The Tasgall Group

It was the best of times and the worst of times as commodities fell of the charts (almost literally).? Why is this troubling because I certainly don’t dread filling my tank us nearly as much lately?? Because such a rapid decrease in commodities prices could spell rapid deflation.? I know that is hard to swallow with so much concern recently on the inflation front.? But when assets decrease in value, the money supply shrinks, which is deflationary. (more…)

Well, today certainly looks to have been an interesting day in the commodities markets. In terms of the markets I watch, here are the big moves today:

• Natural Gas down an amazing 10%, under $4.90
• Silver down 2.2% and trading under $11
• Gold down 1.7%, the October contract is trading at $580
• Crude Oil down 1.1%, at $63 and change
• Gold Stocks (HUI) are off by 4.5%

What’s going on? Has the economy melted down in the last 24 hours? Did a recession just hit us around noon today? Obviously no… but the market consensus on these appears to be shifting, and with it the support for the energy futures. Gold and silver is a different story, but one that requires a separate post…

While these commodities are all impressively down today, the one thing that was down today that had me the most shocked was… (more…)

Today’s move in stocks is pretty bullish in terms of density theory.? A quick whip from one side of the bell curve to the other or a fast rejection of the last major value level, all followd by a breakout seems to be something you see ahead of major moves to new levels.? This certainly lends support to the more bullish signals given in models like those at CXO Advisory.? There isn’t any major stopping point to the north other than the year’s high so a retest is looking mighty likely.? Stay tuned…

I was watching TV today and, boy,?is my thumb tired.? Seriously, folks, I’m here all week.? And so is James Dicks according to this infomercial I just came across.? Who is James Dicks?? In a word: the devil (if you say anything about how that’s 2 words, I’ll be forced to get really, really mean).? And by devil I mean a con artist who gives currency trading a bad name. (more…)

No, not the natty light, but rather natural gas is under $5.50 this morning in trading… that hasn’t happend in over a year and a half.

The trend is a trend until it ends (and the trend is down), but I like the value in buying natural gas this cheaply. According to the conventional wisdom, natural gas tends to bottom in September before the winter heating season starts… it might be worth keeping an eye on the price of natural gas to watch for a breakout to the upside…

I just found this great bit of data on The Big Picture Real Estate blog, an enjoyable read. I’ll present it here as they did, since it’s just startling (these figures cited below are just out in Sept), and REITs are still chugging upward like little engines that could.

Housing by the numbers

I’ve always wanted to write a post on the topic of probability in the markets but this guy summed it up pretty well.

I just noticed this… Sara Lee Completes Hanesbrands Spinoff.? The new Hanes stock is trading under the symbol HBI and is currently priced at a market cap around $2 billion.? The Sara Lee mother ship weighs in at a market cap of $11 billion (after the spinoff), so they basically just sold 18% of their company in one fell swoop.

Sara Lee has been going through some very painful restructuring, but the price makes it attractive to some value buyers right now.? It had a dividend yield over 4% earlier this year before they lowered their dividend — it’s currently yielding 2.5%, well above the market average.

I’m sure this information can be found in many places online, but I just got this via e-mail from TradingMarkets and found it to be a useful quick summary of what’s coming up this week. I’ve pasted it below and followed with my comments (brace yourselves, this is a very long post!!!):

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This chart jumped onto my leg and started to hump?it like a dog wearing plaid.? In other words,?the pattern I saw just couldn’t be ignored.

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