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THE DOW REPORTCommodity Boom or BustIt's been a while since I talked about commodities, and given the price action seen this week, I thought that we would revisit this subject today. In early December 2004 it looked as if the commodity boom was over. At that time many of the technical pieces had fallen in place indicating a major top had occurred. But, there happened to have been one last gasp into the parabolic advance that ended in March.But what about now? Is the commodity boom really over? Has the recent decline really been another buying opportunity? Why have gold...

Temporary perhaps, but the bulls used a semblance of a lull in escalating geopolitical tensions to gain some ground. For the holiday-shortened week, the Dow, S&P500, Utilities, Morgan Stanley Consumer and Morgan Stanley Cyclical indices all gained around 1.5%. The Transports lagged, ending the week about unchanged. The broader market advanced, with the small cap Russell 2000 adding 1.6% and S&P400 Mid-Cap index gaining an impressive 2.7%. The tech sector enjoyed another solid performance and is beginning to distance itself from the field. For the week, the NASDAQ100 jumped 3.4%, the Morgan Stanley High Tech index 3.7%, and the...

"...Cue the ominous background music. The camera pans in through the mists of the deepening gloom. Wolves howl in the distance, off-camera, "wooooOOOOoooo." In a voiceover by some guy with a deep and ominous voice, like Vincent Price maybe, we hear, 'Only the banks have the power of (pause for dramatic effect) fractional banking, which can be an evil in itself. (Please pronounce this as "eee-vil") But when you compound that potential evil ("eee-vil") with the even bigger potential evil (ditto pronunciation directive) of the power to create money at will, then you have surely sown the seeds for your...

There are no truths, only risks. Three down years don't guarantee an up year. Buy-and-hold forever is no guarantee of success. And interest-rate cuts guarantee nothing ... absolutely nothing. If we could just bundle all those investing myths and send them packing, everybody would be better off. Good riddance to: buy and hold forever; past returns suggest future riches; interest rates down, stock prices up; the market can't be down x years in a row. And not to forget about the economic arena, Alan Greenspan's "productivity" -- his excuse for rationalizing the bubble -- would be first in line for...

Wild volatility returned to the U.S. equity market. On the back of today’s surge, the Dow and S&P500 ended the week with gains of just under 1%. The Morgan Stanley Consumer index added 1%, while the Morgan Stanley Cyclical index was about unchanged. The Transports and Utilities, however, ended the week 2% in the red. The broader market was about unchanged, with the small cap Russell 2000 flat and the S&P400 Mid-Cap index down about 1%. The technology sector was strong. The NASDAQ 100 gained 3%, returning the index to break-even for the year. The Morgan Stanley High tech index...

Vocabulary is a power builder. Every time I use the word "concomitant" in a conversation I see my listener's eyebrows go up as if to say, "what does this guy know that I don't?" Then again, maybe they're just signaling that I'm full of more than just baked beans. I suspect the latter, but either way it creates an impression. I sensed the power of the almighty word late in my teens as I was preparing for my SAT tests as a foreign exchange student in Germany. Missing the normal study manuals available in the U.S., I turned to my...

"...It not as if the signs were not there to see. "Leading indicators decline," but the market goes up! "Consumer confidence at nine-year low," but the market goes up! "Bankruptcies at multi-year highs, and climbing," but the market goes up! "Dollar loses 20% of it's value in one year," but the market goes up! "Every state in nation cutting spending and/or raising taxes," but the market goes up! "New federal budget deficit rises to $300 billion," but the market goes up! "Bernanke says Fed ready to print as much money as needed," but the market goes up! "Trade and current...

"...Is the Fed buying shares and futures and indexes to get the stock market up? You bet! How could they not? If they did not, and the economy does get really bad, and I mean "bad" as in Depression and Vast Human Suffering kind of bad, then some wise-ass in the future, maybe the grandson of Milton Friedman, who, according to some, has won the argument as to what caused the Great Depression of the 30's and that is that the Fed did not create enough money, is going to make his career out of the comment, "What? They did...

XXX >>> Audio of Noland Interview with Jim Puplava <<< XXX It was a dismal week for the stock market. For the week, the Dow dropped 4% and the S&P500 declined 5%. The Transports were smacked for 7%, while the Utilities dipped 3%. The Morgan Stanley Consumer and Morgan Stanley Cyclical indices dropped about 5%. Selling in the broader market was generally less intense, as the small cap Russell 2000 and S&P400 Mid-Cap indices declined about 3%. The NASDAQ100 and the Morgan Stanley High Tech indices declined about 2%. The Semiconductors dropped 5%, The Street.com Internet index 3%, and the...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CBS.MW) - American Electric Power, citing weakness in the energy wholesale market, swung to a big fourth-quarter loss and lowered its 2003 earnings outlook. The energy company (AEP) also said it was cutting 1,300 jobs - or 5 percent of its workforce -- in an expense reduction plan that would save the company more than $200 million. Shares of the company fell nearly 5 percent to $25.65. For the fourth-quarter, AEP posted a net loss of $837 million, or $2.47 a share, after $1 billion in write-offs to reduce the value of under-performing assets. Last year, the company...

"...Now, if stupid stimulus programs worked without engendering offsetting downside problems down the road, and if all excesses of money and credit did not cause more problems tomorrow than they solved today, well, then okay. But I want to sincerely say, with all the respect and profound humility I can muster for such an idea, is this is the stupidest idea that any stupid person ever cooked up. And believe me, being a real stupid guy myself I have come up with some real stupid ideas in my life, but this eclipses even me at my worst, and is patently,...

Life for stock and options speculators in the belly of this supercycle Great Bear market is definitely an interesting and exciting experience. Bear-market trading is no-nonsense in-your-face hardcore speculation to the core. In primary bull markets speculators can trade like investors and do just fine. One diligently searches for undervalued stocks, buys them, and holds on to them until the markets recognize the valuation anomalies and bid up the prices of the stocks. In bull markets the pace of trading is relaxed, as there is seldom any hurry to execute either buying or selling decisions. While bull-market trading is relatively...

XXX >>> Streaming Video <<< XXX PAUL KANGAS: My guest market monitor this week is Jeffrey Everett, Chief Investment Officer for Templeton Global Advisors. And welcome back to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Jeff. JEFFREY EVERETT, CHIEF INVST. OFFICER, TEMPLETON GLOBAL ADVISORS: Thank you, Paul. KANGAS: Given the rather bleak 2003 outlooks coming from Microsoft (MSFT) and IBM and the stock market's lousy performance, I mean can we conclude that this nation is facing a double dip recession? EVERETT: I think it's highly unlikely. I think the Bush plan helps gets us through a double dip threat. I also think investors will...

Lots of people from Federal Reserve Bank officials to smug analysts to the companies themselves insist the first quarter will show improvement. Sorry, I can’t agree. If you still have your Champagne flutes lying around after New Year's, join me now in a toast to Robert McTeer. Only this time, fill them with beer. You see, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank recently opined that even though some of the gains of the "new economy" had all the substance of foam, "there was still much more beer than before." Thankfully, he wasn't invited to Barron's Roundtable, where there...

INTERVIEW WITH DR. KURT RICHEBACHER Dr. Kurt Richebacher has shown an uncanny ability to spot future economic problems. This former chief economist of the Dresdner Bank warned about the recession and the NASDAQ crash months before they happened. He forecast the collapse of the Asian Tigers in 1998 and blew the whistle on corporate profit tricks long before Enron. When virtually everyone was certain of a V-shaped recovery, he argued that it was impossible. A master of classical economics, and perhaps, the best analytical economic thinker in the world today, Dr. Richebacher writes a monthly newsletter, "The Richebacher Letter." Given...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - After two years of hoping in vain for a recovery, which many said was only six months away, companies are now writing off all of 2003 and focusing on 2004 for any improvements in their markets. Two weeks into the new year, key European and U.S. companies have toned down their hopes for economic bloom. Slow consumer spending, a possible war in Iraq and the resulting high oil prices could further dampen business activity. In the past week, airlines, technology and chemicals companies, banks and retailers have all said they are hesitant to predict the upturn for...

"...In case anybody accuses me of being a wishy-washy, profane, dim-witted, foul-smelling, babbling, ugly, illiterate, boorish, lazy, mentally ill and ill-tempered bonehead, I say, hey! I am NOT wishy-washy! About gold, anyway, and you tell them that I said, in print, right here, knowing that in the future you are probably going to be called as a witness by my team of crackerjack lawyers who will prove that I deserve a Nobel Prize for the "Best Investment Advice Of The Last Thousand Years Or So Which Was To Buy Gold and Shares of Gold Mining Companies at These Bargain Prices,"...

Suddenly, dividends glitter. But the only thing that will substantially improve yields isn't a tax cut, it's more reasonable stock prices. Until then, I think there's more upside in gold. We may just have rung in 2003, but Wall Street can't seem to tear itself away from the mania of years gone by. Hype and hope still trump the fundamentals that warrant neither. In addition, visions of dividend morsels distract folks from the caliber of earnings that drive them. In the frenzy to pay up for overvalued stocks, they ignore a store of value that has survived a couple of...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Major U.S. retailers started the new year about the same way they ended the old one, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and others on Monday reporting tepid sales at or below expectations so far in January. Analysts expect no quick fix for the retail sector this year, coming off a disappointing holiday sales season that showed the smallest sales gain in more than 30 years. The sector is likely to underperform the broader market, analysts said, hamstrung by a sluggish economy, the nagging threat of war with Iraq, price deflation and a general lack of must-have new...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - People swear that Wall Street has been penalized enough for its excesses in the 1990s. The market has fallen so much over the past three years, they say, that it should turn higher, no matter how bad the economic script. But the smart money says: Just because the market has racked up four straight years of losses only once from 1929 to 1932, doesn't mean it can't do it again. ``If there is a fourth down year, many investors are likely to look for a fifth -- or a case of them,'' says James Dines, editor...