MadMarketScientist

Glad to have you on board John! MMS

As soon as the news of bin Laden's death hit the airwaves, I immediately opened up my EUR/USD charts. The pair fell from the $1.4820 range to the low $1.4760 range. However, the low range did not hold long, and the euro started to climb again. By the time of Obama's speech, the dollar was already trading around $1.4790. The dollar even touched as high as $1.4903 today. I'm surprised that the U.S. dollar didn't weaken from the news? Thoughts? MMS

Hi Traders, The original thread is getting huge! Let's start a new one and continue the discussions and learnings here instead? thanks! MMS

I'll check with the TL Traders Committee to see if we can promote you!! Stay tuned ... :haha:

Tams - maybe you can clarify your strategy ... do you use 10 day, 20 day, 200 day?

what does this do for the markets?

over the past six weeks the AUD/USD currency pair has been bullish nearly 1000 pips in Aussie strength against the US Dollar (see chart). i think this trade has a way to go MMS

I sold most everything early April ... in hindsight maybe a few weeks to early but better safe than sorry. The dollar looks like a decent contrarian short-term trade purely based on technicals ... but long term not so sure. But for now I'm holding mostly cash, sold some naked puts, and holding some gold, silver, and oil.

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with the recent shutdown of the major sites where are you playing?

In the information age, I think "Buy the Rumor Sell the News" holds more true than ever, markets are so efficient the majority of news is already priced into the market. Personally I value looking at big trends and going for the ride.

Washington DC, the point is that its no coincidence the wealthiest people are the ones close to the government. Even in a 'democracy' ... but I guess power is power and this 'coincidence' probably should't come as a big surprise MMS

yes the I believe it will break the 5 year low ... the fundamentals tell us so (US printing money, oilsands in Canada, etc) and from your chart ... the technicals also support it MMS

wow this has the potential to create some angry people!! :-) my vote is #2 Age 18-30 years old for the exact reasons you described. they are gambling hoping to hit it big ...and will most likely end up losing. if they aren't 'trading', they are betting on sports, playing online poker, or spending time in casinos.

Great article from the Jeff Clark ... ---- You've probably heard the term "smart money" used by various pundits, a reference to those investors and institutions that are consistently better at making money than the uninformed masses. Which begs the question: are you one of them? To answer that query, let's first describe smart money (not to be confused with the magazine by that name) so we have an idea of what makes this group of investors successful... Smart money buys when others are fearful. A good example of this is last year's Gulf oil disaster. Wild speculation of British Petroleum's ultimate demise caused panicked bouts of selling. The stock lost roughly half its value in less than two months. To use a classic idiom, there was blood in the streets - and that, of course, was the time to buy. The investor who did so is currently up 50%, and that's not even measuring from the stock's absolute bottom. Smart money sells when others are greedy. My colleague Doug Hornig is a perfect example of selling when others are greedy. In the Nasdaq hysteria of the late 1990s, Doug had accumulated a number of Internet stocks and watched his brokerage account swell to a level he'd never seen before. The greed around him was palpable; everyone was talking about the latest stock pick, the classic sign of a mania in full bloom. "But I'd had enough," he told me. "My positions had logged spectacular gains, and bottom line, I knew this couldn't go on forever." He sold his Internet stocks prior to the 2000 top, just as the greed reached a pinnacle. Smart money sees trends others don't. Doug Casey urged readers in 1999 to buy gold, convinced from his own research and study that a bull market was about to get underway. But he couldn't get an audience; no one wanted to talk about the metal or mining stocks. It goes without saying that he and many of his readers have since profited enormously, with many stocks earning doubles on top of doubles. Smart money ignores the headlines. Beyond the traditional advice of "Buy the rumor/sell the fact," smart money largely ignores the blather from mainstream media and instead focuses on the factors that ultimately drive headlines. When it reaches mainstream coverage, the smart money is already invested. And is looking at what will be tomorrow's headlines. Smart money plays the big trend, not the gyrations. What do Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Rick Rule, Doug Casey, and Warren Buffett have in common? None of them "traded" their way to riches. They identified the fundamental factors driving the trend, bought big, and held on. No technical analysis, no trend lines on a chart, no fancy signals from moving averages. And they didn't get scared out at the first drop in price. Smart money doesn't count its money before it's made. These investors understand there are no sure things, and further, that no one is going to bail them out if their analysis turns out to be wrong. They keep a realistic expectation - and an eye - on their investments. And if they take a loss, they learn from it and refuse to let it keep them from investing again. ----

Bears make money, Bulls make money, Pigs get slaughtered

I just mean in general ...just more of a observation that the only people who have money to buy *create* the low and then they make the majority of the upside. who has money to buy when everything appears to be going to hell? the rich of course! so its a vicious cycle of the rich getting richer ... no comments on the wealthiest counties being right by DC? coincidence?

One reason for the growing income inequality in the United States is the relationship between the government and private corporations. This is hard to deny, especially with a simple look at the richest counties in the U.S. Of the top 10, five are located in the D.C. area - with four of them in the top 5. But, there's another way that the rich get richer - it's recessions. This might seem kind of strange, but think about it a little more. When the market bottoms out, what happens? Someone buys at the bottom to lend support to that level. Who is that someone? Well, let's understand who it isn't. The middle-class guy with a $100,000 underwater mortgage isn't buying. The guy who lost half his retirement is probably too scared to enter the market. The guy whose employer may be downsizing isn't jumping back in. The middle-class Joe has a million good reasons to avoid the bottom of the market. It's pretty clear who buys at the bottom - it's the rich. And when the market rebounds, they're earning a very high return. The average guy always misses the rebound and jumps back into the market when the upside is limited, but the folks with excess cash come back earlier and earn the higher returns. As a result, the gap between the groups grows larger. The rich really get richer!

Those reasons sound plausible for funds and ETF's. But I think the author was speaking about certain stocks leading the the major indexes themselves, not just funds that replicate the indexes.

so do I, as the US dollar goes down (and why won't it if we are printing it like we are drunk), gold and silver have no where to go but up. i think there will be a little correction while we are heading up to June 30 and the end of QE2. this is what everyone thinks is going to happen ... and you know what that usually means. the Fed must have a plan in place? It would be foolish for us to believe they are going to print money until the US dollar is worthless. I can't see them willing to give up being the money standard so easily. I would love to be sitting in one of their strategy sessions listening to their debates about the scenario simulations ... this is probably just another manipulation and somehow Goldman (the Fed) is gonna come out on top!

wow you are a brave man shorting silver!! i'm still in the trade, took a beating today, but my horizon is probably a little longer than yours. if it does go to $30 i'm buying, long term the US dollar is done. best of luck with your short MMS

Gallup brings us an interesting poll. It asks, What's particularly intriguing is, that upward trend began prior to the recession. Since 2008, the number of "no" answers increased from 44% to 53%, a 9% difference. But from 2002 to 2005, the "no" answer increased from 32% to 40%, an 8% difference. What does everyone here think?

Hi ingot54, Thanks for reporting ... we will definitely take a look at this MMS

zdo - about the Gold\Silver ratio, yes you are correct, that is a far more telling story. it has definitely closed the gap but it is still off its historic lows ... 2011 - 24 2007 – For the year, the gold-silver ratio averaged 51 1991 – When silver hit its lows, the ratio peaked at 100 1980 – At the time of the last great surge in gold and silver, the ratio stood at 17. End of 19th Century – The nearly universal, fixed ratio of 15 came to a close with the end of the bi-metallism era. Roman Empire – The ratio was set at 12. 323 B.C. – The ratio stood at 12.5 upon the death of Alexander the Great. is silver in a bubble or is there another 100% to go? unfortunately, i think it all depends on the what the Fed does ... and who knows what they plan on doing. i'm not even sure they know sometimes! MMS

Silver has been the best trade for last 7 months, the following table makes the point... Total return since August 27, 2010 Global Asset 140.4% Silver 75.1% Corn 39.0% Crude Oil 38.2% Russell 2000 Index (Broad Stock Market) 36.3% CRB Commodities Index 35.8% Coal 35.1% Soybeans 31.8% Nasdaq 30.1% Copper 27.2% S&P 500 (Large-Cap Stocks) 25.2% Dow Jones Average (Large-Cap Stocks) 21.1% Gold 18.3% Financial Sector SPDR Fund (Big Banks) 5.6% Producer Price Index 2.3% Consumer Price Index -2.2% Investment Grade Corporate Bond Fund -2.6% 10-Year U.S. Treasury Bond Total Return -10.6% U.S. Dollar Index Are you in the trade yet?