campaign finances

the election ramp-up continues to take center stage as the republican front-runner appears to be McCain and the dems are still hashing it out between RHC and Barack O. Interesting study showed hedge fund managers strongly support the democratic party but when donations and contributions to Christopher Dodd's (D-CT) campaign are taken out of the equation, the numbers come back to an almost 50/50 split between GOP and Democrat politicians.

Happy Friday.

DJIA 12,381.02

NASDAQ 2,303.35

SP500 1,353.11

trades of the year

one of the industry rags, Trader Monthly, came out with its best trades of 2007, Paulson's short bet on subprime took the cake but there were several long plays as well, including Atticus making a boat load on a couple of commodity trades. Kudos to them.

Happy Friday.

DJIA 12,348.21

NASDAQ 2,321.80

SP500 1,349.99

higher or lower?

February is off to a bit of a better start than January. The funds in most strategies will attempt to dig themselves out of a hole over the next couple of months.

Markets are poised to make lower lows or are setting up to reverse course and make the sell-off from a few weeks ago look like the bottom of this market. In other words...

Just looking at the charts of the dow, nasdaq and s&p, the markets are either poised to move to lower lows, or are shifting their course after bottoming out a few weeks back and are set to move higher. That is the great thing about the markets. One can predict and forecast and it can all be for naught as the market will just do what it will do. We can stand back and only attempt to get the best part of the moves to the upside or to the downside.

Happy Friday.

DJIA 12,182.13

NASDAQ 2,304.85

SP500 1,331.29

turning on a dime

the market had their best week in years after surviving a brutal January. The fed cut again, subprime losses continue to mount as banks and other financial institutions are forced to mark to market their subprime portfolios of bad loans. The presidential campaigns are humming along as the pretenders continue to drop out of the race and the contenders begin to solidify their places.

The Super Bowl is this Sunday. Tough to know who to cheer for, one has the Pats going for the perfect season, yet on the other hand, one has the underdog Giants, going for an undefeated season away from their home field, Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands. As long as it is a good game, I won't really mind who takes it.

The marketing is starting. With January being so volatile, we missed out on a chance to start off huge or get crippled out of the gates. Water under the bridge. Nuf said. On with it.

Happy Friday.

DJIA 12,743.19

NASDAQ 2,413.36

SP500 1,395.42