Economics
Data on the relationship of housing to the business cycle:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/08/why-so-much-hou.html
Chart porn on money supply:
http://econompicdata.blogspot.com/2008/08/th-real-m1-and-m2-money-supply.html
Politics
Domestic
The Democratic Party’s platform on energy (it hasn’t changed):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121918969072355001.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
International War Against Radical Islam
The Market
Technical/ Fundamental
Two points:
(1) Both indices closed up yesterday but neither regained the lower boundary of the July 2008 to present up trend, leaving the short term trend flat at best. Truth be told, I am shocked that stock prices were up. It looks to me like investor psychology could likely ignite some sort of cathartic event in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac dilemma; and until that happens the trend is flat to down. The key issue is where do stock prices bottom during that emotional resolution phase of that affair relative to the July 2008 low, i.e. if it is above the July low, that is pretty strong confirmation of the July low as the bottom; if not, well, I will have been wrong and we’ll need to adjust our investment strategy.
More chart porn on credit spread:
http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespoke/2008/08/high-yield-cred.html
(2) On the other hand, oil stocks continue to perform well; and even oil prices closed up after a lousy inventory report yesterday [they were up big]. Why? My #1 answer is that all the bad news is in the stocks. My #2 answer is that is mid August, driving season is over, we are now looking into to heating oil [and natural gas] season, and while consumers may have decided not to drive [consume gasoline] because gas prices are high, they are not likely to decide to not warm their homes because heating oil prices are high. My #3 answer is that this growing Russia/Georgia/Poland/Ukraine confrontation isn’t getting any better; none of these parties is positioning itself in a way that makes defusing this situation easy; and oil is a major weapon if the escalation continues. {Unfortunately, the
Cramer’s thoughts on the energy group:
http://www.thestreet.com/p/_htmlrmd/rmoney/jimcramerblog/10434073.html
Bottom line: I am not anxious to Buy stocks in general; but I think we need to start re-building the energy positions in our Portfolios. Accordingly at the Market open this morning, our Portfolios will spend a small amount of cash (it will decline to circa 17.25%). The Dividend Growth Portfolio will Add shares of ConocoPhillips (COP-$81), the High Yield Portfolio will Add shares of Plains All American Pipeline (PAA-$46) and the Aggressive Growth Portfolio will Add shares of Smith Int’l (SII-$74), Frontier Oil (FTO-$19) and XTO Energy (XTO-$50).
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=COP
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=PAA
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SII
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=FTO
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=XTO
*******************************
Another rant from Cramer, this time on the SEC (must read):
Some observations on inflation and the prudence on owning long bonds:
http://www.capitalspectator.com/archives/2008/08/inflation_debat.html#more
The High Yield Buy List
Company Close 8/20
American Tel & Tel $30.69 $28-32
Dow Chemical 34.08 32-37
Pfizer 19.28 19-22
Plains All American 46.43 45-52
RPM Int’l 21.24 19-22
US Bancorp 30.43 30-35
News on Stocks in Our Portfolios
Federated Investors (Aggressive Growth Portfolio) announced the addition of another 5 million shares to its current stock buy back program. It will also pay a $2.76 per share special dividend.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=FII
A positive write up on Suncor Energy (Aggressive Growth Portfolio):
http://www.zacks.com/rank/zcommentary/?id=8355
More Cash in Investors’ Hands
No comments:
Post a Comment