Bottom

This quote is from some publication - don't ask me which one - maybe Yahoo. "I don't think anyone can say we've reached the bottom yet," said Chuck Gabriel, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. "It's going to be a very gloomy Christmas." Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, said that "for investors to get more confidence, we need to know details" of the new administration's plans to handle the crisis. "There's been a vacuum of leadership" she added, "and when that happens, you get fear and rumors, and then people sell." It came from about two weeks ago. These people know nothing. They panic just like everyone else. Even their guesses are half-hearted. They are too scared to stick their necks out and say something concrete. I think what I said was that the market had already hit bottom - it's time to start buying. You can have a different opinion, of course, but at least state it - don't be a marshmallow when you talk - please.

Ken Fisher

Ken Fisher has written a book - it's titled The Ten Roads to Riches. Here they are:

1. Start a successful business—the richest road! 2. Become the CEO of an existing firm and juice it—a very mechanical function. 3. Hitch to a successful visionary’s wagon and ride along—it’s high value-added. 4. Turn celebrity into wealth—or wealth into celebrity and then more wealth! 5. Marry well—really, really well. 6. Steal it, legally—no guns necessary! 7. Capitalize on other people’s money (OPM)—where most of the mega-rich are. 8. Invent an endless future revenue stream—even if you’re not an inventor! 9. Trump the land barons by monetizing unrealized real estate wealth! 10. Go down the Road More Travelled—save hard, invest well—forever!

Good luck.

Trading places

This is from a legitimate news service: "Hugo Chavez views Russia as a key player in moving toward a world freed from U.S. dominance. He welcomed Medvedev's visit saying it is one step toward "a new world that's being born." In Brazil, Medvedev agreed to host a summit of Brazil, Russia, India and China next year to discuss creating a new global financial structure — a reflection of how economic power is shifting from the United States and Europe."

As I've been saying, some countries will now start a chic trend to reorganize the world according to a more sophisticated balance of power formula. Will they succeed? Who knows? Buy relevant cheap stocks and keep your fingers crossed. Oh, and be very careful when crossing the street.

CUBA

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite safe to assume that the new administration will open a huge doorway to Cuba. Now, the big thing here is to figure out which industries will most benefit from the new policy. I would say practically everything. The trick will be to get the banks to finance the myriads of new ventures that are being planned (as we speak.) Good luck to all of you and try not to stuff your faces with too much turkey.

Horse sense II

Okay, the credit emergency seems not to be over. Lots of people never saw it as a real emergency since the stock market seemed to be doing fine inspite of the delay in securing the 700 billion dollar injection of funds but there you have it. There is more to be done. More businesses to save. More jobs to create. It will be so much fun. Did Wall Street learn anything? Who knows? Just buy as many conservative shares as you can while they're still cheap. I think WAMU is about 4 cents. Is that cheap enough? We need an injection of plain old horse sense. That's what we need.

Hans Rosenfeld II

No, that's not Hans Rosenfeld on the left - that's a movie star from another era. Anyway, as I was saying, Mr Rosenfeld had one of his ideas stolen by Hollywood bigshots - the idea for the movie ROBOTS. Remember that movie??? It wasn't just the idea itself - it was the entire script and the design for the robots. Imagine you talk to someone about an ingenious new invention. Next thing you know, they manufacture it and make lots of money and you're left standing there wondering how they could do this and get away with it.

Blue Lips

So, ...the market finally bottomed. I predicted this. The world's top economists kept saying the market might hit bottom in about six months. They are all so wishy-washy. I said one to two months at most. It is Friday but not Friday the 13th. If it were, people would be more panicky than they already are. Courage is in very short supply nowadays. Now is the time to start having a good time. Prices are coming down - gasoline is a lot cheaper, too. There was this Harvard economist on NPR trying to explain why deflation is a bad thing. He just beat around the bush for ten minutes and didn't say a thing. Enjoy falling prices while they last.

El Sistema

A little bit of data on El Sistema for my eight readers. All of it is from Wiki: In 1975, Venezuelan economist and amateur musician Jose Abreu founded Social Action for Music and became its director. Its network of 102 youth and 55 children's orchestras (numbering approximately 100,000 youngsters) later came under the supervision of the Ministry of Family, Health and Sports. As El Sistema, its goal is to use music for the protection of childhood through training, rehabilitation and prevention of criminal behavior. The program is known for rescuing young people in extremely impoverished circumstances from the environment of drug abuse and crime which they would likely otherwise be drawn into. Participants of the program who have begun international careers include L.A. Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
A documentary film has been produced on the subject of El Sistema, entitled Tocar y Luchar, ("Play and Fight", 2004). The film has won several awards, including "best documentary" at the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival and also the Albuquerque Latino Film Festival. In 2008 another documentary made by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier about the system will appear. El Sistema has also been featured on news programs such as 60 Minutes.
Drew McManus wrote a four-part series about El Sistema: The Future of Classical Music is in Venezuela. Composer John Williams was quoted in the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional on 5 November 2007: "This is something unique that has to be seen by the whole world.... which we urgently need in the U.S."
On 22 November 2007, Julian Lloyd Webber said this about the UK's announcement of an infusion of £332 million just for music-education: "We also have an impoverished South American nation to thank. Last August, in the midst of school holidays, when an uncomfortable number of British children seemed even more disaffected than usual, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra arrived from Venezuela to deliver performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Proms that were miraculous."
There is also a project in Scotland. El Sistema is being imported into Scotland for the purpose of breaking the cycle of poverty in an economically depressed area where male life expectancy is less than 63 years.
On 14 February 2008, El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize. On 21 May 2008, El Sistema was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. On 13 June 2008, El Sistema founder Maestro Abreu was a guest speaker at the National Performing Arts Convention-2008 in Denver, Colorado. Brian Levine, Managing Director, Glenn Gould Foundation, wrote an account of his recent (2008) visit to Caracas; in part he wrote: "El Sistema has demonstrated conclusively that music education is the gateway to lifelong learning and a better future."

Concertzender radio

To my eight readers: Good morning. If you have nothing better to do this Sunday, please send a short email to a public radio station in the Netherlands. It's called Concertzender and it is about to be shut down (despite its great success) unless people around the globe show their support. Here is the link to the station. http://www.concertzender.eu/index.php?language=en

If you just want to send the email of support, the email address is this: mening@ concertzender.nl

Thank you and have a pleasant afternoon.

Signed, the one and only Violinhunter

Public execution

Wikipedia knows everything. That's where I found the following: "Robert Damiens, who was mentally unstable, had been a servant of members of the Parlement of Paris where he had heard much criticism of the king (Louis XV). This, combined with the violent pamphlets and general discontent with the king, convinced him that he had to murder him in order to save France. Other sources say that he did not want to kill the king, but merely to give him a warning and thus force him to change his behavior. In any case, it was the first attempt at regicide in France since the murder of King Henry IV in 1610.
Tried by the Parlement of Paris, Damiens was executed on 28 March 1757, following the procedure applied to regicides: after numerous tortures, Damiens was carried to the plaza in the cold afternoon of that day. There, he was first tortured with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife used in the attempted murder, was burnt using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. Horses were then harnessed to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damiens's joints would not break; after some hours, representatives of the Parliament ordered the executioner and his aides to cut Damiens's joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause of the crowd. His trunk, apparently still living, was then burnt at the stake. There was an immense crowd to watch the spectacle, which nobody had witnessed in 147 years. Balconies in buildings above the Place de Grève were rented to women of the aristocracy for the exorbitant price of 100 pounds per balcony (approx. $775 in 2008 US dollars). This tale of Damiens' brutal execution, recounted in the opening pages of some well-known book, has been disputed by numerous historians." I wasn’t there, but I believe the story. Historians, like economists, don’t know anything. Pretty soon, they'll be telling us the Spanish Inquisition never happened. There was money to be made in public executions, especially if they were gory and strange and gruesome. Poor Damiens, he lived in the wrong epoch. Today, he would have been judged not guilty by reason of insanity. He would have enjoyed a life of leisure in some sanatorium, watching cable TV, reading the latest books, the finest magazines and newspapers, and eating plenty of healthy food.

Getting tipped off

Isn't it cool when you know someone on the inside and you get information about something important that most people cannot possibly know about???? The party girls on the left (I have no clue who they are) are having a good time at some posh party somewhere - it doesn't matter where. They are there because their husbands are there. Trust me on that. Their husbands are investors. They do not appear to be worried about stock market losses. They do not appear to be worried about anything at all. Before the financial collapse of so many large firms (like Bear Stearns and AIG) that caused Wall Street to reel and shake, I think some people got tipped off. As was the custom every six years in Mexico, with the changes in administration came official peso devaluations and people were financially hurt every time. There were some people who were never hurt because they got tipped off. Get to know someone on the inside if you can possibly manage it. You'll be glad you did.

Microsoft shares

As I've been saying for many weeks now, buying is fun.... This is an abbreviated article from an everyday investor newsletter. Enjoy....

By Porter Stansberry: As longtime readers of my advisory can tell you, I haven't been bullish on the stock market in years. In fact, for the last couple years, I've been warning that stocks, in general, were vastly overpriced. Investors were too complacent. They had too little fear. It turns out that was very close to a huge top in asset prices. Stocks, bonds, commodities, foreign currencies all peaked over the next several months. It was easy to see this peak coming with three key points: the number of stocks trading at reasonable prices, the amount of insider buying in the stock market, and the spread between emerging-market bonds and U.S. Treasury bonds. Reviewing these key data points today shows we're building an important bottom in stock prices. And it's why I'm telling everyone I know that this is one of the great buying opportunities of the last 30 years. Looking through the list of cheap stocks, several great businesses jump out: ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald's, etc. Any reasonable evaluation of the market would find plenty of safe and cheap stocks... thousands more than you would have found a year ago at the market's peak. What about insiders? Brian Heyliger covers insider buying and selling for my firm Stansberry Research. He follows corporate insiders on a full-time basis. Throughout this bear market, the ratio of buys to sells has been steadily increasing. In June, the ratio was in the high thirties – anything over 35% is bullish. But since then, the ratio doubled, hitting 63% in October... a level I've never seen before. What about that lack of fear? My favorite measure of fear is the spread between emerging-market debt and U.S. Treasury debt – the so-called "risk spread." Institutional investors consider U.S. Treasuries a "risk-free" asset. Emerging markets have much lower credit ratings, higher inflation, and a much greater risk of defaulting on their debts. Investors normally demand much higher interest rates from emerging-market economies. But... in big bull markets, near the very top, investors become so complacent, they begin to assume holding emerging-market debt is tantamount to holding U.S. Treasuries. Looking back historically, you can see this spread is a great indicator of global tops and bottoms in stock prices. In about a year, we've moved from a period of complete complacency to absolute terror. Paradoxically – and this is hard for most people to understand – you want to be a buyer of equities when everyone else is panicking. None of these factors mean that stocks have to go up or that they will. No one can predict the future – but you don't have to be perfectly right to do very well in the market. Yes, our economy is struggling right now with huge problems. Enormous risks threaten America's leadership in the world, the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, our energy supplies, the rule of law in this country, etc. But all of these risks – all of them – existed a year ago, when stocks were almost 100% higher, on average. And all of these risks will exist 10 years from now, when stocks have gone up three or four times from their averages now. To do well as an investor, you have to buy when stocks are cheap. And stocks only get cheap when most investors are afraid. So you have two choices: You can r refuse to invest in stocks, or you can learn to buy stocks heavily when their prices offer you a reward for taking smart risks. That moment is right now. END OF ARTICLE

You might recognize the lady at the left - she didn't need to buy stocks, she used to own Monaco.

Unemployment

Someone once said that when prices go up, inflation results. Yes, thanks for telling me. Now, we see jobs being cut and job losses mounting ever higher so unemployment is rising. Hmmm - what to do? The trouble with unemployment is that it produces nothing. It's like sitting in front of a TV - it produces absolutely nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, being unemployed is not all bad - people still get something while unemployed, namely, unemployment benefits. If people had savings to fall back on, there would be no crisis - savings plus benefits would be the same as having a salaried job, although without insurance benefits. However, receiving unemployment compensation while producing nothing is just not logical. It helps nobody. Only the government would do something like that.

Hemlines

Here is proof that the economy is (or will shortly be) improving. This is not a supermodel who is being paid to wear the high hemline. She is just an average woman (no, not my next door neighbor) who is confident about the economy. I bet you she isn't even worried about job security. She has a penthouse on the third floor. Cool.

Don't panic

A few ideas that parallel mine - from people who know a lot more than I do. Enjoy!!

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud: Some call legendary money manager Jeremy Grantham a "superbear." Back in 1998, when stocks were soaring, Grantham made a prediction: Stocks will lose 1.1% a year over the next 10 years. Investors, expecting 20%+ returns a year, took their money out of his fund. He wasn't promising enough compared to his peers. In hindsight, Grantham was exactly right. (It took 10 years and three days to equal his prediction.) Whenever Grantham writes something or grants an interview, I pay attention. He's one of Wall Street's few independent thinkers. I think guys like Grantham are always worth reading. I may not always agree. But I value their opinions because I believe they're not sugarcoating anything. Grantham has been quite vocal lately, in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The Economist, and most tellingly in his quarterly letter to shareholders. In his letter, Grantham explains he's optimistic about stocks: "For an unparalleled 20 years, global equities, especially U.S. equities, have been overpriced. Now, finally, they are cheap and likely to get cheaper. Likely, I believe, to set up a once-in-a-lifetime investing opportunity (or maybe twice in a long career)." Ever humble, Grantham says he suffers from the Value Investor's Curse: "I said as far back as 1999, while suffering from selling too soon, that my next big mistake would be buying too soon." Grantham thinks the economy still has a ways to fall. In a Wall Street Journal interview, he said, "We are in the teeth of the biggest financial crisis since the Depression and the early days of the broadest economic slowdown since 1982."
But Grantham is quite OK with being a bit early buying stocks. He's a long-term investor. Every quarter, Grantham publishes his seven-year forecast for the investment returns on all major asset classes. In this quarter's forecast, Grantham expects high-quality U.S. stocks and stocks in emerging markets to return more than 10% a year over the next seven years, under a good manager. While everyone was bullish a decade ago, independent thinker Jeremy Grantham was practically the lone superbear – to the detriment of his firm. But he was right.
Now, "the crowd" is scared. And Grantham is nearly alone (except for Warren Buffett) in buying stocks. I'll put my money on Grantham and Buffett over the crowd any day. At current prices, stocks could earn you double-digit annual returns over the next seven years if Grantham is right. Here's hoping he is..." END OF STORY

I don't think the market can go any lower, considering it's been hovering around 8500 for two months or so. Just make sure you invest conservatively then take the rest of the day off - go to the beach - but take your cell phone with you.

Impulse buying

I have this advertisement from something called Green Mountain Coffee. It's one of those gourmet coffee distributors. Nothing wrong with that, of course. They offer a Keurig brand coffeemaker that brews one cup of coffee at $99.95. The coffeemaker is specially designed to accept one-cup packets. The company offers to send you $23.00 worth of packets provided you purchase the brewer. Shipping is free. I already have two brewers (one is still new), but my buying impulses still tell me I should buy. That's not the brewer, of course - it's the Hammer Stradivarius. You can't buy that on impulse unless you've got $3,853,211.00 cash.

1,000,001

I recently read that one million blog posts are made each day. With that in mind, I figured one more might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so here it is. Now the number is 1,000,001 - at least for today. It will be interesting to watch what happens. Probably nothing. You might remember who that is on the left. She used to smoke Camels.

When pigs fly

It has been said that if man had been meant to fly, God would have given him wings. It is true, of course. I have never seen a man fly. That doesn't mean that he can't travel inside an airplane, where it's nice and cozy. That's not what one would call real flying, though. Even if you skydive, that's not flying either. That's falling through the sky.

Just maybe

From an abbreviated article in an investor newsletter:

By Tom Dyson: Less than nine weeks ago, I was in Singapore, at the headquarters of one of the fastest-growing, best-managed companies in the world. This company is the world leader in water treatment and purification systems. The name of this company is Hyflux. The CFO told me his company was on course to make 300 million Singapore dollars (SG$) in earnings over the next five years. He told me his order book is so full, the company is turning business away. The only problem was, I wasn't the only person who had figured out what a great company Hyflux was. The stock price – at around SG$2.75 – implied the company was worth more than SG$1 billion. I would never spend $1 billion to get $300 million in earnings over five years, even on this superb company."If only this stock was 50% cheaper..." I thought to myself as I left the company, feeling a little deflated. "Maybe someday." Now... after stocks have experienced one of the worst crashes in history, Hyflux is 35% cheaper than it was during my visit. It's amazing it's not down more. International stock markets have been destroyed. Ireland fell 80% during the crash. Russia fell 79%, China fell 74%, Brazil fell 72%, India fell 71%, and Korea was down 70%. In all, 43 stock markets have suffered even greater declines than the U.S. market, and only three did better (Switzerland, Israel, and Jordan).These stupendous declines tell me we're now living in a different world. This isn't just a standard bull-market correction like the crash of 1987. This is something bigger. Like a child who touched a hot stove, investors won't make the same mistake twice. I see a return to thrift and caution all over the world. Saving trumps speculation. Prudence trumps risk. And unfortunately, with this sentiment, it's going to be a long time before emerging-market stocks embark on a new bull market. In light of all this, I'm making cash the focus of my portfolio. Let me explain... First, the crisis we're heading into will have strong deflationary forces. Deflationary means prices fall. I expect we'll see a wave of bankruptcies, defaults, forced selling, and unemployment. Cash will be the most valuable asset around. It already buys double the real estate, the stock, and the natural resources it bought six months ago. I expect cash will be even more powerful in the years to come. I want to own Swiss francs, New Zealand dollars, and U.S. dollars. I'll also be buying safe stocks that generate lots of cash. I'll look to buy a stock like McDonald's or Wal-Mart. The crisis will also have strong inflationary force, as governments furiously pump in cash to revive the economy. These inflationary pressures could generate some spectacular "ripples" in the market. In a few years, we could see the rate of inflation get much higher. END OF ARTICLE

I disagree with almost all of what this guru has to say. Cash might be powerful but not for years to come - perhaps in the next few months to come. Inflation destroys the power of cash. You cannot have too much cash and assets at the same time. Use your cash to buy good, conservative stocks or real estate (not land). Real cash (paper currency) will sooner or later be outlawed anyway. Almost all investor newsletters are the same - they drone on and on about the same things. All they want to do is sell you something.

Spanish pride

This is a lovely photo of a Spanish market. I borrowed it from a photo site. I hope they don't see it here and then sue me for using it. I asked permission but they never responded. What should I have done? If we ever meet and they make demands, I'll have to take it down. Oh well. Just try to identify some of the goods for sale here. It's impossible. I remember my dad used to take me to the market in Juarez almost every weekend. There was incredible variety and everyone tried to sell you something. He would almost always have a shrimp cocktail and I would get a lemonade made from green limes.

In the old days

I found this on some website I do not recall. It is - believe it or not - a photo of a fashion show. All we see is one model but the site said it was taken because someone in the family happened to be there. As you can appreciate, there are no runways for the models. The crowd was not there for the show, I'm sure, so the extracurricular event is beyond me. It was supposedly taken in 1958, when women still wore swimsuits. How odd!!!

Wind Farms

It's Saturday but, so what. We can still talk on a Saturday and we can most certainly write also. Just to give you an example of the energy behind numbers. Take NCEN (Nacel Energy Corp), for example. This is a company that deals in harnessing wind power, like National Wind (boy, what a name!!!!) The stock was at $4.60 back in May. Then it took a steep dive (actually, more of a roller coaster ride) down to fifty cents in August. Now it's at $1.37, as of Friday. Had I purchased 50,000 shares sometime in August, I would have profited about $40,000 as of Monday morning. However, that's the trouble with penny stocks - very high volatility because of investors wanting to make a quick profit. Be careful where you park your money. Be conservative, unless you're the type that can take a hit and move on. I'm not. By the way, that's Hans Rosenfeld on the left, with one of his robots. I think it's battery powered.

Environmental Me

I'm not a green person - not even close. I waste water, electricity, gasoline, and natural gas. I don't recyle. I litter the streets with gum wrappers. I don't care about endangered species. I never discuss the environment with anyone. However, there is this company called National Wind, LLC (don't laugh, it's true), that generates power using huge windmills. I think this may be the answer to the energy shortage and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. I just wish they had come up with a more serious-sounding name. That's not a wind farm to the left - but it could be.

Hyenas

This is a small part of an October 2 New York Times article. I think I had already said the same thing here - that the foreign countries would take advantage of the situation to gain the upper hand.

"President Dmitri A. Medvedev has blamed what he called financial “egoism” for the crisis and said it should be taken as a sign that America’s global economic leadership was drawing to a close. Along with some European leaders, Mr. Medvedev has called for greater multilateralism in financial regulation, echoing a Russian position on international relations generally.
“The times when one economy and one country dominated are gone for good,” he said Thursday at St. Petersburg State University during the eighth annual Petersburger Dialog, a forum devoted to developing relations with Germany. After the American banking collapses, he said, the world does not want America as a “megaregulator.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, in Russia for the forum, said Germany, too, would “always support a multilateral approach” to market regulation.
Along with the Germans and others, Russian leaders contend that poorly regulated American markets caused the current crisis. While it is hardly a new sentiment, in Russia there is a gloating quality, as the American crisis deepens."

That's not the Kremlin, by the way - it's the local racetrack at Sunland Park.

Kennedy

I picked this up from an investment newsletter I get on a regular basis, although it had already made the news a few months back. Politics as usual....

Voters in Massachusetts have expressed overwhelming support for an energy-producing wind farm project that has been opposed by Sen. Ted Kennedy. The Cape Wind Project would erect 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Massachusetts, and could provide three-fourths of the power needed by Cape Cod and nearby islands, which is now largely supplied by coal-fired plantsThe Cape Wind Project has been "frustrated at every turn by a handful of yachtsmen, Kennedy included," wrote columnist Froma Harrop, who is on the staff of the Providence Journal. A book by Peter Schweizer, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy," also disclosed Kennedy’s efforts to torpedo the wind farm. "The Cape Wind Project would be built in Nantucket Sound, about six miles off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis," Schweizer explained."The problem was not aesthetic; the Kennedys wouldn't be able to actually see the turbines from their home. Instead Robert Kennedy Jr., who had been beating the drum for alternative sources of energy for more than a decade, complained that the project would be built in one of the family's favorite sailing and yachting areas."
– NewsMax

That's not the Kennedy castle on the left - it's an old European castle with a huge, protective moat around it. The Kennedys don't need a moat, they have something a lot better - friends in very high places.

Wyoming

This is from someone else's blog - I forget whose it is. It does not matter. The picture is not identified so it might be almost anywhere except not from around here. I think it looks like a lake in Wyoming. What do I know? The funny thing is - there are no boats on this lake. I wonder why.

Island

Here's a fine photo of a place you would not know unless I told you. It could be in West Virginia or perhaps somewhere in Austria. It might even be in Brazil. It could also be in Costa Rica or northern California. It is someone's estate. Why would you live anywhere else? It is in the Philippines - Quezon City. You can't get there by car or by train. Try a plane or a boat.

Body of Water

This is a photo of a canal - I'm sure it goes somewhere. It's not the Erie Canal, but it could be, if it were a lot wider and not surrounded by so many trees. The water is so still it almost looks like a mirror. Where this water is going is anybody's guess, but it will serve a purpose, that's for sure. It's not just sitting there looking pretty. The purpose of this little blog, however, is quite questionable - I'm just writing to kill a little time because I'm waiting for the clock to strike 8:45 - that's when the phone will ring.

Back at the Ranch

Well, as people get used to the recent turn of events and forthcoming changes, the market is down a little bit more - just where I like it. It will hover around 8500 for a while then start to shoot back up. Buy 100,000 shares of anything conservative. Don't get into any penny stocks - too risky right now. In six months, you can reinvest some of your profits in some cheap, high-risk stuff, just for fun. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it appears Putin wants to get back in the driver's seat some time in the future. Communism may have changed, but totalitarianism sure hasn't. That's not him to the left, by the way. That's someone else - from another time and place - Angela, an opera singer. Ciao.

Absolutely sure

It's still not too late. I know the market was down today, but it didn't reach down to 8500, did it? Of course not. I told you so. 8500 was the low point. If you had purchased a minimum of 100,000 shares as I advised four weeks ago, you would be showing a tidy profit today, even with the market down as it was. By the way, that's not the new Treasury Secretary to the left, that's Claudia Maria from Buenos Aires, Argentina. How do I know? I make it my business to know. The same way I know the housing mess will bottom out in about two months - perhaps less. You might still be able to ride the stocks to a small profit but not nearly as healthy as you might have. Tomorrow, the market should settle down, but unless you took advantage and made some reasonable purchases today, it will make no difference. Oh, well.