Thursday Night Market Insight, March 7 2008
Well, the truth is that its 12:26 AM on Friday morning and I just got home from helping my brother move. I didn’t even get to catch the market close today, and from what I am looking at now I missed quite the party.
In that light, I don’t have two hours to post charts, so I will give you a late night run down of my thoughts and opinions on the market.
First off, the close today both on the NASDAQ and S&P 500 suggests that the January lows are set to be tested in the near term future. Volume was lower today, but it really doesn’t matter. Ever since the NASDAQ broke out of its wedge and the S& P 500 out of its ascending channel both to the downside, the only words that come to mind are simply, “look out below…”. Both indices closed at fresh 52 week lows today, and both are now roughly 2% off January lows.
Instead of a last hour rally today we got an extra intense last hour sell off after housing data came in sour. Basically in a nutshell for the first time in American history Household Equity is below 50% (Great read over at Big Picture). This means that for the first time, across the US banks own more of the average person’s home then the people do themselves. Talk about a crisis…
Moving on to other thoughts, what is up with gold? When the hell will this precious metal peak? With more rate cuts coming around the corner, and the dollar only continuing to weaken, you have to wonder if it could possibly be any time soon. Until inflation hits extremes will we see the Feds be forced to hike rates, and maybe it is then that the band wagon will near its cliff.
And speaking of gold, oil is in nearly the same boat. From what I read earlier we almost broke $106 midday today (perhaps it was broken this afternoon, not sure). The old inflation-adjusted record for oil was $103.76 which came in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis. I’ve read analysts calling for $120 oil around the corner, and I am beginning to believe them. Apparently OPEC isn’t touching the supplies any time soon, so who knows how high is actually, “high”. Whenever I get depressed about paying over $3 per gallon at the pump now I just recall the old days not even 6 years ago when I paid $.98 per gallon, 98 cents!! To be quite honest though it doesn’t help, just depresses me more.
On the positive side, there is money to be made with all of this chaos amongst us. Steel has been on fire, Fertilizers are holding up pretty well, Gold stocks are basically across the board at new highs, and even my 9 year old sister can pick an Oil and Gas US Explorations company and make a killing.
I don’t know when and if the market has bottomed, but I do know that the more I attempt to make money in this environment the more I learn of what NOT to do. The best lessons are the ones that cost the most because it is then that you truly take them to heart.
With that said my 30 minute rambling is now over. Amongst all that I accomplished today, I can go to bed knowing I shopped YET again at Wal-Mart, supporting the currently number one retailer in the nation (based on the latest retail data). Is it just me or do you always spend 10x more then planned in this store? Even as the rest of the retailers tumble in price, Wal-Mart sits comfortably above its 50 day moving average. Gotta love it…
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Thanks again for the help man, we smoked that house last night!
no problem bro
We are getting dangerously close to the lows in January. I know that we dipped below it sometime this week, before the market completely reversed course. Once again, we are back near lows and it is very important to stay on top of your game. Thanks for the tips
I’m still bothered by how the market regularly tanks seemingly every friday. It looks like the DOW will close below 12000 today. Thumbs down!