Transports are the early warning signal

The direction and strength of the transports index is an early indicator of where the S&P could be headed....and at the end of March 2013, the transports seemed going off the roof...like as in UAL going to the moon, and even BA, Boeing, with all its new planes on the tarmac because of the battery problem....this optimism in the face of adversity was...just a little overdone,,and the airlines turned down, and the S and P followed and now the big debate is whether and how much the market will fall....

"Genius Stays Small"

Heard this bit on a stock traders show today---that the major downfall of stocktraders in times of volatility, is that they trade in too much size in their trades....With high volatility you can make plenty of money by avoiding being wiped out in the first place, and then by ordering smaller size of stock, and holding rather than folding. So...it seems that small is ridiculed by some folks in the street, but not by those who are making money..Make a note of it.

The Case of the falling Wedge

http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:falling_wedge This is said to be bullish, but for the investor it is chinese water tourture...

Investors celebrate getting back to where they were in 2007

Also in running news, I celebrated running this morning as fast for a mile as I did five years ago---AND i MADE QUITE A RUCKUS ABOUT IT.

The new digital Bucket Shop on Wall Street

In the roaring twenties, in the midst of all the excesses of Wall Street, there were groups of traders that gathered together to pump their favorite stocks---whether one calls them the bucket shops or syndicates or whatever, they were the "pumpers" of their pet stocks---and if one just thinks about what that looks like today---it is the same...and the guys and gals are on the tv morning stock shows pumping their favorite stocks all the way up....until they go down...I call these guys the "Masters of the Pump and Dump"---it does sound like a filling station..I know...

"Clowns" with horns on Wall Street;

As a youngster, I vaguely remember a show on tv in the afternoon, with a clown who was silent, but had a horn that she or he honked in response to questions. On one of the stock market shows on television these days there is one host who has a host of various horns that he honks as side effects....with brings back another wisdom that I learned as a boy---never take your advise from clowns.

Pipeline stocks in focus--they win whatever the price of oil or gas

Today, in 2013, there is a huge push to make the US energy independent, and much of that drive is in natural gas produced by fracking, and when the gas is produced, it needs to be transported, and that is the rub, the bottleneck....there is not enough pipeline to get the job done. While investors in oil stocks or natural gas stocks have to worry always about the price fluctuation of the commodity, with a pipeline stock, which usually yields less, say from 4-5%, they win either way...no matter what the price of oil or gas, it still needs to be transported...Thus, I classify this type of stock, such as EPD, Enterprise Products, or PAA, Plains All American, as grandmother stocks..they have a little less risk and volatility than oil or gas stocks..you will see the beta as usually .50 or so. If you drive from Evansville to Janesville, on the right side, right after you pass the stage coach station of old, or Leydon Station, you will see the pipeline hub of PAA...Stay tuned.