Monday, March 1, 2010

Not Hot Enough! Military Positions, Everyone!

Just +1.32% on the standard brokerage
-0.18% on the Roth IRA

Did anyone else see this trendship with benefits happening so soon with IPG? The thing is I missed the perfect storm. There probably won't be a moment like this again in some time. IPG closed the day with a $4 billion market cap. I am going to watch its industry peers closely. WPPGY and OMC both closed with market caps of $11.7 billion market each today. I've noticed that second runner ups aren't necessarily bad for one's portfolio if the semi-conductor industry is any indication. The volatility in INTC was much less compared to AMD. However, AMD was the one that moved.

I have been so inconsistent lately though. One minute I'm talking about the long term and the next, I jump out of a trade prematurely. It doesn't work! E*Trade gave me a Power E*Trade upgrade today out of the blue. It pays to be a nymphomaniac trader sometimes. That's the spirit, Rusty!

I might still need to do some more homework... BNHNA was no fun, but if LEHMQ goes according to plan, I will be able to recover that loss really quickly.

Yields in the bond market are slightly better than Friday, with the best yield standing at about 7.88% on Municipals A. The question is when does the bond market become too crowded, which would then lead to capital flows out of the bond market and into more attractive asset classes - such as stocks? Once interest rates start to rise, we should start seeing gold decline as well. I've been wrong for quite some time about gold though. My theory is that gold should see a very steep decline once the economic recovery takes place as investors will want to be in higher-yielding asset classes. Though we're on the brink of recovery, gold still hasn't sold off. I personally don't think inflation is high enough, but that's just me since I like things OTT. According to Oxford Economics & World Bank, US inflation was at 9.1% in 1975, declining to 3.6% in 1985, 2.8% in 1995, and finally 2.9% in 2007. That's hardly anything to be fraidy cat about.
I think everyone should be in military position - on the defensive with their portfolios.
I need to really tune up my strategy so it remains smokin' hot.

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