Free Republic

A Michigan-centered wrap-up of news from around the state and nation. This week: Forced unionization, higher education costs, Van Jones and whether Detroit should become the "Sam's Club" of cities.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2005 – About 100 Iraqi army soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division, and 400 U.S. soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team wrapped up Operation Rams in Ramadi, Iraq, today. Rams, the sixth in a series of disruption operations in Ramadi, began in western Sufia district Dec. 4. The operation focused on neutralizing terrorists and setting conditions for a successful Dec. 15 election, officials said. Altogether, Iraqi and coalition forces seized and destroyed 13 weapons caches and six improvised explosive devices. Two of the caches were significant in size, including a 1,000-pound bomb explosive...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - More than 700 bills - including measures to ban smoking on state beaches, protect the state's oldest trees and set nutritional standards for school food - face life-or-death votes this week as legislators try to wrap up their 2004 session four days early. Also on lawmakers' agendas are proposals to deal with the state's energy problems, help Californians obtain lower-cost prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies and allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. The deadline for action on most bills isn't until Aug. 31, but both houses hope to adjourn by Friday to enable Republican lawmakers to attend...

Home  l  Broadcast  l  Market Monitor  l  Top 10  l  Storm Watch  l  Sitemap  l  About Us Today's WrapUp by Tim W. Wood 02.20.2004  Mon   Tue   Wed   Thu   Fri   Archive THE DOW REPORT "A Look At The XAU" Notice on the daily chart of the XAU below, that I have marked each trading cycle low, since the March 2003 rally, with a “t.”  As you can see, this cycle runs approximately one month in duration. Now, look at how each of the trading cycle lows, between March 2003 and December 2003, occurred at a level above the previous trading...

Home  l  Broadcast  l  Market Monitor  l  Top 10  l  Storm Watch  l  Sitemap  l  About Us   Today's WrapUp by Scott Middleton 02.18.2004  Mon   Tue   Wed   Thu   Fri   Archive Pause for StocksThe Nasdaq fell marginally in an uneventful session where it traded in a tight range of 16 points, and spent most of the session just below the flat line with only occasional half-hearted sprints into positive territory. Investors pondered new data on the housing market as construction of new U.S. houses fell by about 8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.90 million in January,...

Home  l  Broadcast  l  Market Monitor  l  Top 10  l  Storm Watch  l  Sitemap  l  About Us Today's WrapUp by Ike Iossif 02.17.2004  Mon   Tue   Wed   Thu   Fri   Archive "Weekly Charts"Last week (2-6-04) I said: "We did get the additional 2% loss in NASDAQ, but the SP held above the critical 1122 level, while all indicators got near the bottom of their range. Last week's action was identical to the action that we have seen over and over since March of last year. We got a sharp internal correction, while giving up very little in terms of price, suggesting...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US and British nuclear inspectors were this week to wrap up their first visit to Libya supervising the dismantling of the country's weapons of mass destruction programs, the State Department said. "We still have some people from the United States and the United Kingdom on the ground in Libya," said spokesman Richard Boucher. "They'll end ... this initial visit ... later this week, and then we will continue to work with Libya to help it dismantle its program the way it's decided to do so." The UN nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, also has...

"A Look At The Technology Generals" As the Generals in the last secular bull market, large cap NASDAQ technology stocks led the way. They are also the leaders of the latest rally that began in October of 2002 based on market capitalization gained. I thought it would be relevant to examine a representative company, Intel, from a fundamental perspective. Following the fundamental analysis of Intel, I evaluate the technical charts of five of the leading large cap technology stocks, to gain insight into their short-term stock prospects.Any fundamental analyses should be tempered by what's going on in the current market....

Freeze Frame - Nothing Moved Today!Overall for the day the markets remained calm throughout the trading session. The broad stock market averages floundered in negative territory most of the day, but in the end the losses were marginal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 23 points to close at 9,630, the NASDAQ Composite fell 0.7% or 14 points to close at 1,893, and the broader S&P 500 Index dropped 0.5% or five points to close at 1,033. In similar fashion, U.S. Treasury debt paper began the day slightly in the red, but posted very slight gains to close the day....

"Crossroads" In my first article for Financial Sense on 9-2-03, I commented about the high momentum readings the rally had generated by saying:"...Next I would like to discuss two other indicators that allow us to take a rather comprehensive look under the surface. The first one is a momentum indicator designed to measure the collective momentum of the components that make up a market index. The problem with capitalization weighted indexes is that, just a handful of stocks can influence--in a rather disproportional way--the performance of the index they are a part of, which in turn distorts the true technical...

Don't Get Fooled AgainWe?ll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgment of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song?. Just like yesterday Then I?ll get on my knees and pray We don?t get fooled again~  The Who ~For those who are worried, I?m not getting into the music business. Nor am I joining a rock-n-roll band. However, the lyrics of this song sung by The Who resonated in my ear as I thought...