This week in Barrons - 09-20-09

This Week in Barrons – 09-20-09:

Thoughts:
"All of the government's monetary, economic and political power, as well as its extensive propaganda machinery, will be enlisted in a constant battle to drive down the price of gold - but in the absence of any fundamental change in the nation's monetary, fiscal, and economic direction, simply regard any major retreat in the price of gold as an unexpected buying opportunity."- Irwin A. Schiff

Now, I have been a raging gold bull since June of 2000. Gold was in the pits. Britain was selling it left and right, and it was left for dead for the previous ten years. But we had a pretty good idea that rampant money printing (as the "American Miracle" was exposed to be nothing more than the unbridled use of massive credit and debt) would make gold an ever more valuable commodity. Because for 5,000 years, when all else went wrong, gold was found to be the only true "money".

All along the way (when gold was under $300), the ‘chart slaves’ kept exposing that the rise in gold wouldn’t last, the charts showed tops, and Fibonacci reversals, etc. Then we got the ‘chart slaves’ in line with the ‘gold haters’ in line with the ‘currency slaves’, who (in concert) told us that the dollar would go up, and gold would get slaughtered. Well – the dollar has continued to rise and gold has continued to rise.

A month ago we recommended GDX (as basket of gold miners). One of my friends wrote me (nervous) that he had found a chart technician telling people why the GDX was going to go 35, then 34 and then to 30 from it's current price of 37.50. The trouble with charts is that they cannot accurately reflect – data fraud – manipulation – and government subsidies accurately within the chart itself. Honestly, how can a chart tell you how many Chinese might buy gold once their Government removed the rules against personal ownership? In fact – why would Goldman spend millions to develop a high frequency trading platform and if charts could do it? Lastly – to further throw the ‘chartists’ off – the banks are using the stimulus money to play the market. Fund managers that didn't get in on the run up are desperate to get in at almost any cost because their bosses have a gun pointed at their heads saying "We’d better post gains this quarter!" and they are buying. So of course this begs the question: Is Ben Bernanke right? Are we out of the recession – like he said this week?

In my mind, being out of the recession means:
- People are being hired - yet we continue to lose a quarter million jobs each month
- People are keeping their homes and improving them – yet we just found out that another 300,000 foreclosures happened in August.
- If we were out of a recession - capacity utilization would be growing to "normal" rates – yet we are just a few ticks from the worst measurements since records began.
- If we were out of a recession - retail sales would be growing, yet they have been disappointing.
- Oh well – The Market’s UP!

Of course the market’s up – Ben engineered it to be up. Never forget his remark – when the market was down and the economic news was horrid – Ben said: “Consumer Confidence will rise with the gradual rise of equities". How did he know equities would rise? Simple, he gave banks money to play with. He’s using his executive "emergency" powers to buy stocks, and futures. He’s orchestrated a media blitz about green shoots and the recession ending.

The question is of course, how far does it go? Well if you believe that the job of the market is to confound, confuse and confiscate the most amount of money from the most amount of people – then it’s easy to see that while the market was crashing and people were panicking, and selling with both hands - they'd engineer a massive rally that punished all those people for selling out, and burning the shorts. So why did I pick 9600 as the "first stop?" Simple. There was some resistance at 9250, and I figured that if we got there, every chart slave would start screaming about a "head and shoulders" pattern on the DOW and how we would be doomed to roll over and test the lows. So the market would power up and through that, completely embarrassing all those chart heads, and even slightly exceeding the next resistance at 9500 – as it has.

But now:
- We have lots and lots more people desperate to get back in.
- Our leaders are telling us the recession is over.
- The retail investor is flocking back to the market in waves.
- And the market is patiently waiting to yank the rug on these late-comers to the party. Once it has decided that it has drawn in enough people, and Once enough shorts have covered and gone long, and Once it is convinced that most people think it's got further to go, the market will fall and fall hard.

When is that? I think it will happen when everyone begins to load up for a year-end rally. Now, will it happen in early October, or later – great question? A lot of people might get nervous about coming through Sept with no selling and back away in early October, which would of course make the market continue higher. Then if they came back in, in mid month, a major shakeout in later would be "perfect". So as you can see, the first 3,000 points were fairly easy to call. The next month will be increasingly more difficult.

The Market:
We had another positive week. We are in 8 positions, and all of them are higher – which has me incredibly nervous. And each time it appears that the market is ready for a “smack in the face” - the people who have missed the rally rush in and buy the dip.

I’d like to recommend that you take a look at one of my favorite plays à Silver – SLW. I like it over 12 – and on Wednesday it went to 13.25. I really like it on a pull-back because silver is going to go along for the ride with gold.

TIPS:
- we’re still holding MOO – agricultural space ETF)
- we’re still holding IPI – agricultural – potash arena
- If you can hold your finger on the ‘sell trigger’ – there’s ‘daily’ money to be made in the volatility associated with Citi (C ), Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie (FRE), and AIG (AIG) – but remember the ‘sell’ button.
- ATPG – natural gas space - @ 12.30 (sold remainder – up over 50%)
- TIE – commodities metals - @ 9.02 (hard stop @ 10.02)
- NBR – commodities oil space - @ 19.84 (stop @ 20.29)
- KWK – commodities coal space - @ 13.52 (stop @ 13.20)
- SLW – commodities metals - $12.50

Remember the Blog http://rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com/

Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson
rfc@getabby.com
http://rfcfinancialnews.blogspot.com/