Creepy

I DON'T CARE what party you belong to or who you voted for...this should put up some red flags.

The End of the American Century

BTW the market for now is behaving very bullishly. But I feel as though we need to be mindful of the increasing disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.

Also feel the irony that "RT" is Russia Today. Yes, my comrades, Russia is doing better reporting on this crisis than the US of A. Shameful.

Dollar Danger

I don't like talking about the markets anymore.

There are all sorts of wonderful commentators on the markets if that's what you're into, and I'm trying to focus on more creative pursuits at the moment.

But that doesn't mean I'm not watching the markets, just that I'm very bored talking about it.

I think folks that are paid in US Dollars need to be careful. I'm talking about retired folks on fixed incomes paid in US dollars. The US government has every intention of screwing you royally, and I feel that it's my duty to put up the warning flag for friends and family.

To wit: it is the intention of the Federal Reserve of my country to inflate commodities such as gold, oil, copper etc. etc. as much as possible i.e. reduce the value of the US Dollar as much as possible.

I'm not sure how much success they will have ultimately, but I do think they will push us towards another dollar crisis in the near future, perhaps even in the next few months.

I HOPE THAT I'M WRONG ABOUT THIS.

But Gold and the EUR/USD are looking very strong right now, and if they break out I think they could make quite a run before the whole thing collapses again.





So my advice in the shorter term is: continue to hold/buy gold, and hold Euros, sell dollars....UNTIL THIS UPTREND BREAKS...but who knows how long that will be WITH THE GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED MONEY COUNTERFEITERS HARD AT WORK.

And yes, the caps mean that I'm pissed about it. :)

The Deal with Geniuses

One of the the unfortunate bits about being a musician is the sobering reality that there are lots of folks that are talented and beautiful people that will probably never get enough recognition/money/fame for their contributions to the craft. But there it is; we have the famous musicians that on which our increasingly myopic media focuses attention upon, with the trappings of money and fame (I won't bother naming names, because I'm sure you could think of dozens of examples right now) thrown in.

But also out there are the composers, conductors and performers that will never get that national radio play in any big way, but they are talented and dedicated to their craft. If there was justice, these folks would be rich and famous and recognized to the level of their ability, but since the broader public may not be in sync/understand their work (i.e. there is a level of technical and emotional complexity going on) they just continue to operate as regionally recognized talents and left at that, for better or worse.

Anyway here's a video made by some friends of mine that really deserve recognition.

Joe LoCascio is a friend and mentor of mine that I got to know when I lived in Houston. I would call his playing/compositional style rather a mix of Bill Evans and Chick Corea, although these metaphors are really my crude ways of identifying a sound and style that is really unique. I remember a lesson with him in which we spent most of the hour talking about Berg Op. 1 and when I showed his some of my tunes, he always found a way to push me into notes and rhythms that never even crossed my mind, and for this I am forever grateful.

I got to know Richard Cholakian when he, myself, and Dave Klingensmith used to run a jam session at Munchies in Houston. I had to play this ramshackle piano, but I learned a bunch. Rich was this great and gentle soul who had the world's crappiest drum kit (used and abused!) that we used to kid him about. Anyway this was my first organized exposure to jazz playing, and I'm grateful to Rich et al for being there for me. In this video he looks older and more clean than I remember him (although I think I still recognize parts of the kit!)

Last time I play with Tom Helton was at the Magnolia in downtown Houston, which was actually the last time I played with Mike Lefabvre (just a few months before he died, although I had no idea at the time). It was a fun gig that I remember fondly. I also played with him sporadically at joints like Sullivan's before I left town in '99

Anyway, I hope these guys get to be rich and famous. They deserve it.

Bear hunting

Here's a daily chart of SPY. (I'm not home right now, so I can't Jing-ize any charts at this moment, but I think we can get a general sense of meaning just as well this way)

A couple of points I'd like to quickly note:

1. Volume has been abysmal lately; but today's rally was extra super duper abysmal. I would venture that today's rally was largely short covering. The bears are throwing in the towel, but I really don't sense a lot of institutional bullishness, either. Until some volume kicks in on one side or the other, I'd look cynically at any move the market makes.

2. This current action strikes me as, well, oddly logical. Everybody and their dog has been looking at the head and shoulders formation thinking "this is it". Then we got a lopsided trade which was easy to exploit on the flimsiest type of good news. That is why I bailed on TWM and QID two days ago, and got stopped out of DUG at yesterday's open: this was EASY TO SEE if one is flexible and/or cynical as I am.


3. I'm certain that the Cramers of the world are going to use these low volume breakouts as an excuse to signal "all clear", thereby encouraging more meat to the slaughter house that is Wall Street. Intel in particular has a long history of sandbagging their earnings (as well as most other large cap tech companies, but Intel has been particularily egregious about it over the last ten years or so), causing dramatic gapping breakouts that suck people in before collapsing again. I expect this to be about the same.



So again, if anybody out there is listening to me a bit, I am saying "BE CAREFUL OUT THERE" These people on the TV WANT YOU TO PUT YOUR MONEY BACK INTO THIS MARKET.

Thus endith the sermon.

XLF setup

I think XLF will once again be under significant pressure in the coming weeks.

Deja Vu

These charts are courtesy of Ron Coby (ron@cobylamson.com) (with my Jing annotations for clarity):

PS these charts are HUGE, so if you want to see them you need to double click on them; if I shrunk them it would be just about impossible to make anything out, so click please!



And here's Ron:

"
Look at the weekly charts of the 1929-31 timeframe compared to 2008-09. The
main difference is that 29-31 had its crash to reach the 200 wk moving
average and we had our crash after we lost touch with the 200 wk average and
headed south. If the next year continues as
31-32 went, our projected bottom will be 2373,which coincidentaly is where
the 1990 Dow bear hit and held its 200 wk average. Point 6 on the charts is
simply this week. In 1931 the market was down 64% while today we are down
only 43% due to our post crash short covering rally.
The first week of March those numbers were 29-31 down 53.5% while
2008-09 was down 54%. Until then these two bear markets were nearly
identical in length and severity. Thought you might find this interesting.
The question is, of course, what takes place in the next year? I think the
comparrison of these two charts pretty well makes the case that we are 2/3
of the way through this bear market and much further into depression than
most believe us to be.

On both charts the numbers mark these moments:

1. Market high
2. First leg down to 200 wk moving average
3. Rally back to 50 wk Moving Average
4. Close below 200 wk Moving Average.
5. The final drop away from the 200 wk Moving Average
6. 44 weeks after #5....Today"