2010 Predictions Revisited

Well it's time for the first semester grades on my 2010 Predictions: http://themeanoldinvestor.blogspot.com/2009/12/outlook-for-2010.html

In looking at these now, there are in a bunch of them several different predictions, some of which have come to pass, whilst the other parts of them have not. I'll just give the best grades possible. Here we go !

"Jobs" Bill: Not sure how big, but the politicians are a tad scared about the unemployment rate (and well they should be lest they themselves meet that same fate in the next election). Aid to local governments will also be a part of this to avoid a muni bond implosion. Look for new taxes (trader's tax, etc) to partially pay for this. The healthcare bill might also contain immediate taxes on the wealthy": On this one, I'm going to give myself a "B".. there was a small jobs bill and as we speak a $50 billion aid package to local governments is working its way thru Congress. So far a traders tax has yet to pass, but there are tax hikes in the ObamaCare Bill.

"Another QE: Expect Bernanke to announce another round of MBS purchases in the $600bln range, and perhaps another round of Bond purchases depending on how the roll over rates on short term bonds look. Look for Japan to curtail their rollovers of US debt" On this one (so far) has been a clear miss.. let's give this one a "D" because I feel that another round of QE is indeed coming, but no longer feel that MBS purchases will be part of the plan. As for Japan, their overall levels of US debt have remained essentially unchanged, certainly not the debt dumping I envisioned.

"The FDIC will get another injection of aid from somewhere, likely the Fed, to deal with the bank failures" The FDIC raised their rates and forced big banks to pay years in advance.. but to be precise the Fed did not bail out the FDIC. Lets give this one a "C".

"The Bank of Japan will announce QE in some form, perhaps bond purchases" Hit.. in April the BOJ announced a series of measures to increase liquidity, though so far bond purchases were not among the measures. Again, lets call this a "B".

"The US Gov't deficit will be north of $1.25 trillion" This one was easy.. an "A".

"Unemployment will hover around 11%" It's hovering around ten percent.. and if they would've stopped their endless extensions of unemployment, my 11% would be right on the money. Still.. lets call this one a "C".

"This printing will have an effect somewhere in the world; the "carry trade" will, somewhere, inflate someone's stock market and real estate prices to unrealistic levels. Look for a crash somewhere, likely in Asia. Many other nations have begun to restrict the inflow of money; Taiwan and Brazil to begin with, and the list will probably grow" Well.. on this one, China's stock market and real estate markets have come back to earth; a few nations like Switzerland and Australia have valiantry tried to stem the rise of their currencies or resorted to outright capital controls (Brazil). Lets give this one a "B".

"Look for at least one sovereign default in 2010. Ukraine, Mexico and Greece head this list of shame. They'll get bailed out in one fashion or another, but there will be serious damage done to EU banks in the process. Also refer back to point #7 for other candidates in Asia. These panics will not crash the system, but will scare investors out of equities and back into bonds" This was a clear hit.. "A".

"There will be no recovery back to the good ole days. We are as a nation still WAAAYY too far indebted for this to happen anytime soon,and this will continue for the better part of a decade at the very least" So far go good.. but a decade still to go. "B".

"US Bond rates: There is some $3 trillion in short term bonds that needs to be rolled over in 2010...nevermind the additional $1.25 trillion that Obama will need to borrow. Then we get to the borrowing needs of other nations, other states, other cities all over the world. In short, there is a chance that despite Bernanke's efforts, rates will rise.. unless.. the stock markets take a hit, in which case investors flee stocks and (voila !) begin buying bonds again. A minor panic or two in exotic locales will help encourage yet more investors to once again purchase US bonds" So far there seems to be absolutely no problems funding the deficit; indeed, rates are today at Lehman-era lows. But.. this is due not to a stock crash, but rather a major panic in a very large exotic locale (Europe). Lets give this one a "B".

"Stock market: Because of #10 (bond rates) I fully expect a dandy pullback beginning early in 2010; look for the DOW to sink to at least 9000ish at some point. Lets just hope that it does'nt turn into a stampede for the exits, and there exists that possibility, though I think it won't turn out that way" This has been (so far) a clear miss, especially given the time frame I mentioned. There's still the chance we'll see 9000 in the DOW, but clearly my timing was off here.. lets call this one a "D".

"Commodities: Since I expect a stronger dollar and a sluggish economy (and thus demand for commodities) I see commodities having a down year. Gold will cool off, but I would'nt look for it to get much below $900/oz again" Well, the CRB Index (a broad measure of commodities vs the USD) has gone from 290 at the beginning of the year to 258 today (a roughly 12% retracement), indicating that commods are indeed having a down year. But gold absolutely did not do what I expected, today closing at $1,242. Lets give this one a "B".

"Currencies: When the stock market begins to tank, the USD will strengthen some versus both commodities and other currencies. Bernanke will not allow it to strengthen so much as to bring about deflation, but he will allow it to go up some" A clear hit.. except that Bernanke has yet to attempt to slow the upward swing in the USD, and the stock markets have yet to tank. Lets give this one an "B".

Next year I'm going to try and not make three or four different predictions in the same sentance, muddying the grades. Overall I'll give myself a "B-".

Of War & Depressions

The USS Harry Truman carrier group, along with an Israeli corvette, has arrived off of Iran's shores. The Saudi's have granted the Israelis overfly permission, and rumors (likely true) that Israeli and/or US forces are in both Georgia and Azerbaidjan have ratched up the war rumors that Israel and/or the US is readying an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. But my impression here is that war is unlikely. First, Obama is a peace loving liberal intent on peace, healthcare and crushing taxes for all. Second, he undoubtedly understands that this is a war that could get very messy in a large number of places (neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan) and ways we won't like. Third, wars are expensive propositions.. both in terms of outright military expenditures as well as in the rise in crude prices this would set off.. and remember that $140 crude was the final nail in the coffin in the 2008 financial crisis. War with the US is not necessarily in Iran's interest either.. primarily because Iran itself is likely to wind up with it's infrastructure in rubble and would certainly lose anyways. Even Ahma-need-a-jihad isn't quite that suicidal. Now we get to the tricky part here.. war, especially if the US is involved, actually is in the interests of Israel.. and possibly Saudi Arabia. For Israel, it eliminates the only nuclear threat to their existance.. and any effort expended would be very much well worth the effort. For the Al Saud monarchy, the same thing.. elimination of a nuclear armed jihadi state next door. For them to give permission for the hated Zionists to fly over and attack a fellow Muslim nation is really quite a big step. There also remains the threat of an "accidental" war.. when large, hostile fleets and air armadas warily circle and test each other, one mistake could lead to.. but it's my impression that all of this is simply a show of the flag intented to intimidate Iran rather than attack. So far, it does'nt appear to be working.. nor will it. They will continue on their nuclear program until it is blown up, and I seriously doubt Obama has the stomach for it, despite Netanyahu's attempts to draw him in.

Today Paul "prints-a-lot" Krugman of the NY Times came out with an article declaring the beginning of the Third Depression because governments worldwide are refusing to print and/or borrow their way out of their crushing debts. He specifically hit at the Republicans who nixed an attempt to yet again extend unemployment benefits. Zerohedge today came out and said that this will result in the immediate termination of benefits for 1.3 million people, sending the unemployment rate up past 10.5% again as these workers will now be job seekers instead of those counted as "discouraged workers". The unemployment rate as it's calculated now is a joke. The old measurement, called the U6 measurement, is much more accurate.. and currently stands at around 18%. Nonetheless, Krugman's hypothesis isn't inaccurate.. what he (and Bernanke) fear is a deflationary depression, and several examples can be found of late.. the ugliest one is in Latvia, where deflation has ravaged the nation and a full blown Depression is in play. But his answer.. print, borrow, spend.. is exactly how Greece, Ireland and the rest of southern Europe came to collapse. The overall truth here is that these nations, and in most industrialized nations including the US, are vastly overindebted. There are but three ways out: deflationary depression, inflationary depression, or default. None of these ways will avoid a depression; it's only the flavor it takes that differs. Make no mistake.. this is coming to our shores. But before it arrives here, Europe and likely Japan will taste the misery of Depression. Between 1935 and 1980, the Debt-GDP ratio of the US was a steady 150%.. that is to say our total debts equaled one and a half year's total production. Today the figure stands at about 375%.. and this does not include the promises we've made to our seniors for Social Security and Medicare. Then we come to ObamaCare, which I predict will never ever actually happen.

July 1st is going to be an interesting day in Europe.. it's on that day that the Euro Central Bank ends their "Long Term Refinancing Operation", or LTRO. It has allowed EU banks to borrow from the ECB, thus providing liquidity to these banks. It was a €442 billion operation.. ie.. very large. Unfortunately for some.. ie Spanish, Greek and Portugese banks.. it's end comes at a time when pretty much no other banks are willing to lend to them. As losses pile up and liquidity drys up, these banks could be in real trouble, leading to yet more problems in the Eurozone and a further rise in the LIBOR (this is the interest rate that banks charge each other for loans; the higher the rate, the less they trust each other. At some point they simply stop answering each other's calls.. this is what nearly crashed our own system in Sept '08). Here's a link to ZH's article on this dangerous trend: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/t-minus-7-days-libor-induced-liquidity-crunch

Ben's Migraine

A series of really bad economic reports have come out in the last two weeks, all indicating that deflation and fear have got the real economy in a vice grip and is cranking down hard.

* Yesterday we got the existing home sales report; it was expected to be down because the tax credit for first time home buyers had ended, and boy were they right: May existing home sales plunged far below expectations, coming in at an annualized -2.2% rate, compared to consensus of +6.0%, and a revised 8% in April.

* Then today we get the new housing numbers, which were also expected to be bad, and oh baby were they: New home sales plunged by an unprecedented 32.7%, nearly double the expected -18.7, compared to a previous reading of 14.7%. The median sales price of new houses sold in May 2010 was $200,900, lowest since December 2003, and drop of 9.6% YoY. This number represented the worst plunge on record.

* In an attempt to punish those who simply walked away from their mortgages, Fannie today announced that they will no longer back the mortgages of strategic defaulters: "it won't back new mortgage loans for seven years for homeowners who walk away from their mortgages although they were able to pay or did not seek a workout in good faith with their lender." This is an outstanding way to ensure that perhaps a million people who are employed and are looking to repurchase homes at a lower price will be effectively locked out of the housing markets. This should help the above listed home sales numbers in the months to come like gasoline does a forest fire.

* The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for May, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $362.5 billion, a decrease of 1.2 percent from the previous month. This is 14%/year if this keeps up. Bernanke hated this report.

* The Baltic Dry Index, which measures shipping tonnage and thus manufacturing and trade activity, fell 3.5% in May, the sixth month in a row it's declined and the steepest monthly decline since early 2009. This is a very important measurement of how the economy is doing; many economists list this index as well as railroad traffic indices (which are also declining) as the most important of all statistics printed.

* Only half of small businesses that tried to borrow last year got all or most of what they needed, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. In the mid-2000s, 90% of businesses said they got the loans they needed. The requests banks are getting these days are "disproportionately from businesses that we would have a difficult time lending to with confidence we'd get the money back," says Marc Bernstein, who heads small-business lending at Wells Fargo & Co. This is their way of saying "it's simply easier and safer to loan to Uncle Sam than risk loaning to a business in this sh!tty environment".

* Europe: Portugal's 5 year auction which came in at 4.657%, almost a full percentage point worse compared to the last auction on May 26, which closed at an average yield of 3.70%. Markit reporting that Greek Bund Spreads have suddenly exploded by 65 bps to 776, the highest since May 7, and inches away from the all time record of 900 bps, even as CDS blows out to over 900 bps. The Greek 5-Year Bond reached a yield of 10.77 percent. The Greeks, Portuguese and Spanish Governments should just get on with the end game here.. default and be done with it. With these rates, Greece has essentially been frozen out of the credit markets; Portugal and Spain are rapidly approaching Athenian levels of credit worthlessness, if not their levels of sheer incompetence in government and book keeping skills. European (especially Spanish) banks are not able to get interbank loans except through the ECB. This alone is a really bad sign.

* The ten year US Bond is nearing a record low of 3.1%; this is happening because of fear in the markets which cause people to pile into US Gov't Bonds and out of other riskier asset classes. This sucks cash out from the real economy as investors are less and less willing to loan to or invest in anything not backed by Uncle Sam.

Any one of these would've warranted an article from me; all of them together are a sign that things are going south much faster than even the doomsayers anticipated, much of this caused by deflation and flagging confidence. Ben Bernanke, flask in hand washing down fistfulls of ibuprofin pills, will not sit idly by for long. The money helicopters are being fueled up as we speak; caution to those of you who are long the USD. I kinda think we might see some sort of Lehman-era business lending facility reinstated. I can also see him dipping into the Muni Bond markets to give state and local governments a helping hand as well.

Spanish Inquisition

IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan is flying to Spain "to discuss global economic developments with the Prime Minister, and to consult with him on developments in Spain, including the government's economic policies and reforms" according to Reuters. The last time the IMF sent a delegation to a country was on April 15th when the IMF together with representatives from the EU and ECB took a jaunt over to Athens. A month later the country was insolvent. I can't wait for the official denial that this visit has nothing to do with the frozen Spanish liquidity market.. interbank lending to the Caja's and most Spanish banks are essentially non-existant from what ZH is saying. An auction of Spanish debt yesterday underlined how fast the situation is deteriorating. Yields on one-year debt reached 2.45pc compared to 0.9pc as recently as April, suggesting that the markets do not view the EU's €750bn rescue shield as credible.
Francisco Gonzalez, chairman of BBVA, stunned investors earlier this week by admitting that "the majority of the Spanish companies and financial groups are shut out of the international capital markets". There was a tidbit (I can't find it) earlier today that someone in Brussels said that Spain and Portugal need far deeper spending cuts. The Euro and equities had it's nice run up this week; weak speculator shorts had their peepee's whacked; central bankers smiled at their pain; CNBC convinced a few more suckers into buying stocks. When news of Ms.Strauss-Khan's visit hits the airwaves, this could all crumble apart. Look towards the overnight European markets for some guidance here. In the meantime, I'm going to put in an order to "sell" one Euro contract at $1.2295 at tomorrow's open with a one cent stop loss just in case I'm wrong. My guess.. there's more to this Inquisition than "government policies and reforms". Keep an eye on the LIBOR.

5pm: The Euro started out weak, but made a small comeback, ending the day at $1.2315 and so I'm now short one Euro from $1.2295. Today was amazingly quiet given the events surrounding Spain. As many have commented, the stock markets in New York have nothing to do with reality and exist in a parallel reality ruled by computers & algorithms. Meanwhile more news of Spain: "A European Commission spokesman today “firmly” denied a Spanish press report that Spain was in negotiations with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury for a credit line of up to E250 billion" Uh, yeah. Tomorrow will be the auction of Spanish Government 10 and 30 year bonds.. my prediction is that it'll go off just fine, thanks to the chain smoking, shady, trenchcoat wearing dude in the very rear of the auction wearing a "Jean Claude's Friend" emblem on one lapel and "I Love Brussels" on the other. If nobody else buys at the appointed rates, this surly gent will surely snap up what remains. And here you were thinking Cancer Man was just a TV character. me

Update 6/12

Equities have had a nice week.. no major drama, nice upswing, a few nice economic reports. CNBC wants you to just keep believing.. and buying. But as I reiterated last week, the signs of deflation are creeping in and I continue to believe something will have to be done at some point; May's retail sales report was brutal, confirming that people have less and less to spend. Whilst Wall Street continues to rally and profits impress, life out here in Main Street is still tough, with parts of the country in an outright Depression. The Senate passed yet another extension of unemployment benefits, and well they should.

The state of New York, faced with a severe budget crisis and finding itself having to pay into pension funds that had taken severe losses, came to a conclusion yesterday to the pension funding problem: "ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders have tentatively agreed to allow the state and municipalities to borrow nearly $6 billion to help them make their required annual payments to the state pension fund" Who are they borrowing from you ask ? They will borrow the money to make the payments to the pension fund — from the same pension fund. This should tell you all you need to know about the state of New York's finances. Local and state governments are doing this sort of shell game nationwide. Part of the problem is government employee unions, which have ensured that all government employees get lavish healthcare and retirement plans.. all guaranteed by your tax money. These healthcare and pension plans are a big reason why city, county and state governments are in such catastrophic shape. Call me a paranoid, but these kind of shell games can only have one ending. Two measures were introduced recently in this area.. one was a bill that would make the Federal Government guarantee all Union employee pension plans (the Casey Bill).. Obama has been silent on this one as he realizes the moment it's signed, most Unions will immediately ask for pension bailouts. The other was in California, where a measure calling on the State of California to guarantee these overly generous pension and healthcare benefits from county and city employees in case the city or county declares bankruptcy. The Governator last I heard opposes this measure, but he will be out of office if and/or when it reaches the Governator's desk. Democratic Gov candidate Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown supports this lunacy; I'm not sure on GOP governatorial candidate Carly Fiorina's stance, though I imagine she opposes it. A huge number of cities and counties nationwide made grandiose promises to it's employees and citizens, believing that tax revenues would never go downwards. Then property prices (and thus tax revenues) plunged in 2008/2009. Whoops. Then throw in the massive increases needed in social programs like food stamps and welfare. This "Muni Debacle" is just getting started, folks.. and somethin's gotta give.

Onto the Gulf oil spill.. it looks like BP is making progress on stopping the leak and is catching more and more of the oil that is already spilled. While good news, the damage already done is going to be enormous. The gulf stream is going to carry this blob past the Florida Keys and around to the east coast. Miami's South Beach will, in a month or two, become TarBlob Beach, doing enormous damage to the tourist industry and property values, both residential and commercial. It'll reach Tampa within a few weeks. This will creep up the Carolina's coasts and possibly into Chesapeake Bay, very near Washington DC itself. In Britain, BP's demise will hit the English hard; many pension funds and investors are going to take a big hit when BP goes under, which it will. In the little town next to mine, the local BP station has graffiti on the building and the green sign showing the prices and I'd wager that the other local gas stations are seeing upturns in business as pissed locals avoid BP.. and I'm in Minnesota, 1500 miles away from this mess. The environmental damage will be incalculable. But at this point there is no alternative.. fossil fuels are used for everything these days, agriculture especially. For the leftist green nutcases who are screaming the loudest, please lead the way and ditch your car, get a bike, and quit eating anything with grains and get back to me. This time in history will be remembered as the Age of Oil. At some point, we will have to make a transition, which can be done. In Michael Ruppert's film "Collapse" (which I think is a tad paranoid) it does mention the case of Cuba, which was entirely dependent on the Soviet Union for it's gas and energy needs.. and then the Soviet Union collapsed and the gas stopped flowing. The Cuban govenrment and people, faced with a catastrophic economic situation, enacted a plan whereby everyone was asked to grow their own food and stock seed; seed was handed out; even rooftops in Havana were used. After a few very tough years, the Cubans actually began to eat much healthier food and even began exporting excess foods. It can be done, and in time it will have to be.

9am: Well well.. something gave on the Muni Debacle front: "President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery". In regards to my trades, I'm going to remove all stops on my short copper trade; this will be the trade I hold until I'm filthy rich (or bankrupt).

Update 6/9

The last few days have been relatively quiet; equities have held up relatively well, no major drama. This is encouraging, but I continue to feel that this is the lull before the storm. I still believe we'll see 9,000 in the DOW before summer's out; the Euro I feel will go lower vs the USD; I still see Bernanke acting to stop the deflation before too long. Bernanke gave testimony today saying that there is a moderate recovery going, which I very highly doubt.. and I think he does also, but he can't come out and tell the truth as it would cause a crash. Stay alert here, and bet deflation.. but keep tight stops. There are unsettling news about the level of support the European Central Bank is giving to Eurozone banks and to sovereign bonds to keep them afloat; look for this to continue.

Going with the deflation theme, I'm going to exit my long silver at tomorrow's open for a small profit; silver was hammered today. I'll look to re-enter long when it goes under $17, which I'm thinking should be in the next couple of weeks.. unless Bernanke acts. My short copper is doing very well, especially today when it was "leaked" that China (who buys nearly half of the world's copper) would have a very good exports report.. and still copper sank a few cents. Three weeks ago such news would've sent copper rocketing upwards.

5pm 6/10: Got out of silver at the wrong time of the wrong day. I exited on the open $18.05.. and it promptly went up thirty cents/oz and would up at $18.35. So much for deflation and lower stock markets.. still, as I bought silver at $17.25/oz, I've made eighty cents/oz on a contract of 5,000 ounces.. a total of $4,000 profit.

Deflation

There have been some disturbing signs of late of deflation, and I'll try to explain this: Simply put, the amount of money going back into the banks is surpassing the amount going out, thus making the value of the currency increase as less and less of it is in circulation. This is something Bernanke hates; it makes it much harder for the average serf and small business to get credit. Bernanke has tried desperately to keep Fed Fund rates low in an attempt to avoid just this. Most banks are simply not loaning to people or businesses; they're already overleveraged and so the only entity they're loaning to is Uncle Sam. In a report a couple of weeks ago, Ambrose noticed "The stock of money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6pc.. the steepest decline since the Depression. The assets of insitutional money market funds fell at a 37pc rate, the sharpest drop ever" Here's a chart showing the value of the US Dollar: http://quotes.ino.com/chart/index.html?s=NYBOT_DX&t=&a=&w=&v=dmax

For you and me, in some ways, this is good.. prices are coming down. Notice that gas is only around $2.50/gal ?? This is why. But whilst you and I rejoice, businesses cringe.. unable to get bigger (or any) lines of credit from the banks and being forced to lower prices to be competetive, many are going under. Deflation is the prime reason the unemployment rate is not budging.. and if you look at the real unemployment number (the U6 measurement) is still going higher. Not since the Depression has a lower percentage of American adults been employed. As deflation begins to bite, the amount of money in circulation will continue to constrict, making it harder and harder for consumers to consume and for businesses to expand.. and the economy slowly but surely collapses in on itself. Deflation was what made the Depresson so awful.. nobody had any cash to loan or borrow. Unemployment skyrocketed.

Bernanke, as a student of the Great Depression, knows this.. it's his deepest, darkest fear. He once said he'd shovel money out of helicopters rather than allow deflation. Based on his actions since the Lehman crisis, I have no doubt that he's a man of his word. Therefore I fully expect, in short order.. perhaps by the end of summer.. for The Fed to reinstate some form of the Lehman era business lending facility or some other way to inject cash into the system. Larry Summers has talked about another stimulus as well, though this will be less effective and certainly not enough to stop the deflation train. Not all members of the Federal Reserve are on board with this; Thomas Hoenig from Kansas City is a staunch anti-inflation guy and has stubbornly resisted keeping interest rates this low for this long. I expect Bernanke to win out; expect something soon.

Update 6/4

Today was going to be a bad day even before the bell rang; Hungary, which owes about $175bln in foreign debts of various kinds, this morning threatened to default. Most of this debt is held by European (Austrian in particular) banks and their waifer thin leverage ratios. Their currency was in free fall, further exaserbating the problem. The IMF has already been there for two years.. and now this. Then before the bell came the NFP employment numbers.. and they were ugly. The markets went on to lose about 3% of their value today. The Euro broke thru the Swiss Bank's defensive line and ended the day just south of $1.20, likely on it's way to at least $1.15.

7am: Will be selling one copper contract at $2.94 and another at $2.88, both with a five cent trailing stop. Will also be be buying one silver contract at $17.25 open and another at $19.00, both with a one dollar trailing stop. I'm on my way to work now, but will make a fancy post later today. Will exit YCS on open as a way to make the margins work. I'll keep IDX on a short $2.00 trailing stop leash.

5pm: Busy day.. first, my YCS exited at four cents above where I bought it.. a gain of $4, which was promptly used at Starbucks. Copper hit both of my "sell" points and ended the day at $2.82, which was a very nice day for me; I still think copper will hit $2.50 before it's said and done. Silver also hit my "buy" at $17.25, went up a ways then came back down, ending at $17.29. IDX was stopped out at $66.50 for a profit of $150. My "buy" order of SPXU also hit it's $36.00 mark, with SPXU winding up the day at $36.50. So to recap:

Long one Silver from $17.25 (one dollar stop loss)

Short one Copper from $2.94 (fifteen cent stop loss)

Short one Copper from $2.88 (fifteen cent stop loss)

Bought one hundred SPXU @ 36.00 (two dollar stop loss)

Update 6/1

The short S&P etf SPXU hit my buy point of $36.00 and closed today at $36.38. My long Indonesian etf IDX is still hanging tough, but I must say I'm getting nervous about anything long and I'm keeping my tight two cent trailing stop, which would put my stop point at $65.50, and I think we'll see this tomorrow as the markets ended the day at the lows. I'm still of the mind that we'll see 9,000 in the DOW by autumn. My short Euro etf DRR had a decent day, though it was rumored a central bank intervention stopped the Euro from tanking further. It seems that for whatever reason the Euro is unable to break south of $1.22, thererfore I'm going to exit the DRR trade on tomorrow's open.

Update 6pm:

I exited DRR at the open $56.52, near the day's high.. a profit here of $80. 00
I was stopped out of the SPXU at $34.00.. loss of $200.00
I'm going to redo my SPXU trade.. "buy" one hundred at $36.00, stop loss two dollars.
I'm also going to purchase one hundred YCS (short yen) on the open tomorrow with a two dollar stop loss; the expected new Japanese PM is known to favor Zimbabwe-esque money printing.