Jack Stevison

every now and then i get the urge to hammer away at the keyboard with random thoughts just for the fun of writing. this is one of those occasions. i learned this way of putting essays together at my freshman composition class at the ohio state university and it still works for me to this day. here goes:

i watched john mcain’s speech last night. why were there no party crashers at the obama speech constantly attempting to disrupt him the week before? is it because the lunatic left has less respect for people? i think so. for all of their love of the first amendment they sure do go out of their way to trample over someone else’s words. quite often. so much for free speech.

the left thinks the the right is out of touch with america. i don’t know. i do know that i know more people like sarah palin than i do people like joe biden.

i think the biden pick will be second guessed by the democrats more and more as we get closer to the election. for having all of hollywood on their side you’d think the democrats would be better at marketing their product than they are. i think the democrats would get the flyover states’ votes if they weren’t so critical of their lifestyles. apparently they forget who feeds them.

mccain seems to have stolen obama’s message of change. i think it’s going to work.

the unemployment number was just released and the rate is now 6.1%. massage the numbers all you’d like. we are in recession. however it is not the end of the world. recessions happen in a fractional reserve financial system with expanding and contracting credit. learn how it works and quit your complaining. phil gramm was right that we are a nation of whiners. bad politics though. for that he is a moron.

mccain is running from bush as gore ran from clinton. one difference though. gore was vice president. he needed clinton. mccain does not need bush. this will confound the left because they are still very angry. anger does not win. ever. only cool level headed planning wins. and optimism.

the country seems more divided than ever in my life. this is not bush’s fault. i was born when kennedy was in office. carter seemed to be a complete fool while in the white house and the left hangs on his every word now. like those years didn’t matter. morons! carter allowed homebrewing though. i thank him for that.

the right has been looking for a man with optimism and charisma like ronald reagan had. i think they found it with sarah palin. she’s their man. she is the new great communicator.

young and inexperienced applies to people in their thirties or younger. i was stupid in my twenties and full of myself. i was still figuring it out in my thirties. i ran my best marathon at age 40. i am in full stride in my forties. call me young and inexperienced. go ahead. i’ll run past you.

i am constantly bombarded with junk science. stocks did not rise because oil sold off. what about now? oil is selling off and so are stocks. well? you told us one caused the other. what about now? why do you say these things without following up? i hate the television.

steve leisman is not an economist. someone tell him to stop pretending to be one. rick santelli knows the market. he is a smart guy. i’d pay to see him speak.

you cannot prove a negative. we never found the weapons of mass destruction. i think bin laden is dead and his bones are rotting in a cave. if otherwise then prove it. see?

i don’t mean to sound paranoid but how do they know it’s coming to a theatre near me? that movie trailer voice over guy died this week. you know. the guy with the super deep voice. he did a geico commercial. dead. next.

i once saw an eagle go after ducklings in the retention pond behind my house. it was the most fascinating display of nature with its cruel eagle-eat-duckling-reality that i ever witnessed. each year there are more ducklings. i look for eagles every time. several people in our community came out on their back porches to watch. i watched them and the eagle. half were cheering for the ducks and half were cheering for the eagle. i want to see that movie again. i’m sure it was a black swan event. i may never see it again.

i understand why the market as a whole is called a herd. i got to ride horseback this summer and saw a real cattle herd in action. they bluff. they flow. they panic. so does the market. you can guess which way the herd will move. in the end it’s still a guess. unless you have horses. then you can force the herd.

the spx fell short of my guess of 1350 for this rally. another reason why i hate to guess like that. i’m more of trend follower than a trend predictor. but i do know that the value arguments from the television gurus are ridiculous at best. they have no clue. either that or they are shills. either way you should exercise caution when listening to them. the market is not a value or a bargain at these prices. bargain prices will get here though. you’ll see.

that is all.

happy rambling.

I have two lines drawn on this traditional look at the S&P500. The upward sloping blue line was the trend up off the July lows, and the horizontal line at ~1260 is the new base of support in this sideways market. All eyes, from bloggers all around the world, and I read most of them, have their eyes on this same level of support for the market.

Notice that I also have three exponential moving averages (ema) on my chart: 5ema, 20ema, and 80ema. They are of no significance. Everyone has their favorites and these are mine. But it was interesting to me that the market went up and kissed that 80ema before rolling over again on Tuesday.

As long as the 5 and 20 are below the 80, it’s bulls beware. However, all of my moving averages are compressing together as the market has been in this sideways action for the last two months. From compression comes explosion. So, which way does the market explode from here? That is the $64,000 question.

My big picture indicators are of no help at the moment. The BP is in Xs but off it’s recent high. The HILO rolled over in August and is still in Os, and the TW is in a column of Xs but off it’s highs.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

I enjoyed this speech very much, and I’m posting it here in case you hear the buzz but missed it.
Great speech!