Real Life Narnia, NFL can figure it out...Kinda

Are we living in Narnia?

I have to say that the latest week in the sure made me feel like I was living in Narnia, a children's book mythical land of make believe with talking ferrets, dragons, witches and make believe problems that could be solved by magic... and that was just the NFL labor disputes.  I don't even know if a schizophreniac with 44 personalities on PCP could not make up the Willy Wonka insanity that hit the markets this week...

If someone understands anything about this last week, fill me in. 

I saw a crappy debt plan in Europe that is doomed to fail, existing and new built housing numbers that were as bad, if not worse, that the depths of the recession, shrinking manufacturing numbers in China, flat manufacturing in the US and Europe, ever rising unemployment numbers, $100 oil that will CRUSH the consumer (again), a war in congress over fiat monies in the trillions, a bond market that gave the bird to everyone, earnings that would make you think unemployment was at 1%, Apple making so much money that it should be in some way criminal, equity markets that couldn’t stop screaming higher and a president that looked more confused than a father who is asked by his 7 year-old daughter ‘where do babies come from?’

It has to be Narnia… 

 The NFL can figure it out… Kinda… Maybe???

Meanwhile, the Gridiron Gurus are close, but not 100% there yet… maybe… kinda??? NFL Dog and Pony Saga continues... 

Here are a bunch of guys that all WANT to see something done, but can’t get the final numbers to match up, and this is only $150 billion dollars.  It has taken 4 months to come to an agreement …

And the Gov’t is trying to figure out how to extend the imaginary USA debt credit card of $14.3 Trillion.  I sure hope the 4 months/ $15 billion isn’t a benchmark for time.

The Wizard of Narnia.

All I can see is a repeat of 2008 in the near future.  I’m pretty sure that is on the way—debt deal or not, Dow 12,000 or Dow 15,000... there is no way the economy can sustain even this weak level of growth without housing, jobs or any confidence in the government.  $100 oil can easily become $120 oil and that is the magic $4/ gallon mark that takes money from Build-a-Bear and sends it to Conoco.  Apple is not a Bellwether, and many of these AmAzInG earrings were coupled with planned lay-offs attached. 

There is a disconnect between the markets and reality-- In essence, Narnia.   

Ultimately, that means one thing… QeTHRee… Commencing in Q3/2011. 

Ben Wizzie, Master Wizard of Fed Narnia,

Make it Rain!

 

Should be fun! 

Enjoy that $3.73 CHEAP gas this weekend!   

House Trap and Women's Soccer has their 15 minutes.

It ended in a shoot-out?  What is this, the Wild Wild West???

A big shout out to the women’s U.S. Soccer team for making it to the finals of the World Cup.  You sure let down quite a few Type II diabetics at the local pub that called you a ‘sure thing.’  Don’t worry—they still drank as much PBR as they would have even if you had not made it to the finals (I’m sure bowling was on).  We were all Soccer fans for about 12 minutes and it sure was awesome... until you lost in a lame shoot-out.  American’s are so patriotic about sports until we lose.  Then it’s back to Nascar and bitchin’ about NFL labor disputes.

  Housing Up… but still in the gutter

Another day in the world of make believe and another hope and prayer for some kind of stop to the train wreck that is the housing market.  Housing up but still in the gutter.  Wozers!  Housing starts ROSE by 14.6%.  Yea dogg, pull down the Alize and let’s PAR-tay like it’s 2005! 

Oh 2005.  The beginning of the end of the bubble.  June 2005 housing starts were a lofty 2,004,000.  That is a 69% drop since 2005.  All of a sudden those numbers don’t looks so good.  In addition to this, last month’s data was revised down and the majority of the increases this month were in multi-family starts.  I would say that this was actually a really crappy housing report—not worthy of Alize, but most definitely worthy of double Jim Beam shots for homeowners!  Prices... look out below (again).  And while I can’t take away all the thunder from this less bad report, I worry that this less bad report is coming way too late in the year to make any impact on 2011 being a horrid year for housing.  Even if the momentum is up slightly, fall follows summer and winter follows fall.  Winter is not going to help and we did not get any 'seasonal' help in spring, the season that usually has the most robust housing starts. 

Remember too that starts say nothing about price.  If builders push out 625,000 homes for $250,000 that would have sold for $335,000 in 2005, this is NOT going to help the market, but instead is going to only increase the chances of someone walking away (or walking down the street and getting the same home from the same builder for 30% less than their current balance).

Scraping bottom:  Housing starts follow the exact same trend as losing your sex life to weight gain (note:  weight gain chart has not relevance to this story, nor is it accurate).

 Housing is getting killed by 3 things:

1)      Mortgage credit is only as easy to get as cocaine at a Mormon picnic.  Approval rates are way down, down payments are up and products are getting taken away faster than Bernanke can print money.  Big thing to watch going forward:  Funding from the big 4 monster banks:  Wells, BAC, Chase and GMAC.  BAC should be the one to watch.  I would guess that BAC will be almost completely out of correspondent lending in the next 12 months.  Countrywide is just too much for BAC to swallow and they will have to sell their servicing and wind down lending if they ever want to pay a dividend again.

 

The bottom 5 lenders do not lend as much combined as Wells Fargo.  If BAC falls, Wells Fargo gets to make the lending rules (hint hint:  they already do)… and the rule today is: protect thee servicing portfolio of mortgages by not allowing people to pay off current loans.  If there is no competition to buy mortgages, rates could drop to 3%, which would be just under the underwriting approval rates.

2)      (F)Unemployment.  This one is pretty straight-forward.   Unlike 2005 you have to have a job to buy a home.  You also have to have a job to come up with a down payment if you are buying your first home, and you have to have a really good job if you are going to pay off the negative equity on your current home AND buy new home.  Don’t expect any magic to happen in housing until jobs come back.  There are no magic loans and there are no magic jobs in today’s market.  Even if jobs return, many people will be SELLING at any chance of recovery (see next point). 

3)      Baby Boomers.  I still think it is asinine to think housing can recover with baby boomers retiring.  It would be great if that happened, but the boomers are NOT going to participate in the real estate market again.  Why:

a.       They got burned hard by the last bubble

b.      They are going through declining income through retirement

c.       Boomers will be SELLING and not BUYING if the market turns ever so slightly and this will only delay the recovery.

If you asked the average American boomer for one wish for their financial health over the last 10 years it would either have been to (a) go back in time in a time traveling Delorian and sell their house in 2005, or (b) go back in time in a time traveling Delorian and smack their younger selves at the closing table of their house from 1998-2005, steal the money and throw it in the stock market (or take it to the track!).

Unfortunately for this wish to be granted we would need a Flux-Capacitor, which is a make believe device that makes time travel possible.  The only person that has make believe items is Ben Bernanke (he is a master wizard).  It would also put a lot of strain on that clunky AMC Delorain to fix 77 million people’s real estate screw-ups.   While this is all crazy talk, the idea of going back in time in a make believe, time traveling Delorian, to fix the housing market is probably more realistic than seeing the housing market recover in the next 3-5 years due to ‘increased demand.’ 

Speaking of Baby Boomers and make believe:  R.I.P Hunter S. Thompson.  You would have been 74 this week had you not gone crazy and killed yourself.  You were a little before my time but I still have enjoyed your works.  You were also crazy, but the 5 gallon buckets of cocaine and LSD might explain a good portion of that.  I hope you got the afterlife with all the virgins!  That one sure sounds the best.

We Can’t Stop Here…. This is Bat Country.

All in all, housing sucks, but it is probably not a horrible investment at this time if you buy right.  If you can find a home you are going to stay in for while (18 months is not long enough) and you negotiate the price, have the cash to buy and understand that it will get worse before it gets better… maybe you should buy. 

Then again, if you can do all that you might as well buy 15 rental properties to house all the baby boomers.  They will have to live somewhere… 

Same Old (Magic?) Hat

Same Old Hat

Old Hat is a term given to someone who is a constant bull-shitter, usually based on unfulfilled promises, or someone that makes new, bigger, promises each time he can't fulfill the original BS promise.

 

Ben Wizzie, of course, being a master wizard capable of monetary magic, wears a wizard hat, but he still is guilty of the Same Old (Magic) Hat when it comes to his promises. 

Ben Wizzie 'spooks' market with NO QeTHRee talk.  Yesterday QeTHRee was a sure thing, but today it is off the table.

See this rabbit?  Watch it disappear! 

Markets deflated quick today with the idea of no more QE.  Sad really.  The true Old Hat in the market today is that QE will help the economy.  We have had two rounds of unprecedented money printing and the economy is still in the gutter.  It turns out that buying bonds does nothing to help pipe-fitters who's job was shipped to India or Homeowners that need a lil help holding onto the house. 

Old Hat rules the day!  The real question that lies ahead is the US debt limit.  When (not if-- maybe this August, maybe next April) the US bails on their debt payments we will have the greatest test of the American Dream.  Why?  Isn't the American Dream the Oldest Hat out there?  When did the American Dream become a debt laden nightmare? 

If the gov't stops paying social security and throws their hands up screaming uncle (Sam), can you really blame the little guy for letting the house go? 

But really the Oldest Hat of all is the idea that the US Gov't can keep printing money indefinitely and keep a perfect credit rating. 

If YOU go out and max out all YOUR credit cards, YOUR credit rating will drop... and YOU wouldn't get an advance on YOUR credit limits.

And the Gov't cries-- But it is ONLY $14.3 Trillion!!!

I'm sure next time it will ONLY be $17.2 Trillion... then $20.7 Trillion...

Old Hat for sure!

American Idiots and Fortune Cookies

Angel Dust Nonsense…

Another day in the world of make believe that even Willie Wonka would have thought was just plain silly.  Our American Idiots, self proclaimed market wizard-pimps, Ben Wizzie and Alan Greenspan are at it again—moving mountains with their words… or at least trying to.

  Ben Wizzie is out of bullets.  If he had a six-shooter he has shoot his entire round but he is still threatening with the same pistol.  If you didn’t know that he had already shot his bullets you could be afraid of being shot, but knowing he is out of ammo, the worst he could do was bludger you with the handle of the pistol.  If the QEII silver bullet did nothing but pimp the Russell 2000 higher, I doubt a bludgering of QeTHRee will do much to help the real economy. 

Still, like I said, Wizzie is pointing the pistol:  Bernanke Speaks and the Market Shoots up.  Has it really been 2 weeks since QE2 ended?  Wow—time flies when there is no stimulus. 

The pimping parade of QeTHRee lasted about 7 hours today, but faded quickly at the end of the afternoon when people awoke from their pixie/angel-dusted voyage to Fed Narnia and were disappointed to learn that wizards, while funny and interesting to 9-year-olds, are not real.   Bernanke can keep pulling rabbits out of his hat, but pretty soon people are going to expect something more than running the printing press non-stop. 

Is QeTHRee coming tomorrow?  Nope… but it is coming.  Just be ready.

FOOT-IN-MOUTH Diseased Debt

A little story that slid under the cracks today was another from Ben Wizzie-- Cat is out of the bag.

Ahem, from the article:  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said if Washington failed to raise the U.S. borrowing limit in time, the United States would pay creditors first and stop benefits such as payments under the Social Security retirement program.

He might as well have said that he would kill the women and children first.  I take 4 things from this:

1)      I am now 100% sure I will not have social security by the time I retire, &

2)      Bernanke’s speech writer must have been smoking crack all night to give the master wizard the A-Ok on this one, &

3)      There is a better chance of winning Powerball 3 times in a single month than the U.S. getting the debt issues resolved by Aug. 2^nd, &

4)      QeTHRee is a sure thing—as sure as Monday following Sunday.

There is nothing more awesome that admitting you are not going to pay social security starting in August.  Nothing.  Nada.  That is freeking unbelievable.  Dude is a pimp for sure.  I bet all the residents of Arizona would be in uproars if they were not all napping before bingo and ‘tastes like chicken’ night! 

Here’s a fun one:  How does Obama get re-elected if he doesn’t pay people social security?  Sarah Palin could admit she was a hooker with AIDS who slept with Tiger Woods and get into office if the Social Security checks don’t go out—Even if Obama killed Bin Laden.  No pay = No Prez. 

Old Guys Rule 

It is hard to say whether Alan Greenspan or Ben Wizzie is more of an enabler in the demise of America, but Greenspan is starting to show his age:  Greenspan says young people are stupid.

"Baby boomers are being replaced by groups of young workers who have regrettably scored rather poorly in international educational match-ups over the last two decades. The average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers. This raises some major concerns about the productive skills of our future U.S. labor force."

There is some truth to this, but Greenspan failed to speak up about this topic when he was pimping the housing market into the ultimate bubble.  My grandpa said the same thing about my parents and my parents will say the same thing about my generation.  Maybe one day down the road there will be emphasis on education instead of profits for fast food and oil companies, but there isn’t a chance in hell of this happening with the likes of Greenspan and Bernanke around—heck, Bernanke pimps the S&P. 

Touce Mr. Greenspan— someone change that man’s bedpan before bingo and ‘tastes like chicken’ night!

Fortune Cookies

We are in the middle of some interesting times with this economy.  Main Street is screaming for help in the housing and labor markets and the wizards are trying to figure out some way to keep oil above $100 while not killing profits at J.C. Penny.  Doesn’t really sound like the ‘Land of Opportunity’ to me. 

Ultimately though, magicians have to end their show and face their audience and bow for their performance.  That is all it is—an act.  How long can this act last?  Hard to call an end date, but it sure feels like we are closer to the end than the beginning.  Sure feels like nothing has changed—other than my house being worth less and my food costing a hell of a lot more—since 2008. 

So put your faith in the Feds, or the president, or the Wave theory, or by squeezing the magical goat’s balls to tell you the future of the markets.  Me—I now take my advice on the economy from Fortune Cookies.  They seem to be about as reliable as CNBC and Marketwatch and I get to eat sushi before a fortune cookie.  Funny though—they have all said the same thing lately…

Could be worse though—I could be ‘expecting’ my $763 Social Security check on August 4^th! 

Cheers!   

SHITALY ATTACKED BY DEBT ZOMBIES

Holy Shitaly… NOT Italy…

They were doing the same crap as the rest of Europe?  And to think we all thought they were one of the good EU players. 

Today we found out that the debt zombies are munching on the books of Italy.  

   

Another day and another report on the state of the EU’s can kicking attempts to stop the snake from swallowing the house—yep—the whole area still has terminal debt cancer and it is still spreading rapidly.  The dollar is in rally mode despite the fact that our debt issues are no better off.  But being the reserve currency does have its benefits! 

So now we have Greece Gunk, The pain in Spain, Portugone, The Celtic Kitten, Bottom feeding Belgium and Shitaly.  Hmmmm…. Seems like this little hic-up is turning into a shit storm—pun intended.  I wonder how long until Germany has had enough of it and releases these debt zombie nations from their support system—Germans have to be afraid of debt zombie bites at this time!

Just like VD spreads to a bunch of crack-heads that share the same ho, debt ‘fears’ become realities for all nations that share currencies and central banks after debt binges take place.  Lewis and Clark would have administered mercury shots and laxatives for VD that fell upon their men, but they would have also administered mercury and laxatives for the common cold, a case of frostbite, pneumonia, colon cancer, snake bites, alien attacks, exhaustion, dehydration and debt zombie bites.  Did any of this work?  Maybe.  Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t.  The guy who got syphilis from banging 15 American Indian hookers while waiting for winter to pass in 1805 might feel fine in 2 weeks, but then die years down the road after his brain is turned into spaghetti sauce from the virus (if he didn’t get killed in the war of 1812 that is).  He would have thought the mercury and the laxatives worked wonders at the time of administration. 

Europe is administering laxatives and Mercury to solve their debt crisis.  The results will be the same for Greece and Shitaly if they had actual zombie bites or the common cold, let alone debt levels that cannot be repaid OR restructured.  The treatments will fail and the entire system will crash after nation after nation decides default is the easiest answer.  It is inevitable.  It is happening.  It cannot be stopped. 

The EU debt zombies are growing in numbers by the day…    

Will this result in the Return of the Mark?  Will it just dry up the euro’s value as floods of money have to be printed in hopes to save off a Weimar republic style inflation calamity?  Will we get a 2^nd Euro, the pathetic country Euro, born from this mess?  Stay tuned!  I wouldn’t rule out ANY of these consequences or combinations! 

Oh yea… That little SPY run seems to be over.  Choppy waters ahead! 

Off to See the Wizard...The Euro's Beetle Kill Forests

Happy late Father's Day to all of you out there. 

I have a 4 month old daughter, so I had a pretty awesome father's day to say the least.  My wife let me do something that I rarely get to do anymore...

You know it-- Eat REAL (no turkey for this dad!) bacon.  It was amazing.

Tune in for Wizard Speak Tomorrow



For those out there that believe in magic, Master Wizard Ben Wizzie will address his minions tomorrow in what will surely be the most anticipated say nothing speech he has had since his last post rate decision say nothing speech.  We will hear about 'stubborn' unemployment numbers, 'slow, yet sustained' economic recoveries and 'easing' inflation pressures that should help cure both unemployment and slow recoveries.  After that he will pull a rabbit out of a hat, put a stripper in a box and cut her in half and try to pull a silver dollar out from behind Lebron James' ear-- but he will only be able to find three quarters.

While Ben Wizzie's speech and post-speech press conference will be the buzz of the day, the real issue for all the markets should be (and will be over the next 12 months) Europe, the Euro and the Euro have's vs the Euro have not's.

The Already Infected Euro Zone Forest

I spent my Father's Day in the small mountain town of Grand Lake, Colorado.  Grand Lake is a true blast from the past Colorado mountain town.  There is only one street in the entire town that runs about 6 blocks and houses a combination of ice cream stores, T-shirt shops and bars.  It is one of those 'My Parents went to Grand Lake and all I got was this Crummy T-Shirt' kinda tourist trap for about 14 weeks a year. It is one of those towns that lives for their 4th of July fireworks over the lake.  Most of the year there is literally one road in and one road out (and that was true this weekend as the seasonal road, Trail Ridge Road, was closed due to 5 feet of weekend snow!).  While the lake is beautiful, the one thing you notice when you pull into this one horse town is the acres upon acres of dead pine trees-- victims of the pine beetle that feeds on the lodge pole pine tree that is (should I say was) the dominant tree in much of Grand County and the Grand Lake area.

Pine Beetles can not be stopped... once they show up it is inevitable that the mature forests will be destroyed.  The destruction can, and does, take years.  At first, the needles show a faint red, but over many seasons the whole tree's needles will turn red as the tree dies.  A season or two after, the needles fall completely of the tree and the tree stands like a arbor skeleton, next to thousands of other dead trees... ghost like and lifeless... the entire forest transformed. 

Greece is essentially no different than Grand Lake.  For that matter, so is Spain, Italy and Portugal.  These countries are infected with beetles that are slowly taking them down.  For years the town of Grand Lake did everything imaginable to try and stop the beetles while saving the forest.  They continued to spray chemicals that did nothing, hoping that 'this year's batch' would kill the beetles... but the beetles can not be stopped.  Europe and the Euro have similar problems.  They have tried to stabilize Greece, but it has failed.  They again will try to bail-out Greece with high hopes that 'this restructuring' will be the one, but ultimately all of these attempts will end in failures... one after another.  Greece, Spain. Italy, Portugal... the Euro itself?

The one flaw for Grand Lake was the idea that the beetles could be stopped.  Instead, Grand Lake should have been looking for ways to rebuild for when the forests were dead.  How could this have been done?  Plant different trees like Aspen that are not susceptible to the beetle?  Clear trees at the first sign of infestation?  The answer to that question, I don't know. Europe needs to start putting together their plans for countries that will inevitably default instead of kicking the can down the street by trying to save them through restructuring insanity-like plans that have always failed in the past. 

Today Grand Lake is a beautiful town surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dead trees in all directions.  Some say that this is nature, and that is the way it is supposed to happen.  Some say the worst is over for Grand Lake, and that now they can focus on building a new forest.

However, the cost of not having a plan will soon show it's ugly head for Grand Lake.  Today Grand Lake is a beautiful town surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dead, dry, fallen over, rotting trees.  The forest is a sea of fuel for a forest fire.  With no other vegetation in place and no clearing measures for the dead forest, a single rouge match, a bottle-rocket that flies off course or a smoldering cigarette tossed from a passing car will torch the whole area.  After the forest burns, the trees, whose root systems are essential to holding together the jagged mountain side soil, will be gone.  Until regrowth can happen, any large rain or snow melt will be susceptible to mudslides.  This process could happen this summer or it could take years, but it is only a matter of time until it happens. 

We will have to see what the cost of doing nothing is for the Euro-zone.  The Euro itself may not go up in flames like Grand Lake, but there will be fireworks.

The beetles can not be stopped.



Happy B-Day 2Pac; Hunting Naked in the Woods Drunk in the Dark with a Machine Gun

Big Shout out to My Dogg Pac...

A big shout out to 2Pac-- It would have been your 40th birthday today had you not gotten yourself shot to death due to some stupid 'rap battle'.  Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda... fear not Mr. Pac-- your legacy lives on to this day as white teenagers across the country have sex to your music in the back of of their parents leased Cadillac and Lexus SUVs after every homecoming dance... It is good to go out on top.

A long break clears the mind for a writer, and I have to say that my mind is crystal clear.  This is the complete opposite of the markets.  The S&P looks pretty beat up these day.  I suppose that is the same feeling as the Jones' had in 2007 when their 900 sq ft town home dropped 120K in value and they couldn't cash out enough to support 3 vacations, a few Louis Vuitton bags for the girls, a shiny new leased Escalade and weekly Bloomin' Onions benders at Outback Steakhouse.  When the QEII party ends, there is no after party... for the time being that is (see Nov 2011 if you have a time traveling Delorain to see the next QE plans).

The markets are in an interesting spot right now.  The limbo bar has been set pretty low, meaning that 'less-bad' data can come across as 'phenomenal' to those in the doldrums.  Today was a perfect case and point to this argument.  We had not only another week of crummy jobs numbers, but the Philly manufacturing numbers were about as ugly as the VHS tapes you found of your parents doing the nasty to Madonna's 'Like a Virgin', when you cleaned out their basement before the short-sale.  Just plain terrible data today-- some of the worst we have seen in years... and the market shrugged a mid-day sell-off to finish ahead.

We are most likely at a point where the market will kick in a short-term rally.  The 10-year has been flat for the week despite all the nastiness from the NY and Philly manufacturing numbers and TLT has had a bear of a time getting over the 200-day moving average hump.  This coupled with today's turn-around in the markets points all signs to (sucker's) rally is immanent.

It should also be pointed out that uber-bull Jimmy Cramer called for a 10% correction, which should be reason in itself to do the complete opposite and ride a nice shorty run on the SPY. If Cramer Says Sell... BUY BUY BUY

Hunting Naked in the Woods Drunk in the Dark with a Machine Gun

Secular bear markets bring on intense and often erratic short-term rallies that are often explainable.  Usually the financial porn media finds a 'reason' and rides the living hell out of it until the rally fades.  Over the last year we have ridden the 'Rebirth of American Manufacturing,' 'The Jobs Recovery,' and 'The Consumer Renaissance,' and all of them have been complete bull excrement.  The only reason for any rally since last October was QEII.  Plain and simple-- kill the dollar and put upward stress on commodity prices, which in turn will raise raise equity prices.  Higher equity prices make people's 401Ks stronger and they spend more money when they go to Dennys (I'll have the 'Moon's Over My-Hammy' please!)  QEII was no different that a smoke-and-mirrors show the local auto dealer puts on for you when you go in to buy a car.  Create the illusion of 'something good' right now so that you will buy in and sign on the dotted line.  QEII worked great for a few months, but now the party is over.  The effects were similar to drinking 4 wine-coolers very fast-- a crappy buzz that leaves you feeling violated with a headache soon after.  And the headache is not going away because the hair of the dog (QEthrEE) is so far off at this point due to political hand-slapping.

Still, this market will make you think the grass is brighter in the near future.  When the markets recover a good portion of the losses you will hear something about 'Lower gas bringing back the consumer,' or 'Stay-cations bring stronger growth to retail as more consumers shop near home,' or 'job-seekers happy with part-time work as they get more time with family.'  It will be something ridiculous for sure.

The problem is that many people don't know the difference between bad (advice) press and real (information) data.  A Philly Manufacturing number that is sliding faster than Tiger Wood's apparel sales is real data.  A story on Dow to 20.000 in a year is just bad press.  If you had never been hunting before and you took a trip to Colorado to land your first kill, you would not know the difference between bad advice and real information unless you had done some research.  If you blindly went into your hunting expedition and your 'guide' told you that all real hunters went hunting naked in the woods, drunk in the dark with machine gun, you would probably start tossing back Tequilla in your birthday suit when the sun went down.  You may actually enjoy the experience (if you can find someone to rent you a machine gun at 10,000 feet) but you would not have gone hunting.

Remember that real data does not support any rally right now-- jobs numbers suck, China is falling to pieces, QEII is done, commodities are falling apart, the dollar is strengthening and Europe is just plain f'd up (that is 2Pac speaking peeps)... Smells like a recession brewing to me!  


With a good chance of a short term rally for the S&P, make sure that no matter how much fun you have that you don't wake up naked with a hang-over in a field, out of ammo.... surrounded by ANGRY BEARS!  

I hope you are smarter than that...

Cheers

RandR

PS-- sorry for the break-- took on a new job that required me building out a sales team on a short time frame.  I promise to post more often.  Cheers and thanks for reading-- We greatly appreciate the support