Principles of the Stock Market : Investment Themes

BUY CLEAN GREEN! BEST INVESTMENT THEME FOR DECADES

Richard Schwartz — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:24:00 GMT

CLEAN, GREEN UPDATE. THE NEXT BIG THING IS HERE & WORKING WELL!

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Starting back in December 2006, I started writing about the next BIG THING. And have updated it for you continuously ever since. Happily I started on this theme right before the 2007 boom in solar stocks. Since I eat my own cooking, so to speak, I was able to capture some doubles and more in companies like First Solar (FSLR), Suntech Power (STP) and a couple others. Hope you were too. That solar boom is over, for the moment -- a good time to nibble, with today’s oversupply of solar but other subsectors of the greater clean green energy universe are now having their day in the sun (pun intended). “Smart grid” stocks, those that help reduce, measure and regulate power usage have recently been hot and I’ve long recommended EnerNOC (ENOC) and Comverge (COMV). Disclaimer! I own small portions of both but can and do change positions without notice. And that’s even before America really starts to modernize our national power grid. Wind and natural gas stocks have been doing well now as have battery and other storage technology after General Motors threw out that figure of over 200 miles per gallon coming with their Chevy Volt. I did publish a decently all-encompassing list back on June 6th, 2008, right in the midst of the 17-month downtrend and asked you to “print, keep handy and archive” it for future use. Last Wednesday, I listed a few additional technology companies which have one foot in clean green and before that, on September 18^th, I posted a winnowed down list of my December 2006 list of about 80 clean green companies outperforming for possible near term trades. And of course a couple times recently I’ve again recommended that new clean green global mutual fund that Steve Leuthold and crew are now offering, which I recommended to you just back in July, that’s Leuthold Clean Green Tech (symbol LGCTX).

I CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THIS IS SHOULD BE #1 THEME FOR LONG TERM INVESTORS and thus let me pound the table again today (even though it’s not Friday when I’ve gotten in the habit of giving you YOUR CLEAN GREEN WEEKEND UPDATE; I’m a man of routine my friends say.). Just want to point out that holding a bunch of clean green stocks is still working well. What I’m finding is that some good news item seems to pop every few days about one of the stocks in my own IRA portfolio, almost totally composed of small lots of lots of clean green companies, and/or also for many of those stocks on my larger shopping list of clean green. My IRA is up over +30% this year and I’m only 50% invested! (Note! I’d be much less invested if this was my fund management money. Like monies that are designated to only go into sector funds or that only can be moved around minimally or that has no clean green choices, again like the money management I do for others.) Anyway, whether it be wind, geothermal, energy storage, battery technology, fuel cells, etc. etc, whatever, there are lots of clean green niches, I’d buy ‘em all and cover all bases. Yesterday one US wind company got a big contract from a Chinese firm and popped +10% (in a ragged stock market), that’s happened numerous times as China pushes clean green too. Back a week ago a reader sent me an email that three of his very low priced clean greens were all up nicely that day when he checked. I hold one of them so I won’t mention that name but two others I used to hold, not right now but maybe I’ll buy them back on weakness down the road, were Medis Tech (symbol MDTL) up +24% and Hydrogenics (HYGS) up +13%. Schwartz View: Bottom line, pull out my original shopping list of clean green, which I’ve run in various and updated forms numerous times over the last couple of years, review it and then buy small amounts of lots of clean green stocks. That way when a breakthrough occurs, wherever you’ll benefit while the rising tide carries all ships (almost all) over time. That was my original game plan for all of us and remains so and continues working nicely. By the way I’d buy BEFORE the scheduled December Copenhagen global conference. The rationale again is the world is going clean green because it has to. We all know that. Going clean green creates new jobs which we desperately need, cuts down on oil money somehow finding its way into terrorists hands and respects and protects Mother Earth. And when we forget we have to go green for a brief moment, some report about global warming comes out and reminds us.. China knows it, Europe knows it and America, our scientists, our government, our businesses (who wants rules in place so they can move forward with capital spending plans), our venture capitalists know it and our everyday Americans know it. All except for the pure unadulterated capitalists holdout contingent who won’t admit such because in their blindered view “it hurts business.” Let me say again: There is a critical mass for going Code Green and a critical mass means there’s no stopping it, maybe something, some event, can hold it back for a time, but there’s no stopping it.

THIS IS THE #1 BEST INVESTMENT THEME FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF DECADES!

Come on, get on board!

IBD 100 'New Names': Using Sir John Templeton's Approach

Richard Schwartz — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:17:00 GMT

IBD 100 ‘NEW NAMES.’ Only three new names hit the latest weekly (September 14^th, 2009), computer-generated IBD 100 list of “leading growth companies,” those companies showing good fundamentals, having some institutional sponsorship, producing solid earnings growth and outperforming the average stock. Three new names is about the norm. And Investor’s Business Daily(IBD) in its commentary, is pretty calmed down and happy now that its list is acting normally, leading the general stock market, writing this week that: “Whenever leading stocks post the best gains, it’s a sign of health for the market and its leaders.” When this list lags, it worries IBD and until recently it had been lagging for many months now.

New Names Mkt IBD Industry

Price Cap Rank Rank Business Line

ECPG Encore Capital 16.47 378m 72 45 Resale of unsecured, discounted loans

CNSL Consolidated Comm. 15.26 451m 88 152 Local phone service in TX/IL

WLT Walter Energy 61.86 3240m 99 48 Goal miner/degasifies coal beds

Schwartz View: My continuing strong suggestion for growth investors searching for big winners is to research in depth all ‘new name’ companies when they first show up on the IBD 100 list. I believe this one approach alone could pretty consistently make you handsome profits. (My opinion is arrived at after trying out as many stock market approaches as I could unearth searching full time for over 20 years.) Many of these companies go on to become ‘ten baggers’ over time and you’re finding them, when they first appear on this list, before the crowd, and thus if you do follow through and finding out exactly why they are in fashion, you can be a ‘first mover’ in buying them. Plus your research -- so easy in today’s world of the Internet -- clues you in to many, not so incidental, trends in the economy providing you insight into the Big Picture as well. Again, because companies appear on this list for some reason, “your mission, if you decide to accept it,” is to find out EXACTLY why. One way to manage this approach, once you satisfy yourself about just why a company hit this list, is to use the Sir John Templeton approach, buy a small amount of each stock and put it away for some time. Remember Mr. Templeton bought 100 shares of all NYSE traded depressed stocks trading under $1 a share during WWII. A few years later he had quadrupled his money. His missive to us future generations is that some won’t work out, some will trade sideways but the big winners will provide you with a handsome overall profit. Thanks Sir John Templeton!

Let’s see, this week a cursory look tells me that Encore Capital seems to be in a sweet spot. There’s a ton of bad loans floating around today so business is there for the company which comes up with a way to profit. As for Consolidated Communications, I’m not sure why a company in a very low ranked sector (IBD rank 157 of 197) and a local phone service provider made the list. Maybe a takeover? Your job, again, is to find out why and if you’re satisfied there’s big potential, buy a few shares. Finally Walter Energy, a coal coking company, maybe made the list as coal companies surge as natural gas rebounds on speculation of increased steel output from China. I’m not sure I buy into that as a good enough reason but again there may be some hidden, deeper reason which in depth research will unearth. Net, net, if you find solid reasons for these and/or any ‘new name’ stocks, one fundamentally solid market approach would be to buy a small equal dollar amount of each. Then put ‘em away. Yes, ‘buy & hold,’ exactly the approach most advisors today are saying doesn’t work anymore. Remember, take the road less traveled in your stock market approaches and you’ll generally come out on top. Ask Mr. Buffett and others of his ilk.

BUY CHINESE SOLAR

Richard Schwartz — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:20:00 GMT

GLOBAL VIEW. China’s Growing SOLAR Niche. China’s domestic-investor only stock market, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite continues to rise. Looks like Chinese investors are setting themselves up for more trouble after the Shanghai exchange rose some 514% from mid 2005 to October 2007, then fell -73% through October 2008. But before that next collapse happens, I see Chinese solar stocks as good buys here. Let’s review the larger picture first, then I’ll talk China and renewable energy.

Asia Bottomed Five Months Back? Remember ASIA in general hit its last bear market lows back last year. China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines all last hit lows last October, along with some Latin American developing markets like Brazil and Chile. That’s six months ago thus way past the normal three weeks to three months counterswing rally time frame. So is Asia in a new mini bull market? Other regions of the world, meaning the US and CANADA and most all of EUROPE continued lower until just last month. So by my Principle of Relative Strength, which recommends always (almost) focusing on those countries, markets, individual stocks showing relative strength or outperformance, Asia in general is the area for us to concentrate our attention on today. I previously wrote last Wednesday and Thursday how well known Bob Prechter, Jr. and his Elliott Wave International advisory service says parts of Asia are now in a big bear market RALLY phase in the cycle. Like an A wave back up which can be powerful, long lasting and sizable. And I also pointed out how “hot” and well known, Swiss investor Marc Faber is now saying buy Asia on any “setbacks” (there hasn’t really been any). And I ended last Wednesday’s report with a buy recommendation on India, offering up as one way to trade or invest, the India Fund (symbol IFN) which closed Wednesday at 18.25. IFN closed yesterday at 20.69. So in general Asia is where the best action is now. Plus regular readers will remember even before that, back on February 10^th, I recommended investing in Chinese agricultural and offered up a list of stocks which you could choose from (I bought one of the 13 stocks listed; did you buy any?). Plus a few days prior to that, I went to great effort and posted the whole 100 stocks separated by industry sector on the USX China Index for you to print out, keep and go shopping from.

China In A Sweet Spot. That’s because the Chinese government, with it’s unique, command-style quasi-free marketplace, blending capitalism and government management still has great and speedy influence. They can rapidly decide on a, any, direction for the country and quickly move down that path. Not like us here in America with our democracy. We take lots of time getting any bills passed (but when we do agree on a new law, we get better if not implementation). Of course, China still has to fight its widespread corruption and pay offs at every step forward so their implementation is harder. Still, perception is everything in the short term in the stock market so implementation problems aren’t a concern over the near term. And near term the Chinese government has just changed the laws to encourage solar (and other renewable energy like wind energy use). Back on March 26^th China “introduced a subsidy for solar projects of more than 50 kilowatts that could pave the way for increased sales of rooftop systems.” One analyst projected that this change could increase solar demand this year by 58 megawatts and 232 megawatts annually by 2012. This announcement moved Chinese solar stocks up the most ever in one day and the rally in Chinese solar is now in its third week and still looks solid. One London analyst said after the announcement that: “China has the potential to double the solar market, soak up the excess capacity that’s out there, and get manufacturers back on their expansion plans.” Another report said: “China is closing older coal-fired plants and implementing clean energy to fuel economic growth.” The government itself said its going to implement its “solar roofs program” to accelerate the application of solar energy. Schwartz View: Good for you China! Just lead by example, that’s the way to do it. Don’t worry about what other countries are doing. (What we should do here in America too regarding renewable energy.) A more recent announcement says China is writing a new renewable energy law and on that news solar and wind stocks jumped again. The essence is that China wants to increase renewable energy usage to 10% of total energy consumption by 2010 (from 7.5% in 2005). Go China Go!

BUY CHINESE SOLAR. Net, net, I recommend buying Chinese solar!

SOME CHINESE SOLAR STOCKS

Mkt Analyst Next

Symbol Company Name Price Cap Ratings EPS Business Line

STP Suntech Power Holdings 14.49 2170m 7-12-11 5/21/09 China’s largest solar manufacturer

YGE Yingli Green Energy 7.67 964m 7-6-2 5/15/09 PV modules and PV systems

LDK LDK Solar Company 8.04 928m 1-8-5 5/12/09 Multicrystalline solar wafers

JASO JA Solar Holdings 3.58 589m 6-7-4 5/11/09 Solar cells

TSL Trina Solar Ltd 13.21 388m 3-6-4 6/5/09 Solar-power products

SOLF Solarfun Power Holdings 4.73 252m 0-3-5 5/21/09 PV modules

Disclaimer! I own a small amount of Yingli Green Energy but can and do change positions without notice.

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Weekly Monday Overview

Richard Schwartz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:17:00 GMT

Richard Schwartz's

PRINCIPLES OF THE STOCK MARKET

A learning, teaching, always evolving stock market letter and advisory service

Eighteenth Consecutive Year of Publication; Letter #1; September 18^th, 1990

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Monday, April 6^th, 2009: It’s Master’s week so I’m pumped up. It’s golf’s 1^st major of the year, tradition packed, for you non-golfers. Should be great with Tiger back, Phil Mickelson saying he’s playing the best golf of his life, Paddy Harrington going for his 3^rd major in a row and lots of up & comers. All I can say is wow! Even just watching this old southern flower nursery turned into a golf course in the spring, lavished with money for decades, may be worth the watching for any non-golfers out there. For me, it’s just heaven.

THE KEY QUESTION

Instead of discussing The Big Picture today, let’s focus on The Key Question. Since that’s what I keep pondering. Plus it has to be on every investor’s mind as well. “Could this rally be the start of a new bull market?” To intelligently answer -- as during every bear market rally -- necessitates rehashing all the available evidence. I can make a solid case for a cyclical bull market having just started and I can make an even more solid case that this is just a normal bounce in a Papa Bear market. Consider:

MINI BULL MARKET HAS STARTED

·        The economic stimulus is now starting to kick in which will stabilize and bounce the economy.

·        The monetary stimulus, lower interest rates, is also now kicking in and housing sales are increasing.

·        Inventories have been drawn down and need to be restocked which will pump up GDP growth near term.

·        The US and other governments have done everything possible to mitigate this downturn.

·        We now have more coordinated and get along global leadership than in many years.

·        The US economy has proven itself wonderfully resilient to shocks in recent decades.

·        Markets can counter-swing at any time for long periods, posting mini bull markets, versus primary trends.

·        Almost two years has passed since the beginning of the credit implosion back in July 2007.

·        Many independent market gurus think the March 2009 lows will last for a good while, months or longer.

·        The latest government bailout plan has more enthusiasts and support for it than previous plans.

·        Oil stopped falling back in December and is now on the rise possibility indicating growth rebounding.

·        We have recently had a number of better economic data reports from both retail and housing.

JUST A BEAR MARKET BOUNCE

·        The bear market hasn’t lasted long enough to discount all the problems that have come to light.

·        More problems, coming as bearish ripple effects and because of long lag times, are due to show up.

·        The bear market hasn’t fallen deeply enough to factor in the sudden massive shock to the global economy.

·        There hasn’t been enough overall selling or liquidation for a solid bottom. Stock and mutual fund liquidation haven’t reached previous classic big bear market bottom levels.

·        No solid bottom appears on the charts. We need a climatic sell off or a long low volume erosion to bottom.

·        Interest rates have to go up at some point, soon – either with and because of an economic rebound or from panic selling -- which normally depresses stock prices because of this new competitiveness from bonds.

·        The American consumer has suddenly stopped spending. This has slowed down business all over the world and finally exposed the global imbalances problems. Too much manufacturing in China and Asia and too much spending coming from America. Now those imbalances are being forced to readjust. Takes time.

·        The stock market is ignoring soaring unemployment. Yes, employment is a lagging indicator but continuing jobless claims isn’t. A new report just out says that in coming weeks and months, hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits. Finally, 600,000 new job losses each month is going to add to weaker consumer spending, problems for local communities and cause negative ripple effects.

SCHWARTZ CONCLUSION: In review, we started this big bad bear market back in the year 2000. That was the peak of the last big bull market and thus the beginning of this big bear market. This is evidenced by the benchmark S&P 500 Double Topping in March 2000 and October 2007 and then subsequently and decisively breaking below October 2002’s previous decade-long lows by over 10% in March 2009. Showing that since 2000 and the ending of the Internet boom we’ve really been living on lower interest rates and big tax cuts, a false, “pump me up,” house of cards. Really not any wealth building going on, just paper shuffling to make things look great fueled by easy money credit creation. But now reality has set in. Thus, looking around, we see we’re almost nine years into a bear market which has been interspersed with one bull market, running for five years. So stocks were down almost two & a half years, up five years, now down about another one & a half years, sort of repeating The Visit of the Three Bears. In that infamous and extended bear market run of nine years, netting a -50% loss, there were two cyclical bull markets sprinkled in and surrounded and book-ended by the three bears, Baby, Mama and Papa.

My conclusion remains that this bear market is not over. But that the form and shape of it may get tricky going forward. Because the market has a history of posting cyclical or short term or mini bull markets on the way down when the bear gets ahead of itself. Which is why the stock market remains so fascinating!

THE ECONOMY

Well, the BUZZ has died down about how the economy is slowing its prior quick rate of descent. Guess because we’ve started seeing more bad economic data pop up or because the conversation has moved on. But some investors have decided an end to the economic collapse is out there, just over the horizon, so they are shifting into cyclical stocks now as a result. One can see this money rotating out of defensive sectors such as medical care, consumer staples and even gold. You know the concept, buying in advance of a recession’s end since history shows stocks rise roughly six months before the economy turns up. But if we indeed are stuck with a very mild even “anemic” economic recovery, as many figure, then stocks could also soon level off to mirror that trend as well. That is if the economic and earnings data don’t start sinking fast once again showing the economy is still sinking. For example, last Friday it was reported that the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index which now measures almost 90% of America’s economy - America now being a service oriented economy instead of a manufacturing economy - fell faster in March than in February somewhat debunking the idea that the economy has stabilized. Schwartz View: Yes, there is the possibility that economy-wise we are going to V- back up because sharp moves, in whatever areas of endeavor, are generally followed by responding sharp moves back up. We’re seeing that now in the stock market but after this bounce is over, I agree with the camp forecasting an anemic slow economic recovery.

THE STOCK MARKET

The stock market extended its rally to four straight weeks last week. We did see the first crack in this rally a week ago when the market fell sharply for two days. But then we quickly rebounded to new rally highs. That’s normal, the first crack being overcome but it does show this rally may be starting to struggle. We are getting closer to my minimum upside targets of Dow 8303 and S&P 1627, closing Friday at Dow 8017 and S&P 1621. And one can note trading volume has been slowing some, another sign of sluggishness. Or maybe cautiousness. Makes sense as we’re now moving into another corporate earnings reporting season starting tomorrow, the 1^st quarter January-March 2009 report kicking off after the close with Alcoa (AA), traditionally the first of the 30 Dow stocks to report. With the fall-off-the-cliff economy occurring early in last year’s fourth quarter, it only stands to reason that investors have to be wary of forthcoming earnings and thus wary of this rally as well. Schwartz View: It looks like the stock market has some more strength left in it so with stocks already having rallied beyond the 50% retracement level from their latest leg down, the early January peak, the teeter-totter phenomenon comes into play. Getting halfway up means it’s very likely to go all the way back up. Thus we kick off this week at roughly another key Fibonacci 61.8% price in both the Dow and S&P 500. That’s about 8088 and 838 respectively. If we break through those levels, then the next target is those January highs, Dow 9088 & S&P 944. Not guaranteed but increasingly likely.

PORTFOLIO STRATEGY

2009 may indeed prove to be the year to trade. If stocks fluctuate but go nowhere net, up or down, for many months ahead then it’s going to prove very frustrating for investors. In these times and they do happen, more often than the uninformed investor may realize, the best way to make profits is to: (1) trade individual stocks and (2) discipline yourself to continuously fade the market, buying on dips and selling on strength. Toward that end I’ve started incorporating the Commodity Channel Index (CCI) technical indicator into my work. Comes on most charting services like Bloomberg. Basically it shows deviations from the moving average, when stocks get too far overbought or oversold. Naturally you buy when a stock or index gets oversold. For more on the CCI I suggest getting Oliver Perez’s Swing Trading Tactics DVD or Alexander Elder’s book TRADING FOR A LIVING. Over the last month of rally for instance certain stocks have far outperformed the averages. And numerous tradable asset classes or market sectors like the US dollar and oil have been both up and down offering trading profits but no net profits for buy & holders.

Otherwise than scalping profits what should we do? For now favor the long side and the cyclicals. I like technology, renewable energy and natural resources. Move up a notch in your market exposure to about 30% if you haven’t already but continue to hedge your bets and don’t get out on a limb by going too long. Just subdue your ego, don’t think you know more than Mr. Market does and just go with the flow, modestly. Bottom line take what the market gives you, right now there are some trading opportunities but don’t get carried away. There’s lots more trouble to come but the path ahead is likely to get more tricky as well. So don’t fall into the camp that says “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

Have a good week!

Go Tiger Go!

Big Names Predict Problematic Inflation: What's An Investor To Do?

Richard Schwartz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:48:00 GMT

ECONOMIC VIEW. Rising Inflation Expected. So predicts a whole slew of big names, everyone seems to be jumping on board this train in the last few days. Now Warren Buffett and Bill Gross have joined Marc Faber and Jim Rogers and more in predicting problematic inflation just out there over the horizon. Yep, as soon as deflation became the consensus buzz word – recessions kill inflation is what I’ve heard repeated from many sources – we’re getting a groundswell of opposite opinion. Well, not quite opposite but close enough, let me explain. Everyone agrees this slump will preclude problematic inflation but all say that’s a temporary phenomenon. No one predicting rising inflation will go so far as to say just WHEN rising inflation is going to emerge but more and more observers are saying it’s definitely coming, arriving when this economic slump is over, whenever that is. Again, rising inflation, no, out of control inflation, no, to put it more accurately, hyperinflation is my biggest worry. That America printing money galore – yes, for bailing out businesses too important to the financial system to allow them to fail, and, yes, for keeping the economy greased and running, and, yes, for stimulating new growth and maintaining existing economic activity, and, yes, for overall deficit spending in this economic downturn – will come back to bite us in a big way. I can handle some inflation, I know how to shop for bargains which will help in food and clothing needs, what I’m worried about is a major currency devaluation which wipes out mine and America’s buffer. America’s savings becoming worthless as has happened time and again across the globe when some country’s finances just go kafluey. When a country can’t pay its bills compounded by a wholesale lack of trust in its currency. Schwartz View: Hasn’t happened in the US yet, but …

So I get more nervous when I hear Warren Buffett, America’s richest man and known as the best value investor of our time, say inflation could go as high as it was in the 1970s, that’s almost double digits! I get even more nervous when Bill Gross, who manages one of the largest bond funds going, says that US government efforts to break this recession will cause “costs for goods and services” to rise. I respect both these guys and their opinions. Now they join long term forecaster Jim Rogers, who is also more worried about rising inflation than deflation, best I can figure. He’s long been predicting an US dollar crisis and really bad inflation ahead and says he’s just waiting for the proper moment to essentially “short US Treasury bonds.” Rogers sees commodity inflation returning with a vengeance since today’s global economic slump in his view is just improving the fundamentals underpinning commodity prices. In other words today’s credit crunch and resulting recession causing miners to delay or even shut down exploration and thus leading to a further drop in supply. He loves to mention that global food inventories are already down to 50 year lows. Finally, Marc Faber, the well regarded international investor and past BARRON’S Roundtable panelist, sees rising inflation from another angle. He figures that the US government is going to have all kinds of problems in raising interest rates down the road or in effect withdrawing all the money it’s pushing into the system now to try to end today’s credit crisis. Schwartz View: This rising inflation camp is growing now, with many others predicting a forthcoming inflation problem as well. I am too.

Schwartz Recommendation. If you also worry about rising inflation, one strategy available today is to buy an inverse ETF or inverse sector fund. One that goes up when long term US interest rates go higher. That’s the natural reaction if inflation rises, yields generally rise forcing bond prices down. For example ProFunds has two such funds, RTPIX and RRPIX while Rydex offers up RYJUX and in the ETF camp there’s TBT which “correspond to twice the inverse” of the US Treasury bond. I recommend such.

Disclaimer! I don’t own any of the above now but can and do change positions without notice.

For a FREE week’s sampling of my complete daily e-letter, please email me at RichardStk@aol.com.

Chinese Strategy Looks Good

Richard Schwartz — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:38:00 GMT

GLOBAL VIEW. What Is China’s Strategy? Without having to worry about their banks, because China never got involved buying securitized, US subprime mortgages and other debt backed instruments, China’s now at a great advantage. Sure China is slumping fast economically like everyone else, their manufacturing industry shrinking rapidly, but China still has much greater leeway than other countries in lots of ways. First, luckily, because China has no developed bond market and is just starting to open up their financial markets, China missed the debt feast most other banks enjoyed. And are now regurgitating. So now it turns out, that’s a big, big plus. Also China still has its ‘Command Capitalism’ in place, meaning that when government decides on a path, boom, the country can start right off on it. No arguing back and forth like in big democracies like the United States and India. Next, China’s leaders are well educated, many with useful engineering backgrounds and have proven themselves. Finally, China is in a great spot financially. So what is China doing strategically, meaning their plans of long term significance?

Strategically, I’ve written previously how China is moving quickly to help their farms and farmers every which way because the farms were the first part of the Chinese economy to move to quasi free marketplace operations. After this move proved very successful, China then tried the same in manufacturing. Which, obviously, turned out to be a great and grand success. But now that Chinese manufacturing is downsizing rapidly, China has to keep the millions of Chinese workers forced back to the farms happy. Thus I see this government boost as making Chinese agriculture one of the few good buys around today as their farms consolidate, become larger and thus more efficient and productive, and have thus previously recommended Chinese agriculture strongly and offered up a list of stocks to consider buying.

Stockpiling Minerals & Mineral Producing Companies Too. Another, a second, strategic or long range move China has implemented is to stock up on raw minerals while their prices are down and also to take equity positions where allowed by other governments in mining companies themselves. The reason being that when China starts really growing again they are going to need adequate raw materials. China found this out quickly as it became the world’s manufacturing colossus. Even today with their new infrastructure program already in force, China needs cement, iron ore, steel, etc. So consider some recent Chinese moves:

· State-owned Zhongjin, China’s 3^rd largest zinc producer, bought a 50.1% stake in Australian zinc miner Perilya Ltd.

· State-owned Jinchuan Group, Asia’s largest nickel producer, bought 18% of Albidon Ltd, a Perth, Australia based nickel producer and has a deal to take 100% of the nickel from Albidon mines in Zambia.

· China’s 3^rd largest steelmaker bought a 50% interest in Australia’s Centrex Metals Ltd.

· Chinese interests bought a 40% stake in Australia’s Mount Gibson Iron.

· China’s 2^nd largest steelmaker upped its stake in Australian Gindalbie Metals from 12% to 36%.

· Aluminum Corp of China (ACH) has just increased it’s stake in Rio Tinto Plc.

· China’s Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group just bought 13% of Canada Zinc Metals.

· China Mining Resources said it would up its stake in Canada’s Quadra Mining from 4% to 19.9%.

Schwartz View: My point being watch what China’s doing. You might want to even sign up for FREE www.moneymorning.com as this service tracks closely what’s happening in China, the news clips above coming from a recent article. Again, while other countries play defense, having no real answer to their economic slumps besides cutting interest rates and implementing various stimulus plans, China is on offense, planning for where they want to be when this economic slump is over. So, again, if you want to put your toe back in the water on general market weakness, I would do so in China. You should have a ready resource right in front of you to do so, as along with the list of Chinese ag stocks I ran here, I also detailed by category & sub category the USX China Index and published it here for you on February 5^th.

* As soon as I wrote that along with China’s domestic-investor only stock markets, the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange Composite Indexes going up this year, the USX China Index (symbol HXC) and the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (symbol FXI), an ETF, were following suit and rising, that link ended. Schwartz View: Ok, I was surprised they were moving together anyway. Going forward, still scale in to China, just take it a little slower.

Trading Ideas In A Bear Market

Richard Schwartz — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:45:00 GMT

SECTOR VIEW. Biotech, Small Caps, US Treasuries and the US Dollar. Let’s comment on a couple market sectors and asset classes today. First, two stock market sectors which may prove profitable. Ha, you scoff! Profitable? In a bear market? Before you laugh, at least read my reasoning.

1. BIOTECH. The biotech sector was having a nice run up last year leading the stock market before trouble hit. From July 7th to August 14^th, the NASDAQ Biotech Index of 136 stocks jumped +16.2% as not many sectors were participating while the market, looking back, was building a top just before the October panic. Of course when worries about financial concerns, etc. got too heavy, the market, and the biotech sector, fell sharply until the November 21^st bottom. Since then biotech has regained +16%. What I’m saying is I’m seeing more relative strength in biotech than elsewhere. Even on down or mixed days I’m seeing the medical industry and the biotech niche hold up better than most. For example, just look at yesterday. Even after the reversal upward, not everything worked its way into positive territory by the close. Banks and financials ended lower, computers were up only slightly, utilities and large caps were only modestly higher yet the aforementioned NASDAQ Biotech Index gained +2.32% on the day. Plus I noticed a health care fund manager saying two days back on CNBC saying biotech is the particular niche of health care to be in going forward. Based largely on the fact that large pharma needs to restock its pipeline and that generally means takeovers of smaller companies like promising biotech concerns. Schwartz View: The large pharma companies have financial staying power so it’s likely they can build a fuller new drug pipeline by buying up biotech companies. Net, net I would use biotech as a core position in your modest long exposure, the allocation of both depending on whether we hold down here near the trading range’s bottom or not. Disclaimer! I hope modest long biotech positions in the sector rotation portfolios I manage but can and do change positions without notice.

2. SMALL CAPS. Then I’ve also noted some relative strength in small caps recently as well. In fact when I cut back my market exposure, increased some to participate in the last month and a half of modest rally, earlier this week, a little late, darn, I decided to keep my small cap sector fund and dump my large cap one. Then yesterday I see Mark Hulbert, who tracks stock market newsletters like this one, report the January Effect is underway. That’s when small caps outperform near the end of the year and in the beginning of the following new year. Generally works best when there are a lot of losses to take at the end of any calendar year, you know brokers work the phones to get investors to book losses for tax purposes. Anyway, Mr. Hulbert posits that this relative stronger showing by small caps shows investors are starting to embrace more risk. I don’t know about that but let’s hope he’s right. Myself, I’m looking at this relative strength as small caps NOT being exposed, or as exposed, to and hurt by the now strengthening US dollar and also that many small and mid cap companies hold far less debt than most large caps. Schwartz View: Still, Hulbert says this return to small caps outperforming now means investors can go back to analyzing individual companies again rather than worrying about total systemic risk. That would be a step forward if there are actually some winners and winning groups around once more instead of a sinking ship taking everything down with it. Note the online, vocational schools for working adults, like Apollo (symbol APOL) which jumped some +7.8% yesterday as a bit of proof that something’s working normally again. Disclaimer! As in biotech above, I hold small positions in some small and mid cap sector funds but can and do change quickly.

Ok, after two actual buy ideas for you in this Papa Bear market, not bad, let’s discuss briefly two asset classes which in today’s modern investing world, the individual investor can easily participate in through ETFs (exchange traded funds) and sector and inverse sector funds. One is just an update, the other a buy..

· US TREASURIES. Long term Wall Street economist, but not of the mainstream ilk, Dr. A. Gary Shilling just announced that “The 27-year rally in US Treasury bonds is over.” Wow! I know Gary has been 1000% correct on long dated US Treasury paper for a long time, for many years now, especially over the last year as the global “flight to safety” trade pushed long government bond yields lower and lower and lower. Gary long ago predicted rates would go below 3% eventually and they sure have. The plunged below 3% recently until bottoming, at least for now, on December 18^th at 2.074% for the benchmark 10-year Treasury and at 2.546% on the 30-year “long” US Treasury bond. But I don’t see Gary predicting a move up in yields, not yet. Schwartz View: That’s the key question. When to short long US Treasuries? Deciding whether yields will V-upward or go into a long L formation, remaining down here around a 3% yield. Myself, I’ve predicted that this Papa Bear market will include a ratcheting upward of long Treasury yields somewhere in say the second or third years (hopefully we don’t have a 3^rd year to this bear market!) So I’m just watching now and not betting on higher yields, not quite yet. Not with the Fed & Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke publicly saying that one next step for the Fed in getting credit flowing once again is for the Fed itself to become a buyer of government debt. Most feel he means shorter term US Treasuries, say up to 5 years in duration rather than longer term Treasuries but who knows for sure. So I wait and suggest patience, monitoring and waiting for just that right time to initiate a short ETF or inverse sector fund position inversing tracking long Treasuries. Jim Rogers, the renowned long term investor, is also licking his lips, getting ready to short US Treasuries as he’s stated more than once but I haven’t heard he pulled the trigger yet. Actually Rogers, like myself, previously shorted long Treasuries last year and then had to step in and cover at a small loss. Net, net for now we have to exhibit ultimate patience, desperately needed during any extended bear market like this one, and wait for our opportunity.

· THE US DOLLAR. The greenback has now been rallying since July 15^th so this long length of time, longer than the normal three month maximum time frame normally associated with intermediate term corrections up or down versus primary trends, likely means that a bull market in the buck is underway. But the jury is out right now on which way the primary direction if one just looks at the charts. The US dollar dropped sharply for three weeks in December and while it’s been working on regaining the large amount of ground lost then, it’s still not above its highs posted in late October. Schwartz View: My best gueestimate is that the buck does regain all lost ground and moves above its late November highs and continues on in a bull market. Again, “Mr. Correct,” Dr. Shilling, predicts the dollar will keep rallying this year. Why? Because he sees the stock market again dropping similar to last year, possibly losing another -35% or so. And thus the dollar is the best of a bad lot of global currencies, all trying to devalue to keep their economies moving, net, net meaning that there will remain a flight to safety in the dollar. Schwartz Recommendation: I don’t hold any long, or short, positions in the US dollar today but am considering putting one on as I see and agree with Gary’s logic and myself feel this big bad bear market isn’t going to be able to wind up in just one year. The breakdown being so severe needs time to heal. And if we do have another bad year in the stock market, the US dollar should hold up at least for the foreseeable future.

Principles of the Stock Market: Sample

Richard Schwartz — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:56:00 GMT

Richard Schwartz's

PRINCIPLES OF THE STOCK MARKET

A learning, teaching, always evolving stock market letter and advisory service

Eighteenth Consecutive Year of Publication; Letter #1; September 18^th, 1990

Post Office Box 1236 · New Paltz, New York 12561 - U.S. A. · (845) 255-6894

E-mail address: RichardStk@aol.com

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Tuesday, January 6^th, 2009: OK, back to the rat race. The weather remains ugly. Yesterday am it was all ice. Tonight it seems like snow, then severe ice again tomorrow morning. This is the time of year I wish I lived in southern California or other warmer clime. Still, tiny New Paltz is a college, mountain town with open space, a walk around lifestyle so Lucy & I are there for the duration. Of course with beach vacations.

UPDATE ON THE STOCK MARKET. The latest gigundo $800 billion economic stimulus plan, now called the Obama Recovery Plan or some such, as he puts his fingerprints on it, may cause a bigger stock market rally than I previously thought, I realized last night as I watched the Nightly Business Report (before I got in the bathtub with reams of printed research to read). The Nightly Business Report (NBR) showed very wide differences in economic growth rates. Much stronger economic growth with the plan. Or rather much less economic weakness with next year showing positive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with the plan and negative GDP without. Now I know the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) just said we’ve been in recession since December 2007, sort of bypassing the outdated GDP stat altogether but not every investor realizes this yet. CNBC and other financial media still take the easy way out, constantly stating a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, but as Peter Schiff writes in his latest book, THE LITTLE BOOK of BULL MOVES in BEAR MARKETS, most government stats are really skewed, biased toward what government wants to say, today. Also please remember, a stronger GDP really measures mostly spending … and overspending which is what we’re trying, what we need for the sake of America’s future, to get away from. More investing our money, not spending (blowing) it on unneeded gadgets, etc. But that’s a story for another day. Yes, what a mess!

THIS RALLY. Right now I can visualize stocks rising right into Senator Obama’s inauguration on January 20^th as the 44^th US president. (Obama as US president? Amazing!) Stocks rise as the plan comes into clearer focus, and as it becomes -- hopefully, cross fingers! -- a non-ideological, non-partisan bill. Hey, many Republicans should be very happy to come on board as surprise tax cuts are included and surprises also about the large size of the tax cuts, importantly including tax cuts and larger depreciation write offs for business! (We have to encourage, not discourage, business to invest, just the opposite of what FDR did during the 1930s.) Schwartz: Myself, I love what I’m seeing from our president-elect. Press conferences actually focused on improving America, not arguing among parties, open and honest talk and also a proposed web site so Americans can see where each of our dollars is going. “Go America Go!”

RALLY ENDS WHEN? Then maybe it’s all over, this bear market rally ends on inauguration day or shortly thereafter, say when the bill gets passed. But if those GDP interpretations I saw on NBR last night are reasonably correct ( it will take much time to discredit and change how we figure GDP to make it more relevant again) then maybe the US economy gets a sizable lift which lasts for some longer period of time before our still emerging problems pull us back down again. If that happens I can see a mini bull market or cyclical (short term) bull market unfolding this year, say starting back at the November 21^st intraday lows.

Schwartz View: Bottom line, my best recommendation this morning is that traders and many slightly longer term investors too get further reinvested back into the stock market. Not 100% for sure yet but higher exposure than in a long while. When? Say right now or very soon. Many key market indices and averages confirmed this new rally once again, on the first trading day of the year, last Friday. That’s the exact point – when we have a “Trader Vic” identified change-of-trend in place, we do, along with a higher low followed by a higher high, we do, and then we get another breakout move up and above that higher high (like occurred last Friday) – where correct strategy is to invest more.

ECONOMIC VIEW. Like I noted yesterday, I’m seeing more and more record statistical drops, like yesterday’s drop-off-the-cliff report from the auto industry; Chrysler leading the way down with a year over year drop of a mere 53%! My point is that just like the phenomenon in stocks when the economy drops fast it may also have a tendency to bounce back rapidly. I note some are now saying the same for oil, using history of something called the forward curve of futures prices. Of course this almost automatic, stock rally back likely doesn’t go all that far. Just like when a car crashes into a wall, bounces back, but still in drive, comes on again. Depends on how bad the crash was on how long the engine keeps running fueling the bounce back. Schwartz View: I have to think this financial crash of ours was extremely bad. Still I can see another big stimulus plan, if pointed at and framed correctly, using our brains and learning from past mistakes, doing a lot to produce some positive stats for a time after implementation.

TECHNICAL VIEW. Many Individual Stock Charts Looking Good! I drew up charts of almost all 100 companies on the latest IBD 100 weekly computerized list of leading stocks, stocks with good fundamentals and generally leading the market upward, yesterday afternoon. And I must say most now look good. A few of them are even already back above their highs set BEFORE the October panic sell off. That’s one of my parameters for possible buying as per my Principle of Relative Strength telling us what to buy. As to what other technical screens I used as I reviewed their charts on two charting services I get, Bloomberg, and for FREE on www.Marketwatch.com, I used RSI and DMI primarily. Briefly RSI stands for Relative Strength Index, it’s an oscillator, and measures market consensus psychology. While DMI stands for Directional Movement Indicator and is a trend-following indicator showing how fast a trend is moving and thus when a trend is worth jumping on board. Traders of all sorts should be familiar with both indicators I’d say. I would recommend Alexander Elder’s 1993 book TRADING FOR A LIVING as the best reference I’m aware of to bone up on these and other indicators.

Here’s a listing of a few companies and their underlying industry sectors which look ripe for trading this latest rally. Remember Investor’s Business Daily turned bullish, put the bull back in the box, back on December 3^rd and hasn’t been forced, by stocks hitting lower lows, to take it out since. This is a major difference for months prior to that. A bullish change. So let me post some stocks which look good to me.

Disclaimer! I own none of these stocks today but am considering buying a package of about three to five today or soon. Please remember my positions can and do change without notice.

IBD 100 STOCKS LOOKING TEMPTING

Market Industry

Price Cap Ranking Business

SXCI SXC Health Solutions 19.03 455m 2 Pharmacy Services

LPHI Life Partners 42.27 502m 3 Insurance Brokers

ESI ITT Educational 92.28 3570m 5 Schools

TWGP Tower Group 28.74 700m 8 Property/Casualty Insurance

HOME Home Federal Bancorp 10.65 184m 11 S&L/Thrifts-Western US

VSEC VSE Corp 42.34 215m 18 Engineering/R&D Services

SXE Stanley, Inc. 35.74 839m 18 Engineering/R&D Services

SYKE Sykes Enterprises 19.65 810m 18 Computer Services

AVAV Aerovironment Inc. 39.38 831m 23 Aerospace/Defense

TDG TransDigm Group 35.00 1703m 44 Aerospace/Defense

NPK National Presto Inds. 77.88 533m 63 Aerospace/Defense

NCIT NCI, Inc. 30.66 410m 70 Computers-Integrated Systems

SXL Sunoco Logistics 48.80 1398m 90 Energy Pipelines

CMP Compass Minerals 63.12 2046m 117 Quarrying

Schwartz View: It’s been some time since I posted stocks off IBD 100 weekly list. Because of this bear market. But this rally looks like it may just have some legs and my market philosophy is to play all decent looking rallies, modestly. I would thus suggest a three to five stock trading portfolio chosen from the stocks above. Some points to keep in mind. Don’t overdue it! We’re still in a bear market after all and one which looks to have more downside, even if it doesn’t come immediately. Also remember IBD recommends investors always focus on the top 40 or so industry groups. Finally, look for a quick +10% profit but cut your losses, individually or whole port6folio-wise, quickly. Remember we just might be starting some type of cyclical (short) bull market now but, on the other hand, the odds still favor much lower prices over time. So participate but always concentrate on your downside, how much you could lose.

Good trading! Have a great day!

Monday Weekly Strategy

Richard Schwartz — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:37:00 GMT

Richard Schwartz's

PRINCIPLES OF THE STOCK MARKET

A learning, teaching, always evolving stock market letter and advisory service

Eighteenth Consecutive Year of Publication; Letter #1; September 18^th, 1990

Post Office Box 1236 · New Paltz, New York 12561 - U.S. A. · (845) 255-6894

E-mail address: RichardStk@aol.com

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Monday, December 22^nd, 2008: So here it is, last letter ‘till Monday, January 5^th, as Lucy & I fly off to the white sand, warm blue waters of the Caribbean, maybe on a last hurrah (if the economy keeps sliding). I’m taking Cycles of American History & Rethinking the Great Depression books. Our routine is: Go to the beach, play backgammon, read & go out to dinner. Day after day. Warm our bones & work on new tans.

THE BIG PICTURE

Friday I saw John Bogle, who has been on Wall Street for 50 years and who created the first index fund, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund back in 1975, say investment bankers and bankers generally owe the country a huge apology (which I doubt we ever get). Their imprudent speculations and greed for massive fees from too complex speculations led to today’s financial sector problems, problems which have now fed out to the real economy hurting innocent, hard working, everyday Americans. Mr. Bogle says greed has even spread out to our whole economy, that we’ve morphed into in a “me first” society and it’s something we have to seriously take a look at. Thus capitalism, allowing markets to work unfettered of regulation and based on trust and trusting, has now been “deeply discredited.” Even the underpinnings of capitalism have changed radically. We’re no longer an ownership society whereby individual stockholders used to select and then hold 92% of all common shares; institutions 8%. Now institutions control 75% of shares through huge sums entrusted to them by others and have not invested prudently. Again, because of the incredible fees they got for investing. Mr. Bogle says they sure wouldn’t manage their own monies so recklessly. These institutions were supposed to be wiser than individuals but, again, it’s not their money. Supporting Mr. Bogle’s view is the revelation that 29 of the 30 largest losers in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal were institutions whereby just one of these fund of fund companies was paid $160 million in 2007 alone for recommending the Madoff “hedge fund.” In other words, where was the fiduciary responsibility, the prudency, the probity expected when we entrust institutions to manage 75% of our investments? Schwartz View: Regular readers know I’ve been distressed and pounding the table about a number of these societal issues for years. About capitalism running amuck, culminating its 30-year trend toward widening the gap between it and its counterpart, democracy, with President Bush’s skewed one way Texas twang policy saying the be all and end all is that “bidness is bidness” and thus stifling regulation. And about society becoming so uncivilized, we ended up booing our own hometown, beloved sports teams! So while no one wants to live through what may come next in the economy, I have to say America has finally woken up, albeit after the nightmare it usually takes to precipitate major change, and that we are now started down a long and arduous path, but one finally pointed in the right direction again. As one example, we’ve even started to SAVE once again; amazing! So, for myself, I guess sort of a contrary indicator in recent years, I’m becoming more optimistic and bullish on our future. Finally! “Go America Go!”

THE ECONOMY

It became apparent that the US economy was suddenly falling-off-a-cliff right after Lehman Brothers became the one firm chosen NOT to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve and US Treasury Department. (Looked back upon as a colossal mistake in strategy I’ve read.) Lehman’s bankruptcy rippled out far and wide and led directly to losses in some money market funds, a “breaking of the buck,” and thus then to a total loss of confidence. Now, by all accounts, the economy is in total free fall. This sudden screeching halt in US business activity has caused the same in our global trading partners and most everywhere I look is now in corresponding economic free fall. You extrapolate it for yourselves from here. One view I’m pondering is that many times sharp declines lead to the second leg of a V-move, back up, and we’re overdue. Maybe stocks, with their recent unwillingness to keep going lower on bad news, means Mr. Market (the consensus of large investors) sees some end out there to the economic free fall. Still, we’d have to see some economic revival to expect a sustained V snapback in stocks. For now, I see 2009 providing a steady stream of bad news every time we look up. Just like in the second year of the last Papa Bear bear market, back in 1974, a continuing stream of bad news back then ultimately overwhelmed all attempts to rally until the final months of that year. Schwartz View: The consensus I’m hearing is that this sudden, fall-off-the-cliff global economic contraction is NOT going to lead to a repeat of the depression-spawned 1930s starting with its four-year long period of contraction followed by its anemic recovery, a.k.a. the Great Depression. I hate to follow any consensus especially when this one’s been so wrong for so long. But my own history look backs and studies by Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke, an expert on what went wrong in the 1930s, turning a recession into a depression, show that we raised taxes, cut spending and blocked global trade, just the wrong policies. So I sure don’t expect any exact repeat of those failed policies. Leading me to think out of the box and that maybe today’s Fed policy of battling a deflationary depression is also implementing incorrect strategy. How about worrying against runaway inflation spawning from all the money the US and now the world has and is still throwing at this economic slump? Just the problems we worried about in the early 1930s but didn’t occur. You know the old saying, people fight the wrong war, the old war, because that’s what’s still fresh in their minds. Thus, summing up, maybe we can’t expect much creativeness from the Fed pointing in the less obvious direction of battling inflation since they are entrusted with getting us through hard times. They will naturally, after learning certain lessons from the 1930s well, not break much new ground. One reason being that if their policies didn’t work, they would be heavily criticized for experimenting. Thus while everyone pooh-poohs an inflation problem, I still worry about one. Seems like the consensus, which may be correct, among the minority expecting and talking about an inflation problem, doesn’t expect one until 2010 at the earliest. Keeps me thinking about that quote I printed here back on Friday, December 5^th, from Sir John Templeton: “It’s impossible to produce a superior performance unless you do something different from the majority.”

THE STOCK MARKET

Maybe we’ve started off on a new, lasting stock market rally as many now say. Maybe the November 20^th closing low and November 21^st intraday low did end this bear market or at least this phase of it and start us up and on a new mini bull market. But I don’t think we can determine that from these final days of stock market trading this year. This jig jag, saw-tooth modest rally we’ve had in December – the Dow remains down -2.8% this month, but up +13.6% from its closing low on November 20^th – still looks like just a time killer rally to me after stocks fell -6% in September, -14% in October and another -5% in November. So while I’m off on my annual winter beach vacation, I’m leaving my managed portfolios hedged with a slight long bias, still with my modest overall about 20% or less market exposure which I’ve carried since late last year. You remember late last year? At least as a lesson learned for the future, if for no other reason. After the stock market rallied back from its original car wreck in July, in what amounted to a head fake, false move, dead cat bounce and pretty obvious sucker’s rally, and a failed break out to new highs by the Dow and S&P (while the rest of the stock market refused to confirm).

Anyway, last week I ended the letter by noting that psychologically we should rally since bad news couldn’t drive prices down in recent days. Technically we had what could prove to be two months of base building everywhere I looked on the charts (but bases which could easily prove false). Fundamentally we even finally had low enough market valuations, like P/E ratios, to support a rally as well. But how about a catalyst? Well, let me offer up: (1) much lower gasoline prices which keeps our wallets and purses fuller and healthier, and (2) the good feelings anyone watching our president-elect making non-partisan, non-political, non-ideological selections for his cabinet, should feel. There may be a wellspring of good feeling, a sort of honeymoon psychological effect on investors, business, consumers and most all of us as we hope our new president can perform miracles. Schwartz View: Unfortunately no one man is going to remake America overnight. So, while keeping an open mind and watching all unfolding developments, for now I’ll back history which says this “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” has to lead to an extended Papa Bear market, one which lasts at least a couple of years. Not just for one year, where we stand today.

PORTFOLIO STRATEGY

I hate to follow or even agree with some of what I’m hearing about going forward strategy, especially if such is espoused by those who were so wrong all this year. I’m speaking specifically about Bob Doll, now at BlackRock as their “Trillion Dollar” fund manager. I don’t want to pick on anyone but since he’s been leading the charge forward as stock markets collapse and getting all the face time doing such, I guess I have to. I start off very skeptical because my belief is that these big money managers are not going to get on TV and recommend anything before they and their clients get first crack at their thinking, ideas and recommendations and position themselves accordingly. I already wrote awhile back many old stock market books talk extensively about how big money always used to try to sucker the little investors. The age old technical Wall Street term “distribution” implied big guys needed little guys to unload their big positions on to when they foresaw a bear market ahead and thus put on a bullish face. It took much time to unload huge positions these large investors stockpiled so much frenzied excitement about the stock market had to be built up as big money sold. What better way today than Bob Doll coming on CNBC ubiquitously and always saying we are now in a bottoming process. He said that back in March and those who followed him are much the worst after the October panic crash. Anyway, that’s all secondary, although supporting, my main point. My main point is that Mr. Doll now says next year is going to be a good one for those taking on risk, not for those playing it safe. Again sounds good to me, at least at first blush. We all know what goes down the most generally can bounce tremendously when psychology changes. But do we really want to buy really risky investments in just the early part of the second year of a big, bad bear market? I say no. Bear markets of this size and scope historically have taken a lot longer than one year to work through.

Net, net, probably Mr. Doll will be proven correct about taking on risk, if one doesn’t factor in any time period. I’d guess risky asset classes will move fast when this bear market ultimately does end but do I really believe its going to end soon? No. And if we do have a 2009 mini bull market, say because stocks have fallen so much, then I’m not going to count on Bob and other institutional investors to tell me and us exactly when to get back out. No, starting off next year next week, I’d suggest still playing our cards close to the vest. Yes, play modestly for a continuing rally but look at it for now as just a bear market rally.

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

Richard

Re-Regulation Begins a Multi-Decade Road

Richard Schwartz — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:39:00 GMT

THE BIG PICTURE

Today’s Big Picture view revolves around the probable coming re-regulation of the financial markets. History shows regulation of markets is similar to a grandfather’s clock pendulum swinging back and forth although not as regular. A brief look back to the start of the 20^th century, shows free markets and a first age of globalization, with the introduction of the telegraph and telephone, steamships and railways, at a peak. Millions even migrated without passports while trade flourished meaning free markets were in charge.

· Governments Take Charge. Then, in August 1914, with World War I, that age ended abruptly. WWI left people disillusioned and looking for something better and many turned to socialism and communism. The Russian Revolution in 1917 drew followers and essentially sought to end capitalism for good, making private property illegal. Socialists and other government controlled economic systems were winning the battle of ideas, governments were in charge, free markets were in retreat. In less than 30 years, one third of humanity, including Eastern Europe, China and the Soviet Union, would be living under socialism or communism. Capitalism looked to be doomed except for in America. The 1920s in America was still a boom time, Americans buying cars, buying illegal gin, buying stock. Radio was the Internet of the 1920s. It was a classic bubble. Finally the 1929 stock market crash started Americans on the way to despair, a complete economic collapse "with no ability to earn, repay, spend, consume." Everything spiraled downward while about half the banks in the US closed. America turned toward government for help and thus re-regulation with President Roosevelt’s numerous new government regulatory agencies. Around the globe, governments gained power … over free markets. In Italy, Spain and Germany fascism took charge. World War II then arrived and even afterwards people all around the globe still blamed capitalism for causing the depression. The whole world kept moving towards more regulated economies. England even went socialistic as Winston Churchill, the great war leader, was beaten by the socialists! Most of the world operated under this sort of government planning process for the next 30 years.

· Free Markets Regain Control. But in the 1970s free markets began a resurgence. Margaret Thatcher came to power in England with free market thoughts as did Ronald Regan here in the US. with his Reganomics. Both cut back on government regulations, giving markets more ascendancy and free markets again starting coming to the forefront. England started privatizing its economy while President Regan cut taxes and let free markets regain control as epitomized by breaking the air controllers strike. Thus capitalism got a free hand which lasted for aboutt 30 years, even through the dot.com boom and bust. But after last year’s incredible debacle with investment banks, money center banks, insurance companies, etc. losing billions after irresponsibly leveraging up their investments 20 or 30 times, it’s apparent to most everyone that, just like in the 1930s, we can’t afford to have any similar financial market collapse spawning from totally free markets to happen again any time soon.

Schwartz View: So after reviewing the history of the 20th century and seeing how over long periods, market regulation swings back and forth, I have to figure we’ve just started a long term swing back on the way to re-regulation. For more on this topic, I recommend you watch Commanding Heights, the Battle for the World Economy, by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw which was turned into a DVD and a PBS prouction, a wonderful esplanation of the battle for economic minds in the 20th century. Filled in some missing pieces for me and should for you all as well.

Where Now Inflation?

Richard Schwartz — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:39:00 GMT

THE FIRST INFLATION SURGE IN 25 YEARS IS OVER. So, what now?

First, let me give credit when credit is due. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Fed finally got one right. They’ve been promising us moderating inflation for a year or more and now with -30% lower crude oil prices and a big general commodity collapse we’re finally we’re seeing it happen. Or, at least, starting to (most things economic happen with a lag). And with the US dollar now surging, that’s going to reverse/diminish rising, problematic imported inflation as well. So now the deflationists out there, those who say deflation is our real problem facing us for some time – Gary Shilling, Robert Prechter, Ron Insana to name just three -- can really have their time in the sun.

Still, there remains some debate whether problematic rising inflation is going quiescent. Mac Courtenay of Seeking Alpha, I guess a boutique research firm, offers up seven reasons why inflation isn’t going away:

1. Inflation is already firmly entrenched. Schwartz View: I agree. I’ve been observing the Fed’s incessant jawboning that inflation expectations remain low is wrong and we all know that the government’s inflation data is terrible skewed to the downside from what inflation really is.

2. Inflation is already here. Schwartz View: The Producer Price Index (PPI) is up +9.8% over last year, and that’s only what the government grudgingly admits to.

3. Inflation is now moving its way through the “food chain” showing up in consumer prices as well. After some hope that because of global competition (globalization) producers would eat the higher inflation. Schwartz View: This rippling through is evidenced by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising too, again up the fastest in 17 years.

4. Average weekly earnings fell in July the largest since 1990. Schwartz View: I’d guess Mr. Courtenay’s point is that when earnings drop, we can’t buy as much. ???

5. More and more Federal Reserve governors are talking about raising interest rates next, not lowering them. Especially if we see energy prices stabilize above $100 and bounce. Schwartz View: Of course, these Fed officials, meeting again next Tuesday, can change their views.

6. Global (food?) consumption patterns are heading higher. Schwartz View: I don’t know if author Courtenay is talking about food, metals or just what. But I agree with him on food. As people get a little money, one of the first things they spend it on is more and better food. Thus global food consumption patterns should keep heading higher even if the global economy recesses.

7. The markets will take charge. If the Fed doesn’t raise rates, the marketplace will raise them. Schwartz View: Not sure about this reason he positing for inflation staying problematic. Right now the markets, the long US Treasury market, is still forecasting a slowdown by yields going lower and lower, which to me means more disinflation ahead, not rising inflation.

Schwartz View: He goes on to say part of oil’s recent comeuppance, coming down, is forced hedge fund liquidation because of Congressional pressure (I agree). And that it’s a great time to buy TIPs (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) and the easiest way is to buy the symbol TIP. And to buy commodities on this correction, recommending also symbols DBC (a basket of commodities) and GDX (gold). Myself, while I believe this commodity pullback is indeed a correction, I think it’s too early to buy them back.

Schwartz BIG PICTURE Inflation View. My belief, garnered from studying stock market history and looking at thousands of charts over the last 20+ years, is that when any new trend begins, many times it begin with a surge in the new direction, then a pullback or at least a pause, sort of to regroup, consolidate gains, make believers out of disbelievers, open the eyes of others who are slow to see and just basically kill enough time to see if the new trend has legs. Then after this pullback correction, which more often than not can be large and long lasting, runs its course, the new trend reasserts itself.

Basically that’s where I see us today with rising inflation, in a pause to refresh. I’ve theorized over the last year than oil and other commodities would stay stronger, longer than most thought this year. I’d say that proved correct with oil going up all the way to about $147 and related sectors like natural gas, energy services, solar, wind and other alternative clean green leading the stock market for the whole first half of 2008. Similar to what happened during the first year of the last severe Papa Bear stock market back in 1973-1874 (oil stayed high the first year). But now, with commodities reversing downward and in major correction, it’s obvious change has occurred, that a pause to refresh is underway. And we can expect this new trend to last longer and correct deeper than many would think I’d venture. Sure, first because commodities are inherently extremely volatile, much more so than stocks and bonds. But also because of the emerging new, macroeconomic backdrop. We seem to be in line for a major, global economic slowdown which will throw a big detour on the road to a new long term trend to rising global inflation. If the global economy really goes blah for the next few years, commodities will take a longer than expected breather. Schwartz View: Still I’m in agreement with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who predicted in his 2007 book The Age of Turbulence that we live in an inflationary world and that the disinflation trend dominating all during his tenure as Fed chief is coming to an end. And I’m in agreement also with famed, global investor Jim Rogers who says commodities normally correct 50% or more and that’s what we’re seeing now, a correction not the end, to this so far about 9-year commodity bull market.

September 2008 Investment Strategy

Richard Schwartz — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:27:00 GMT

Richard Schwartz's

PRINCIPLES OF THE STOCK MARKET

A learning, teaching, always evolving stock market letter and advisory service

Seventeenth Consecutive Year of Publication; Letter #1; September 18^th, 1990

Post Office Box 1236 · New Paltz, New York 12561 - U.S. A. · (845) 255-6894

E-mail address: Richardstk@aol.com

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Tuesday, September 2^nd, 2008: Had lovely, blue sky, humidity down weather to wind up the summer and the long Labor Day weekend. Indeed, the weather is supposed to stay gorgeous the early part of this week here as well. But don’t mention the grand weather to Lucy since it’s back to school for her today!

THE BIG PICTURE

Last week I wrote about the necessity of staying positive during a downbeat economy and stock market. Staying upbeat right when there’s near term problems and long term concern that America is losing status in the pecking order of the new, globalized world we live in. Hey, America has long encouraged the rest of the globe to go capitalistic and got a massive, all-encompassing global push in that capitalistic direction after so much economic rot was discovered in the Soviet Union sphere after the Berlin Wall came down. Countries switched and let the marketplace work and, voila, the world started moving forward, growing and getting wealthier. So now, with so much new global competition around and thriving, America has to respond in kind by redoubling our efforts to efficientize, modernize and improve our own financial, economic, social, and especially our dysfunctional political system(s). In other words, take our fundamentally solid, well-working capitalistic system and adjust it to today’s new globalized marketplace. Make some fundamentally sound and foresighted long range decisions about energy, education, health, finance, politics, etc. and then exhibit sacrifice and discipline. Again, all while seeing the glass half full.

Schwartz View: That’s why I’m dismayed by hearing friends, including one back from Iraq duty, tell me it really doesn’t matter who gets elected as the next president of the United States. Their rationale? It doesn’t matter since nothing will change anyway. Maybe my generation and the one coming immediately after us is just too jaded. But, from longtime trafficking in the stock market, the one thing I’ve found we can bet on consistently is change. Change does happen. So, I’d say we have to have hope. We have to believe that our votes will prove meaningful. And the youth of America, not being so long disappointed and denied, frustrated and jaded like their elders, us, have responded to this upcoming presidential election. Grass roots efforts by thousands of inspired youth and the ready adoption of the Internet for fundraising from the masses is how Barack Obama overcame sure bet Hillary Clinton to get the Democrat’s nomination in the first place. So I say re: politics, energy use, etc., just like in the stock market, we need to keep upbeat that positive change is out there just over the horizon. So buck up. The realistic investor can forecast hard times ahead and yet get up each day, plaster a smile on his and her face and still believe that better times are out there, knowing that just like the daily cycle, it’s darkest right before dawn … arrives.

Schwartz Reading Recommendations: For those of you who are interested in Big Picture investing, by that I mean not the nuts and bolts of everyday stock trading, charting, etc. but, say financial planning, etc. I’d like to add former Fed chief Alan Greenspan’s tomb of the 20^th century, The Age of Turbulence, to my recommending reading list. It offers up a wonderful history of America growing wealthy, explains how decisions at the Fed are made and gives forward looking guidance to the world ahead. Also let me add the even newer book, THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD (2008) by Fareed Zakaria, which after I got over my provincial American bias, was wonderful in explaining the world’s likely scenario going forward. a world of shared power with extra kudos to author Zakaria in how he gets into the heads of the Chinese and Indians, explaining how they think, operate and their cultures. Interestingly, India with its long-established democracy, and Indians in their outlook on life, are extremely close to how Americans think. Again these books are for those of you interested in longer range financial planning and the like.

THE ECONOMY

Dell Computer’s report last Friday that the US technology spending slump has spread to Western Europe and some Asian countries just confirms all the other evidence showing up that today’s world, economically and financially is very closely intertwined, not decoupled as the Wall Street argument goes. Of course, this intertwined relationship and what that means isn’t that easy to define, it’s gray, not black or white. But for the near term, negative economic ripples sent streaming outward last year when the US subprime mortgage market imploded are now being sighted and felt in other parts of the globe. How severe these global ripples get, these so-called 3^rd-order effects, as economists like to term them, remains to be seen. Bulls say they will prove minor; bears like me say they will prove more severe; only time will provide the answers.

Still, right now, everywhere one looks negative ripples sent outward from the US tsunami in collateralized asset-backed investments are starting to show up. One major problematic ripple in the US and globally is the effect being felt by banks and their business. It isn’t, can’t be “:business as usual” any more. Banks’ fortunes – with huge paper losses and their opaque, illiquid, very leveraged and still deteriorating loans on the books – are now directly tied to US house prices. As house prices fall, the value of these locked in bank investments keep tumbling as well. Leading to write-offs. It’s all a negative domino effect. The lingering loss of confidence leads to a continuing reluctance to make loans, thus to lower stock prices and thus also to a growing need for banks and other financials to repair their balance sheets by raising more and more capital. Which in turn dilutes earnings and the vicious cycle continues.

Schwartz View: My ongoing view is that this widespread consumer, business and investor loss of confidence, combined with the first bout of problematic inflation and a weakening US and now global economy is not some short term event. That we’re now in a downward spiral that will take much time to bottom out and reverse. We’re, bottom line, in an economic event and economic changes just can’t move along anywhere near as fast as stock market participants would like them to. Thus, we see frustration by strategists, money managers and all the bulls out there to find and call a bear market bottom way too early. I believe investors have to exhibit extreme patience for the foreseeable future.

THE STOCK MARKET

Impatient investors keep fishing for a bottom, thus causing the periodic “flashy-splashy” big rallies we get, like last Thursday’s +2% move up. These big one and two day moves up are actually symptoms and signs of a stock market still on the way down, actually now firmly controlled by the grizzly bear, if you believe a recent report by Merrill Lynch after they studied all the ups and downs of the just completed full stock market cycle, starting with the bear market running from 2000 to 2002 and the following bull market running from 2002 to 2007. Big pops happen in bear markets but then get completely washed away over time. Certainly during these bear markets stocks can also cobble together rallies which last for weeks or even months at a time, such as two-month rally we put in from mid-March to mid-May this year. Or the rally we are now experiencing; so far six weeks long and still alive and kicking although very saw tooth in nature. Obviously, nothing ever goes in just one direction. That’s especially so in the stock market whereby prices normally shoot out to extremes, up or down, and then need to balance themselves off.

Right now that’s where I see us. Stocks balancing off upwards after a downward movement that dropped too far, too fast. Actually that’s normal in any extended, economically-catalyzed bear market, investors losing confidence periodically, then regaining their nerve, then losing it again. Again, deteriorating economic trend(s) causing some major decline in stock prices just can’t cycle through its phases anywhere near fast enough to please myopic, very rapidly moving stock market players. So we get quick moves down, then bounces up or sideways movements to get time & price back in sync. Then it repeats again.

Schwartz View: These bounces are when and where traders try to make their profits during multi-year bear markets. Most traders early on realize it’s a lot easier and more profitable in the long run to always stay bullish, thick or thin, bull or bear market. Thus the extreme bullishness shown by a very experienced NYSE floor trader when interviewed late last week by CNBC. His time frame is so much different than the rest of us, he can be very bullish right now, right in the midst of a firmly entrenched bear market.

PORTFOLIO STRATEGY

Net, net this six-week rally may last for another month or even two but I wouldn’t get too attached to it. In fact today, let’s hope the market goes up a whole heck of a lot. I plan to book some profits. The first trading day after Labor Day is normally a seasonally strong day but then September can go south very fast and has proven to be the worst overall month of the year on average. Plus August was our first monthly advance in four months for many key indices so I’d like to take advantage of this normal “rally in a downtrend” and lighten up on some short term trading positions established back in July or early August. And suggest readers do the same, review everything else you now hold as well to see if any sectors are now timely to get out of. Again, to take advantage of this recent bear market rally. For example, please review the technology sector after Dell’s news last week warning it sees spreading, global tech weakness now.

Schwartz View: With big players coming back to work this week and with oil resuming its steep decline, we may extend this recent rally. Rallies can last upwards of three months in bear markets and since this one started on July 15^th, the best case scenario says it can run through October 15^th. Still, best I can deduce, all we’ve been doing this summer is killing time before the next round of bearish news hits. So I would continue to book trading profits as you go, sort of imitating the always in traders on the NYSE floor.

Have a grand week!

Updating Energy Saver's Theme

Richard Schwartz — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:35:00 GMT

UPDATING MY LATEST INVESTMENT THEME: ENERGY SAVER’S

I realize I should go back and update my various recommendations, especially my investment themes, more often. If you follow and buy into some of these themes you’d certainly want to see some updates.

So this morning let me update my latest theme, that of investing in companies which offer other businesses ways to save on energy use and thereby overhead and money. Last I wrote about buying these energy saving companies was to recommend: “Respecting the Bear But Nibble On Weakness.” Thus, here’s a compiled table of my recommended companies below. Some of which are obviously correcting in price as the price of crude oil moves lower. Certainly most of the below companies are NOT immune to lower oil which makes the need for their services, short term, seemingly diminish. But it gives us, those of us who believe the world, and most companies’ business models, are going to continue to move inexorably towards more efficient energy use, the opportunity to buy on weakness, the ideal way for long term investors to buy. Modeling Warren Buffett, whose key criteria is price, the lower the better, on sale, after a fire even better.

ENERGY SAVERS THEME

June 13^th 2008 Recommendations

Buy July 14^th Current

Price Price Price Chart/Business Update

CPST Capstone Turbine Corp. $3.41 3.50 3.06 Correcting from peak $4.42 on June 23^rd

BCON Beacon Power $1.72 1.30 1.29 Another in a sharp pullback, a buy opportunity

WGOV Woodward Governor $37.78 35.64 45.00 Up, up and away after a good earnings report

MXWL Maxwell Technologies $12.57 11.11 13.47 Up as companies keep buying more product

CHP C&D Tech $8.40 8.74 8.03 Correcting a big move up

June 18^th 2008 Recommendations

COMV Comverge Inc. $12.73 13.95 10.90 Fallen to support on new competition

ENOC EnerNOC, Inc. $15.65 20.74 16.14 Like COMV, pulling back on new competitors

ITRI Itron, Inc. $94.75 88.60 92.33 Earnings good; high price a bit scary

BMI Badger Meter $50.04 52.50 56.33 In uptrend; analysts 1 buy, 3 holds, 1 sell

July 15th Recommendations

July 15th

Price

ALTI Altair Nanotech $1.83 2.68 Stock taking off; earnings/news good

AMSC American Superconductor $32.15 39.49 After sharp correction, uptrend has resumed.

Disclaimer! I own a little of Altair, Beacon, Capstone, Comverge and EnerNOC and am watching the others for “buy on weakness” opportunities although I hesitate buying many/any very high priced stocks during bear markets.

Reasons For a Summer Rally

Richard Schwartz — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:22:00 GMT

UPDATE ON THE STOCK MARKET. Written Wednesday, July 30th, 2008: 6:30 am EST.

Another ‘flashy-splashy’ rally yesterday So typical of bear markets, especially those with much further in time and points to go. Grizzly bear markets thrive on investors’ hope and adamant investor reluctance to believe things can get worse. Bear markets end when that hope is gone. Anyway, everyone jumped on board the stock market yesterday, figuring that, once again, the credit crunch is over or at least winding down. I doubt that and really doubt that the nine month bear market is over but one never knows the future for sure so we always have to keep an open mind.

A SCHWARTZ RECAP. Bulls, still fighting this bear market, did a great job of spinning (it’s always easier to spin when there is a germ of truth) that Merrill Lynch’s capital raising move yesterday and more billions in write offs showed we’re in the “end game” of this crisis. That Merrill selling some distressed assets, doing what no one has wanted to do, selling out and thus setting a low market price, about 20 cents on the dollar, for some of their CDO’s, means that everyone else may be forced to follow suit and thus that will call an end to the prevailing uncertainty. But this game doesn’t end with Merrill alone, this may just be the beginning of the end, which, as we all know, can go on seemingly interminably. And subprime write downs are now just one piece of the now larger and still spreading problem, although a big part I admit. And subprime sell offs at whatever price would have been better if done many months ago, following the old Wall Street rule which Wall Street, when pressed, totally disregarded: “The first loss is the best loss.” Not many are noting the awful details either, that Merrill is paying Temasek Holdings, a Singapore-owned SWF (no, not meaning Single White Female!), a sovereign wealth fund to buy more stock. Previously Temasek bought Merrill stock and lost a bundle. Thus in this deal Merrill is now paying Temasek a cool $2.5 billion to offset some of Temasek’s losses on that first buy. Plus Merrill is financing the deal for Temasek and this deal will increase and dilute Merrill’s outstanding shares by 36%. And, ironically, the sale of these CDO’s are at a price lower than Merrill’s just announced mark-to-market quarterly earnings report and stated value. Finally, this whole new deal flies in the face of what John Thain, Merrill’s relatively new boss, has said previously, that Mother Merrill wouldn’t need or be raising any new capital. Schwartz View: Net, net, some say Merrill is a goner, that it will have to be taken over down the road some. I don’t know any details but agree with the concept, that brokers will have to merge.

TECHNICAL VIEW. IBD PUTS THE BULL BACK IN THE BOX!

Yep, yesterday was a bullish “follow-through” day according to Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). On the 11^th day, pretty late, after the recent July 14^th bottom, a number of key market indices followed through yesterday, that is rallied more than +1.7% and on heavier trading volume than the day before. Obviously lower oil has been the underlying linchpin to this rally; oil down stocks up and vice versa. Schwartz View: My stated view is that this drop in oil will help stocks for a time, for the time it takes investors to realize that lower oil isn’t going to be the panacea for this bearish stock market. That at some point lower oil will scare the pants off investors (so to speak) because they will see lower oil as confirmation that a recession is here and spreading globally. But we’ll have to wait on this theory of mine as for now lower oil does means higher stock prices.

IBD goes on to remind us that: “Every bull market in Wall street history started with a follow-through. But not every follow-through launches a new bull market.” I believe their stats but also know IBD has put the bull back in the box and then had to take it out a few days or a week or so later a couple times during the last few months. So, remember, nothing, no particular indicator, is perfect, by any means.

More Reasons For a Rally. But I’ve also been writing that the market is oversold, that the US government has come up with a boat load of temporary fixes and props to support the stock market including the stimulus plan, unprecedented lending to non-banks and barring short selling or at least making it extremely difficult to short the financials (the SEC extended this one week ban to August 12^th yesterday). And that a historical study of the pace of declines during extended bear markets show the market is now ahead of itself on the downside. Plus I must say I am impressed by many European stock markets posting a sequence of five straight up days after an extended, inexorable, grinding-lower decline, i.e. a bullish Trader Vic 4-Day Rule and change of intermediate trend. So we could certainly have a summer rally now.

Schwartz View: Myself I’d like to see and have written that a Dow Industrials and S&P 500 close above last Wednesday’s highs would give us a series of higher highs and higher lows, the definition of an uptrend. Well, we didn’t get quite that high a close yesterday another good day or two could do it. As for “Trader Vic’s” as easy as 1-2-3 change of trend, we have condition #1, a broken downtrend line and condition #2, a market which has stopped going down in place. We don’t have, as of yet, condition #3, that’s the higher high I’m watching for. Still, Trader Vic Sperandeo in his two excellent books from the early 1990s, get them, writes we don’t need all three, we can turn bullish with just one or two conditions met. Just be more cautious in proceeding and realize there’s always the chance for a whipsaw and have a backup plan for what you’ll do if that happens, how fast you’ll backtrack. With those caveats in mind, I put on some longs yesterday, not a lot and not terribly risky ones. Basically my theme is that as crude and other commodities correct, pressure should come off the food companies, off their raw material and input and power costs. And that at the same time these pressures diminish, food companies are successfully pushing through price increases such as mentioned by Kraft yesterday. If this summer rally holds together, say we get a new higher high by the Dow and S&P, I’ll push the envelope for short term trading purposes further.

Monday Weekly Overview Sample Letter

Richard Schwartz — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:19:00 GMT

Richard Schwartz's

PRINCIPLES OF THE STOCK MARKET

A learning, teaching, always evolving stock market letter and advisory service

Seventeenth Consecutive Year of Publication; Letter #1; September 18^th, 1990

Post Office Box 1236 · New Paltz, New York 12561 - U.S. A. · (845) 255-6894

E-mail address: Richardstk@aol.com

Subscription · One-Year Morning E-Mail Delivery · $150.00

Monday, July 28^th, 2008: Your New Paltz, NY SUNFLOWER update: A few sunflowers have popped but I noticed the farmer’s market has alternated its plantings so any time you visit you should see some. Just spectacular!

THE BIG PICTURE

Looks like one potential US and global leader gets it. Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, to shore up his lack of experience on the global stage, embarked on a global tour last week. And was again able to put his finger on the pulse of the world and his audience, exhibiting his knowledge of history and this particular critical point in time speaking at the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. While he didn’t rock star the crowd, fine with me, it was good to see he continues his role as alienate no one, moderator showing again he understands all sides of issues and is committed to leading by example. While not denigrating any political party, say our Republicans, or country, say Old Europe. Thus there is hope that America will soon embark on a new direction, one of getting things done by bringing all parties together and then making logical and effective, not ideological, decisions, forgoing our previous path of fostering divisiveness in the world, between our two political parties and among the American people ourselves.

Schwartz View: Enough said. I always get negative feedback when treading in political waters. I do like presumptive Republican presidential nominee and American hero John McCain quite a lot but just feel we have to drastically change policies going forward, not follow a similar path. America needs to get it’s act together quickly as all long range forecasters have reached consensus, saying we’re on a downward slide, financially, politically, economically, socially. We just need to start cohesively tackling our problems.

THE ECONOMY

Numerous economists last week admitted that the US economy is weakening. Among them Brian Bethune of Global Insight, James O’Sullivan at UBS and Moody’s John Lonski. So, in spite of the US not posting two straight quarters of negative GDP growth, the old and easy definition of a recession, and one not used any longer by the National Bureau of Economic Research which calls and dates recessions but problematically many months late -- remember in today’s new globalized world we need to learn new economic relationships! -- it looks like a recession is here. And in my view is going to stay with us for quite some time. That’s because America has been moneying-over all near term problems for many, many years, thus postponing the always needed recessionary cleansing and efficientizing of the US economy, while we’ve also avoiding developing and implementing solutions to our long term ills, like our increasing oil dependency, our underfunded government pension plans, Social Security and former Fed head Alan Greenspan’s #1 concern, Medicare. America does have a bad habit of avoiding problems until they reach crisis state. Maybe that’s because our representative democracy has become so dysfunctional here in the US. I would suggest we start fixing things right there in Washington by first getting rid of lobbying which skews everything toward those with the money to get their voices heard. Even corporate America, who now realizes it’s entrapped by this self-perpetuating system, would like nothing better than to see lobbying go away as big business now has to carry and fund a large and increasingly onerous lobbying budget.

Schwartz View: All I’ve read recently has been about how there are so many inefficiencies corrupting our inherently great economic and social framework that it’s a wonder anything can get done. Such as the US having 600,000 lawyers while Japan has 15,000 (those figures were about 10 years back but obviously haven’t changed for the better). And all the broken marriages and unwed mothers costing America a fortune as well. It’s almost funny, after encouraging the rest of the world to move to free markets for decades, when the Soviet Union collapsed and showed the economic rot hidden there, the world finally started followed our recommendations. And economic success followed suit but that led to tremendous and widespread global competition, so it’s vital we get our own act together as soon as possible, to just keep up. Thus the silver lining to this current economic slowdown, a slowdown that isn’t responding to our normal response of throwing money at it, is that crisis is when change really does occur in America

THE STOCK MARKET

Stocks have again gotten ahead of themselves on the downside although not as much out of whack as at the first bottom back in mid-March. Figuring the Dow Industrials and S&P 500’s previous bull market tops were set back last October, after nine months of a bear market or at the recent July 15^th lows, we are down on average about 2.5% per month versus the historic average bear market monthly decline of 2%. So we could easily see a backing and filling trading range here and now or even a modest rally, the two normal ways bear markets correct themselves. Much government intervention has come together to force down the price of oil and thus commodities in general, prop up housing and consumer spending, keep the financial system from breaking down completely and holding interest rates way below the rate of inflation. So all this government stimulus has to go somewhere just as previous stimulus found places to bubble up. Plus new government props and controls historically have been able to put a temporary fix in place.

Still, over a period of time the stock market reflects the economy and things aren’t really getting any better there, despite Q2 GDP growth out this Thursday going to again be positive. In point of fact, the economy is continuing to get worse if one looks under the surface at signals like credit spreads, a rough definition being the difference in yield between US government bonds and non-US government guaranteed bonds, which remain wide. Or if we factor in historic trends which show that economic downturns tend to surface hidden problems which end up feeding on themselves. Today’s continuing wide credit spreads mean at some point MBIA & Ambac and Fannie & Freddie, the other 17 big financials which have also been taken off the allowed short selling list & all the other financials who’ve lost billions of dollars aren’t going to be able to hide things any longer and are going to have to really own up. So stocks remain iffy for now. And with the rug pulled out from under the remaining stock leadership in the stock market over the last two weeks, out from under energy, the energy complex and other commodities, any market rallies are going to be just technically based, say from an oversold position or short sellers being forced to cover. Sure, a rally may then feed on itself and last longer than bears think, but should ultimately roll over as data worsens.

Schwartz View: Technically then, we could be embarking on a summer rally and if so sharp traders with the courage to risk their monies in the propped up financials may be able to scalp the stock market. And other pockets of strength should or may show up (hopefully in the health sector as that is now my focus with my few longs) normally searched out and propelled along by momentum players.

PORTFOLIO STRATEGY

LONG TERM PORTFOLIO STRATEGY continues to be hunkering down until this big storm passes. I expect that to be longer than most government and Wall Street economists and market strategists believe or at least publicly state. Publicly state because we all know that bearish Wal Street analysts and economists ultimately get fired and that in the aftermath of the dot.com bubble bursting, we got some theretofore hidden insight into what analysts really think. I see widely-followed, economist Nouriel Roubini, formerly holding various high level economic advisory positions in government, believes the US and European economies are now sinking as last Friday he said Wall Street was in spin mode and that financial institutions are “… manipulating at will their earnings, and analysts [are] falling for this supreme baloney.”

NEAR TERM PORTFOLIO STRATEGY depends more on whether this two-week, fledgling rally proves it has legs or not. I’m using as a key gauge whether the Dow and S&P are able to close above their last Wednesday’s closing highs, Dow 11,632.40 and S&P 1282.19. If these key indices close higher, then we will have the definition of a new up trend in place, a series of higher lows and higher highs. Strategy then will be to favor the long side but with say with no more than 50% at most market exposure. Planning on a modest summer rally for a month or two, with strategy being trying to scalp some short term profits.

AS FOR INCOME INVESTORS, we’ve all gotten used to our income fixes after 25 years of income investing being easy during a bull market in bonds, meaning just riding the trend toward lower and lower long term rates, I know it’s a struggle for you all today. My best suggestion is to watch for weakness in income sectors, say in utilities, royalty trusts and even REITs, then strike. Only move in and in a small manner AFTER a sector has just been blasted. This gives you some profit buffer as primary extended downtrends many times have sharp sell offs after disillusioned investors finally give up hope and sell, right before they rally. This can get you in at unusually good prices, at least for the near and intermediate term.

INCOME IDEAS. Thus I would currently search through the utility sector as the Dow Utility Index has just fallen a sharp -8% over the last two weeks. Or take another look at my previous July 11^th, 2008 two energy income recommendation Cross Timber Royalty Trust (CRT) and San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (SJT), both haven tumbled hard with crude. Both go ex-dividend tomorrow, meaning today’s the last day to get in to collect the substantial August dividend (both pay monthly). Or finally, revisit my other income recommendation, back on July 10^th, 2008, of two large European pharmas, GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) paying moderate dividend yields of 4.4% and 5.8% respectively. You need to buy GSK today to be entitled to this quarter’s dividend and buy AZN soon before it goes ex-dividend (not declared yet but last year it went ex on August 8^th). Good income investing!

Have a great week!