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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (56626)	3/23/2006 11:18:35 AM
From: ild	Respond to of 110194

Date: Thu Mar 23 2006 10:46 trotsky (according to CNBC) ID#248269: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved the fact that the stock market hasn't rolled over yet must mean that ' upcoming earnings will be good'. however, there is very little, if any, statistical correlation between stock market performance and corporate earnings, or stock market performance and GDP growth. this correlation is largely a myth ( an attempt to rationalize price moves that are not really understood. stock prices move, and there MUST be a 'reason'; this is similar to the proclamations made on day-to-day moves. often the SAME type of news item is used to explain BOTH UP AND DOWN MOVES ) . in reality, long term stock market performance is largely a result of society's 'feelgood' factor, or 'mood'. imo behavioral finance has the most credible approach - the true force in stock pricing are herding instincts and other psychological drivers. in that sense, there is now an interesting divergence between the approval rating of the current administration and the stock market. usually those move in the SAME direction in coincident fashion. something iow will have to give - either Shrub's approval rating soars, or stocks plummet to meet up with it. Date: Thu Mar 23 2006 09:54 trotsky (@pm sentiment) ID#248269: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved amazingly, the Rydex pm fund cash flow ratio has recently plummeted BELOW both of the lows made in 2005, the level seen in early January 05 AND the level at the long term low in May 05. it is highly unusual to see sentiment in the gold sector so bleak and outright bearish when gold itself is only a few percentage points below 25 year highs. note also, as of last week, the average gold advisor recommended a NET SHORT position in the gold sector. meanwhile, the put/call OI ratio in XAU options has begun to grow again. sector-wide ( i.e., including individual issues ) , put/call OI is within a few percentage points of a fresh annual high. Tim Ord, last year's number 1 ranked gold timer, recommends a bullish stance, in contrast to the bulk of advisors followed by Hulbert's ranking service. anyway, it is astonishing that sentiment has become so extremely lopsided. normally you get such readings closer to lows following really large declines, or close to long term bear market bottoms. for instance, the net investment stance of the gold advisors is only about 10 percentage points ( in terms of recommended exposure ) above the all time record in bearishness on their part. also, lately a number of investment advisors have begun pushing the idea that the impending demise of the Yen carry trade will lead to a gold bear market. this is an argument that one shouldn't dismiss out of hand - surely some speculation in gold is financed via cheap Yen. however, when a lot of people start talking about that, it may actually merely contribute to the 'wall of worry' that is inexorably building up. Date: Thu Mar 23 2006 08:59 trotsky (Bleuler@Tal Afar) ID#248269: Copyright © 2002 trotsky/Kitco Inc. All rights reserved sounds like a Pentagon press release. and that's probably exactly what it is. there's no love in Tal Afar for the US after the city was basically flattened in 2 weeks of indiscriminate bombing a few months ago ( in spite of a carefully orchestrated media black-out, they couldn't keep locals from using their cell-phones and report on what happened ) . 90% of Tal Afar's inhabitants are ethnic Turkmen, and they regard the Shi'ite dominated puppet government as the enemy; it's true that insurgents were ensconced in Tal Afar back then, but as they always do, 95% of them slipped away before the first marine even set foot in the city. as a result, the civilian population bore the brunt of the punishment expedition. a few thousand people have lived in a refugee camp on the outskirts of the town ever since. 'operation Swarmer' was indeed nothing but a 'photo op', just as Time magazine correctly reported. its timing was the first give-way, and its results ( essentially zero ) , the second.