This week in Barrons - 3-27-11

This Week in Barons – 3–27-11:

Didn’t Housing get us into this Mess?
Today’s the day my older son ends his spring break and goes back to attending Northwestern University – a day that always brings new meaning to the phrase: “Do you love them enough to say goodbye?”

In terms of the business at hand, today's 10 Year Treasury Bonds are trading at 3.33. In spite of inflation – that’s very good news for the bond and housing markets for the near term. Silver hit 30-year highs, Gold hit all time highs (in the $1,400’s), Oil is north of $105; therefore, one has to believe the market is getting ready to see bonds respond to the pressure and move north of 4.00. The sticking point here is housing! Housing accounts for approximately 7% of GDS – and is currently at near record lows for “New Home Starts.” New data just out from the Commerce Department indicate national home sales declined the third month in a row (Feb), the slowest pace on record, with sales down 16.9% to a 250,000 annual pace (from a reading of 1,400 in July of ‘05 to a reading just above 200 last month!) The new median price of a new home also fell 13.9%, (over the previous month) moving the market back to 2003 levels. And to add insult to injury – existing home sales fell 9.6% over the previous month. As Steve Forbes writes: “Depreciating home values and a declining pace of home-buying continue as critical factors to economic recovery. Couple that with global markets continuing to drive pricing in many sectors such as commodities and energy – and this not a ‘recovery friendly’ environment.” One point of note out of California in January is that 31% of closings were "cash.” It’s doubtful that the average ‘first time home buyer’ has the ability to purchase a home with cash. Therefore, one could conclude that the housing market in California is not currently supported by homeowners, but rather by investors flocking to the market. Until U6 under-employment numbers are halved to roughly 9%, US housing is going to remain “soft.”

Now think in terms of in 30 years we’ve gone from being #1 in the world to:
- An Underemployment (U6) reading of over 17%
- Over 50% of all US citizens survive on some form of Government subsidy
- Due to inflation (roaring @ 8 - 9%), wages have been stagnant for 14 yrs
- No energy policy (although we use more than anyone else on the planet)
- A million plus homes are in foreclosure
- We are engaged in 3 wars, none of which are winnable
- The FED has kept rates at 0% for years, and is the sole buyer of 50% of our treasuries
- Banks are insolvent, able to survive because they run two sets of books

Now my question is and the CFO of Best Buy asked the same question: “What happens when consumers buckle under the increasing pressures from unemployment and higher gas prices?”

The elephant in the room is ‘global currency’ devaluation. With so many central bankers printing money like it's going out of style, the whole system is simply too rotten to save. Everybody is going to have to get together and collectively agree to simultaneous devaluation. If you think not – let me remind you that George Soros – on April 8 of this year, is holding a major economic conference with the goals being to establish new international currency rules, and to reform the currency system. The event is bringing together more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Mr. Soros believes that central bankers printing money is causing the world to starve its population to death – and there’s certainly some truth to that rumor!

Two weeks ago I suggested that we should be hearing from the FED heads about ending QE2. As of Friday - 3 separate FED Heads have come out to tell us that QE2 is no longer necessary. So will quantitative easing end – of course not – it will just not be called Quantitative Easing. The FED will print until the crash – they have no choice. The point being that if enough FED heads continue to talk about stopping QE2 – some may sell their silver and gold – and that may cause a pull back and a buying opportunity in those two metals.

The Market:
Remember when people were biting their nails watching the market dive below DOW 12K and falling fast. But then (like a "miracle") it reversed and soared right back up, ending in the 12,200 area where the dip started. That’s just your usual fleecing! In case you missed it – the FED makes a regular policy of walking the market up in overnight futures trading and also in the late afternoon buying binges. ALL of the up moves come on very thin volume, but the selling comes with massive volume. I.E. Wall Street allows the FED money to walk the market higher, and then when it's rug pull time they liquidate massive amounts of stock. Then it gets walked higher again – rinse and repeat! But now the plot thickens. With the DOW smack in the middle of the "range" between 12K and the Feb highs at 12,400 - What happens now? One theory has us inching higher to the 12,400 level, and finally pushing up and through during earnings reporting season, and then it exhausting itself in a multi month long slide that drops us 10% or more. The other theory is that we inch higher and higher, but fail to break out and we experience a multi month long slide. Either way, as May - June gets nearer we feel the market will have topped and be in decline.

Mark P wrote me something that I found interesting about the element Iodine – boosted in popularity because of what’s going on radiation-wise in Japan right now. The company is called SQM. “SQM is the worlds leading producer of elemental Iodine. Chile is the largest exporter of iodine with almost 70% of the world’s capacity, followed by Japan with less than 30%. Annual world production for iodine is around 29,500 metric tons and Japan produces around 6,800 annually. Currently, due to the power outages in Japan their capacity for iodine is at 60%, and their appetite for iodine chemicals is extremely high. Iodine is used in plasma TVs and as intermediates in many chemicals. Furthermore the demand for use in pharmaceuticals is at all time high with the demand for potassium iodide pills. All of the 2011 iodine capacity has been pre-sold, with normal contract pricing running around $32-35 per kilogram. Currently the European spot price is approximately $50/kg and they expect that price to hit the U.S. very soon. SQM was (at one time) owned by the government of Chile; however, was divested by the government several years ago. Now – granted iodine is not gold or silver – but it is an essential element that is only provided by a small amount of companies.” I actually purchased some this week – so thanks Mark for that tip.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV, NG, AAU, DNN, AVL, and USSIF. Even with the commodity raid – we held through it – in fact we doubled our holdings in DNN down at the $2.20 level – so that 15% bounce upward was certainly beneficial to us – and I believe that there’s more to run there.

In our short-term holds we have:
N, SLW, FRG, QSURD, NGD, PAL, AUGT, EXK, SVM, and AGRO. Last week we did add SQM per Mark P’s suggestion.

As an example of our day trades over the past week - we currently own:
- SD at 12 – stop @ entry, and (if the market is flat to up – watch this one – could be a quick 20% gain)
- NBR at 28 – stop @ entry as well.

The shale drillers last week - Approach Resources (AREX), GeoResources (GEOI), and Gulfport Energy (GPOR) – have started to move north – but we have not purchased as of yet.

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This week in Barrons - 3-20-11

This Week in Barons – 3–20-11:

Should WE be a Buyer of this Market?
Do you remember the market topping on February 18th, and then entering a period of incredible chop with mood swings of over 150 points? This type of action is NOT normal and signals a change in the wind. At virtually any other time the easiest call in ‘investing’ would have been to say: “okay, go short and hold on". Unfortunately we have The Ben Bernanke who likes the "wealth effect" that rising stock prices have on people's attitudes – so at any moment, he may very well do another "injection" of stimulus, and "drive" the markets higher. It’s with this fear that most of my trades in the past 3 weeks have been strictly day-trades. I personally don’t enjoy ‘day trading’ all that much – and therefore I don’t publish my day trades on twitter, but I potentially will start if this market chop continues.

Many people suggest that this down turn was a result of the earthquake, and tsunami in Japan. I think that we were overbought, over extended, had gone months without so much as a hiccup, and had already dropped from 12,380 to 12,000 before the Japan issues started. So, it’s my belief that our market is moving in concert with ‘monetary policy’ more than anything else. In the last two days, we've bounced from 11,589 to 11,860 and let’s examine the news to potentially find a reason for the bounce.
- Even though The Ben Bernanke says inflation does NOT exist - a special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February! Ouch – now how can the cost of living increase to a record high if there is no inflation? So we know that the market didn’t go up due to a drop in the cost of living – how about the U.S. debt situation?
- A new assessment of President Obama's budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than $2 Trillion over the upcoming decade. I remember when our entire debt situation wasn’t $2 Trillion! So we know that the market didn’t go up on our debt situation – maybe good news coming from Japan?
- At 2:52 PM on Friday, breaking down in tears, the managing director of TEPCO concedes the radiation being emitted from the damaged reactors is enough to kill people. The NISA, which earlier raised its severity rating on the disaster, acknowledges the water-spraying operation is "fighting a fire we cannot see.” So we know the Japanese news didn’t send the market higher – so maybe the Middle East has calmed down?
- At 12:24 PM on Friday Syrian security forces kill at least one and wound dozens as they fire on demonstrators. And, "There is no longer any possibility of mutual understanding with this regime and he has no choice but to surrender authority to the people," says the head of Yemen's opposition after a massacre in which 42 were shot dead and hundreds wounded by security forces. So it doesn't look like there is an outbreak of peace across the Middle East – so maybe there was good news on the jobs front?
- Friday the Labor Department said that the unemployment rate rose in 351 metro areas, fell in only 16, and was unchanged in 5. That's worse than December, when the rate fell in 207 areas and increased in 122. So with unemployment rising – Japan melting – the Middle East at war – inflation increasing and the debt increasing – why did the market go on a two day romp higher?

The market bounced because Wall Street and more importantly The Ben Bernanke said it was time to bounce. So are we going to continue up? My guess is we have some more upside to come, but we won't be breaking out to new highs. I think they're going to try to claw back to the 50-day moving average that resides just above the DOW 12K line. In this new era, with Central bankers all around the world flooding the markets with dollars, yen, Euro's, etc. – all fundamentals have vanished. Now it's all about capital flows, which direction they're heading, and we need to understand that there's a very good possibility that the big banks are playing big games behind the scenes via their dark pool platforms. I personally believe that QE-3 thru QE-8 are right around the corner – they just may not be official! The end will either come by Central Banks tightening – which I view as unlikely – or hyper-inflation followed by a massive deflationary roll over. So our guess is that we bump up for a while longer, and then the air comes out again. As we come into the late spring, we should be looking at a much lower market as they anticipate the official end of QE-2.

The Market:
Once again I am hearing people calling a top in gold and silver. Please, the entire world is inflating "fake" dollars to try to plug all the holes. The real issue is that our Governments are bankrupt. We are facing sovereign debt issues that cannot be solved. The interest expense on the debt already borrowed is consuming the ability for productive spending. We have to borrow even more today, in order to re-pay the debts we created yesterday. Thus, global defaults will indeed be coming to a nation near you, and in the not so distant future.

It's not easy suggesting that the Lehman debacle and the economic meltdown were just ‘warm-ups’ for the big show that's coming. But, our economic and financial pains are not over, there is much more to come. Now, you can trust The Ben Bernake and continue to want his dollars; however, I (on the other hand) don’t want his dollars but will gladly exchange them for other currency of gold and silver – especially silver.

I continue to use the stock market to amass dollars, and then use those dollars to buy gold and silver. Maybe my lucky streak is going to run out and I'll look the fool, but every single fiat currency in the history of all time has always ‘gone away’ while gold and silver, simply march on.

Be careful out there. The day-to-day ups and downs will indeed be influenced by major headlines, but, the real danger lurks in the back ground, as each day brings us more and more bogus bucks. One day the banks will make more billions yanking the rug, so do NOT get caught in the rug.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV, NG, AAU, DNN, AVL, and USSIF. Even with the one day gold and silver raid last week – we held through it.

In our short-term holds we have:
N, SLW, FRG, QSURD, NGD, PAL, AUGT, EXK, SVM, and AGRO.

As an example of our day trades over the past week (which we will attempt to put out on twitter starting next week) - we currently own:
- CAT at 102.30 – closing Friday at 105.06,
- HK at 22.13 – closing at 22.49,
- ANR at 54.04 – closing at 55.28,
- GLNG at 20.52 – now at 22.96,
- BTU at 67.34 – now at 70.21, and
- FCX at 50.45 – now at 51.78.

We mentioned some shale drillers last week - Approach Resources (AREX), GeoResources (GEOI), and Gulfport Energy (GPOR) – however, did not purchase as of yet – but continue to have our eye on these!

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This Week in Barrons - 3-13-11

This Week in Barons – 3–13-11:

Japan, and Bill Gross, and QE-3 – Oh My!
The height of the Mayan empire was about 400 AD. They predicted a lot of mind-boggling events – but their calendar (created by Pacal Votan) ends on Dec 21, 2012. On that exact date at 11:11 am, the earth will have finished a 26,000-year journey around the galaxy and end up in the "dead center" of it. Pacal Votan did not say that this date would bring the end of the world; he said it would bring an end to an "age." An age where people have gotten so into material things, and so far away from the natural instincts they once had, that all sorts of distortions were going to happen as we approach that time. Seeing those Japanese tidal surges pick up houses, roads, trains, and just carry them along like Tonka toys certainly looked like something out of those ‘end of an age’ movies. Unfortunately the events in Japan are all too real, and my heart goes out to everyone affected. Japan's going to need steel, copper, oil, natural gas, lumber, and the list continues. Granted they don't have the money to purchase it, but like all fiat currencies and Governments, they will print it and make it happen.

I look at the US, where Democrats, Unions, and Republicans are almost coming to blows over necessary "change." I look at the U.S debt structure that we have created, and for the first time it is mathematically impossible to "fix." And then there was the news this week that Pimco’s Bill Gross, arguably one of the most elite investors and connectors in the world, has liquidated all his Treasuries and is in cash. Why would he do that? The first thing that comes to mind is that he feels there will be no Quantitative Easing (QE-3) and therefore rates will soar higher, causing bonds to fall. But I think there are many ways this could play out. One scenario is triggered because The President isn’t doing so well in the polls, with deficits, with inflation, etc. The Republicans are moving up in the polls by talking about spending cuts, and deficit reduction. What if this is just a political maneuver? What if Bill Gross knows that when QE-2 ends in June, The Ben Bernanke is not going to institute QE-3 right away? What if Obama has said: "The Republicans are blaming all of this on us. They don’t want any more stimulus. Let's give it to them and see what happens?" Now we all know – without QE-3 the economy stops, and at that point Treasuries won't be worth much. I’ll bet that’s the point where Bill Gross starts buying them again. Why - because soon Obama will come back and say: "See, the Republicans said I was doing everything wrong, so we took their approach and the economy is now rolling backwards into a recession. Now, do you see why you need me in the White house?" Immediately yields would crash, bonds would soar and Bill Gross will be a genius.

Let’s dig a little deeper and put some details around their implementation of this. The Ben Bernanke has just 3 more meetings of the FED before the official end of QE-2. Now China, Russia and others have been screaming that they are not happy about what we're doing to the value of the dollar – and if The Ben Bernanke comes out and suggests he's going to keep the QE program in place, they are going to step up their retaliations. It's my guess that Ben will start leaking to us that QE-2 will indeed end – but he’ll change his voice to: "We have various ways to continue a stimulating environment." Remember – Ben didn’t invent Quantitative Easing – he simply took it to a whole new level. When Greenspan took rates so low back in ’02, ’03, and ’04 – that was a form of Quantitative Easing. But now the plot thickens. Remember when I posted the news that the FED was going to change the way they account for their holdings? Up until Dec 24th, if the FED was holding toxic assets it could have gone bankrupt, but, by allowing toxic assets to be offset with "income" from good holdings, they can keep the books steady in "perpetuity." You see, the Fed now has so many mortgage backed securities and notes – that as they mature, and as "some" amount of people continue to pay their mortgages – the Fed is taking in massive amounts of money on a monthly basis. In other words, the Fed can announce that they are not going to expand their balance sheets any further and end QE-2 (sounding marvelous to other countries), but because they’ve changed the accounting rules – sit on the toxic assets, taking in what payments they get, and use those payments to continue to buy 2 and 10-year notes. How much are those payments – you ask? Approximately $600B – which is just about the level of QE-2!

The Market:
Now that puts a question out there, how will the market react when they announce the end of QE-2? Well – again, the devil’s in the details. The next FED meeting is the 15th. I'm pretty sure they will nod to each other that QE-2 must end in June. That "should" be the pill that pulls the market down, and commodities, materials, and stocks should come down on those announcements. But big time bankers know what The Ben Bernanke is going to do – which is to use the interest/payment income to do QE-3 just without announcing it. So, it’s my prediction that the big time bankers would be loading up on market shorts via the dark pool programs, and then do a major market rug pull. The ‘rug pull’ would be easy to justify, and they would tell everyone that due to the end of QE-2, and no subsequent plans for QE-3, we have to be much more cautious. All of the people bidding up commodities and materials may flee too – thinking that inflation will be subdued because of the end of QE-2 (this includes gold and silver.) And being a good banker – once everything pulled down substantially, I'd be actively buying the very commodities, materials and stocks (and gold and silver) that I just sold. Why? Because it would be easy to come out and say "Hey, The Ben Bernanke is still doing just as much as he did during QE-2, but he just didn’t announce it!" Instantly the market would soar and everything that had pulled back would soar along with it. We will know if this is the plan, if we hear everyone talking about the end of QE-2 ‘being official’ with no concrete plans to do QE-3. If my guess is correct - this could be more like a 20% correction, and then sometime in the fall, after buying up everything that fell – The Ben Bernanke comes out with a statement about how they're actually doing QE-3 Lite and we get our final hurrah run up into year end.


The market’s actions lately coincide very well with my theory. After setting that high back on February 18th, the market has done a lot of nothing but chop sideways and down, literally making lower lows and lower highs. We've seen gigantic mood swings as they've dropped us 228 points, rallied us 150 points, etc. – but those types of incredible moves are normally indicative of the market being close to making a big move, or a direction change. Yes – on Friday – the Government’s PPT (Plunge Patrol Team) stepped in to save the day and get us back up over 12K and the 50 day moving average, but where did we end – 12,044. Until we break under DOW 12,000 or over DOW 12,400 we’re still in a “danger zone.” I think we're going to get that correction we've been missing and I think it's getting awfully close. Or they don’t announce anything and continue to push us sideways.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV, NG, AAU, DNN, AVL, and USSIF. Even with the one day gold and silver raid last week – we held through it.

In our short-term holds we have:
N, SLW, FRG, QSURD, NGD, PAL, AUGT, EXK, SVM, and AGRO.

We haven’t done much other than small day trades over the past several weeks – mostly due to market chop. We mentioned some shale drillers last week - Approach Resources (AREX), GeoResources (GEOI), and Gulfport Energy (GPOR) – however, did not purchase as of yet – and all are between 10 and 15% cheaper now than a week ago!

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This week in Barrons - 3.6.2011

This Week in Barons – 3–6-11:

Watching ‘The Ben Bernanke’ Squirm:

I don't know if you've noticed, but Ben Bernanke has been getting more and more smug recently. But the attacks on the Federal Reserve have been coming faster and more furiously. On Tuesday, Ben was getting his dose of "Humphrey Hawkins" questioning from Congress, and you could tell the questions were a bit more "hardball" than usual. There was one period where he was getting questioned about Federal Reserve "legality." The Charter clearly says the Federal Reserve can NOT buy Treasuries straight from the Government. So, out of the clear blue, Congressman Schumer says: “Mr. Bernanke, you're prohibited by law from buying government debt, so it is our understanding that you have others buy government debt and then you buy it from them - yes?"
Bernanke: "Yes"

Now this is called a Ponzi scheme and just because you can print money – doesn’t make it any less criminal. The Fed has two mandates: (a) to keep full employment, and (b) to keep inflation contained. Well they have failed miserably on both items. Discounting the 42% weighting that the CPI gives our housing index – consumer inflation is running between 6 and 7%. To add insult to injury, The Goldman Sachs are the ones helping Ben out in terms of buying government debt – and ‘coincidentally’ The Goldman Sachs went an entire quarter without a losing trading day. In the last two years Goldman lost money a total of 25 days. The odds of that happening without insider trading, and illegal knowledge are 0 - completely impossible. One thing I do know is, and I stand firm – as they are arranging the chairs on this Titanic - gold and silver will continue higher.

As we speak, we are still beholden to foreign oil. Out of curiosity – did you know that the US went off the gold standard the same year the EPA was created? Richard Nixon removed us from the gold standard in 1971, the same year that deals were made that all oil, and ultimately most trade would be conducted in dollars. But there were objections raised concerning America having oil that it could produce – and luckily for President Nixon – the EPA was there to regulate its production (or non-production).

But things – they are a changin’. The dollar is very quickly becoming un-installed as the world’s sole reserve currency. Just this week China said again: “China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross-border trades in the yuan by this year, the central bank said on Wednesday, as part of plans to grow the currency's international role. The central bank said it would respond to overseas demand for the yuan to be used as a reserve currency. It added it would also allow the yuan to flow back into China more easily."

James Taylor wrote me about the three pillars of the dollar’s fall from grace. First, changes in technology are undermining the dollar's monopoly. Nearly everyone carries a hand-held device that can be used to compare prices in different currencies in real time – so there is room in the global economic and financial system for more than one international currency. Second, the dollar is about to have real rivals in the international sphere for the first time in 50 years. There will soon be two viable alternatives, in the form of the euro and China's yuan. Finally, there is the danger that the dollar's safe-haven status will be lost. Foreign investors (private and official) hold dollars not simply because they are liquid but because they are secure. The U.S. government has a history of honoring its obligations, and it has always had the fiscal capacity to do so. But now, mainly as a result of the financial crisis, federal debt is approaching 75% of U.S. gross domestic product. Trillion-dollar deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. And as the burden of debt service grows heavier, questions will be asked about whether the U.S. intends to maintain the value of its debts or whether it resorts to inflating them away. Foreign investors will be reluctant to put all their eggs in the dollar basket. At a minimum, the dollar will have to share its safe-haven status with other currencies.

Now, when the dollar drops from Global reserve status, no one will want dollars and certainly no one will want treasuries. We will then be forced into developing our own energy sources again – and enter shale gas deposits. With shale gas technology we can run every power plant at a cost basis that is less than half of oil or a third of coal. Once the dollar is removed – the deals to purchase foreign oil are relaxed – and internal, domestic production comes to life. If this peaks your interest – look at the charts of Approach Resources (AREX), GeoResources (GEOI), or Gulfport Energy (GPOR) – great looking charts – better looking futures!

The Market:
So what happened this week – well – we got the non-farm payroll report on Friday – which said we created 192K jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 8.9%. On the surface that was right – and after 3 years of stimulus spending, bail outs, mortgage rewrites, quantitative easing part 1 and 2, and literally hundreds of spending programs designed to get the US out of the recession/depression we entered when the housing market blew up and the banking sector failed – gaining 192k jobs is a far cry from wonderful – but it’s at least moving in the right direction – yes?
- Well - of the 192,000 jobs – 112,000 of them were ‘fake’ jobs statistically created by the government’s very own ‘birth/death’ model – those jobs don’t really exist – so we’re down to 80,000 new jobs (that’s not good).
- And the falling unemployment rate to 8.9% was due to the job participation pool falling to it’s lowest level in 26 years. In other words, many more people simply stopped looking for work, and when you do that, you fall off the report (that’s not good).
- Wages of the workers were flat to down (that’s not good).
- The Challenger report on Wednesday said that more layoff announcements hit in February of 2011 than in February of 2010 (that’s not good).

I think we’re still in a ‘danger zone’. After setting hitting a high of 12,398 back on February 18th, we've pulled back to 11,998, and bounced up and down between 12K and Thursday's high of 12,283. In “normal terms" when the market gets choppy, some form of big move is brewing. I think we're putting in some form of short-term top and we have some lower numbers coming, but that’s a tough call considering that Bernanke has made it clear he wants the market higher. Overall, Ben is going to have to really push to keep this market up. I think we should roll over and at minimum test the 12K level again. If we lose that, the next stop is the 50-day moving average at 11,944. However, lately my track record of picking highs and lows has been questionable at best, but to my defense - we’ve never been in a situation before where it's common knowledge that the FED is behind this run, so things are decidedly "different" right now. For me to consider that they're going to ramp us upward, we'd need to see a close or two over that spike high of 12,283 on Thursday. If they do that, then they'll probably get us back to challenging the Feb 18 high, but if they fail, we should then be seeing lower numbers.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV at +34%, NG at +87%, AAU at +26%, DNN at +42%, AVL at +85%, and USSIF at +16%.

In our short-term holds we have:
N up 13%, SLW up 30%, FRG up 25%, QSURD down 2%, NGD up 15%, PAL up 6%, AUGT up 14%, EXK up 26%, SVM up 10%, and AGRO off 3%

We bought more SLW last week – potentially will load up more on Silver side (especially if there’s a pull-back this week at all) – and look at the shale gas drillers that I mentioned – good lookin’ charts.

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This week in Barrons - 2-27-11

This Week in Barons – 2–27-11:

What Happens in the Middle East – Stays in Vegas!
I've had many people ask me about my thoughts on the Middle East, and unlike many of you I am not an expert concerning the inner workings of the Middle Eastern nations. As these regimes are toppled, will people band together to create some form of democracy, or will roving bands of armed thugs cut their countries into their own little fiefdoms? I don't know. But what I do know is that what happens there, affects each and every one of us here via the price of energy – which makes the price we pay weekly to "fill up" dependent upon tribes of rioting dissidents in far away places. Honestly – they won't let you and I on an airplane with nail clippers yet we leave our most vital energy needs in the hands of lunatic fringes on foreign soil. Between our coal, nuclear and shore-side drilling we could be completely energy independent. But for some reason we can’t do something that basic - while we wait for truly acceptable alternative energy. Remember what happened 4 years ago with $4 gasoline - people stop going on business trips and vacations and leave their boats and RV's parked, etc. I don't know the outcome of the unrest in the Middle East – but world history isn't very ripe with overthrows that worked out better than what they had.

The U.S. was built on cheap energy. In Europe if you leave "town" you’re immediately in rolling farmland. In the U.S. when you leave “town” you're in endless fields of subdivisions that stretch on forever. You remove the word ‘cheap’ from the equation and now it's a massive burden just getting to work. So the problems in the Middle East are our problems as well.

However, we may see oil hit $50 a barrel before we see $150 per barrel. (a) The reason the Middle East is in revolt is that their people are sick of being ruled like slaves with little food and education. So these nations are going to need to introduce more social programs – and since the previous ruling parties have taken all the money – they’re going to slash prices to sell oil because $50 oil sells faster than $150 oil! (b) There is ‘slack oil demand’ all around the globe that will decline as the recession worsens in the US, Europe and Japan – so prices need to come down. (c ) And then there’s ‘bio oil’ – Algae biofuel start up companies that are producing a lot of oil in very little space – that can be refined easily for cars and trucks.

Closer to home:
- Housing prices continue to fall, while interest rates are inching higher, which will to continue to drive prices down even further. CNBC announced this week that the median home sale last month was the lowest level since 2002 - with 39% of ALL transactions being foreclosures and short sales. Until all the shadow inventory is gone - prices will continue to fall.
- We’re seeing states go ‘broke’ – and unlike Uncle Sam, they cannot print money out of thin air – so how all the riots will work out remains to be seen, but you can color me skeptical that the outcome is going to be smooth.
- Hyperinflation – are we seeing it? Food prices across the globe have gone up at the "fastest pace ever" according the U.N. Oil is up $20 a barrel. Cotton and wheat are "limit up" day after day. Underlying inflation is roughly running at (at least) 8%.
- So is deflation right around the corner? One of the issues with a monetary expansion move higher on the commodity chain, is that at some point, the facts collide. Honestly at some point people will stop buying because they can’t afford it – and then everyone will reduce prices in order to sell – and then people will hold off on buying knowing that it will be ‘cheaper’ tomorrow. That is the balancing act!

I was giving a talk this weekend and someone asked me whether I thought ‘gold was a bubble?’ Gold and silver are not going up because people are buying jewelry – they’re going up because all fiat currencies are falling apart due to too much debt created from too much fiat currency and credit. The debt is un-payable in the United States, Europe, and in Japan. Here’s the deal – if you’re a fund manager, How do you feel knowing you have your folks in stocks that crashed in 08 - 09, while silly little gold roars to new highs? How do you feel if you told people to sell gold at $500 because it has no "interest payments" and is just speculation, not an investment? Now all of a sudden you 'know/think" that it's time to sell it (again)? Have you ever been right calling a Gold top? Gold isn't going up on speculation, gold is going up because it's MONEY, and the only MONEY that has ever held its value. Well – this week - silver hit another high. In my world, Bernanke doesn't stop printing, Europe doesn't stop printing, and gold and silver continue doing what they've done for ages – becoming money again.

But won’t deflation hit gold and silver as well? Yes and No. Gold is looked upon as money, and Silver as ‘almost money’ with some industrial demand. What ‘should’ happen is that gold and silver will continue higher as the printing presses run full blast and the debts mount, and more countries admit bankruptcy. When the currency buyers switch over to chasing gold and silver – that will be the final "hurrah" for the two metals. And when that hits, you can be sure that in a very short period of time, a "new" currency will be ushered in. But let’s be honest, right now if the U.S. decided it was going to back the dollar with a fractional gold backing, gold would have to be $7,000 an ounce for their holdings to equal the amount of dollars out there.

The Market:
Two weeks ago I called for a pullback. That was suicide, and I was wrong. But I was only wrong by a week. This week, we opened Tuesday and fell 400 points – touching briefly below 12,000 on the DOW. Now, what happens next? I think we ride Monday slightly higher and then begin to pull down again. The bigger question is: How deep is the pull-down? Well, once it's firmly broadcast that we're looking at a 10% pull-down, they won't let us fall that far. Maybe we fall 5 or 6% and they'll rush this back up. That way, the people waiting on the 10% down, will have to buy much higher, and when they "really" yank the rug it will crush more people, at higher prices.

This week GDP came in at 2.8% - lower than the expected 3.2%. Oil also pulled down from it’s high - below $100 per barrel. I think that if nothing blows up over the weekend we will see a big green day Monday, as they try to claw back what we lost this week, but I still think we have some dip work to do later in the week. I don't think it's straight up from here. Potentially they may stay in technology on Monday – thinking that oil doesn't impact the techs like it does the industrials, so if you're looking for a quick play, I'd stay in tech. But continue to watch the volume bars as during the selling, the S&P volume has been huge.

Many are asking me whether this is the time to go short. I personally do not think that this is the "big one" and we can get short. But don’t get me wrong, if you want to day trade some shorts, by all means go for it. But what I'm waiting for is the repeat of 2008, and this pull back is not that one. Just don’t overstay your welcome on the short-side, as when they pour back in – it will be wicked and fast.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV at 25.81 (+26%), NG at 6.825 (+82%), AAU at 3.02 (+24%), DNN at 2.71 (+43%), AVL at 4.00 (+85%), and USSIF at 0.61 (+2%).

In our short-term holds we have:
N up 17%, SLW up 18%, FRG up 23%, QSURD down 7%, NGD up 3%, PAL flat AUGT off 2%, EXK off 3%, SVM off 4%, and AGRO off 11%

Last week out, silver was $29 dollars, and it just closed at $32. We bought more of our favorite silver stock – SLW last week @ 35.00 and it ended the week @ 40. I still like Silver this week and with the pullback that I see coming we may get more of it.

Mark P. wrote me and pointed out that last year the exports for chemicals and plastics were up 17% and projected to be strong again this year for exporting chemicals because of the low cost of natural gas in the US. Mark recommends Conoco Phillips, Dow, Air Products or Huntsman as a few companies for possible investments and I tend to agree with him – thanks Mark.

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This week in Barrons - 2-20-11

This Week in Barons – 2–20-11:

The Ben Bernank’ says: “No Inflation”
The ONLY constant I've ever seen in my life is that every year, things cost more. If the prices of "things" that we need continue to go up, what makes more sense: (a) trying to make more dollars to keep up, or (b) investing in the very things that will indeed be going up? People will get uglier as the economy remains on life support, and as our debts and deficits continue to rise. One of the oldest and best ways to "get rich" has been buying real estate. Right now that seems toxic because the housing bubble pushed prices to insanity, and on average, they're still over priced. But a very bright person once said that the easiest way to get rich was to buy real estate and let someone else pay for it. In the olden days, you would put $25,000 down, rent the house out for 15 years, and you were guaranteed a nice return when you decided to sell it. But right now real estate appreciation may be a long way down the road. Housing prices, the foundation of so much of private citizen debt loads, are destined for stagnation (not inflation) as the supply of homes is far greater than the demand (11% of the nation's homes stand empty today). However, what has been rising is rent – and as more and more people cannot afford to purchase a house – they will be forced to rent.

The point of all this of course is that although I think gold and silver are the single best inflation hedges, they are not the ONLY places to be. The right property will always carry a nice value, but it’s the entry price that is the important variable right now. The right price is NOT a property that was 100K in 2000, ran to 500K in 2006 and is now trying to get 265K. Real estate has traditionally gained between 2 and 5% per year. A quick way to know a bargain is to go back to 1997, ’98, and ‘99 and check comparable sales in the area. Once you get that price, add 2 to 5% per year until you get to 2011, and that will be a realistic price for the property today. If you can find the right property – at the right price – it will maintain it's value better than U.S. dollars.

This week we saw the market once again ignore:
- Riots, as 3 more countries are facing governmental overthrows,
- Insanity ruling Wisconsin as the Democratic leaders left the state so they wouldn't have to vote on the Union proposals,
- Inflation figures soaring, and
- Initial jobless claims bouncing higher.

Last week I warned that everything was setting up for the first significant pull back in months. Well, the pullback never came, and now we’re in the land of the unreal. Right now - it's so blatantly "in your face" that floor traders on the exchanges will tell you that this market is all about the FED pushing it, and how you have to be long because the FED is pushing money at the market until summer.

Now, my issue with that is: it’s pretty rare that the market makes it that easy. So since everyone knows that is the plan, what happens in summer? But as this market goes higher - people are capitulating. John Q. Public is coming back into the market as after 38 months of mutual fund outflows - those same funds are now experiencing major inflows. I do think the one thing that everyone is beginning to believe is that The Ben Bernanke can't stop printing this summer, because if he does the economy crashes.

The Market:
Jim Taylor wrote me a comment this week that I’ll share with you: “My opinion is, given the trillions we are spending propping up the banking system, the cost of the Fed using Futures and Options to quietly prop up the equity markets is probably small. The key to doing that is to create the perception to the consumer that the Economy is OK – and believe in a high correlation between equity market valuation and consumer confidence. Right now I find it hard to justify owning any large diversified equity basket, as the combined valuations may be untenable. Individual equities need to be closely analyzed using the DDM (Dividend Discount Model of the 60’s and 70’s). In a nutshell – No Dividends – No Earnings – No Dice.”

This week silver went ballistic. You could come up with 15 different reasons why, and some will say it's big pops like that, that spell the end of a run – while others will say it's because of the technicals. All I do know is that inflation is now so bad that it’s in every economic report. This week the Empire and the Philadelphia manufacturing reports were released. We found out: hiring was down, sales were down, orders were down – but prices jumped like mad. The CPI and the PPI are now so bloated with inflation, they can't seem to fudge it any more. So, what happens to gold when inflation rises? It goes up.

With all the elements going on in Egypt, Ireland (their credit rating was cut yet again), the PIIG nations rebelling against austerity, the storms in Australia causing coal/mining shortages, the harshness of the US winter, the undersupply of food, the inflation we see, coupled with Bernanke's insane plan to devalue the U.S. dollar – I think silver’s time has arrived – and I resumed buying it last week. Over the past 2 weeks I said I was now ready to buy silver again. I stated that I was to be buying 4 “monster boxes" total, and I would scale into them. By scale I simply mean I wasn't buying all 4 in one day. Since we never really know when a breakout, or a pull-down will be manufactured, I was “averaging in.” Thus far I have only bought ONE out of the four I wish to own – and ‘knock on wood’ we got that right, as silver perked up and then in the last few days "roared" higher. I have 3 more monster boxes to buy. I'll probably buy my next one sometime next week. I'm hoping that yesterday wasn't a clear breakout and it just keeps roaring higher, but if it does, it does.

Tips:
Our long holds looking like: SLV at 25.81 (+22%), NG at 6.825 (+90%), AAU at 3.02 (+34%), DNN at 2.71 (+52%), AVL at 4.00 (+85%), and USSIF at 0.61 (+3%).

In our short-term holds we have:
N up 18%, SLW up 13%, FRG up 22%, QSURD = flat, NGD up 2%, PAL up 10%, AUGT off 3%, EXK off 2%, SVM off 1%, and AGRO off 5%

Last week out, silver was $29 dollars, and it just closed at $32. We bought more of our favorite silver stock – SLW last week @ 35.00 and it ended the week @ 39.20. I may take more of it next week if conditions are right. A couple other places to look:
- NVDA over 26.00 is going to get attention,
- IPI when it finally gets over 40.00 should be interesting, and
- FCX over 55.60 should finally see it rise. They did their split a while back, went through a funk.. but with copper at all time highs, and gold moving back up, it's day is coming.

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson

This week in Barrons - 2-13-11

This Week in Barons – 2–13-11:

Did ‘The Grand Plan’ Include Egypt?

People will put up with many things but not being able to eat or feed their children is usually the tipping point. We have seen exponential increases in food prices over the past 6 to 9 months – and in a true global ‘food fight’ it’s hard to tell who (if anyone) will win. Currently, you can certainly point to the weather as having been uncooperative – with droughts in Australia, Ukraine, Europe and Russia as well as floods in Australia, Brazil and the U.S. With corn (in particular) trading over $6.75 a bushel (almost double the $3.60/bushel rate in June), it’s a strong possibility that we will continue to hear and read about continued food riots in parts of the world throughout the globe until the 2011 harvest time. With the U.S. being a major supplier – we not only need to look at the U.S. supply situation (E.G. our diverting corn production to Ethanol) – but also QE1 and QE2 aiding in the devaluation of the U.S. dollar – helping to cause a ‘power keg’ of food price inflation – not witnessed in decades. What we all need to ask ourselves is – “Was this planned?”

Well this week’s “Plan” included:
- Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, who was one of Chairman Ben Bernanke's closest financial-crisis advisers before becoming the only governor to question the expansion of record monetary stimulus in November, resigned after five years at the central bank. According to sources – it isn’t because he disagrees with Bernanke. You’re kidding right? Several times Mr. Warsh has openly written OpEd's about how QE could have serious ramifications – including commodity price inflation. And NOW he’s quitting. I think he understands what's coming and wants out before it hits.
- CBO Director claims that the Obama Health Care Law Will Cost 800,000 Jobs.
- Steve Forbes and Richard Gonzalez point out that the ‘rumblings are back’ (as if they were ever gone) in the EU – much to the disdain of the ECB. Take a look at a graph of the Portuguese Bond – as it reaches a 10 Year High this week – and remember what Greece did to the market a little bit ago. The PIIGS are clearly in trouble and food prices are not helping one bit.
- U.S. Home Foreclosures jumped 12 percent last month, but the sharp divide between states suggests the industry remains backlogged by investigations into the foreclosure process. According to a report from real estate data firm RealtyTrac, lenders foreclosed on 78,133 properties in January, up 12 percent from the month before. We are 3 years after the banking collapse, 4 years after the housing bubble and foreclosures are still rising.


Forgotten in the price of corn ‘doubling over the past six months’ is a ‘trickle-down’ effect leading to higher prices in everything from animal feed, to breakfast cereals, and even soft drink sweeteners. “U.S. shoppers will see higher grocery bills as early as three months from now, though most of the impact won't be felt for another six months”, said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Illinois.

Of course The Ben Bernanke doesn't include food or energy in his calculations for inflation. In fact, through substitution he consistently tells the world we’re running under 2% inflation – when in reality we’re closer to 7 or 8%. And as you look back over weeks and weeks of headlines – do they square up with Obama’s view of the economy? Now, is it any wonder that people around the world want out of dollars?

Bottom line – I DO think food inflation (in particular) was part of ‘The Plan.’ We have a Fed head quitting because he sees The Ben Bernanke basically becoming a despot and proving to everyone that “absolute power - corrupts absolutely!” We have all the ills we had two years ago, and more. And as you look at the accelerated pace of our dollar depreciation – you have to ask yourself – is all of this coincidental? I think not!

The Market:

I have to say that this week was one of the weirdest I've seen in a while. I was calling for a weak market and we got it – but each day – as if by a miracle – the market in ‘pre-open’ and at 3:30 pm would go from ‘red to green.’ President Mubarak’s leaving then triggered a rally on Friday. Now we’ve all heard wonderful things about Egypt being a newborn baby democracy, and how it will be so much kinder and gentler. Now, I’d love for their people not to be repressed, but to think that there won't be infighting from the hard liners seems a bit of a stretch.

Last week, I said that I thought we were in the danger zone for a pullback. I said that I figured the rally would continue Monday and into Tuesday, but by Wednesday we should see the first cracks appear. Sure enough, Monday and Tuesday were pretty good days, and on Wednesday the market got soggy. It was down 77 points early on – and I thought that this could be the day that it was going to finally take a breather, pull back 8+ percent and shake out some excess. The downside volume said yes, the RSI said yes, many indicators said yes – BUT The Ben Bernanke said NO. Out of the clear blue the futures programs fired off and they brought us up to close the day "flat". Thursday we were flat at the open and then again plunged 77 points – but guess what showed up like clockwork – out of the blue came multiple futures buys and soon we were moving up. Then of course on Friday, President Mubarak did resign and we pushed back up.

So, did my pullback call fail and did I look stupid? Considering the market was higher on Friday, than it was on Wednesday – YES. But one would have to agree that watching the market fall for over 70 points, two days in a row, only to be "brought back up" – well – even a CNBC analyst came on camera and came right out and said that the FED is supporting any dips.

So one thing we can draw from this is that the Fed still has the firepower to push the market, despite a market showing many signs of fatigue. Does that mean it's over, and we can buy again? I don't think so. The market is at an interesting inflection point, and I think that it may try one more time this week to roll over. I would not be surprised in the least if we move up Monday, see fatigue set in on Tuesday, and we go back to grinding sideways. They saved us last week – will they save us again if we soften up? With that in mind, we're mostly sitting on our hands, 'leaning long’ and very quick to take profits.

Tips:
We still have a couple positions in our gold and silver stocks – with our long term holds looking like: SLV at 25.81, NG at 6.825, AAU at 3.02, DNN at 2.71, AVL at 4.00 and USSIF at 0.61

In our short-term holds we have:
N up 18%, SLW = flat, SLV up 13%, NGD = flat. And we purchased some PAL, AUGT, and AGRO.

If you’d like to view my actual stock trades – and see more of my thoughts – please feel free to sign up as a twitter follower – “taylorpamm” is my nickname on Twitter – fyi.

If you’d like to see me in action – teaching people about investing – please feel free to view the TED talk that I gave 4 months or so ago now:

Remember the Blog:
Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson