Eventful Week

Well the week has been eventful for me, more so outside of the markets which is the reason for the lack of blogging the past few days. Weds I saw more rebound getting back a couple percent lost on monday. Thursday I gave that back then a little more and Friday I ended up back where I started on Tuesday.

Outside of the markets I got my wisdom teeth out which is highly annoying to deal with and I would rank it up there with having a sprained ankle. I am sure it will be glorious to eat whatever I want again just like it is glorious to be able to walk around and run with no limp after a sprain but for now it is simply a pain in the ass(or mouth rather).

Turning my attention back to the markets I am thinking that it may be time to get back into FOREX because it seems to be where all the action is these days. With the Euro hitting 1.40 recently that is a huge move. One I was looking to happen but obviously didn't know when it would so going long the euro may have tested my patience and stopped me out. Now that it has moved however I could go long on a pull back but may look at other currencies instead.

The odd thing with the market is the fact that we broke down on the $VIX yet the market is trading fairly poorly like it could also break down on the next wave of bad news. I guess this is good for option buyers either way but makes it hard to look for clues of the next move. The drop in the VIX along with the rise in 10 year treasuries seems to be fairly bullish for stocks. Agriculture stocks are on fire and IPI(which I got stopped out of) would have likely been a better trade than FCX was had I stock with it. It would be nice to get a larger pull back to get into those names to better manage risk. Besides the first 2 days of the week the moves in my account have been fairly boring which is fine for the next 2 weeks until I am done with my CFA test. I would like to get some type of conviction soon, buyers show up at 880 and sell at 900 for the moment.

I see more and more commercial real estate for sale signs around me yet the IYR continues to hold up much better than I would expect. I am thinking we could digest some bad news over the course of June then look to rally in July/August especially if earnings stay decent and last quarter "improvements" aren't a blip up in a downtrend. Bad news we likely need to discount still is GM Bankruptcy, continuing job losses and rising unemployment over projections, commercial real estate deterioration. I still feel that materials and Ag will be the out performers as we can already see inflation expectations taking its toll on the 10 year rates. With more bad news discounted and a larger pull back in stocks I would be fairly comfortable going long again for the longer term. I have seen an increase in job postings locally but that will only offset some of the other job losses occuring but is a positive step.

Total Return for 2009: 157%