CHESSNOID

There seems to be so much going on right now and a whole lot to talk about. First, what about the elections. Looks like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are tied for the democratic side and John McCain looks like he will get the republican nomination now the Mitt Romney has dropped out. McCain is the Vietnam War hero ready to wage a 100 year occupation in Iraq and thinks we can win. You wouldn’t think it, but I guess he could actually do a worse job than our current president Bush. Why would anyone say anything so ignorant and irresponsible about staying at war with Iraq. You know we can’t afford to keep spending money we don’t have there. Also, is McCain ready to put the draft back into place because I don’t think recruitment is popular right now with 6 years into this illegal invasion and no way to measure results. Just to clarify, the Iraq people are not the enemies but a small group of insurgents we label as terrorists.

When 9-11 happened, the so called hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia. Why didn’t we invade that country?? Very strange indeed. Anyways, I do hope we get a new president that knows the number priority is troop withdrawal. I can’t imagine too many parents who have kids in high school right now want them to go to Iraq after they graduate. That is what will happen if John McCain or any other republican gets elected. Of course, there is one exception on that side which is Ron Paul. If he somehow got the nomination, I would actually vote for him. He is against the war, promises troop withdrawal and wants to get rid of big government. Unfortunately, he is no where near what he needs in delegates to get the republican nod. My vote will go to someone who favors troop withdrawal and ending a war where only oil companies win.

Now, the stock market is still trending down as far as market technicals indicate. I as still 95% cash in my portfolio. I managed to have some foresight this time and sell when the market was still going up. I had dollar cost averaged since the dot com crash and made more than a decent return on my investment. It would have been nice if I picked the top, but that would have been impossible. I doubt if I will be able to pick the bottom either, but once I start investing again the dollar cost average investing will minimize my risks.

From the stockcharts I like to check out, the technicals indicate the Nasdaq has a bearish objective of 2100 and the S&P 500 has a bearish objective of 1240. Curiously enough the Dow hasn’t been updated yet and still shows a bullish objective of 14,000 which it did hit back in August of 2007. Of course, these are all numbers on a chart and interpretation is subject to the reader. I agree with the projections it has made with the Nasdaq and S&P 500, and not sure what the Dow objective is. The two other charts I like to check out are Apple and Google. Both have already reached and surpassed their bearish number projections of Apple at 142 and Google at 585 . I still think both stocks are great companies to own long term. Apple closed at 125.48 and Google closed at 516.69 yesterday. I will probably repurchase them when the market conditions change in the future.

I heard that Yahoo will reject Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news and can’t even guess how the market will react to that. When they first announced it, Yahoo stock went up and Microsoft stock went down. Google objected to that alliance and made it publicly clear where they stood. Will Microsoft raise its bid for Yahoo? Will Google get into a bidding war with Microsoft? Or will both companies back off and let Yahoo stock continue to drop? Since all these companies are mega giant companies, I wonder how investors will react on Monday. Does that sound bullish or bearish to you?

The House and Senate have both passed the stimulus package and everyone who paid taxes will be getting back $600-$1,200 rebates to spend as they please. I thought originally I would just save it or invest it. Maybe buy 1 share of Google or pay off a credit card. Hmmm. Possibly get one of those ultra small computers I have yacked about so much. We should get these in May or June, so there is plenty of time to think about it.

The housing bust is still continuing as we go into this next presidential election. I found another blog that just shows all the houses for sale in the Sacramento area with the last purchase prices and a history of unsuccessful asking prices for the properties thereafter. This is worth checking out if you want to get a feeling of how the housing slump is in California. These are all nice and beautiful homes that are no longer selling because the prices are too high, the creative financing has dried up, and there are less qualified borrowers in the market. This is why I don’t think both emergency and regular interest rate cuts the federal reserve have enacted will have the long term effect they want. I believe the next rate cut is scheduled to be in June. Rates are now at 3.5 percent and looks like is heading towards 1 percent in a short period of time. This is also one of the reasons why the foreign stock markets are being affected because these rate cuts affect the value of their currency. According to Bloomberg, the Asian stock markets have fallen for 6 straight weeks. Ouch!

Next weekend there is a good fight card on Showtime Elite XC with some well known fighters. They seem to be moving up in the MMA world:

Kimbo Slice vs. Tank Abbott
Antonio Silva vs. Ricco Rodriguez
Scott Smith vs. Kyle Noke
Yves Edwards vs. Edson Berto
James Thompson vs. Brett Rogers

HDNET has had some good showcases. Lately, they have announced some newer teamups with other growing MMA organizations such as the IFL, Elite XC Stikeforce, and a venue I haven’t heard of MFC. Interestingly enough, the UFC has another lawsuit against DSE the former owners of PrideFC. Is this sour grapes or is it a legitimate gripe? Seriously, it has been over a year and they seem to be chasing lost phantom dollars from a good decision with bad execution on the original game plan. UFC filed another lawsuit against Randy Couture for $10,000 for another contract violation. Also, it seems the more lawsuits they have, the more unfocused they become on the actual mma side of the business. I don’t think they are winning more fans with these lawsuits springing up every month now. My friend usually buys the UFC pay per views, but skipped the last one because the prices went up from $39 to $49. I think in a recession, ppv’s going up 25% may make a difference especially when they are shown on a monthly basis. HDNET is such a bargain at $5 a month with 24 mma free live events and a ton of reruns of old events. This Mark Cuban guy may have developed a better game plan in the growing mma arena. This of course benefits the fans most of all. There were once talks of UFC and HBO teaming up. I thought that would have been awesome. Then UFC and CBS and I though sounds good too. I even thought HBO might just go it alone or team up with IFL, Elite XC, or something but I guess they are sticking to boxing.