WOW can you spell UGLY! Yesterday was one of the worst days for the stock market in years. It brought back not so fond memories of other huge sell-offs in the market, most recently September of 2001, actually 9-11-2001. That’s a date we all remember, most importantly for all the innocent Americans that died by the cowardly hand of Bin Laden and his band of cowardly reptilec followers. In 1987 & 1989 during the big sell-offs each coming in the month October I was working as a stock broker. I […]

I want to show you the relationship between interest rates and Utilitity stocks. In the chart below, you will notice an almost perfect inverse relationship. When rates go up, utility prices go down, and when rates go down, utility prices go up. Since late January interest rates have been going down, which have pushed Utility prices to all-time highs.

Another BIGTIME buyout!!! Its incredible the amount of money sitting in Private Equity firms just waiting to buy Publicly traded companies. The most recent TXU. TXU is the biggest utility company in Texas. This now becomes one of the, if not the largest buyout todate(32 Billion). I think the flood gates are open. Everyone that is thinking of doing a merger or buyout is now rushing to get the deal done before the next Presidential election in 2008. If Democrats win in 2008 it will become very difficult to get […]

The market ended the week mixed. The S&P 500 and Dow edged lower, but the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 closed slightly higher. Techs and small-caps showed some immunity to rising oil prices and an up-tick in interest rates. February has been a good month for small-caps as the Russell 2000 broke consolidation resistance and that breakout is holding. Not only is the breakout holding, but the index is also extending its gains. Broken resistance turns into support and it would take a move back below 800 to question this breakout. […]