TGIF

Ms. Market keeps dancing a slow waltz up. Without the public buying, one wonders who is ? Perhaps there are still bears covering and euro-beefers re-deploying funds to the US as the dollar has shown it's not going to zero soon. Fund performance chasing helps, too.

I can't get excited. The press says the new 17 month high for the S&P gives "confidence". To whom is unclear and whether that matters is also unclear. Perhaps this is all buying that was deferred when the Greece mess popped up.

For me, I will re-check allocations in Krypto Fund and see if she has any orders for me this morning. If one does not sell "some" at highs, one won't have any money to buy dips and pullbacks, except new money. The puts are deep underwater but have much time left, as the are April strikes. A lot can happen in a few weeks. But the best one can say about that trade is that is was "early" in both time and price. Not good.

My caution is primarily based on the poor jobs performance. I wanted solid jobs growth by year-end 2009. It's now mid March and yesterday's unemployment claims were over 450,000 in a week. That's far too much. State and local governments will have to layoff workers and cut pay and benefits.

Washington DC continues to be Racketeer Central. Voters need to vote out anyone who uses earmarks, regardless of party; any liar; anyone who hasn't kept promises; and anyone who does not respect the proper use of the public trust and pocketbook.

Many, many CEOs and high corporate executives are grossly overpaid. Stockholders must exercise their new advisory votes on executive pay wisely. I've been voting against many pay plans, but not all. Hmmm .... perhaps this is an idea for a later blog.

Word of the Day

"Gurn" - verb, intransitive [$10] also "girn"
Gurn means (esp. dialect) to grimace, to pull a face (esp. for a competition).
Sentence: Bunkerman gurns as he reviews his put option play.