World Of Wallstreet

Unadjusted Year Over Year: Labor Department Initial Jobless Fall -29.5%

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 460,287 in the week ending March 6, a decrease of 10,969 from the previous week. There were 652,636 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009. "
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100311yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - No change from last week. Another data point keeping us on track for a top in unemployment in June 2010. At the current trend the initial jobless claims in June will be less than they were in June of 2003 when unemployment peaked for that downturn. 

 





 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 460,287 in the week ending March 6, a decrease of 10,969 from the previous week. There were 652,636 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009. "
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100311yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - No change from last week. Another data point keeping us on track for a top in unemployment in June 2010. At the current trend the initial jobless claims in June will be less than they were in June of 2003 when unemployment peaked for that downturn. 

 





 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

FWIW: Chart Review... Reflation Trade Still On (Weakly Though)

Just completed my pretrading chart review. Going to go long gold futures for a short term trade.

 

Here's the charts I find interesting. Don't have time to actually cut and paste the charts into this post.

 

BKX breakout. Banking stocks looking strong. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$BKX&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p82408217738&a=170899848

SPX at possible double top with RSI near recent highs. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SPX&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p49012226722&a=135880573

TRAN breaking out. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$TRAN&p=W&b=3&g=0&id=p27605170565&a=192632403

Dollar is in a triangle. Should continue higher. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$USD&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p67231887895&a=166258920

$SOX (semiconductors targeting recent highs). http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SOX&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p42005753032&a=193325190

30 year treasuries are still flirting with a reverse head and shoulders disaster. Makes "them" want to suppress gold. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$UST30Y&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p17225051855&a=187469066

Copper is consolidating just below a double top. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$COPPER&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p98691673496&a=134781029

Gold, last fibonacci gone, 50 day break down, targeting 1050 with quadruple witching coming out next week with FOMC next Tuesday. Short term long futures trade only based on interventional release only. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$GOLD&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p84653420881&a=183320883

Gold/Silver back to 65. The reflation trade is saved! http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$GOLD:$SILVER&p=D&yr=2&mn=0&dy=0&id=p65548417530&a=167283469

$HUI is targeting 360 from 420 based on fibonaccis and moving averages. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$HUI&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p19309140442&a=163272346

Silver looks barely ok. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SILVER&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p89006582352&a=127980389

Crude is at the top of its channel with the RSI where it tends to run out. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC&p=D&b=3&g=0&id=p69244740568&a=147631240

Uranium is on the train to nowhere. This is what housing (the next bubble) is going to do. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=U.TO&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p48072889684&a=139978060

The overall picture is that the reflation trade is sort of on, but not really strongly. The gold picture (and HUI) is colored by the recent suppression. We'll see what it looks like early next week. I'm expecting a pop in this sector after the 30 year treasury auction completes.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Next Week's Interventionals: Turbulent Tuesday (FOMC Meeting 2:15PM)

This week's precious metal price movement is working out as forecast last week although the hit started a bit earlier than expected (6:30AM Monday instead of 8:30AM Monday). The treasury auctions consistently result in a harsh down move in the price of gold (the main competitor of long-dated treasury bonds for the preservation of wealth).

The big event for next week is the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting announcement. Its a strategic one being the anniversery of last year's Quantitative Easing (QE) announcement and being the time when the FED forecast the ending of QE. I'm expecting weasel wording making it sound like QE is coming to an end without any actual commitment.

I'm planning on going long gold futures tomorrow around 11AM (when the 30-year auction has completed) and staying long at least until Monday morning. I'm going long in order to ride the bounce back from this week's suppression. They are still buying in India and I'm expecting a bounce Thursday thru Friday and probably Sunday night. I'm not sure whether I'll hold thru Tuesday's expected turbulence.

Here's my view of next week's scheduled market events (BOLD CAPs for events which the Gold Cartel traditionally uses as an excuse hit the price of gold).

• Mon, 9:15, Industrial Production - a gauge of the strength of the economy.
• Tues, 8:30, Housing Starts - this is a week point in the economy. I'm currently thinking about finding the right tool to short the housing market for the next six months or so.
• Tues, 2:15, FOMC Announce - who knows what they'll say or what will happen (besides Gov'ment Sachs and F.R. Morgan).
• Wed, 8:30, Producer-Price Index
  
• Thu, 8:30, Consumer Price Index - expect some gold suppression for this.
• Thu, 8:30, Federal Reserve Bank President's speak. 
• Fri, 8:30, Quadruple Witching Options Expiration - leave me a comment if you have any insight on how these usually affect the price of gold.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

• Mon, 9:15, Industrial Production - a gauge of the strength of the economy.
• Tues, 8:30, Housing Starts - this is a week point in the economy. I'm currently thinking about finding the right tool to short the housing market for the next six months or so.
• Tues, 2:15, FOMC Announce - who knows what they'll say or what will happen (besides Gov'ment Sachs and F.R. Morgan).
• Wed, 8:30, Producer-Price Index
  
• Thu, 8:30, Consumer Price Index - expect some gold suppression for this.
• Thu, 8:30, Federal Reserve Bank President's speak. 
• Fri, 8:30, Quadruple Witching Options Expiration - leave me a comment if you have any insight on how these usually affect the price of gold.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

Year-Over-Year Unadjusted: Monthly Department Of Labor Non-Farms Payroll Report

Here's my take on the Labor Department's monthly unemployment report:

• Labor Department News Release: click here and here and here.
• Key Numbers: Not Seasonally Adjusted Labor Depart Civilian Non-Institutional Population: 236,998,000 vs 234,913,000 year ago. Not Seasonally Adjusted Employed: 137,203,000 vs 140,105,000. Seasonally Adjusted Private Hours Worked Per Week: 33.1 vs 33.2.   
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100305yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - This data series that things are still worse than a year ago, but are bottoming. The spread between the light green and dark green bars and the light blue and dark blue bars in the graph below is narrowing.

 Let me know where I've got it wrong.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Unadjusted Year Over Year: Labor Department Initial Jobless Fall -27%

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Associated Press Headline And Lead: "Jobless claims drop after rising for 2 weeks... New claims for jobless benefits fell last week in a sign that layoffs may be easing as the economy slowly recovers."
• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 471,720 in the week ending Feb. 27, an increase of 17,128 from the previous week. There were 645,827 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009."
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100218yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - Quite a nice data point which puts us back on track for a bottoming of unemployment in June 2010. The bright green line looks a lot better than it has for weeks. At the current trend the initial jobless claims in June will be less than they were in June of 2003 when unemployment peaked for that downturn. 

 





 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Associated Press Headline And Lead: "Jobless claims drop after rising for 2 weeks... New claims for jobless benefits fell last week in a sign that layoffs may be easing as the economy slowly recovers."
• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 471,720 in the week ending Feb. 27, an increase of 17,128 from the previous week. There were 645,827 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009."
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100218yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - Quite a nice data point which puts us back on track for a bottoming of unemployment in June 2010. The bright green line looks a lot better than it has for weeks. At the current trend the initial jobless claims in June will be less than they were in June of 2003 when unemployment peaked for that downturn. 

 





 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Next Week's Interventionals: Rain Likely, Especially Wed & Thursday

This week's interventional trading is working out quite nicely with the gold future longs I entered into last Thursday showing a very nice profit. The outlook for next week is "Rain Likely" as 3 year, 10 year and 30 year bonds have to be sold.

I expect I'll close out the gold future longs tomorrow at 1:30 to get out of the way of the Friday unemployment numbers customary gold-takedown and go short (by buying puts again) on Monday near the close. Will probably go long gold again after the 30-year treasury auctions next Thursday.

Here's my view of next week's scheduled market events (BOLD CAPs for events which the Gold Cartel traditionally uses as an excuse hit the price of gold).

• Mon, Not much happening.
• Tues, 3-year t-bond auction. Takedown may start for this and in preparation for Wed. 
• Wed, 10-year t-bond auction.
  
• Thu, 8:30, International Trade report
• Thu, 30-year t-bond auction.
• Fri, 8:30, Retail sales.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

• Mon, Not much happening.
• Tues, 3-year t-bond auction. Takedown may start for this and in preparation for Wed. 
• Wed, 10-year t-bond auction.
  
• Thu, 8:30, International Trade report
• Thu, 30-year t-bond auction.
• Fri, 8:30, Retail sales.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

Getting Started With Gold Investing

For me, the key to investing success has been to find resource companies that:

• are terribly undervalued at current prices and
  
• produce a resource for which I am bullish and
• have catalysts coming which will reduce the undervaluation.

Since the crash that has been Gold (and Silver to a lesser degree) Jr producing mining companies. Exploration companies are a whole nother kettle of fish that I am trying to spin up on.

Aside: I believe someone can make 50% a year (or more) if they don't have too much money to invest (say less than 5M$) and if they truly obsess over what they are doing and have paid, say, 3 to 5 years of dues (obsessing over investing) and are good at strategy games. That's me. It isn't nearly as much fun as my day-job and I'm not completely obsessing this year. It will be interesting to see how it impacts my results.

A friend of mine asked me how to get started spinning up on gold and precious metal investing.

Its a difficult question because there is a lot to learn and there is a lot of B.S. to wade thru.

I'll answer by listing the resources (in priority order) that I find and have found useful and try to dig up some "greatest hits". This post is probably worth more than anything I've posted in the last year. Finding the good information / analysis resources is probably the most important thing I do.

www.lemetropolecafe.com's daily midas column - covers the gold market every day in detail from the GATA perspective. This is the single best source for covering the precious metals markets in general. Costs $300/year. Worse than no help when it comes to stock picking. Cost is $299/year. For me, the most valuable part is watching whether they are importing gold in India or not. As long as the Indians are importing the price of gold is supported. The insights about the price suppression (and what days to look for it) are also turning (with some filtering) into a valuable futures trading resource.  

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=5834 - best stocking picking board I know of which is currently on gold and silver miners. Listen to anything Bobwins or Cl001 says. These guys make a tonne of money. 

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/ - who I want to be when I grow up. Analysis that is so true, so deep and with such a good spirit. And he covers precious metals occasionally. 

http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/King_World_News.html - does great interviews (with a horrible web site, google "king world news" and interviewee names if you can't find what you are looking for) often about precious metals. The Ted Butler weekly wrapup will introduce you to the commitment of trader reports and how to interpret them (look out below when the commercial shorts and longs develop huge positions). Here's some other good interviews that should provide a good introduction to gold and miner stock picking:

• Jim Sinclair
• Pierre Lassonde
• Rick Rule

www.goldseek.com, www.321gold.com - have tonnes of commentator posts to wade thru. You'll have to learn you brings value and who doesn't.

http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/ - provides a long daily piece with material stolen from all over the place including most of the good stuff from www.lemetropolecafe.com (but for free). 

I don't have any books to recommend. I'm currently reading Jim Dines' Gold Bug (pretty expensive) which is probably the best book I can recommend, but I'm not thru it enough to really say.

John Doody has a nice, safe methodical way of picking gold stocks (which is pretty much what I use only with smaller, off the beaten path stocks). I don't subscribe. IKN provides some great insight and has a true edge with micro-cap Latin America stocks. I do subscribe. I also subscribe to Bob Hoye's Institutional Investors (great pattern-matching technical analysis) and, because I keep feeling dazzled, I just got a Jim Dines subscription. I also am subscribed to Gary Biwii's news letter to learn a new form of technical analysis (and to keep from going off a cliff if something unexpected happens). Biwii's letter is cheap and seems very much worth it to me.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Next Week's Interventionals: Sunny With Friday Thundershower

This week's interventionals worked out well with a quite profitable long silver puts trade. I left out last week an important interventional: the COMEX option expiration. Will keep that in mind going forward.

Here's my view of the week's scheduled market events (BOLD CAPs for events which the Gold Cartel traditionally uses as an excuse hit the price of gold). I expect I'll go long some kind of leveraged gold trade (either RGLD options, COMEX gold options or COMEX gold futures today around 1:30) and hold until Thursday evening.

• Mon, 8:30, Personal Income
• Mon, 10:00, ISM Manufacturing Index
• Tue, Motor Vehicle Sales
• Wed, 10:00, ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
• Thu, 8:30, Initial Jobless Claims - gets extra emphasis on non-farms payroll week.
• Thu, 8:30, Productivity And Costs
• Thu, 10:00, Pending Home Sales
• Fri, 8:30, Non-Farms Payrolls (Unemployment) - gold Cartel nearly always hits gold for this report. Next week's report should be particularly bad as the week where the numbers were taken was the blizzard week.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

• Mon, 8:30, Personal Income
• Mon, 10:00, ISM Manufacturing Index
• Tue, Motor Vehicle Sales
• Wed, 10:00, ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
• Thu, 8:30, Initial Jobless Claims - gets extra emphasis on non-farms payroll week.
• Thu, 8:30, Productivity And Costs
• Thu, 10:00, Pending Home Sales
• Fri, 8:30, Non-Farms Payrolls (Unemployment) - gold Cartel nearly always hits gold for this report. Next week's report should be particularly bad as the week where the numbers were taken was the blizzard week.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Sources: I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.The next options expiration date is: 3/25/2010. Here's a link to a good 2010 calendar (click here).

Unadjusted Year Over Year: Labor Department Initial Jobless Fall -23%

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Associated Press Headline And Lead: "Jobless claims rise on snow-related layoffs... The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise."
• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 452,468 in the week ending Feb. 20, a decrease of 25,767 from the previous week. There were 605,668 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009."
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100218yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - I'm still looking at the recession over recession non-seasonally adjusted graph below which which continues to look ugly. I'm thinking the dark red line characterizes the trend and that we won't see a peak in unemployment until late 2010 if the trend continues. We are looking at an even more "jobless recovery" than the Internet Bubble recession's recovery. Yikes!

 




 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Here's a quick take the Labor Department's weekly initial jobs claims report:

• Associated Press Headline And Lead: "Jobless claims rise on snow-related layoffs... The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise."
• Labor Department News Release: click here. 
• Key Numbers: "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 452,468 in the week ending Feb. 20, a decrease of 25,767 from the previous week. There were 605,668 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009."
• My Spreadsheet (click Download 20100218yoy).

Here's my uneducated interpretation - I'm still looking at the recession over recession non-seasonally adjusted graph below which which continues to look ugly. I'm thinking the dark red line characterizes the trend and that we won't see a peak in unemployment until late 2010 if the trend continues. We are looking at an even more "jobless recovery" than the Internet Bubble recession's recovery. Yikes!

 




 
 

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us

Next Week's Interventionals: Daily Thunderstorms

Here's my view of the week's scheduled market events (focusing on events which the Gold Cartel traditionally uses as an excuse hit the price of gold). I expect I'll trade out a few percent of my portfolio this morning as The outlook is for downward movement of stocks and gold (and upward movement of the USD) as Bernanke testifies twice and the treasury has to sell 100B$ of bonds and bills:

• Mon, 11:00AM, Bernanke Testifies
• Mon, 30 year TIPS and short term treasury bill auction.
• Tues, 2 year treasury auction.
• Wed, 10:00AM, Bernanke Testifies.
• Wed, 5 year treasury auction.
• Thu, 7 year treasury auction.
• Thu, Durable Goods and Order - this is the only economic news that comes out next week that I follow closely (other than the weekly initial jobless claims).
• Fri, GDP Revision - the GDP growth from Q4 will be revised downward (I expect) and the market will be unmoved.

I like Bloomberg's economic calendar (click here) and little better than yahoo's (click here) because it covers the treasury auctions. The best one I've found for international is here, but I usually don't have the time to follow it.

Leave me a comment if I'm missing something or if there are better data sources that you know of for this kind of thing.

MontyHigh, www.worldofwallstreet.us