Crash Market Stocks - Financial Tips On Making Money In The Stock Market

In doing this site, I have come across some great sites on a variety of different subjects. So, I decided it would be good for me to host a Stock Market Carnival on the site. For those of you that don't know, a carnival on the web is just a collection of different stock related articles that I have reviewed and my personal thoughts on them. I will give the link of the specific article and my personal thoughts on them. Feel free to check them out as there are some great resources out there. I will be giving my daily write up, as usual, after the close. On a side note, take advantage of some great currency trading in this market. If you do decide it's for you, I would highly recommend Forexmentor.com.


So lets kick this thing into gear. There were some great sites submitted. Feel free to check out the ones you are interested in:

Investing
Investing School presents 52 Must Read Quotes from Legendary Investor - Warren Buffett posted at Investing School. Indeed Warren Buffett is a legend and has been calling this crisis for over a year now. Good reference site for some of his greatest quotes.

The Investor presents Seven surprising things you may not know about Warren Buffett posted at Monevator. Another Warren Buffett reference. If you are interested in reading in on his past, this a good article for you. Not many fundamentals regarding today's trading, however.

Aussie presents Watching What Fund Managers Are Buying And Selling posted at Australian Stock Market Blog. This is a pretty interesting article on tracking hedge funds. It is dealing with the Australian market, but is applicable to our market and is beneficial for those trading in emerging market funds like EEV.

Michael Cintolo presents Compelling Action From This Potential Leader posted at The Iconoclast Investor. This is a short article on a stock Thoratec. It is brief, but I didn't know much about the stock to begin with. I plan on looking more into the stock.

Sandy Naidu presents Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme posted at FutureNestEgg. This is a great little article breaking down the Madoff Ponzi scheme. If you are still wondering what went on there, great little summary here.

Tristan presents Insider Dealing vs Insider Investing posted at Find Financial Freedom. This is a great little article comparing Insider Dealing with Insider Investing. Worth checking out, a good little read.

Financial Planning
MBB presents Steps To Become A Millionaire posted at Money Blue Book Finance. This is a great article giving some good, overall personal finance tips. It's a bit lengthy, but you can definitely extract some good points from it.

Joe Manausa presents What Is A RSS Subscription | Tallahassee Real Estate Blog posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog. A quick reference of how to subscribe to blogs. It may be basic to some of you, but some people are still struggling how to figure that out. A good quick read.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents How To Become A Millionaire In 10 Steps Flat posted at The Digerati Life. A site discussing some steps to become a millionaire. I don't know if it will work, but maybe you'll find something to get you there. A quick read.

RL presents Are You Managing Your Debt Correctly? | Rich Credit Debt Loan posted at Rich Leverage. A great article on managing debt. This is definitely critical in today's market, worth reading.

Credit Shout presents Financial Planning for Retirement posted at CreditShout. A great post on retirement planning. This is something I always try reinforce its importance. Check it out.

Stock Market
Ryan Suenaga presents Market Timing: Twice as Hard as Previously Thought posted at Uncommon Cents. This won't knock your feet off, but it's a real quick read on playing tops and bottoms. We know how important that has been in this market.

Richard Taylor presents 2 Good Things About the Stock Market Crash of 2008 posted at Fun With Living Blog. Some interesting points about how to deal with the current low levels of stocks in today's market.

Surfer Sam presents NEW !! Best Stock Picks of the Decade !! posted at Surfer Sam and Friends. Some good stocks to keep in mind during the upswing of the market. Who knows when that is coming.

Well, there it is. I would like to thank those that submitted and encourage everyone to keep writing worthwhile information. We cannot compile enough information in today's market. Please vote for your favorite in leaving a comment below. I would like to get some feedback from you. I hope everyone is doing well during today's trading. It is moving just as we talked about in yesterday's post. We will see you again at the wrap up.

Despite it being Black Friday and the short trading day due to the holiday, we were still able to see some gains, closing at 8829. So as a whole, we ended the week pretty strongly, thanks to some pretty influencing announcements, the bullish season, and some global support. We could see this rally continue into next week, considering the momentum behind it, especially if we begin to see some resolve with the GM fiasco. With that, it could even be a strong rally, despite the state of our economy. Those like me in some long options, should see some big gains in them if we see this aggressive bear market rally aggressively push towards 9500.

However, a new month brings new economic data, which as recent months have shown us, can be very depressing. Also, we may find some pretty disappointing numbers from Black Friday, even with the enormous price slashes we have seen this year. In any case, I believe this rally will be short lived.

China experienced some hiccups today, dealing with their central bank. As a result, FXP and EEV ended up with the bunch, which hopefully they will make a trend of. I still make my case that it doesn't matter what announcement anybody makes, if the banks aren't lending money, our markets and economy are frozen. And there are no signs of any relief anytime soon.

This bear market rally offers a great opportunity to buy into some short positions if you haven't already. It is when people believe that the worst is over and we are hit with devastating news that causes true panic. Like a thief in the night. Some people feel that we have "factored" in the bad news to our current market, so that now there is nowhere to go but up. I couldn't disagree more. I believe a lot of people are naive to the problems going on across the world. It is easy to forget, especially during this time of holiday cheer. Things that happen in the corporate and business world, usually do not effect the consumer until 4-6 months later. The news out there should not frighten us, but instead prompt us to prepare ourselves. Not only by altering our stock positions, which I talk of mostly on this site, but also altering our lifestyles, to not fall victim to this crisis. One of my goals of this site is to incorporate all aspects of being financially prepared and balanced to hopefully help you as it has helped me to find gain and stability during a tough market. You will see more of these tips as time goes on.

I did begin a new position in SRS at $120. I did not buy in too much, as I feel we may still rally into December, giving me more opportunity to load up on SRS at lower prices. In my opinion, the retail disaster that will come in 2009 will be something we haven't seen in most people's lifetime. With the housing growth bubble, many national retailers leveraged themselves very highly to try and keep up, opening numerous locations in sub par markets. Heck, haven't you seen the Starbucks right across the street from each other? What were they thinking? In doing so, many retailer's cash liquidity has been reduced to almost nothing. Having no cash in this market is a straight road to bankruptcy. As a result, SRS should continue to grow back to high numbers in my opinion. I think these effects will have strong influences on EEV and FXP as well.

Another thing to consider when dealing with EEV and FXP is the goal the US will have for the next few years to stimulate job growth. Expect Obama to give many to incentives to businesses and manufacturers for keeping their production and laborers with the US, in attempt to lower our net imports from other nations and stimulate job growth within the US. Other nations should follow suit, especially big players like Germany, Great Britain, and Russia. For nations like India and China, this could cause big problems. Much of their business comes from their exports to other nations. Due to the size of their population, this has been essential for them to continue to grow and expand. I can't see them recovering very quickly with having been involved in so many other economies. This is why I choose to short emerging markets and China. While their growth was 2 times the normal during good times, I believe it will be the same for th bad times. These are just my thoughts on the issue. Take it as you will.

In any case, we ended the week up, which we haven't seen us do in a while. Like I've said before, this may continue into next week and even into most of December, as holiday shopping usually brings out the bulls. However, try to remind yourself of our economic conditions and the things we discuss on this site when thinking of what to buy. This market is still vulnerable to quick movement swings, so try not to get greedy. For me, I finally just have to force myself to sell and take profits even though my conscience may prod me to leave it in longer. Many times I am grateful I did so. I hope everyone has had a good Thanksgiving weekend and we will see what the new month will bring us on Monday. Thank you for the donations, it is much appreciated and thanks to those that participate in the site. I always enjoy others insights and comments. Happy Trading.

Kermit The Frog said it best when he said, "it's not easy being green." Christmas came early today for the bulls, as we saw government intervention all across the world. It must be everyone's holiday cheer. Even with some of the worst economic data we have received all year, we were still able to close at 8726. We expected this rally, however, I personally felt that it would come more aggressively in a smaller time frame, than spread out into more days. This was the exact reason why I held on to most of my long options, and good thing. The November and December months have a history of ignoring outside data and bulling forward. The big question is, will it last? My thoughts, even after today, are NOT A CHANCE!



By now, many of you may think I am just a pessimist, and I'm not, I swear. I have made just as much money on the long side than I have short. There are just too many reasons that exist to make me feel comfortable with going long again. Sure, we had some great rallies this week, and you know what, I think it will continue for a bit. But there is too much hype derived by speculative announcements and mythical figures to be anything solid.

China made a HUGE rate cut, which of course is going to send them flying a day or two. Europe also joined in the cheer by adding more money to the bailout pile. These two announcements of course killed FXP and EEV for today. Which with those two, I just have to sit back and wait. It could be December; it could be January. But I'm still backing them 100%. Cheers to the people that are just starting to buy these at their low rates!

Many agree this rally may continue for another 1000 points or so, so those of you skeptical about shorting, you may want to wait another week. However, if you miss the boat, don't blame it on me. However, most also agree that we have not hit bottom and that the rally will end with an even worse sell off. So I will just utilize this time to make even more money on my long options until we see it come down again. In the midst of all this green, I'd like to give my five reasons I am thankful I'm short on this Thanksgiving week.

1) This Is A Global Recession
These days we're in aren't like the recessions of the 70's-90's, where we are feeling an isolated recession, and we can look to other flourishing countries to help bail us out. It's everyone for themselves right now. With our economy now being a global economy, this does not give us many to people to go to for temporary relief. All nations are feeling pain right now. Although, most people may seem optimistic of China, China is struggling. Several Chinese toy companies, which is a prominent trade for China, have either shut down or have laid off several employees. Yesterday, there was a huge riot of employees claiming they had been wronged. Get use to seeing that.

2) The Warren Buffett Farm Analogy
A couple months ago, the all wise Warren Buffett gave a great analogy to what is going on with our nation's economic position. He said, "We're like a very rich family; we own a farm the size of Texas but want to consume more" than the farm generates, he said. "Every day, we sell off or mortgage a piece of the farm."

If the policy continues, over time, the rest of the world "will own more of our farm" and future generations will resent that they spend part of their workweek paying off those costs of consumption, he said. We have been mortgaging off our "farm" for years now and our national debt proves it. There is no way the government can conjure up all the money needed to free Americans from our debt dilemma. Pretty soon, us as Americans are going to be feeling this first hand.

3) Housing Market Leads The Way
Today's housing announcement should have shown everyone just how bad of a position we are still in and should be in for quite some time. The point is, even if it turned into a buyers market tomorrow, it would take us 6 years just to buy all the inventory that is currently on the market, without bringing in new inventory. Housing prices have a direct correlation with consumer sentiment. No one likes to know the value of their house (usually people's main source of equity) has been cut in half. Everyone now feels they are invincible to foreclosure and bills, thanks to Uncle Sam. This is not the case. A majority of people will not be bailed out of their mortgages and credit card bills. Once this sets in and creditors come knocking, this sediment will charge downward. The housing market led us into this crisis and I believe it will lead us out.

4) Many Hedge Funds Not In The Market
There is a lot of money still sitting on the sidelines. In fact, most hedge funds still are sitting on the sidelines. Despite the rally today, the volume was very low. This is not the sign of a turnaround. A lot of the market is being dictated by uneducated yahoos, feeding off emotion. It is no wonder there is no correlation in the market right now. So why are hedge funds sitting on the sidelines or staying very conservative? I think because they know we've still got a ways to go.

5) No Banks and No Money
Last, but probably most important, No money! Nobody can get money right now. Most American business buy their inventory on margin (or on loan). With the big drop in sales, many retailers cannot make their margins to buy new inventory. This is what exactly happened to Mervyn's. This is also the problem with small business owners, real estate owners, joint venture funds, commercial REITS, Insurance and pension funds and others. When the financial markets went away, these all went away. If you talk to any banks, especially in their underwriting department, you will find that they don't plan on giving out many loans for a while now. This lack of liquidity will continue to hammer down on our economy.

These are the main reason I cannot jump on the green band wagon. Even though I am hurting in my shorts, I will just wait. I am making great money in my long positions and will look to liquidate those, probably next week. I was able to begin my SRS purchasing today. I will continue to buy SRS if it continues to go down. Q1 2009 should be a horrible quarter for retail sales and real estate owners. If you want to be long, for comfort, I like VMW, VZ, DIG, and GDX (these are most that I am in). We will continue to get more "Obama promises", but as conditions continue to get worse in the US, and these problems begin to hit people's homes, we as a county will become a lot more skeptical. I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and has something to be thankful for. Have a good rest of the week and Happy Trading.