StockbrokerPro.com NOTES, Monday, August 25, 2003
THE MARKET/ECONOMY
· The spike in interest rates is
over. The fuss about the mortgage market falling apart is wrong. The
Fed has done and will do whatever it takes to support the mortgage market
and keep the housing boom intact.
· Alan Greenspan continues to pump
cash into this economy in record levels. Watch how, in a matter of just
a few months, this (along with the fiscal stimuli in place) drives the
U.S. economy into boom times.
· We are coming into the worst
market month of the year, September, followed by October, the second
worst month. Be careful. The Dow may run to 9700 soon, but the risk
on the downside is spectacular: from these high levels, expect at least
a 1000 point move to the downside. After a correction, or at the minimum,
a solid pullback, then be ready for a booming market!
· Be careful in commercial REIT
(Real Estate Investment Trusts) investing. With see-through (empty)
buildings still littering the country, we have yet to see an office
building rental turnaround. Anecdotal evidence: In New Jersey there
is a vacant modern two-story office building called "Constitution
Bank" that has a sign on it saying "For Sale For Mortgage."
To have a commercial building advertised this way is quite unique in
the real estate world and is indicative of a very weak market.
· The residential real estate market
ought to remain strong, however, for a number of reasons, not the least
of which is the huge money supply being pumped into this economy by
the Federal Reserve. This will keep the consumer strong and banks in
an accommodative lending mood.
· This country MUST start taking
a "Made in America" production and purchasing policy and stop
sending jobs overseas, primarily to China. The job market WILL NOT turn
around until this happens. A weak dollar will help. Look for a "Made
in America" campaign within the next year. Support it!
SOCIETAL AND POLITICAL COMMENTARY
· Arnold Schwarzenegger will be
California's next governor. I know Arnold's story well. I have met him
and chatted with him a couple of times. I was a competitive teenage
bodybuilder in the 1970's and a national bodybuilding competition judge
during Arnold's reign of bodybuilding (also in the 70's). I also started
the Bodybuilders' Book Club that featured Arnold's book and calendar
in 1980. My point is I have followed the man's life since he came to
America. He has one of the most powerful personalities on earth, and
I don't say this lightly. He totally dominated bodybuilding. More so
than Tiger Woods does golf, or Michael Jordan did basketball. He was
bodybuilding. Then he decided to become the biggest movie star in the
world. And he did! Mind you, the guy couldn't act to save his life,
but through sheer will and the power of his personality he became the
biggest drawing, most recognized, and highest paid actor in the world.
He's amazing. When he says he is going to do something, mark my words,
consider it done. He will be governor.
· Ahhnold's main competition is
Democratic Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, who says that he WILL raise
taxes. Wow! Does Walter Mondale ring a bell?
· California Governor Gray Davis
is now being advised by the Clintons. Is it surprising that the new
theme of all of his speeches is that Democrats must unite against the
vast right wing conspiracy and the conservative "power grab?"
Is it surprising that all of his speeches now begin and end with the
words "I must get back to work for the people of California"?
Hmmmm. This all sure does sound familiar, doesn't it? And isn't it amazing
how Democrats and the media get all ga-ga when they hear that Bill Clinton
is now involved in the campaign? It's actually the kiss of death for
Governor Davis. Clinton has never gotten votes for anybody. As a matter
of fact, he never even got that many votes for himself. People don't
realize that in his two victorious Presidential elections he never got
the amount of votes that George W. Bush did in 2000. Actually, Clinton
has done severe damage to the Democratic party. Aside from the moral
mess that he has caused the Democrats, the fact is that when he came
into power the Democrats controlled the White House, the Congress, and
the Senate. It is because of Clinton's ways and the sour taste he has
left in the mouths of the American people, that the Republicans now
control all three of those institutions.
· Remember how vicious the press
was toward George W. Bush when during the 2000 election a report came
out that said Houston had the most unhealthy air of any city in America?
The Sierra Club was relentless in their attacks on Bush. Well, last
week The American Lung Association came out with their latest rankings
of bad air quality. The number one city in having the dirtiest air in
America is now Riverside, California. Number two worst is Fresno, California.
Number three worst is Bakersfield, California. Number four worst is
the Los Angeles/Lon Beach basin, yes, that's in California too. And
the fifth worst air in the nation goes to Sacramento, California. Imagine
that! Where's the outrage toward California Gov. Gray Davis? Where are
the headlines? Where's the Sierra Club? God, how obvious is the media
bias out there!
· The HUGE blackout, was it all
it was cracked up to be? No, not really. Let's face it, it caused inconvenience
for a day. ONE DAY! A bad winter snowstorm shuts things down for days!
There have been only seven power grid failures since the big one in
1965, and none have lasted longer than a day. Democrat and New Mexico's
Governor Bill Richardson (Secretary of Energy under Clinton) said our
grid system is that of a "third world country." Give me a
break. And what did you do about it when you were in charge of it, Governor?
Are we forgetting that Bill Clinton was President from January 1993
to January 2001 and that Gov. Richardson was in charge of the power
grid? The liberal media would have you believe that the whole electrical
system mess began the minute George Bush was sworn in on January 20,
2001. Come on!
· In actuality, the power grid
has been up 99.949% over the past 37 years. To put that in perspective,
the actual percentage of getting on a commercial jet and getting to
your expected city is 96.6%. Where's the outrage on that statistic?
· What was the true cause of the
largest blackout in U.S. history? The fact that environmentalists have
been determining our energy policy years, that's what. Policy has been
driven by two environmentalists' precepts: NIMBY (Not In My Backyard)
and the more radical BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near
Anybody). This nonsense MUST stop!
· Michael Moore was wrong! In Michael
Moore's film Bowling For Columbine he tries to make the point that Americans
are a violent people and Canadians are peace loving. Well, isn't it
interesting that during the big blackout that effected some seriously
tough American cities like Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany,
Syracuse, Lansing, Akron and Toledo, there was peace and quiet, and
in the loving, kissing, hugging, Kumbaya-singing Canadian cities of
Toronto and Ottowa, there was rioting and looting! Imagine that! Up
yours, Michael Moore!
· 10,000 dead in France from the
heat-wave. Unbelievable! I certainly don't wish to use this as an opportunity
to pile on the ridiculous leadership of that country (it is a horrible
tragedy), but come on, this is 2003! The truth is that the French don't
believe in air conditioning. I'm not kidding! Again, unbelievable!
· Surely French President Chirac
will find that the way to deal with this horrific disaster of a dying
populace is to blame George Bush. After all, wasn't Bush the guy who
refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol for global warming?
· At it again! France has now threatened
to veto any U.N.-sanctioned Libyan settlement for the families of the
1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing. Do they ever stop? Is it too insensitive
of me to suggest that this French heat wave misfortune is karmic?
· By the way, the French summer
heat wave has also taken the lives of 4.5 million chickens and 300,000
rabbits. Wheat production shrunk 15% from last year and corn is off
28%. If France was a stock, I'd be shortting it!
· Just one more French thing. This
is my favorite. You know the sick tabloid Weekly World News? I mean
this is the craziest one of them all. It typically has Aliens and 600
pound babies on the black and white cover. Hehem, no I don't read it.
My son likes to read it on the beach. Well anyway, the headline of the
August 26th issue was the best I had ever seen. It read: Late News Flash:
France surrenders to North Korea! Now that's funny!
STOCKBROKER STUFF
· How stupid are the Morgan Stanley
people in Boston who are running a sales contest for their brokers in
these times? And sending emails stating that emails should not be used
in promoting this contest? Are these people's brains toasted or what?
Do they live in a cave? Are they aware of the environment of distrust
that we are in? Are they aware of the ethical microscopes that Wall
Streeters have to operate in? Does this mentality of pushing in-house
products to clients end at the Morgan Stanley office level? Or does
it go to the regional level, or even into the executive suites in New
York? Is this the culture of the firm promoted from the top? This is
BAD for all brokers, for the entire investment industry. This generates
more distrust toward brokers. Proprietary product pushing should not
exist, especially in 2003! This is why the major wirehouses lose brokers
to firms that don't have proprietary products, like A.G. Edwards, and
independents like LPL; this is why regulators are all over brokers;
and this is why the every year the industry gets taken over more and
more by lawyers.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT
· Our level of consciousness determines
our life-level from which we live and accomplish. The extent of our
accomplishments are determined by our life-level.
From The Secret of Letting Go by Guy Finley:
The Sure Way to Raise Your Life Level
As we will eventually come to see, almost every kind of unhappy feeling
is the result of mistaking the partial for the whole. What this means
is that when we don't see the whole picture, we are likely to act in
a way that is self-defeating. One example of this would be that terrible
sinking feeling that comes with learning too late, after you've become
upset, that things weren't the way you were so sure they had been. That,
in fact, it was you who had misjudged or misunderstood the person or
event; and now that you can see the whole situation, there is no reason
at all to be angry or sad, anxious or afraid. How many times have we
regretted some thoughtless action on our part once we found out all
of the facts? This is what we must do: gather all of the facts. I promise
you that everything can be explained. Nothing that happens to you or
through you need ever go without you understanding why. You can be self-enlightened
instead of self-frightened. You have a choice. This discovery that you
can always choose in favor of yourself is real excitement.
You do not have to accept your present life-level. Life-levels is what
determines whether you sail through this life or sink in it. At present,
it may seem to you as if there are times when you don't have much choice
in your own life. I want you to know that this is a lie. This temporary
feeling of being trapped is part of your current life-level, where you
sincerely feel as though your choices are limited. Again, I want you
to know this is simply not true. There is always a choice.
The problem is that most men and women insist upon their choices. You
must see this. Your present life-level has been determined by the choices
you have already made. Why go back to the same field of choices? You
already suspect that it will yield no real harvest of happiness. Go
ahead and confirm your suspicion. Nothing bad will happen to you. In
fact, only something good can occur once you stop clinging to useless
ideas. You could say that your new choice is to stop choosing for yourself
from yourself. This is the first necessary step for changing your life-level.
Here is something to help you see the wisdom of your new higher choice.
If your choices so far have left you feeling dissatisfied and incomplete,
you must stop blaming your selections and see that the problem lies
with the chooser: you! You and what happens to you every day are the
reflections of your life-level. We are wrongly led to believe that life
makes us into the kind of person we are. The truth is that the kind
of person we are, our life-level, makes life what it is for us! This
is why nothing can really change for us until we see that our unhappiness
isn't connected with the event, it is the level of it. Let's look at
this a little more deeply.
We believe that we meet events and that those events are good or bad,
pleasurable or punishing. In other words, our feelings are the reflections
of what happens to us moment to moment. That's why, while acting from
our current life-level, our first choice whenever we feel distressed
is always to try and change the condition we blame for making us feel
that way. The belief being that by changing our unhappy surroundings
we will bring an end to our unhappiness. This has never really worked,
and it never really will, because the unpleasant or unhappy condition
was not the event but your reaction to it.
What does this new knowledge mean to you? Everything! It means:
1. You can let go of those resentful feelings toward your job, because
the treadmill isn't what you are doing but the way you are thinking.
2. You can let go of trying to change other people, because you are
what is bothering you about them.
3. You can let go of the fear of unforeseen changes or challenges because
the only thing you really ever have to face is yourself.
Best of all, you can let go of the impossible and unbelievably self-punishing
task of thinking that you are responsible for the way the world turns.
The only world you are responsible for is your inner-world; the world
of your thoughts and feelings, impulses and desires. Your life-level
is determined by how clearly you can see into this inner-world. This
new kind of seeing is safety and ultimately the root of all self-success,
because when you know where not to step, your walk through life is a
safe and happy one.
You wouldn't go over to your neighbor's kitchen to fix your broken sink.
Why try and change your outer world when it is only a reflection of
your inner life? Do not try to change the external world. Change your
own attitudes and viewpoints. When you change yourself, you change the
world as far as you are concerned, for you are your own world. Here
is a simple was to say all of this: The inner determines the outer.
This is not as difficult to understand as it may appear at first. Let's
take an example. If a person writing a letter misspells a word, the
error starts in his mind, after which it appears on paper. He cannot
possibly correct the paper until his mind is corrected first. If he
does not clarify his mind, the error must repeat itself on paper endlessly.
No doubt you see the parallel here with human problems. People try to
correct exterior mistakes instead of correcting the way they think,
which leaves them lost, because unknowingly they are still chained to
a mistake-making machine. That is why it is so important to understand
this lesson. Your discontentment with life is with your understanding
- your life-level - not with what your understanding has brought to
you. Trying to change your life without first changing your life-level
is like trying to convince yourself that a merry-go-round has a destination.
If you are tired of going around and around, remember that you can get
off whenever you choose.
Truthful principles such as these are here to assist you in making this
Higher choice by helping you increase your self-understanding. This
elevated understanding in turn raises your life-level. As you raise
your life-level, you will see that you have effortlessly raised the
way in which you react to every event. The whole world begins to slow
down for you because you now understand that it wasn't this life that
was making you dizzy: it was your thinking.
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From Broker Coach, David McKee (603)598-3794
www.simpleintellection.com
We in the investment industry are paid for understanding. Which is not
to say that those in other industries are not, it's just that there
are apparently an infinite number of factors to understand in the investment
industry. The brokers I work with exemplify the premise that there is
a correlation between the degree of their understanding and their gross
incomes. I will cover the significant points of such understanding over
the next few NOTES, beginning now with the most important point:
There is a creative, moldable substance from which all things originate.
This substance is everywhere. There is nowhere it does not exist. A
thought placed into this substance brings into actuality the properties
contained in the thought. Our thoughts form things in this formless
substance, by imagining and feeling, we bring into being those things
thought of. Our thinking, imagining and feeling attract the means of
actualization.
Our ability to actualize that which we prefer depends upon our awareness
and understanding that such a process exists. Without such an understanding
applied, that which we do not prefer will be actualized just as surely:
just as you don't have to understand electricity to flick a light switch
and make the lights go on. In the Bible, Job teaches us this principle
succinctly when he says, "Why is it that, that which I most fear
comes upon me?" Fear is a thought immersed in imaginings and feelings,
and that which is feared is actualized.
Email me any and all comments at alidade@tellink.net
Thank you.
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