Greenfaucet.com - Global Market Commentaries

By Roger Nusbaum, greenfaucet.com

Michael Kahn from Barron’s has written recently about apathy as being an important marker for the end of a bear phase. He is clearly correct about apathy being an ingredient but I think it is deeper than that. I would add demoralization and disbelief.

After yesterday’s pop, markets today are down a lot which is demoralizing for a lot of folks. GE is around $6, Citi is around a buck, Wells Fargo is way under $10 and there are more stories like that. The weariness and sense of defeat created by this type of action adds up to demoralization of market participants. Demoralization is not anger, although plenty of people are angry (even Ben Bernanke apparently), but more of a sad acceptance ...

By Ray Barros, greenfaucet.com

If there is a key concept that leads to trading success, it's the understanding, integration and application of the Expectancy Return:

(Average Dollar Win x Win Rate) - (Average Dollar LosS x Loss rate)

Where:

* A$Win = the average of the dollars won in our winning trades
* Win Rate = the total number of winning trades/sum total of all trades
* A$Loss= the average of the dollars lost in our losing trades
* Loss Rate = the total number of losing trades/sum total of all trades

The reason why the formula is important is because trading is a probability game. We don't know what will happen; we make best ...

By Jim Farrish, greenfaucet.com

Tough times never last but tough people do. Robert Schuller's book is applicable to investors after a year like 2008 and the horrific start to 2009. Many have experienced what they thought couldn't happen. The shock of this experience has many running for cover and wondering how they are going to recover. We have to ask ourselves, what if anything did we learn from this experience? This is the starting point of dusting ourselves off and moving forward with a renewed vision for the future. Taking control of the process and learning from the past versus living it over and over again. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. In other words we have no one to blame but ourselves. With a disciplined ...

By Ray Barros, greenfaucet.com

The present US situation reminds me of the Australian one back in 1972. After 23 years of Liberal (Republican Government), Gough Whitlam led the Australian Labour Party (Democrats) to electoral victory. Like Obama, Whitlam brought in a whole raft of measures, some of which are in evidence today e.g. Medicare (universal health care) and all its mounting costs. One comment best describes his government's polices:

"The Government pressed ahead with its social reforms regardless of the effects on inflation. The world economy deteriorated, with the oil crisis of late 1973 adding to the inflationary spiral. Unemployment began to climb" (Gough Whitlam 1916 to Present).
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