Mark's Market Commentary - March 11, 2003

The big news of today is Bob Hans Brinker's supposed "buy" signal today on the market.

In my absence, Buddha gracefully stepped up to the plate today to offer his take:

"Hans Brinker must be looking for the bull cycle within the secular bear. Probably loading the boat with the upcoming 3rd year anniversary of this disastrous bubble burst in mind. He is also pro-war and must be gaming for expected upside soon. I wonder if he expects the pop over the next 3 years to bail his loyal Jonestownsers in the QQQ boat that he cut loose around 72 a couple years back?"

"Survivors in that raft are doubtful, sharks have long since circled and torn the rubber tubing to shreds. Hans Brinker himself would get incredibly testy if a caller phoned in for a 'Survivor' update on those who had been cast into the brine when he was playing the bounce back then. Echoes of PigMen Kodansky from Merry-Lynching when asked by Rukshyster what he had to say to investors back in April 2001. "It takes courage to be a good investor". Translation: "Give me your friggin money, I have a distribution top I need to work into and you losers are the fodder I need to cram the barrel with".

"Hans Brinker is a pretty good market timer all things said and done but scratch his underbelly and you get a reactionary, Las Vegas Republican who beleives in this government's world view. This may be his undoing as we are soon to be entering uncharted geopolitical waters. I can say with certainty that his timing model factors in a quick and decisive and uneventful U.S. conquest of Iraq and ignores Sigma 10."

"Incidentally the man does not feel we are in a housing bubble however much he may despise Al Green. What does all this tell anyone? That never before has there been such a gaming, Keno running atmosphere amongst self proclaimed pundits and econ 'experts'. They are all crawling out of the woodwork as we approach the 3rd birthday of this Monster Alaskan Brown Bear. They all want their voice heard and are in the Casino laying down their bets. Even the raspy,weak-tubed Laslo Birini is trying once again to be heard over the din."

"After getting blown out the back end of the furry beast a couple of years ago, he's got his snorkling gear on again and is calling a bottom. Does a third Wave come in and take him out to sea finally and forever? I guess we will know shortly. What is far more telling than any idiot analyst coming out and calling for a bloodthirsty War rally is the recent resignation of two high ranking diplomats from the U.S. government, protesting the moral bankruptcy of a 'Girls Gone Wild' foreign policy."

And as far as following these market timers, Buddha has been following another one:

"Richard Hahn has been looking for a washout capitulation for many, many months. Whenever he beleives it is approaching makes for an excellent buy signal. The more melodramatic and bearish his market commentary the more leverage one should use long."

"He has repeatedly gone long at the top in miners, long at the top in defense industry stocks and he subscribes to the over the waterfall vision of all the indexes. When the indexes then don't crash he blames everything on secret conspiracies out of the Fed and just moves his own goal posts around. He called timing bottoms for both July and Oct but was too frightened by his own melodrama to acknowledge the long signals."

"If you want to trade emotionally and be entertained nightly by his political opinions which are something right of Barry Goldwater, then I recommend subscribing. How the guy makes money I don't know, but he manages to. Mostly by staying in large cash positions I believe. Excellent example of why during a bear market it is much more profitable to simply take a straight job and enjoy your life."

So far, Buddha has been the most adept at trading the most reliable market timing signal of all time. One which has not failed the last 34 months. Each time people say "this time, its different", it never is and ends up the same. Reliable as clockwork. The Options Expiration Racket Play:

"We are now entering the Wednesday before OE Racketeering Week. Caution is advised. Bears are getting celebratory, supports are once again broken as they are regularly each month by this time, apocalyptics and cross draggers are climbing out of the wood work calling for capitulation and Niagara selling. Sorry. Seen this too often. We are now in the Forensic Window for Stock Operations to resume North shortly. Merely my opinion but I would tighten all trailing covering stops. A deluge of media leaks and price muscling coming soon to a theatre near you."

So for what its worth, I will be tightening my stops over today's highs on half of my positions, and lowering the stops on the rest to Monday's highs.

For what is left of my remaining mining positions, I will patiently wait for a bounce to look for a cover. Short positions are getting out of hand, and a mega squeeze on these stocks is due.

What a wierd market.

Here we are 67 trading days down from the November high, still inside the Oct-Nov. range and it feels like we're down 5000 points since Christmas. Today's bump and grind was so heavy feeling I thought we were down 150, not 44.

Can you imagine any money manager in the world going into the committee and saying, "I think we ought to be 100% long"? Must be excruciating for the 401kers.

The Daily Reckoning breaks it down for us bewildered gold bugs:

- Gold, looking very much like the eagle scout of this metaphor,
advanced $3.90 to $354.80 an ounce. Surprisingly, and much
to the bewilderment of gold bulls, the shares of most precious
metals companies tumbled right along with the general market
yesterday. The XAU Index dropped 3.7%, despite the rallying
gold price.

- It's tough enough to make a dollar in this market,
without losing money when you're "right". But, sadly,
that's been the situation in the gold shares market for the
last several weeks. Gold has been holding solidly above
$350 an ounce, while most gold stocks have been sinking.
The XAU Index, for example, has dropped more than 15% so
far this year, even while gold has gained about 2%.

- No one can say exactly why the gold stocks are behaving
so poorly. But one plausible explanation is that, for brief
periods of time, gold stocks will behave as mere stocks,
rather than surrogates for gold itself. That's because,
when an investor looks to raise money he will often sell
his winners first. (The losers will come back, right?) Gold
stocks, being among the very few winners in most investors'
portfolios, are logical candidates for money-raising...and
so they are sold.

- But once this liquidation runs its course, and assuming
that gold remains strong, the gold sector should rebound
nicely. That's the rosy scenario, at least...

Commentary now posted.

Today exited puts on $OEX, CSCO and BSX for some nice profits. I would have gotten some bigger coin had I waited, but no prob. I still need a little down action on IBM and EBAY for some April puts - that may happen. A bounce today sure would have been nice, but it was just too weak.

If we get to 810 or so toward 78% retrace, I would look to enter again - if cycles permit. We shall see.

I covered half my shorts today: SPY, QQQ, PG, S, MMM, etc.
I kept the F short and a few others.

With the XAU gap at 64 now filled, I am paying attention to which miners I want to own for a B wave back up.

810 was good for today also - just didn't notice it - my bad.

Sloth: I dare not think of more PM's, but I am anyway.

What the markets needed today was some type of positive news event...like a bombing for example. They kept it propped up pretty well for a while today, until everyone finally figured out that we were only bombing northern Florida.

Doooohhhh!!!

Plunger

BBOX warns big. Halted.

I think I remember Hans Brinker saying that gold is dead. This was his opinion back when we had $260 or so. I wonder what he has said this last year about the metal?

ALTR boosts revenue outlook and stock up 4% in AH. Wish FM is around to shed us some light on this. My take is that it could be another excellent short opportunity for this and XLNX tomorrow...

that's on my Pig Pile

Jerry, ALTR's rally won't last long.

Great short opp!

Bwhahahahahaha

Sweef, look at all those wave 2 a-b-c rallies. Its chock full of them. Holy cow we're going down hard.

Hey it's just a thought and I don't know if anyone else has bought it up but re - Buffett's latest report on the risks of derivatives, I have 2 questions;

1) Do you think he reads this board?
2) If yes, then what name does he post under?

PileDriver?

PD, you da man! BBOX down 20% AH -- unbelieveable how you hit on those junk stocks ready to implode! I remember NPSP and CERS and their huge gap down a while ago...It's great man.

sweef, got any more info on the quake warnings you received? TIA.

Phat: I thought there were three, but I deleted some emails today and so I didn't want to claim it.

Regional Location: INDONESIA

Magnitude: 6.4M

Greenwich Mean Date: 2003/03/10
Greenwich Mean Time: 02:09:37
Latitude: 1.70N
Longitude: 127.23E
Focal depth: 100.0km
Analysis Quality: HALM

Regional Location: NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.

Magnitude: 6.8M

Greenwich Mean Date: 2003/03/11
Greenwich Mean Time: 07:27:32
Latitude: 4.70S
Longitude: 153.13E
Focal depth: 33.0km
Analysis Quality: A

Rog, Soup, Machinehead or Doc

I want to remind everyone before it happens, war discussions on this thread are ok only as, and if, they relate to the market. Please no gratuitous political jabs or extended diatribes. We all know there are two sides to this argument. If you feel an uncontrollable urge to express yourself on the war or politics, please relieve yourself on Political Stool, not here.

Many tanks in advance.

Doc