June 2004

Beach Time in Texas

It would be more impressive if he were standing up and the hat were in place in "no hands" mode.  Back when I was at Yale Divinity school, there was a song about a priest who was caught skinnydipping by a bunch of young girls.  He covered himself with his hat, which was all he had available.  But then he had to do something with his hands, but the hat stayed in place.  Refrain:  "It was a miracle."   I cannot find the song anywhere now.  There are, however, a bunch of bawdy songs here.  

June 1, 2004

I went into the market with individual stocks today - a large cap system (B) and a small cap system (S).  I did remove a few stocks from the list that seemed to have unpardonable fundamentals.  I also over-bought one stock because the confirmation was late and the stock had moved.

June 2, 2004

I subscribed to Zacks, and bought 10 stocks based on their recommendations and technical indicators.  I am working on a system for trading based on Zacks recommendations.

June 4, 2004

Additional stocks based on Zacks.  The market looks strong, although I closed the week with a small loss.  However, I am nervous about this market, and am watching things carefully.  So far, only MICROC2X and some of the thrust signals are on a buy.  TimingCube is still on a sell, although with a small loss.  The market is very confusing.  Perhaps Monday will begin a real up-trend.

June 6, 2004

A good article by Mark Stein.  

Flash forward 60 years [from D-Day]: The old Allies are gathered at Normandy for the D-Day anniversary at a time when we're well into a new war. This time around, the only pop star in uniform is Madonna. On her current world tour, she wears a blue burqa and, when she disrobes, as she inevitably does, she's wearing a U.S. army uniform underneath. Geddit? The Taliban and the Bush administration are both equally oppressive, see?

Not so long ago, Madonna knew her place. It was hanging naked over a wall with her bottom in the air and a German wolfhound giving her the come-hither look while a gay dance troupe cavorted in the background. See Page 67, if memory serves, of her 1992 picture book Sex. If only Madonna went to as much trouble to take a novel position when it comes to war. But no, there's only the usual lazy vapid soul-deadening equivalism: Bush, Saddam, Ashcroft, Mullah Omar, what's the diff? The herd mentality of celebrity ''dissent.'' Would it kill 'em once in a while to dissent from their dissent and try something other than the stultifying orthodoxy of Hollywood cardboard courage?...

Even when some hapless studio exec accidentally options a property that happens to have Islamist terrorists in it -- like Tom Clancy's The Sum Of All Fears -- the first thing they do is change the enemy to German neo-Nazis. Imagine it's 1943, you're in a script meeting about ''Casablanca,'' and Jack Warner says, ''I like it. But do the bad guys have to be Germans? How about if we reset it in Massachusetts and make them sinister British neo-Redcoats?''

So far as I am concerned, the terrorism we face is a threat on a par with what we faced in WW 2.  But we are a badly divided country, and the Democrats would rather capitalize on that than be a constructive force.  What is worse, in many ways, is the fact that there can be no compromises, or even conversations with these people.  They are dedicated to the death and destruction of civilization, which they want to replace with the tyranny of an ignorant religion.

June 12, 2004

Former US President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) is shown in this file photo dated January 27, 1988, has died at age 93.(AFP/File/Mike Sargent)

Nancy Reagan receives a flag during the interment ceremony of former US President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.(AFP/Pool/Kevork Djansezian)

June 17, 2004

I have decided to concentrate only on stocks that are recommended by Zacks, either on their Number 1 List, or on their Focus list.  The Focus list does not change very much, but the Number 1 list does - as much as a 10% turnover per day.  So the only method I can devise is to have a short-term system.  Take the Number 1 list, develop a system, and trade it for a period of time.  Start another one at some point later, and trade it for a period of time.  Eventually, stop making buys in the first system, and let it die slowly.  This means having several overlapping systems, and there may be some duplication in the holdings.  I know that the above is rather vague, but I am still working on it.  Currently I just started a second Zacks system, Z2.  One of the stocks it picked was APSG, which I already owned, so I just re-labeled it.  That was easy.

The market still looks very difficult.

June 25, 2004

Well, in spite of the late day sell-off, I did quite well today.  At the end of the month it may be time to add another Zacks system.  There is lots of uncertainty, and with the situation in Iraq I am afraid to be fully invested.  TimingCube is still on a sell.

July 30, 2004

Joel Steinberg, Child Killer, Released After Only 15 Years

This is one of the reasons why I believe in the death penalty.  Sooner or later, trash like this gets out, when it should have been thrown away.

Lisa Steinberg died in November 1987, three days after a vicious beating in the Greenwich Village apartment where she lived with Steinberg and his former lover, Hedda Nussbaum.

Nussbaum called police after finding the 6-year-old naked, bruised and not breathing. Nussbaum, initially a co-defendant, herself had a split lip, broken ribs, a broken nose and a fractured jaw she said were inflicted by Steinberg.

According to Nussbaum’s testimony, Steinberg struck Lisa for staring at him, then ignored her injuries and smoked cocaine...

“A lot of people are not happy with the fact he’s getting out,” said Steinberg’s civil attorney, Darnay Hoffman. “But he has done the time.”

Hoffmann has said he offered Steinberg a free apartment and a $250-a-week job with a local cable television show. Steinberg will have to make regular visits to a parole officer through October 2012. Now disbarred, he worked in prison as a paralegal.

Steinberg’s former lover, Hedda Nussbaum, recently announced she would flee New York rather than face him again. She has quit her job at a domestic violence center, the Journal News reported Wednesday. Her small white house in Carmel was empty Tuesday.

Pardon me for asking, but what's in it for Hoffmann?  And why would the TV station want to hire this guy, even at $250/week?  Just to make matters worse, I bet he is now eligible for food stamps.  If they like this killer so much, why don't they pay him a decent wage and save the taxpayers money?

Meanwhile, today I bought some additional stocks from the large-cap list.  My timing was terrible - most of the stocks went down after I bought.  Maybe I should take a course in day trading to learn how to make good entries.

Anyway, not a bad month, particularly considering that I have never been fully invested.  I still cannot beat the Russell 2000, however.