Update 12/20

I've been a tad busy this week; my car crapped out on me as well as the usual Xmas rush, sans transportation of course.
Copper ended the week at $3.138 last Friday, and it was the high for the day. I don't like this rangebound stuff; it did'nt go down as I had hoped, and so have absolutely no reason to be in this market any longer. For the life of me I just can't see how it can stay up here with weak construction, a falling stock market and strengthening dollar, but... I'm going to abandon both of these at $3.10 or $3.20.. lets hope it's the former. I'm giving it a little room on the long side just in case of a spike upwards. I will put in an order to sell one contract at $3.02 should we get there, and another at $2.95.

Greece continues to slowly implode; the rate on their ten year bond has gone from 5.01% to 5.80 just this month, with no end in sight. Two of the three ratings agencies have dropped them below A status; if Moodys follows the other two, Greece then loses the right to have its bonds used as collateral by the ECB. Should this happen (a big if) Greece would likely be in default (or crawl on its knees begging to the ECB) within a week or two. Their socialist PM outlined some cuts and freezes earlier in the week, but the markets apparently had no faith in what he said, and he even said "we did not come to power to cut entitlement programs or public service salaries". We'll see about that one. Ultimately a deal gets done with the ECB that will be painful for the Greeks but avoids outright default. Argentina, Latvia, Ukraine and Mexico are next on the plank. Greece's problem is simple.. it's people demand a lot in the way of free services, it's civil servants strike and riot when they don't get their yearly payraises to ever more ridiculous levels, and the Govt simply borrows and borrows to fund it all.