing. You just don’t give it away.” – Governor Blago, undated.

“Credible and specific allegations regarding Madoff’s financial wrongdoing going back to at least 1999 were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff. I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate the allegations or at any point to seek formal authority from the politically appointed commission to pursue them.” – Chris Cox with the “YOU THINK” quote of the year!

“Bernard Madoff is a man of integrity!” – One of Madoff’s imbecilic lawyers.

“I am indeed sticking my neck out right here, right now, declaring emphatically that I believe the market will not revisit the panicked lows it hit on July 15. and I think anyone out there who’s waiting for that low to be breached is in for a big disappointment and (they’re) missing a great deal of upside. Stop waiting, (and) buy the next dip because I think it might be the last big one.” – The great charlatan Jim Cramer with another bottom call gone awry! (Actually, I can fill up a novel of bad calls from this “guru!”)

And I give you the quote superstar of the year: HANK PAULSON…and yes, I could have made him look even more foolish with many of his other nonsensical quotes!

“I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained.” – April ‘07.

“Long-term fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong.” – Jan 18, 2008.

“I’m not interested in bailing out investors, lenders and speculators.” – March 2, 2008.

“The worst is likely to be behind us.” – May ‘08.

“Tax rebates, business incentives will help create more than 500,000 jobs by year end!” – May ‘08.

“U.S. economy diverse, resilient, with healthy long-term fundamentals!” – May ‘08.

“Worst of credit crisis over!” – May ‘08.

“Economy’s pace should pick up by year end!” – May 16, 2008.

“Financial firms must be allowed to fail.” – July ‘08.

“We will work with FED, FDIC to develop strategies; transparency in process will be important! – Oct ‘08.

“We will buy illiquid assets from banks under rescue plan as well as equity!” – Oct 16, 2008.

“We expect participating banks to deploy, not hoard, new capital” – Oct 20, 2008.

“I will not apologize for changing approach as facts change!” – November ‘08.

“I urge Congress to “get money” for U.S. automakers!” – Nov 16, 2008.

“The Treasury is actively mulling new rescue programs!” – Dec 1, 2008.

And Lastly, I leave you with a final quote by a wise man named Thomas Jefferson who once said: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Are the indices just consolidating here — or threatening a breakdown? That 850 level on the S&P is starting to take on more and more significance.

Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com

The holiday action continues to be very unimpressive. The indices came up off their lows in the afternoon (the Dow was down 151 at one point), but if the bulls can’t get it together during the Christmas/New Year’s week, when can they?

The Nasdaq and the Russell put in a pretty sickly performance:

Bonds were fairly quiet:
6-month: 0.18%    2-yr: 0.76%    5-yr: 1.45%    10-yr: 2.10%    30-yr: 2.63%.

Internals were negative all day, with volume light, as we’d expect for the holidays. Advances/declines were 3 to 5 on the NYSE and 5 to 14 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 1 to 2 on the NYSE and 1 to 3 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 4/48 on the NYSE and 4/121 on the Nasdaq.

Again, just a few commodity areas were able to gain ground today: gold/silver stocks (+3.0%), oil services (+3.0%), oil stocks (+1.9%) and natural gas stocks (+1.5%). REITs (-5.6%), chemicals (-4.1%), hospitals (-2.9%), disk drives (-2.1%), steel stocks (-1.0%), housing (-1.7%) and internets (-1.6%) led the losers.

Energy price moved higher. Crude oil ended the day at $40.02/barrel, gasoline at $0.87/gallon, and natural gas regained the $6 level at $6.13/mmBTU. The dollar index took a morning dip and bounced back up to near flat at 80.69. Gold and silver gave up quite a bit of their early gains, but still finished higher — gold at $877/ounce and silver at $10.84/ounce.

BMB Note:   Not a lot to see here folks. The indices, as well as a number of groups, have broken their recent mini-uptrend lines and have stalled, some threatening to break near-term support. The holiday bulls have to be rather disappointed. The commodities have gotten a bit of a bounce back, led by the gold/silver stocks.

But who really cares about the market this week anyway? There’s plenty of football available for entertainment purposes.

Fil Zucchi at Minyanville:

From 30,000 feet, everything the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have done over the last several months has been far less sophisticated than they perhaps want to be given credit for:

1. The government is absorbing as much private domestic debt as it can get its hands on.

2. To sustain its ability to absorb the debt, the government is effectively destroying large swaths of it by debasing the currency with which it will presumably repay it.

3. If points 1 and 2 were not enough for our foreign creditors to swallow, the US government has the hubris to expect that they will continue to finance our sacrosanct standard of living with fresh credit at laughably low rates.

It’s the ultimate game of chicken, where we bet that foreigners won’t have the courage to step back and let the US economy collapse. To complicate matters, how the parties will navigate this game will be driven not only by economics and finance, but by diplomacy and foreign affairs.

Ideas for self-evaluation from Deron Wagner:

As we mentioned last week, low volume markets are notorious for being whippy and choppy. As such, this is not the time to be placing big bets on ETFs closely correlated to the direction of the broad market. Instead, make productive use of your time by conducting an honest year-end review of your trading operations. What did you do right in 2008? What did you do wrong? How will you improve on the areas that need improvement? Write it all down and incorporate it into a firm trading plan that will carry you into the new year. Undoubtedly, it was a challenging year for many traders and investors, but don’t waste energy dwelling on past mistakes; the past cannot be changed. Rather, take a deep, sincere look at why you made the decisions you made. Doing so will surely pay big dividends in 2009!

Notes on the latest moves in the industry groups:

• It’s the final week of the year – so let’s add the Year-to-date numbers to the tables. Hmm. Not a big surprise that the ‘best’ performing groups on the year were still down double-digits.
• Some of the group charts are seeing crosses of the 20-day average (blue line) back above the 50-day (red line), though not with a great deal of enthusiasm just yet.
• The groups with the biggest gap between those averages are the insurers, airlines and gold/silver stocks, with the precious metals stocks making the most convincing turn back up at this point. The other two groups’ charts are still pretty messy.
• As for the rest, we’re still seeing little in the way of ’strength’. Here are the charts: set #1 — set #2 — set #3 — set #4
• For a more detailed breakdown of group movement over various time periods, try Prophet.net’s Industry Rankings page., or the Industry Group Tracker at WSJ Online.

For those who might be interested: As he does every year around the holidays, Bill Fleckenstein is offering free access to his web site, for a limited time, to those who care to take a look around.

From last week’s column:

…from now until Jan. 3, I invite folks to a holiday “open house” at my Web site, where you can peruse past daily columns and Q&As. A complimentary username/password — free/free — gives readers access to the site.

Still not much impressive action going on in the SPDRs, as only the Health Care and Discretionary stocks have managed to edge back up above their 50-day moving averages (red lines):

The numbers as we enter another short week to close out the year:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

An abbreviated wrap for today’s very light volume session:

Yields were slightly lower:
6-month: 0.22%    2-yr: 0.88%    5-yr: 1.41    10-yr: 2.13%    30-yr: 2.61%.

Commodity areas led the winners: gold/silver stocks (+4.8%), hospitals (+3.9%), steel (+3.4%), metals (+3.0%), oil services (+3.0%) and HMOs (+2.2%).

Energy prices were the big movers. Crude oil bounced up to $37.71/barrel, gasoline to $0.84/gallon and natural gas to $5.89/mmBTU. The dollar index stands at 80.99. Gold and silver both moved higher, gold to $868/ounce and silver to $10.66/ounce.

Some thoughts from Minyan Peter:

“Mrs. Jones, with your cash now earning nothing and stocks down 40% from a year ago, isn’t it time to jump back into the stock market, or at least into longer-dated Treasury bonds? How about corporate bonds, given what they’re yielding over Treasuries?”

Yes, Mrs. Jones is going to hear an earful. And with Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke reiterating how long he intends to keep interest rates at zero — a not-too-subtle message to push savers out of risk-free cash investments — I’m sure she won’t be alone. In fact, I expect a lot of retail investors to be dragged at pen point down the Trail of Tears into taking risk.

—

Unfortunately, unless you’re in your eighties, what we’re living through today doesn’t in any way resemble an event from your past. This one is global – and it is secular, not cyclical. And, while they can put a higher floor on the bottom than would otherwise be the case, history suggests that central banks and governments are limited in their ability to counteract this unwinding deflationary cycle.

What this crisis requires is time. And despite all the price cuts we’ve seen, not enough time has passed to say with confidence we’ve reached the bottom. At best, I’d offer that we’re only now just seeing the second derivative of the financial deleveraging that’s underway. And, unfortunately, there are more hard times ahead.

—

As much as I wish it were done, I don’t believe it is. In fact, I fear the next 12 months will require even more courage and discipline than the previous 12. During this period, doing nothing (i.e. staying in cash and maximizing liquidity) will feel increasingly lonely as pundit after pundit shills one “historic” opportunity after another.

—

Once again, I’d offer the same quote Will Rogers did during the Great Depression – that “the return of principal is far more important than the return on principal.” Until further notice, cash remains king.

With the financial media still concentrating on holiday retail sales figures, and trying to ‘wish’ them higher, Jon Markman says that we’ve got a new frugal future to look forward to:

If the apathy you’ve felt at the malls or seen among friends and family is alarming, it’s mostly because nothing in our experience, or even most of our parents’ experience, has prepared us for a prolonged slowdown. It’s almost as if you need to hear the whispers of Civil War widows, or at least see some Depression-era movies, to understand the drain of emotion and hope that has sapped the energy of the full range of the American caste system. Except for those who were already very poor coming into this period, and a few sports and entertainment elites, no one is immune.

—

Our new economic reality — our “frugal future,” in the words of Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg — will be marked by reduced discretionary spending, higher savings rates, asset liquidation, debt repayment and reduced accessibility to consumer credit. It will also not be buttressed by rising flanks of new consumers, because the children of the baby boomers are a smaller cohort and immigration policies are unlikely to change drastically.

—

…during the third quarter, nearly $30 billion in consumer debt was repaid. This is the beginning of an epic change in the way society views financial profligacy and prudence. As a result, a recovery in housing, autos and other consumer discretionary categories will be long and painful. And without some stability in the housing market, it will be difficult for the incoming Obama administration to stabilize the financial system while trying to spur enough government spending to offset the newly frugal American consumer.

From The Big Picture:

Once again, we must point to our philosophical dispute with those who believe that markets can police themselves.

There is no such thing as Markets that “self-regulate.” Its the humans that require rules, regulations, supervision — not the markets. The phrase “self-regulate” is a non sequitur, a nonsense buzzword repeatedly by mindless parrots.

Some advice on trading the end-of-the-year market from Deron Wagner:

…we don’t expect stocks and ETFs to have much momentum until volume returns to the market, at least not until the new year begins. As such, be careful to avoid overtrading throughout the next week; low volume markets are notoriously choppy. If buying any pullbacks in the international ETFs, the best plan of action may be to simply set your stop and forget about it until the new year. Taking a “set it and forget it” approach to stops over the next week will help prevent the urge to overtrade in a light volume market, while still enabling you to capitalize on opportunities that may follow-through when the pace of trading eventually picks up.

Hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Via The Big Picture.

Finance Trends Matter has the link to Marc Faber’s latest Bloomberg video:

Marc Faber joins Bloomberg TV to discuss the economy and the markets, his economic outlook leaving little in the way of holiday cheer.

According to Faber, “we are faced with a global recession that will last a very long time”, and 2009 will be catastrophic for the global economy.

Faber also uses this opportunity to once again remind viewers that the problems we face are a direct result of previous government and central bank interventions into the economy.