The New Year

This is a two part blog: the New Year for me personally and for Ms. Market.

First, one of my New Year's resolutions is to get back onto the exercise program - a core part of my weight reduction effort.

I have been successful ... so far. I like a basket approach to exercise - I have many enjoyable types of exercise and vary my choice daily to avoid over training any particular muscle group and give those tendons a break. When you are older, that's important.

Here is what I do: elliptical machine "running", rowing machine, weights (heavy/upper body/lower body/power), boxing, knife fighting.

For example, boxing requires lots of jabs. Since I'm right handed, that means lots of left jabs. Knife fighting is the reverse, requiring lots of right hand thrusts. So opposite arms are heavily trained. Another example: Heavy weights means deadlifts. "Power" is force x velocity. That means power cleans, which really work the whole body vigorously with speed and force. Being over 50, I lift weights for about 30 minutes in a session after some moderate loosening exercises. That is enough and prevents injuries. And obviously, the elliptical machine is different than the rowing machine. So I vary the exercises both to prevent injuries and boredom.

Now Ms. Market.

I looked at some weekly charts. No doubt, they stink. The major averages are in consolidation patterns with a bearish slant. If one uses Elliott wave, the possibility of an intermediate bearish wave down clearly exists.

The Fed is not doing its job and is still fighting the last war, viz. inflation. The risk of negative downward momentum is clearly building. The Fed really needs to get interest rates down to the low end of the neutral range soon. That means under 4%, preferably to about 3.5%.

I still think there will be no recession and the US will have slow growth for 2008, accelerating into the end of the year into 2009.

Some of my large positions in energy and miners attained LT gains on parts of them today and more will over early January, so I will be trimming them to levels I can hold "forever". Since I have a bit of margin, I do need to take some sugar in those winners. Since XLE is at all time highs, now is a good time. I also took partial gain in AAPL again. I was waiting for 2008 so the taxes would go into this year.

My recent adds suck. But I bought them for a year and am managing them. I expect to buy some GNK and DSX. Those are dry bulk shippers and have pulled back a lot. They fit into my transports play and "no global recession" theory. I added some more YRCW yesterday. That's a perfect example of my "buck fever" error in jumping into an idea too fast. Oh well.

PS: Fed gets an F. Jobs up only 18,000, unemployment up to 5%.