Midway through the trading week, the bulls were relishing some very big buying. Encouraging news from Europe that its financial leaders might be close to a deal to bailout Greece led to some nice gains early in the week, but those gains largely evaporated by Friday’s closing bell. A failure of the market to gain […]

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“I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.”   –Dizzy Gillespie   The great jazz musician is basically saying that results, or the byproducts of the musical process, are what count in the end. You can know all of the theory in the world, but if it doesn’t sound good then nobody

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When the going gets tough, the tough go for dollars.   The PowerShares DB US Dollar Bullish (UUP) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that lets you profit when the value of the U.S. dollar strengthens against other currencies. UUP, based on the Deutsche Bank Long US Dollar Index (USDX) Futures Index (DB Long USD Futures

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Over the past three weeks, there’s been what I call a “precious” correction taking place. The precious I’m referring to is precious metals like gold and silver. These once high-flying shelters from the equity storm now have been swept up in the selling, and that’s put a big frown on the faces of gold and

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    Since the market began its sharp turn south in August, I’ve been telling you that the risks of a further meltdown in stocks are extremely high. Anemic U.S. economic growth, perniciously high unemployment, a complete mess in Europe over the euro-zone’s debt crisis and a quagmire in Washington that threatens to bog down

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In last Friday’s Hotline, we talked about the bulls coming out of their chutes and driving equity prices higher. This week, those same bulls were rounded up and put back in their pens courtesy of a cattle prod wielded by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The big selling this week came after the central bank announced […]

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Save some time for sorrow Cause it will surely come your way Prepare yourself for failure It will give you strength someday    –John Mellencamp, “Save Some Time to Dream”   Success in life is the byproduct of effort; however, most of the time success only comes after multiple fits and starts, and many small

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One of the best-performing exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this year is the Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU), up 10.4% year to date. Why is this fund excelling? Well, the fund primarily invests in companies that keep the lights on for us. During times of market uncertainty, recessions and general panic, the traditional defensive play of electric

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There’s been a whole lot of buzz generated by President Obama’s latest proposal to make sure the rich pay their “fair share” of the nation’s tax burden. Forget the fact that the administration never tells us how much of our money it thinks is “fair” for us to keep, the real issue here is that

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  After a ton of anticipation over what type of card the Federal Reserve had up its sleeve, the markets got the answer about 2:20 p.m. Eastern today. As many expected, the central bank approved the so-called “twist” move, which essentially consists of a new $400 billion program that will tilt the Fed’s $2.85 trillion

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