Interim Update Dec 4, 2022

[Eric]

Lack of bullish sentiment does not surprise me. I don't see how it would be otherwise. A slow grind down all year, with Nasdaq -30%, S&P -20%, Dow -10% (simplifying). A slow grind is far more disheartening/demoralising than a sharp drop, and sentiment will probably take longer to recover. I expect many people haven't even noticed that there has been a rally.

Lack of bullish sentiment could also be partially attributed to going on 3 years of 24x7x365 psyops intended to put everyone in a negative mindset... You're going to die, your friends are going to die, you're going to kill your grandma, your un-jabbed friend is going to kill you despite your 5 jabs... Extreme negativity is probably just the default state for the majority of people now and it'll take a lot to overcome that.

[SOL]

Sol thanks for sharing some of your experiences and for being so open about them. For me 2008-2009 was dreadful, I feel I am better prepared to deal with the current situation, especially after going through the COVID crash. Both you and Harry are right, this slow grind can be devastating to the psyche, especially if you listen to the gloom and doom experts.

The Covid crash was a dream for me, I was 100% cash before it happened and made a nice amount by buying in as it plummeted.

This has been hard I must admit, wasn't expecting anything like the downturn for the first leg, wasn't investing actively during 2008/2009 but sold everything in my pension and then became a gold bug which went badly wrong in September 2011!

The real shocker 2008, was the inability to log into my online accounts when the selling started. Hmm. And I was trying to buy.

One friend was long - on margin. Destroyed.

Could be the servers were overloaded with people rushing to sell. Online systems were quite unstable when compared to today.

Regarding Margin it is deadly to trade on margin if you don't have the means to cover it when and if SHTF. I have seen so many people go from 7 figures to almost no figures. It's a big rush but you have to have the means to cover if things don't work out. But more importantly, one should only get into plays that are brutally beaten down and after several indices have flashed long-term buys.

This might be something on the fringe, but I used to know this guy (turned out that he was a subscriber, he had his wife sign up for him using her maiden name, but only found this out years later). At the time, he had 2 million plus in his trading account (2008) he was a real contrarian. For weeks he claimed he was having a hard time buying, the orders would not go through properly, or he could not log in, etc. He confirmed this with other ( I can't validate this) traders who experienced similar issues. His theory was that anyone with 200K or plus that appeared to be a contrarian based on their trading patterns had a hard time logging in. He was particularly pissed off when he could not place larger orders on Feb 09 and early March 09. Suffice to say he took his account to over 20 million; he probably made a lot more. I am only basing it on what he told me. He had guts and balls. I remember when I told him I was no longer bullish on Gold around Aug to Sept 2011 and that the USD was giving some good signals from a very long-term perspective. He dumped all his gold and heavily shorted the sector. He experienced a lot of acid, but he made some mega bucks. His 2008-09 investments really took him to the next level. On the low end, his portfolio was up at least 500% from the march lows.

Always said he would travel the world. He just needed a little bit more. He died a few years ago, and I think other than Mexico and Canada, he never had the chance to visit the world. He always dreamed of doing it but kept putting it off. I remember telling him many times tomorrow never comes. Today is yesterday's tomorrow, the day you promised you would do things differently. There were other things he wanted to do; he had a whole bucket list (can't repeat many of them as he swore me to secrecy), and almost none of the goals were achieved.

The moral of the story --------- Well, Budge, ERIC, Harry and Scott, plus anyone else that wants to chip in, can fire away as to what it is.

[SOL]

Sorry for the confusion but threads have become too long and too many places to look. I've been rereading the latest MU and AI newsletters and baffled by varying levels secondary index triggers (some stocks have different DOW trigger ranges than others).

But having placed sell orders based on % of market up turn I need to know are we officially on hold with regards to both the Dow and Nasdaq triggers quoted in latest MU and AI updates? should I cancel sell orders based on those index triggers?

Thanks.

The latest MU removed the hold and issued new targets. The Hold was put before the Dec 4th update was sent.

[SOL]

Lack of bullish sentiment does not surprise me. I don't see how it would be otherwise. A slow grind down all year, with Nasdaq -30%, S&P -20%, Dow -10% (simplifying). A slow grind is far more disheartening/demoralising than a sharp drop, and sentiment will probably take longer to recover. I expect many people haven't even noticed that there has been a rally.

Lack of bullish sentiment could also be partially attributed to going on 3 years of 24x7x365 psyops intended to put everyone in a negative mindset... You're going to die, your friends are going to die, you're going to kill your grandma, your un-jabbed friend is going to kill you despite your 5 jabs... Extreme negativity is probably just the default state for the majority of people now and it'll take a lot to overcome that.

I think you are right, all of this falls under the category of learned Helplessness. You reach a state where you just want to give up. The last straw does break the camel's back

Learned helplessness occurs when a person who has experienced repeated challenges comes to believe they have no control over their situation. They then give up trying to make changes and accept their fate.

In animals, learned helplessness occurs when an animal is repeatedly subjected to an aversive stimulus that it cannot escape. Eventually, the animal will stop trying to avoid the stimulus and behave as if it is utterly helpless to change the situation. Even when opportunities to escape are presented, this learned helplessness will prevent any action.2

While the concept is strongly tied to animal psychology and behavior, it can also apply to many situations involving human beings.3 When people feel that they have no control over their situation, they may begin to behave in a helpless manner. This inaction can lead people to overlook opportunities for relief or change.4

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-le ... ss-2795326

[bpcw]

Could be the servers were overloaded with people rushing to sell. Online systems were quite unstable when compared to today.

Regarding Margin it is deadly to trade on margin if you don't have the means to cover it when and if SHTF. I have seen so many people go from 7 figures to almost no figures. It's a big rush but you have to have the means to cover if things don't work out. But more importantly, one should only get into plays that are brutally beaten down and after several indices have flashed long-term buys.

This might be something on the fringe, but I used to know this guy (turned out that he was a subscriber, he had his wife sign up for him using her maiden name, but only found this out years later). At the time, he had 2 million plus in his trading account (2008) he was a real contrarian. For weeks he claimed he was having a hard time buying, the orders would not go through properly, or he could not log in, etc. He confirmed this with other ( I can't validate this) traders who experienced similar issues. His theory was that anyone with 200K or plus that appeared to be a contrarian based on their trading patterns had a hard time logging in. He was particularly pissed off when he could not place larger orders on Feb 09 and early March 09. Suffice to say he took his account to over 20 million; he probably made a lot more. I am only basing it on what he told me. He had guts and balls. I remember when I told him I was no longer bullish on Gold around Aug to Sept 2011 and that the USD was giving some good signals from a very long-term perspective. He dumped all his gold and heavily shorted the sector. He experienced a lot of acid, but he made some mega bucks. His 2008-09 investments really took him to the next level. On the low end, his portfolio was up at least 500% from the march lows.

Always said he would travel the world. He just needed a little bit more. He died a few years ago, and I think other than Mexico and Canada, he never had the chance to visit the world. He always dreamed of doing it but kept putting it off. I remember telling him many times tomorrow never comes. Today is yesterday's tomorrow, the day you promised you would do things differently. There were other things he wanted to do; he had a whole bucket list (can't repeat many of them as he swore me to secrecy), and almost none of the goals were achieved.

The moral of the story --------- Well, Budge, ERIC, Harry and Scott, plus anyone else that wants to chip in, can fire away as to what it is.

That's a really interesting story Sol, thanks for sharing. I think we all need to learn from it. We can kid ourselves that we have a certain target and then that will be enough. The problem is that success breads addiction to the process, we start to get off on making money so the target keeps moving. Also once you reach a target and realise you can afford what you dreamed of, you realise if you had more you could afford so much more. I also believe that the more money one has the more insecure they tend to become, probably because there's more to lose. Look at the richest in the world, do they stop at so many billions and say, that's it I'm just going to enjoy my life, nope, they are nearly always trying to make more or using there money as a power play.

Look at this parable that Jesus told 2 thousand years ago, even if you just take it that he was just a wise man:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Personally I don't have millions, nowhere near but at 53 I don't work that hard, because I am paid well (self employed IT) when I am working I choose to have a good work/life balance. I walk the dog every morning apart from occasionally visiting a client, meet lots of friends for tea/coffee and spend plenty of time with my wife, I don't care much for the finer things in life because they are an illusion, the real luxuries are the simple things, a walk in nature and quality relationships.

[SOL]

That's a really interesting story Sol, thanks for sharing. I think we all need to learn from it. We can kid ourselves that we have a certain target and then that will be enough. The problem is that success breads addiction to the process, we start to get off on making money so the target keeps moving. Also once you reach a target and realise you can afford what you dreamed of, you realise if you had more you could afford so much more. I also believe that the more money one has the more insecure they tend to become, probably because there's more to lose. Look at the richest in the world, do they stop at so many billions and say, that's it I'm just going to enjoy my life, nope, they are nearly always trying to make more or using there money as a power play.

Look at this parable that Jesus told 2 thousand years ago, even if you just take it that he was just a wise man:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Personally I don't have millions, nowhere near but at 53 I don't work that hard, because I am paid well (self employed IT) when I am working I choose to have a good work/life balance. I walk the dog every morning apart from occasionally visiting a client, meet lots of friends for tea/coffee and spend plenty of time with my wife, I don't care much for the finer things in life because they are an illusion, the real luxuries are the simple things, a walk in nature and quality relationships.

Well, I was not even thinking about it but then when I started to respond to budge it sort of popped into my mind and here we are. We have a talent for branching all over the place from the original theme.

The Bible has many good stories/parables, and just by reading some of them a lot of wisdom can be gleaned. I might not agree with all of them, but there are definitely some gems there.

If I say you are on the right track, others would beg to differ. What I can say is that, to a large part, I agree with your outlook.

I used to talk about it, and I need to talk about it more often, about living below one's means. I have dropped now to 2 means below my original level. However, there is a catch. What I do is look at things from an investment perspective. I want to buy XYZ, so I wait for a deal on it. It's sort of like waiting for a pullback to buy a quality company on the low. Anyone can buy crap at a low price, the trick is getting gold for the price of Silver.

Another thing I do is ask myself if i really need it. So I avoid impulse buying unless it deals with food or booze. I have a real weakness when it comes to good food.

I have now taken things one step further and will continue to push the envelope. For this one has to go to zones where Purchasing power parities (PPPs) allow you to live even better than where you used to live but at a fraction of the cost. In order to do this, you need to have a stream of income. For example, you can live in many South East Asian places (from Vietnam to Cambodia) for a fraction of what it would cost you in the West. Roughly speaking, 1K has the power of almost 4K. Other places where one can live well is Turkey and many countries in South America. I know at least five individuals from the West, and the number will rise I am sure that moved to Turkey; they were initially reluctant to even venture there, citing the religious and cultural differences. Long story short they met so many like-minded westerners there, that almost all of them claim they have more friends there then they did back at home.

At some point, I want to own almost nothing other than my collection of old books, coins, stamps, and some investment that generates a decent stream of income and just live on the fly. Some people call this being a perpetual traveller or PT. But that is a story for another day.

As for the chap in the story, it turns out his family is having a ball with all the money he made. Too bad he did not get to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

[bpcw]

Well, I was not even thinking about it but then when I started to respond to budge it sort of popped into my mind and here we are. We have a talent for branching all over the place from the original theme.

The Bible has many good stories/parables, and just by reading some of them a lot of wisdom can be gleaned. I might not agree with all of them, but there are definitely some gems there.

If I say you are on the right track, others would beg to differ. What I can say is that, to a large part, I agree with your outlook.

I used to talk about it, and I need to talk about it more often, about living below one's means. I have dropped now to 2 means below my original level. However, there is a catch. What I do is look at things from an investment perspective. I want to buy XYZ, so I wait for a deal on it. It's sort of like waiting for a pullback to buy a quality company on the low. Anyone can buy crap at a low price, the trick is getting gold for the price of Silver.

Another thing I do is ask myself if i really need it. So I avoid impulse buying unless it deals with food or booze. I have a real weakness when it comes to good food.

I have now taken things one step further and will continue to push the envelope. For this one has to go to zones where Purchasing power parities (PPPs) allow you to live even better than where you used to live but at a fraction of the cost. In order to do this, you need to have a stream of income. For example, you can live in many South East Asian places (from Vietnam to Cambodia) for a fraction of what it would cost you in the West. Roughly speaking, 1K has the power of almost 4K. Other places where one can live well is Turkey and many countries in South America. I know at least five individuals from the West, and the number will rise I am sure that moved to Turkey; they were initially reluctant to even venture there, citing the religious and cultural differences. Long story short they met so many like-minded westerners there, that almost all of them claim they have more friends there then they did back at home.

At some point, I want to own almost nothing other than my collection of old books, coins, stamps, and some investment that generates a decent stream of income and just live on the fly. Some people call this being a perpetual traveller or PT. But that is a story for another day.

As for the chap in the story, it turns out his family is having a ball with all the money he made. Too bad he did not get to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

I've always thought we mainly agree on this subject. I thought along similar lines before I became a Christian so it's not just about the Bible, and many Christians live their lives by ignoring the very principles that the Bible espouses.

I remember before I was a Christian in my early 20's talking to a friend, we were sat having a beer and I said what could be better than 2 mates sat having a beer on a Friday night, and this was in the context of earning money and having luxuries. From his facial reaction I don't think he appreciated the thought as I did, he loved what he called retail therapy and would come back every Saturday afternoon with a new item such as a vacuum cleaner or a new-fangled toaster which we used to joke about. I think being brought up in a large family (bloody Catholics) and not having much we learnt to enjoy ourselves by digging a massive hole at the top of our garden, climbing trees and riding up and down on our bikes, playing board games in the evening etc. Learnt after initial enthusiasm in earning money and what you could buy, driving nice company cars that it really is the simple free or cheap stuff that gives the most contentment over the long run.

[bpcw]

Sol, this update is stating that gold & silver have bottomed but do you see them reversing and following the usual inverse relationship with the dollar which you predict will surge again and go to new highs topping out in 2023?

[SOL]

Sol, this update is stating that gold & silver have bottomed but do you see them reversing and following the usual inverse relationship with the dollar which you predict will surge again and go to new highs topping out in 2023?

Not yet, unless the pattern shows significant improvement, initially, they might rally in Tandem as Gold and Silver are trading in the oversold anges. However, if Gold gets close to its highs we will close most of the longs but keep a small core position in bullion. 21 to 23 are areas to watch in Silver.

If the pattern unfolds as planned. then all this talk of the dollar being dead will help trigger a blistering rally, potentially, it could trade to the 120 range. The US has to use this soft weapon with maximum force while it can. However, after that, it is likely that the dollar will put in a multi-year top, and possibly a multi-decade top

[bpcw]

Sol, this update is stating that gold & silver have bottomed but do you see them reversing and following the usual inverse relationship with the dollar which you predict will surge again and go to new highs topping out in 2023?

Not yet, unless the pattern shows significant improvement. Initially, they might rally in Tandem as Gold and Silver are trading in the overbought ranges. However, if Gold gets close to its highs we will close most of the longs but keep a small core position in bullion. 21 to 23 are areas to watch in Silver.

If the pattern unfolds as planned. then all this talk of the dollar being dead will help trigger a blistering rally, potentially, it could trade to the 120 range. The US has to use this soft weapon with maximum force while it can. However, after that it is likely that the dollar will put in a multi-year top, and possibly a multi-decade top

Thanks Sol!

[Triplethought]

Sorry for the confusion but threads have become too long and too many places to look. I've been rereading the latest MU and AI newsletters and baffled by varying levels secondary index triggers (some stocks have different DOW trigger ranges than others).

But having placed sell orders based on % of market up turn I need to know are we officially on hold with regards to both the Dow and Nasdaq triggers quoted in latest MU and AI updates? should I cancel sell orders based on those index triggers?

Thanks.

The latest MU removed the hold and issued new targets. The Hold was put before the Dec 4th update was sent.

OK that explains it. Nasdaq trigger is higher (as a %) from todays close than dow trigger. I assume that means that for tech stocks we're going to let them run up a bit more than the dow or general S&P stocks.

[SOL]

Well, well, the MACDs on the weekly charts of the Nasdaq experienced a bullish crossover last night. So are the markets going to rally until Jan, now that all the indices display the same pattern? It makes the case stronger.


The MACDs on the weekly charts of the Dow Utilities are also about to experience a strong bullish crossover.

[SOL]

Stock futures were lower early Friday as markets failed to maintain momentum gained after the S&P 500 snapped a 5-day losing streak on Thursday.

Data on producer prices out Friday morning sent markets lower, with this hotter-than-expected inflation data coming ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting.

Ahead of the opening bell, S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq futures were all off about 0.4%. Earlier Friday morning, stock futures had been pointing to gains at the open.

The November read on producer prices came in hotter than expected early Friday, with prices rising 0.3% over the prior month on a headline basis and 0.4% on a "core" basis, which excludes food and energy. Economists had expected increases of 0.2% for each reading, respectively.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-fu ... 43672.html

Budge looks like you are right, they keep massaging the data. Oil has dropped, Gas prices are down, housing prices are down, many companies are firing workers, Rental prices are down, they say millions can't pay their electric bill and are behind several hundred dollars and the list goes on, and yet miraculously inflation is still up. We have an inverted yield curve too, though I suspect that is manufactured by the big players, but that's a different story.


Something to consider, despite all this high inflation, crude oil has still not taken out its old-time high.

[MarkD]

PFF the preferred stock ETF is rolling over atm. More of a bond proxy but bonds lead stocks. This is from daily charts.

[LoriPrecisely]

Several of the stocks in the TI list are being removed from the Nasdaq tomorrow.
I am wondering if I should dump them at a loss. Here is the complete list of seven: VRSN, SPLK, BIDU, MTCH, DOCU, NTES, SWKS.