Sunday, September 07, 2008

Weekend Potpourri: Fireworks and Readings

* Fireworks - I see the S&P 500 stock index futures have opened about 30 points higher in the wake of the bailout of FNM and FRE. How bad is the housing situation? I had a call from Florida, where a condo owner reported that his tenant association was suing a bank to *require* them to foreclose on vacant units. It appears that, if the bank forecloses, they have to pay six months' worth of arrears in association fees. So it's not just the owners walking away from the properties; now we have the banks! Unreal...

* Forex Expo in Las Vegas - I'll be giving a keynote address this coming Saturday AM; do stop by if you're attending.

* Bullish Intermediate Term Edge - We registered over 2400 fresh 20-day new lows on Friday. Since September, 2002 (when I began collecting these data), we've had only 83 occasions in which we've had more than 2000 stocks register new 20-day lows. Thirty days later, the S&P 500 Index (SPY) has been up 60 times and down 23 times for an average gain of 2.36%. All other occasions, the average thirty-day gain has been .83% (868 up, 521 down). Not bad timing for the Treasury to make their bailout announcement!

* Readings to Start the Week - Nice to have Charles Kirk's links back, now that he's settled in; good reads on market sentiment, commodities, and more. Lots of views on the GSE bailout from Abnormal Returns.

* Tracking What's Hot - In a single glance, NewsFlashr lays out the hot topics in areas from business to technology and sports. Great resource.

* Going Video - Don Miller adds video to this blog and quite kindly shares his views on The Psychology of Trading and The Tao of Poker.

* Going Audio - It looks as though I'll be doing a short interview for Trader Radio on Monday the 15th at 7:45 AM CT.

* Maintaining Confidence - Mark offers some trading and psychological perspective for options traders.
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