Financial Sense Blog

This morning, the Census Bureau announced that advance retail & food services sales for January rose by 0.3%, far outpacing the consensus call for a 0.3% decline. Excluding motor vehicles and parts dealers sales (“ex-autos”), the gain was 0.3%, also better than the 0.2% increase that was expected.

Few things are more annoying to the average S&P trader than the dreaded overnight gaps which have become more prevalent since volatility in this market increased. Equally frustrating are the magical numbers that define these moves and the implication that “They” know somethi

A recent Pravda headline stated, “USA absolutely defenseless against possible attack from Russia or China.” Of course, this headline seems ludicrous to most Americans. But there is nothing ludicrous about it. In 1998 a leading Russian military defector told me that Russia and China could combine to defeat the United States in a future war.

Just as the equity markets were pushing into their anticipated turn point in late January, the Fed makes a 75 basis point cut of the Discount rate. This was the most aggressive rate cut since August of 1982. The very next week at the regularly scheduled Fed meeting they cut yet another 50 basis points.

European Central Bank chief, Jean “Tricky” Trichet, likes to operate behind a veil of “Smoke and Mirrors” in managing the Euro zone’s monetary policy, which is designed to fool most people, most of the time.

At the risk of sounding like a Dana Carvey parody of the first President Bush, I believe the concept of “staying the course” in commodity-related stocks is still the place to be in 2008. I promise not to refer to “a thousand points of light.” Wall Street is always looking for new flavors of the month to push, but that is not a reason to abandon the commodities sector, especially energy and precious metals.

At the Danielcode we seem to have attracted a large number of hugely enthusiastic traders from Financial Sense readers, many with the same problem; the lack of a simple trading plan. The number of people who ask me "How do I trade the Danielcode" which on more discussion turns out to really mean "How do I trade" is evidence of the growth of interest in trading markets.

The cleverly titled Wall Street Journal column, “Gazprom Drills Deeper Into Europe,” explains how the Russian energy giant (Gazprom) is invading Western retail energy markets. While Russian bombers and warships conduct war exercises in the Atlantic, the real 2008 Russian Winter Offensive is along economic lines.