wearmanyhats

“Aren’t you putting in any recommends in your blog anymore?” asked the old man Wednesday morning.

“Why?” I asked.  “I know the market is going down again soon.  No sense in putting your head up in the middle of battle to get it shot off.  We might as well stay hunkered down a bit.”

He was surprised, especially since the market had been rising recently. But by the time the markets closed later that day, the Dow had dropped over two hundred points. My hunker down theory seemed pretty sensible.  Keep your head down; don’t let it get shot off.  Most of the time you can determine if a market will be on a steady uphill trend.  But with more foreclosures coming, oil prices finally turning around, and inflation on the heels of this short time of deflation, the market is still unsteady.  We will buy when the blood is in the streets, but the bloodletting isn’t quite yet done. Continue to drop money into the money markets, after your debts are paid, of course.  Then wait.  Soon it will be time to jump in.

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The first jump will be XLE, the wonderful ETF that is full of oil stocks.   Don’t jump just yet.  Some market corrections will pull down oil stocks a bit.  But soon they will begin to rise again, as will inflation because the price of oil will go up.  I’ll be watching it closely.

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For those of you that bought Frontline (FRO), the recent dividend was a juicy one. While it is true that the stock has taken a terrible pounding, it still continues to pay out handsomely.  There should be a fine fourth quarter dividend as well, and perhaps a smaller one for the beginning of the first quarter of 2009 as shipping slows naturally after Christmas.   Shipping stocks are cyclical, and we bought in when it was low before all the market drops.  Although they went down in stock price for a while, they have been rebounding nicely and will continue to hold good value.

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On the right of this blog are links to articles I have written about various investment and personal finance subjects that are published on the internet.  These are teaching articles and will be updated from time to time.  The Ehow articles are the easiest and fastest to read.  Feel free to send any questions or comments about any of these articles or topics on this blog, or any requests for topics.  If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I answer questions as requested.  Let me help if I can.

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