MARKET COMMENT
April 11, 2007
Inflation?
Stagflation?
Interest rates up or down?
Economy growing or slowing?
When investors are confused you can count on
the market reversing and in this case it declines.
Investors today seemed undone by the release
of previous Fed meeting minutes.
Why
should they be is what I wonder?
What
were they expecting?
The minutes basically
reflected what we all knew and what the Fed’s been saying all along, “we’re on hold”.
The markets we’re focused on the most didn’t do that much
today.
A few other markets where we’re focused in the US are real
estate and financials.
Earnings should shift investors’ attention away from the Fed
minutes which will age quickly.
Tonight Genentech reported good earnings that were inline with
estimates while Research In Motion also reported basically
inline earnings.
We’re still more interested in what’s going on overseas
since the action there has been impressive to say the least.
Some would argue that things have gone too
far.
Making that point is the following chart
comparing the NASDAQ bubble to the Shenzhen Composite.
One thing you can do fairly easily is find chart patterns
you can overlay one to another.
The
problem can be with percentage differences.
Nevertheless Michael Panzer makes his point--is it different this time?
Bear’s eat this up.
Sure, many want more US stock market analysis but we
should really just focus on the sectors that can be “change agents”.
Besides, I’m tired.
And, as far as overseas markets are concerned we’ll just let
the charts speak comparatively for themselves.
There was a lot of amazing stuff to read about today.
The Fed minutes with the sissy and needlessly confused
reactions.
Wachovia’s statement that many mortgage lenders were “surprised”
by the subprime problems was dumbfounding.
The National Assn. of Realtors predicting that home prices
could fall in 2007 for the first time in 38 years must have gone to hand-count
vote of members.
And lastly, the NASD issued a warning to investors about the
dangers of margin buying HERE.
[registration
required]
What’s so strange about
that?
The SEC just dramatically lowered
margin requirements for portfolio investments in some cases by over 70%!
Weird.
Well, it’s CYOA time for them.
Have a pleasant evening.
Disclaimer:
Among
other issues, the ETF Digest maintains long or short positions in:
UDN, GLD, DBP, DBE, DBC, XHB, KBE, FXI, ILF,
EWG, EWC, ISL, TA100 INDEX, and EWA.