Friday, April 23, 2010

Update 4/23

Unless things change, 12,000 on the DOW is a near certainty. Copper has rallied with the stock markets and so I'm going to cancel any and all orders I still had on copper. There just seems no end in sight to the stock market rally. How is this all translating back to us serfs in the Hooverville ?? It's not.. unemployment is stubbornly high, foreclosures are still setting records and small signs of inflation are creeping in. The Japanese Yen is taking a beating, and so I will again buy one hundred of the ETF YCS, which goes up in value when the Yen goes down. It closed today at $21.64. To do this, I'm going to have to sell one hundred of the two hundred ETF EPU; it settled at twenty cents over what I bought it at and so I'll call it a wash. Here is a summary of my market positions:

ETF YCS (100) Bought at $21.64
ETF IDX (100) Bought at $71.75 (today $74.84)
ETF GXG (100) Bought at $32.40 (today $33.10)
ETF EPU (100) Bought at $34.75 (today $34.96)
ETF VNM (100) Bought at $25.75 (today $26.94)

Greece finally cried "uncle" today and called in the IMF. The EU parlaiments will now take up the measure, which will pass despite loud grumbles and court challenges. Angela Merkel's party will suffer in the elections as a result. In Greece, the IMF will impose more wage and benefit cuts; Greek unions will react with strikes and possibly riots. But in the end, Greece will make it thru year's end. They'll have higher unemployment and it'll be painful for the common Greek serf, who really does'nt deserve whats about to come his way. Portugal's CDS spreads are growing, and we might see victim #2 soon enough. But for today, it looks like a crisis has been averted. In the short term, I honestly see no real imminent danger to the world economy, and the party on world stock markets will continue unabated thru summer at least.

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