Slope Of Hope with Tim Knight

And So It Begins.......

Well, this is happening sooner than I thought.

Today I received this letter from the completely lame, insanely-high-commissions brokerage that my employer uses to administer our 401-k program. Click on the link to read it; I don't want to gobble up space and bandwidth by posting it directly.

On my Big Picture page, I recently added this......

I will add that a major concern I have is that our government, which has become quite accustomed to extreme interference with the markets, will step in to "rescue" everyone during the resumption of the tumble. As a person who hopes to profit handsomely from the downturn, my concern is that the government is going to specifically target the bears in a show of populist activism.

So here we have the SEC suspending the use of leveraged and any inverse ETFs at major brokerages. It's starting with the 401-ks, but how long do you think it'll be before more "help" is on the way?

So where does this leave me, then? Well, I've got $375,000 in this account, and nothing to do with it. So - mission accomplished, SEC - there's $375,000 in buying power that wants to buy ultrashort ETFs that has been neutered. Multiply that by tens of millions of accounts, and you've taken a lot of selling pressure off the market!

You've also created a situation where people will be helpless to sustain the value in their accounts, because their choices will be (a) cash; or (b) bullish equity positions.

Jerks.

Wanted: A Soaring Dollar

The snare drum you hear in the background is the musical prelude to a big shift in currencies. If, as I anticipate, the EUR/USD starts to tumble (while, naturally, the dollar soars), we'll have everything we need for equities to start falling to pieces.

One of the charts from EWI's Short-Term Update, shown below, tells the story superbly. Notice how the slope (err, not "Slope" slope, but the regular slope), represented by the series of diagonal lines, gets decreasingly steep. This implies to me a tipping point that has either taken place or will take place in the near future.

 

I would also add that today is the first day in a while that the big profits that showed up in my account at the opening bell stuck around for the entire day. The only short position I closed was FXP, early in the morning; otherwise, I'm still short virtually across the board.

I'll probably do a post later tonight. I need to - what else? - catch up on my charts.

Adios, August!

Bar time is usually reserved for Fridays, but as we give August a swift, painful, permanently debilitating kick in the ass as it runs out the door, I thought I'd let Bo serve up some beverages for the crew. Plus I thought it was Friday, and I have no idea why.

Commodities Will Lead the Way Down

The New Widow-Maker

A week or two ago, someone here published an outstanding article about why even those who thought natural gas was going to move higher shouldn't touch UNG with a ten-foot poll. It seems that advice was well-founded. People keep trying to catch this falling knife, and it seems to have no bottom at all.

Disqus Trouble

OK, it's pretty evident that Disqus' new rollout was a disaster. I'd gladly go back to the old version at this point. Avatars are getting scrambled. IPs are confused. The "instant update but you can't see any other new posts unless you press F5" is really for the birds.

I didn't ask for these new "features". I thought the auto-refresh was pretty cool (if it actually worked as designed), but...............I've written to the co-founder and told him to please get this straightened out. Because Typepad has a perfectly good comments system too.

Fidelio

I tend to like rather bombastic music; this is the finale from Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. Play it while you trade; the music really kicks in at about 4:00. Enjoy!

Interesting Decoupling

This is probably neither here nor there, as the old saying goes, but I noticed something unusual this morning. Here is a graph of the EUR/USD (black line) and the @ESU9 (blue line). In other words, it expresses, on a minute bar scale, the movements of the dollar (in inverse form) and the equities market.

These two have been moving in lockstep for a while now, but I noticed that a big spike in the EUR/USD didn't really budge the equities markets. Any comments as to why?

August's End

Well, we've got a pretty good start at the opening bell, particularly with FXP, which has been my favorite recently. The 1015-1018 level seems like important support, particularly since The Powers That Be will want to pad out August's gains as much as possible (or at least protect them).

I've been thinking "next month will be better" for a while now but - as Bullwinkle says - "this time for sure!" Joking aside, I think things are scheduled to get interesting very soon.

Sweet Home Palo Alto

I was going to title this one "What the Puck?", but some people are easily offended. Anyway - I got to experience one last mini-outrage before leaving the sweltering crowds of Southern California. This bold sign was displayed at the airport.........

Now I realize Wolfgang Puck whored himself out a long, long time ago, so my expectations aren't that high. But let's face the fact: he has his name, his face, and his signature on a sign that speaks of taking his favorite recipes to new heights because everyone deserves a first class meal. So one might expect something mildly novel - - I mean, not a three-Michelin-stars type experience, but something that's definitely a cut above. It's Wolfgang Puck, after all.

And here we have it:

And thus, I ask: are you f*cking kidding me? Coca Cola Zero? Yogurt Parfaits? Red Bulls? Some decidedly non-extraordinary turkey sandwiches? Is this a joke?

No. It's not a joke. It's further proof that aspirational marketing has no shame, and it has no limits.

Feh. I'm glad to be back in my home. I think I'll stay here a while.