Participating in any type of market is a humbling experience. This market is even more humbling. You don’t have to be hard on yourself.

Tomorrow you could be proven right.

Deleting brackets now!…

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OK, the 10:23 edit attempt:

“Any plan that helps homeowners, or prop up the prices of actual homes and other properties (the underlying assets, the implosion of which is the primary cause of the blowing up of the MASSIVELY leveraged derivatives based on those underlying assets, which in total value PALE in comparison to the leveraged vehicles).”

should have read:

“Any plan that helps homeowners, or prop up the prices of actual homes and other properties (the underlying assets, the implosion of which is the primary cause of the blowing up of the MASSIVELY leveraged derivatives based on those underlying assets, which in total value PALE in comparison to the leveraged vehicles) WILL SAVE the derivatives, and THUS the MARKETS.

There should have been a inside the quotation marks in the immediate above revision. They were deleted in submission. Don’t know why.

Inside the “” above, should have been (somehow got deleted when submitting the comment…):

should have read, etc…

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should have read:

Any plan that helps homeowners, or prop up the prices of actual homes and other properties (the underlying assets, the implosion of which is the primary cause of the blowing up of the MASSIVELY leveraged derivatives based on those underlying assets, which in total value PALE in comparison to the leveraged vehicles) WILL SAVE the derivatives, and THUS the MARKETS.

What ever step is taken (if government funds indeed should be used in this “crisis”) will involve ARTIFICIALLY PROPPING UP something. Given this, artificially propping up the prices of the underlying assets WILL, for all practical purposes, WILL SOLVE the problem. Again, it’s the EXPLOSION of the MASSIVE LEVERAGE of the derivatives BASED on the implosion of the underlying assets that is the problem. If the leverages weren’t so ABSURD, this would be NOWHERE near the crisis that it is. You “save” the underlying assets, at a much lower cost, and you save the derivatives. Simple. If Paulson, Bernanke, et al, SERIOUSLY wanted to “save the economy,” this is what they would’ve done to begin with. They are not stupid. On the contrary, they are extremely smart, and using this engineered crisis to put through their unprecedented transfer of wealth upwards was their goal from the very beginning, with NO intention of truly “solving” the problem.

If one truly wants to “save the economy,” this lowering of mortgage rates is ONE STEP towards doing so. Others would involve loan modifications, injunctions on foreclosures, etc. YES, these would be ARTIFICIALLY PROPPING UP of property prices (the underlying assets), but what the government is doing NOW is ARTIFICIALLY PROPPING UP banks – in fact, many, if not most, of these banks would NOT EXIST today, sans the TRILLIONS of $ that they are getting for what has been to-date worthless junk as collateral.

This, therefore, if it actually comes to pass, would be the most IMPORTANT step taken supporting a potential recovery of the markets that we have had to date, IN SPITE of the TRILLIONS of $ that have already been LITERALLY WASTED (obviously not for the bankers).

A few points on Tony:

1. His “Flags at half mast”, “Crash Helmets required” and “Rogue Rally” calls never came to fruition. His last call about the a head and shoulders pattern on the BKX predicted SP 450 (yes 450) by Dec 21st. Mohan communicated with him after that call and apparently he told Mohan there were plenty of other reasons he was so bearish, and he was going into the SKF. That was a week ago, and you can check the results for yourself.

2. He starts this current video with “I got this information from a book …. that inspired me to use the head and shoulders pattern on the BKX as presented last week. Frankly, I was a little bit uncomfortable with it. I won’t mention the name of the text, and one of the reasons is, that the author does play a little fast and loose with his images” For me, this speaks volumes about Tony’s credibility and accountability:

a. He seems to be covering his rear end. This is what I thought would happen, but it didn’t play out, and it was because of someone else’s fast and loose interpretation of a pattern.
b. Thanks for the heads up when you made the video last week about sharing your personal discomfort about your primary source’s reputation. Might have been relevant for investors or traders at that time, not after the fact.
c. I can’t reveal the source. What is this the CIA? Its apparently a trading book, and if you are embarrassed to mention the source, why are you using it to make a video for public consumption?

3. There are several good TA commentaries available on youtube. SNP500 trader, Brian Shannon, etc., and Craig and Idan on here. There are several good fundamental analysis guys on this board, Mohan at the top of the list. The GS reports and currency insights from Pete are great. Shanky and Schweizer have been doing a great job with the intraday TA. I think those two should create TA video’s with nightly analysis, from what I have observed during the day, their calls remind me of Craig’s intraday postings that were so helpful.

4. At the end of the day, we are each accountable for our trading decisions. What we invest in, how much, and at what entry point. We decide where our profit level or stop loss will be at. More importantly we decide what information to seek out and what weight to give to that information in reaching our decisions. I know the allure of trying to find the holy grail of trading. Seeking out that one guru who will lead us to riches. Its not that easy. Trading is work. In the end each of us has to work hard and formulate our own strategies, our own ideas, and to be professional enough to refine them when the market tells us they are not working.

Good luck to all. And as Michael Conrad would say. “Let’s be careful out there”