Who do the Voodoo?

• I don't know what your view on spirituality, demons, or other planes of existance. But the 2006 Miami Dolphins "football" team which has looked horrible, just beat the formerly undefeated Chicago Bears. The Bears were a 2-touchdown favorite at home in Chicago, playing a Dolphins team that has had trouble moving the ball past the line of scrimmage. Nothing can really explain it except for paranormal activity.


• Coming out of the monthly strength period, which wasn't that strong. Election tuesday, but not sure the market would dislike gridlock or status quo. Not sure it'll matter much. But it'll be fun to watch. Lots of hype and nastiness going on.
  


• OK, back to the games.
  

The Weekend Dedication and Other Stuff

• I just read Barry Ritholz blog entry Stock Traders Almanac 40th Anniversary Edition. "A few of you have written sending word of the dedication in this year's Stock Traders Almanac 40th Anniversary. I was tremendously humbled to have it dedicated to me." First of all, congratulations to Barry!  What a great honor from a great book.  Second, I'd like to join in and dedicate this blog entry to Barry Ritholz.
• Look at the SMH since the peak in October.  Higher volume down days.  Lower volume up days.  Just saying.  How is the market as a whole going to move on without the semis?  Look at the QQQQ. Similar?  Eh, sorta but not as dramatic.  The leaders of this move up could be Google and Apple.  How are the leaders doing?  Chart on GOOG.  Chart on AAPL.  They don't look horrible at this point.  Still.  I dunno.  Something to watch.  Check out what Alphatrends has to say on the QQQQ trendline.  He's a technical dude with a video! 
• GOP frustrated that voters are focusing on the guns and not the butter.  Lets face it, the GOP has done a horrible job in selling the strong economy.  Almost as if the Republicans are in self-destruct mode.  Perhaps that's just what happens after a long time in office.

• Hot pants and miniskirts will soon be legal in South Korea!  Now if that doesn't excite the Republican base for tuesday's election, what will? (Oh wait, don't answer that question!) I'm not sure why the story had the picture of the bikinis, either.  Not really related, but maybe it was the only South Korean model shoot on file.
• Byrne asks "Whatever happened to the Five Dumbest?"
• Jason's sell signal is still on at The Trend.
• I have a couple editions of The Stock Traders Almanac. It's been awhile since I've bought one, though. Now I'm going to search for them and read the dedications.
• I added some widgets from MyBlogLog to the right. I like the recent readers widget. Join up, and visit my page!
• Dr. Brett has a new book. Enhancing Trader Performance.  I don't know who he dedicated it to, but I'm going to add the book to my Amazon shopping cart.

Decision 2006?

• What makes Saturdays so nice is that the complicated decisions are dialed down.  Diet Pepsi or Diet Root Beer?  Notre Dame game or Wisconsin?  Meerkat Manor or something from the DVR? 
• Charting tools?  I use Telechart.  Or TC2000.  Or TC2007.  Whatever the Worden fellas are calling it these days.  I just use the end of day "gold" service.  Not to shamelessly plug their service, but it's darn fast.  I work for a living and don't look at charts much during the day.  I do all my scans when I get home and take a look at what comes up.  Doesn't take but a few minutes.  Used it for quite awhile now, so very familiar with the quirky PCFs and EasyScans, etc. 
• I also have Amibroker.  This is where I backtest ideas.  Not a big fan of data mining, especially because automatically applying a method over history may not reflect what one would do when it's "live and in color" (aka, your own money!).  But it's a powerful tool and fortunately links to Telechart data.  (Using the free Yahoo quote data is really time consuming, but it is free).
• I'm currently re-reading the Market Wizards books.  Great books.
• I'm afraid to turn on the news networks, because I know it'll be Democrats screaming at Republicans, and Republicans screaming at Democrats.  Polling data is suspect, but everyone seems to be expecting the Democrats to win the House by a slim margin and the GOP to retain the Senate by a slim margin.  Gridlock would be great.  Divided we stand, united we spend too much money.
• OK, I think it's Diet Root Beer time...

Blogger's Block

Sometimes I'm here at the keyboard wondering what to blog about. Blogger's block.  It always helps to open up the RSS reader and see what other folks are writing about.  Usually the first blog I check out is Adam's, so I commented on his Random Thoughts entry...

• That widget from mybloglog is a bit disheartening when it shows 4 of 5 of the top links from yesterday were "0 comments."
• Since unemployment is on its way to 0%, I can't imagine there'd be that many more jobs to add in the first place. Well, except for all those new DIEBOLD programmer hires the last few months.
• But we're all probably getting a little complacent now that the economy has been in bullish mode for a few years. We assume it'll go on forever.

It usually doesn't take me much longer to go to Barry's Big Picture, where he wonders in the Incredible Talent Pool, Zero Competition entry if he's revealing a secret locale where to find young lovelies.  I haven't left a comment there yet, but it all seems so obvious. Let me do that.

• Was that you lurking around the shoe department?   Might also want to try heading over to cosmetics where they do the make-overs and asking "I'm a little concerned about my TV spots and looking best for the camera.  Can you ladies show me some tips?"
• Oh, and not even the second coming of the Great Depression will keep women away from the shoe department.  Not a great read on the state of the overall economy, me thinks....

After those two, then the next stop is less predictable.  I usually hit the Yahoo headlines and see what's going on.  Lots of politics these days, so I suppose I'll have more to say on that in the days, no hours, ahead.  And I also traverse most of the blogs I link to on the sidebar, see what's on folks minds.

Eh, lunch time.

Rain Jackets Needed

• First rain storm of the year blowin' through. So watch out on those roads.  After a long summer, people in CA forget how to drive in bad weather.  Unfortunately, I didn't work from home today so I'm about to head out in it.
• The market? Speaking of storm clouds... I still have low beta holdings and some cash from the sells in September, and still flipping some small caps although that has slowed down as the stock market seems to be swooning here a bit.  I'll have to check scans later, but I'm feeling comfy-cozy in low-beta stuff.  The semi sales in September seem to have been the right call as they've gone nowhere since.  Tech has been strong, though.  Missed out on a couple big ticks there.  But managing risk and protecting capital is key.  IMHO, anyhoo.
• "The vows of abstinence break far more easily than latex condoms," said Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. surgeon general.  Pushing for sex education.  The square peg goes in the square hole, and the round peg goes in the round hole.  Any questions?  Haven't we been providing sex education now for quite awhile?   Even with education, when folks are in their teens and twenties the sex drive is pretty high.  Or when your older and drunk, too.  Education-shmeducation at that point.  Decisions are made.  I guess the key is "be prepared."   Maybe we need a "don't leave home without it" commercial on condoms.
• Normally, we're in the 401(k) additions period of the month, but none of the normal monthly seasonal stuff has been typical in this bull trend.  Perhaps that's a better way for sideways markets.  You know what I'm talking about.  The beginning of month stuff, pre-options week, options week, end of month, etc.  We do have some strong holiday trends in November to be aware of. More later...
• What do I think about John Kerry's botched joke?  Everything is too political.  I recognize that it was a bad joke.  Although I do think Kerry is a bonehead, I seriously doubt he hates the troops or was insulting the troops.  C'mon.  The Republicans posture on it, because for some reason they can't take advantage of the strong economy.  Easier for them to capitalize on a botched joke than a 4.6% unemployment rate and a tight labor market.  How sad is that?  Then all the Democrats vying for 2008 (you know who you are Hillary) see an opportunity to get their mugs on camera.
• There are only two teams in politics.  Can you imagine the NFL with only the Cowboys and the Raiders?  "Who do we have on Sunday Night Football this week, Al?" 
• Kerry's joke not hurting Democrats at the polls, which is important if polls matter.

Drink Drink Drink

• Coffee keeps diabetes away. Even decaf!  Good news for Starbucks.  That $3 a day is now part of your health maintenance program.  Maybe your HMO will offer some sort of copay in the future.  A copay coffee card!  Or maybe you can withdraw cash out of your Health Savings Account to pay for your daily grind.
• The market is starting to act a little fishy.  We have to be careful not to be scared into thinking a big down day means the bull market is over.  After all, we've gone quite a ways without consolidation.  The one-day wonders are more profound in the opposite direction of the trend.  While the trend drips-drips-drips and grinds in one direction, the counter move may be swift and fear provoking.  Notice how a big dip like today brings the bears out of the woodwork.   I hope we consolidate sideways with low volume, but does anyone think it'll be that easy?
• The election may provide an emotional catalyst for stocks, but the end result won't be much.  If the Democrats win the House, then we'll have gridlock.  The market likes gridlock because the Democrats and Republicans cancel each other out, and this prevents large scope legislation from being enacted.
• Red wine molecule helps mice live longer.  For those of you worried about the longevity of your mice.  Me?  I capture the little buggers and let 'em go by the river.  But I'm not serving them wine. 
• Oh, seriously.  All this research is good.  Imagine the ramifications if we can isolate things in coffee and wine that promote good health well into the golden years.
• We're in the Wild Wild West days of the internet.  Lots of content out there and we expect most of it to be free.  But we're seeing a transformation and consolidation of information.   Google buying YouTube and MySpace clamping down on copyrighted material will create more structure and standards on the web.  Even the ability to generate revenues for charging for copyrighted materials, instead of that crazy revenue click-on-da-adz model.  Here's a view from CBS Marketwatch, called Pride vs. Publicity.  I prefer the web to remain like the Wild Wild West, but I have my doubts that it will be.  Keep your charge card at the ready.
• Something to think over your red wine and coffee tonight...

The Learning Curve Reviewed!

• You never know what you're going to get when someone reviews your blog, but the folks at I Will F'in Tear You Apart took a look at The Learning Curve.

I bring up my "Jewish Momma's Boy" syndrome for the single purpose that The Learning Curve is absolute heaven to my little eyes. I'd almost venture and guess that Muckdog, like me, is an engineer of sorts. Everything is so neat, organized, and well planned that I seriously might bust a nut just looking at it. It's a smorgasbord of tech-geek awesomeness, which makes me almost want to hunt him down and find him just so I can hug him, give him a manly smooch on the lips, and then kick him in the nuts for not rolling up those goddamn archives. C'mon man! You allow the reader to choose whether the links open in a new window or the current window, but you can't make your archives into a drop down menu?

The content adds to the smorgasbord of tech-geek awesomeness, with a dash of financial and political commentary. It's one of those link fest blogs-you know, the ones that kind of rehash things and then give you the link for the actual info, but he does it in a way that shows a bit of his own personality, and is often humorous. I personally love it, but I can see how it's not for everyone.

Well dude. , in the most manly, non-homosexual, lets go grab a beer and hit up the strip club kind of way.

Check 'em out, and submit your site for review! (Of course, you never know what you'll get...)  Add 'em to your subs for constantly new sites to check out.

• The market looks very suspicious here.  Kind of worried about the longs.  Not so much in the low-beta stuff, but I have been trading some more volatile small caps that seem to have a Halloween hangover.
• Only 38 kids showed up last night.  Bad planning as I ended up with lots of less-favorite candies in the leftover bucket.  Brought them in for the diabetic coworkers.  Just kidding, but that's who seems to be picking at them.