Market reflections January 24, 2009

1. The teaching is good in our new state-of-the-art college building at Fort Leavenworth. Everyday as I walk to the new building I go past the old building which is being demolished. I’ve been watching the wrecking ball taking apart beautiful building and I can’t help but noticing how quickly the heavy ball takes apart the work of many months of skilled craftsmen to put together the old building brick by brick.  It sure is coming down a lot faster than it went up. But these days, but times change quickly and we are adapting to the new educational requirements. The old rules no longer apply. But the same attention to detail and level of professional craftsmanship which enabled the first building to weather Kansas storms for 60 years went into the making of the new building from which I take a great deal of comfort when the tornadoes blow across the Kansas plains.

2. I can’t help but think as I listen to the news coming out of Washington DC a spending bill after spending bill commits our future stream of income into pursuits would not be supported by the free markets and pure capitalists. I still have the sinking feeling that the best case for us 20 to 30 years of zero real growth in the Japanese model at our current rate of mortgaging the future.

3. Meanwhile the market lurches along in their normal mode, volatility which had decreased from historic highs is slowly on the rise once more and oil has apparently found support and is quietly climbing northwards and only gold seems to have any kind of staying power is money off from sector to sector in search of temporary security. It is precisely at times like these that the discipline of daily and weekly review of technical indicators helps me keep my judgment calibrated in these unusual times. Keep your powder dry and your risk managed and your eyes on the prize.

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