osborta's Blog

Overbought! At its Peak! Bull getting Tired!

osborta — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:42:59 GMT

I just looked at my top 10 CAPS Active holdings. I do this from time to time to see if I should take some huge "winnings". With the exception of my homebuilders and USG (which is like a leveraged homebuilder), all my top 10 picks still sport a forward P/E of 10 or less.

So with all the CNBC Yammering and "Expert Analysis" Naysayers, I'm not concerned. Sure, we might ...

Most Bullish Indicator I have seen in months

osborta — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:31:31 GMT

Short Sale % is now at a new high (5.35%) since I don't know how long (but at least since 2010):

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/short-sales-nyse-top-2011-135810129.html?l=1

Contrarians . . . start yer engines!!! :-)...

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

osborta — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:59:27 GMT

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” - John Maynard Keynes

Just some samples of crazy, irrational behavior:

10-Year Treasuries UNDER 1.5% - people clamoring to guarantee losing money to inflatio...

Investors Clamoring to GUARANTEE They Lose money!

osborta — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:17:24 GMT

As Described Here, and I promise I'm not making this up, the Treasury is actively working to modify rules to allow a NEGATIVE interest to be paid to investors in Treasuries.

Article includes this excerpt:
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Sorry, if you're looking for an oral sex joke, it isn't here. What Bill Clinton and Treasuries both have in common is the source of their success.

Bill Clinton never won a majority of the vote in either of his 2 Presidential Elections. Did you know that? 43% in 1992 and 49% in 1996. So how did he win? People weren't so much voting FOR Bill Clinton as they were voting AGAINS...

Brother, can you spare $46,000?

osborta — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:26:31 GMT

I asked my 15-year-old to do the basic math for me - divide $14.2 Trillion (the U.S. Debt - NOT INCLUDING obligations for Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare, which adds another $20 Trillion or so) by 310 Million (the current population). The result, somewhere around $46,000, is how much every man, woman and child owe in this country. He said he wasn't going to pay his portion. I told him many folks among our leadership, in...

If . . .

osborta — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:27:17 GMT

Times like these remind me of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" (Google it if you're not familiar with it) ...

Some excerpts that I think apply in this market:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
...

Watch the Money Market Balances, Take III

osborta — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:00:39 GMT

This is only my 2nd Blog in the last 18 months. I'm learning how much I don't know. :-)

But I still think the Money Market Balances are very telling. Check them out here: http://www.ici.org/info/mm_data_2011.xls

Look at the 2nd column. ...

An Employment Spiral Upward?

osborta — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:31:15 GMT

This year (2011), the oldest Baby Boomers (those 79 Million people born between 1946 and 1964 (http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/babyboom.htm) turn 65.

Recently, the unemployment rate dropped to 9.0% with only 36k new jobs created and people were asking "Why?!?"...

Indicator #2 - Home Values

osborta — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:33:06 GMT

Here's another great link - Home values (yeah, those nasty things that got us into this mess - that and Liar Loans (can you spell A-C-O-R-N?) and stupidly low teaser rates) seem to have bottomed out and, beginning with July, seem to be headed up: http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SA_CSHomePrice_History_092955.xls

You NEED to check this out: http://www.ici.org/pdf/mm_data_2009.pdf Money Market balances this week are now at their lowest levels since October 1, 2008. Hmm, what happened around that time? Oh, yeah, I remember . . . Lehmann Brothers, CountryWide, Monetary Collapse, etc.

So Money Market Balances started going to crazy high levels as peopl...

Bears coming out of the woodwork!

osborta — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:19:01 GMT

For any bull market to be successful, you need a significant contingent of naysayers - those "experts" who often have significant success stories - famous "calls" in their repertoire, telling us how the market is overvalued and acting "crazy". When you stop hearing those voices, beware! But as long as the naysayers have the floor, the Bull can run. It's almost like the bull needs someone to gouge.

But I ...

Today, I doffed the Beanie-cap

osborta — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:45:37 GMT

Today, I doffed the Beanie-cap, hopefully, never to don another. Having been over 5000 points in the hole (!) thinking "things could never get worse", I'm staring at the rear-view mirror, hoping that Dow Jones 6500, which sure looked like capitulation (though I thought I had seen that a dozen times in the last year!!) keeps getting smaller and smaller. I'm now less than 1000 points in the hole - 2 more days like today and I'll be in the positive ...

A Funny thing happened on the way to the Balance Sheet . . .

osborta — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:31:23 GMT

Nothing succeeds like success.

However, with mark-to-market accounting rules, nothing fails like failure. GE is among many companies who must write down assets - even assets that are shares in other companies. What do you suppose has happened to shares in companies of late? I know, right? So losses beget further losses. And now, any companies who own GE must take write-downs because GE is now worth less. But wait, i...

Watch the Money Market Balances

osborta — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:58:46 GMT

WAY under the radar was a story last week that reported Money Market balances hit a record $3.5 Trillion (yes, with a "T") last week. That's before the various stock selloffs this week. To give you some frame of reference, this amount could buy the Top 20 U.S. Companies (based on Market Cap: http://www.theonlineinvestor.com/large_caps/) and STILL have $700 ...

So now, with a whirley-Beanie and sub-20 CAPS Rating

osborta — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:22:32 GMT

Life is good! Why? Because my CAPS picks aren't with REAL Money!! Whoohoo! My rating has gone from 99.6+ to under 20. Why? Because I thought that the stock market couldn't get any worse.

Here's some wisdom: When you think it cannot possibly get any worse, it will get a WHOLE lot worse!!! Why is that true? I'm clueless, but it seems to be the case.

So I look at S&P P/E aver...

Things you might be saying come 2009

osborta — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:42:46 GMT

Here are some things I think investors might be saying to themselves in 2009:

1) I KNEW 2008 was an election year, I just forgot!
2) Why didn't I buy all those oil & gas companies when their P/E's were single-digits!!
3) Why didn't I see the same supply & demand issues with Gold, after seeing it with Oil & Gas and then with Coal?
4) You mean OPEC DOESN'T have millio...

99.07! Some rules I read and used and now share with you

osborta — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:43:33 GMT

I read a couple of very useful tips for CAPS players trying to improve their ratings. One has helped me very much, one should kick in any time. But at this 10 seconds, I'm at 60% accurate and 99.07 overall with 863 points - way cool for me!

The tip that helped is this: When you have a pick that you still feel very positive about, but it has been hammered, close out the pick (that won't affect your accuracy anyway), then re-pick that ...

Does Speculation drive prices DOWNward?

osborta — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:59:35 GMT

If you've listened to the news lately, you'll hear that many, if not all, of the so-called experts on crude oil prices are claiming the primary reason for the oil prices being so high ($97/bbl as of this posting) is that speculators are driving the price upward. Here's where my left-brain kicks in: If oil just hit $100 for the first time ever (and it did), would most speculators be SELLING or BUYING? I would think most speculators would be SELLING. If th...

Why I'm an Investor and not a Trader

osborta — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 23:41:59 GMT

I looked at my more recent picks and, to my amazement, have been wrong 75% of the time in my 60 most recent active picks. This is all the more amazing when you consider that I'm an "All Star" with an 82 rating and 52+% accuracy rating (as of today, anyway). So what that means is that I'm much better at picking long-term success than I am at picking short-term success. That's why I'm not a trader. Investing for the long term is much easier, in m...