StockbrokerPro.com NOTES, Thursday, June 19,
2003
· New links put on the site this
week: In the MAGAZINES & NEWSLETTERS section is "Stockbroker
Magazines." Here you'll find Registered Rep; Research; On Wall
Street; Ticker; Financial Advisor; and Trust and Estates. In the BROKERS
section is "Independent Brokers." Here you'll find LPL; Sun
America; First Allied; Investmentctr; J.P. Turner; and Commonwealth.
In the STOCKBROKER INFORMATION & TOOLS section, under "Financial
Planning Programs" you'll find tradersaccounting.com.
· Expect a quarter-point cut in
the federal funds rate to 1%. Forget a half-point cut. It won't happen.
Here's why. One percent is as low as the fed funds rate has ever been
since congress created the Federal Reserve in 1913. It was 1% only one
other time: at the end of the term of Herbert Hoover in 1932, at the
bottom of the Great Depression. Unemployment was running over 20%. Chairman
of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan probably would not want to be
known as the man who dropped interest rates lower than Herbert Hoover.
· Core CPI (consumer price index),
which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% in May, the biggest gain in
nine months. Year over year, the CPI (with food and energy) rose 2.1%
while Core CPI rose 1.6%. We will keep an eye on this. This May data
eases the worries of deflation. But we are not out of the woods yet.
· May housing starts came in at
an annualized 1.73 million units last month, recouping most of April's
6.3% drop. Single-family starts rose 1.5%, a 1.38 million unit pace.
Applications for building permits climbed 3.7%. The housing market is
still strong and will stay so as long as rates stay low.
· The Wilshire 5000 index of all
actively traded stocks has climbed roughly 30% since October 9, adding
nearly $2.2 trillion to investor wealth. Not bad!
· OK people, yes, there were (are)
WMD's (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq. Please. Be serious. Everybody
in the world acknowledged this, including the French, the U.N. and Saddam
himself. This attack on Bush and Blair is nonsense. It will not stick.
In fact, in time, it will backfire. Just because the weapons haven't
been found does not mean they don't exist. What kind of logic is that?
They will be found. Then the attackers will try to redefine what a WMD
is, which they have already done regarding what has already been found.
The attacks won't stop any time soon, and they won't stop, they'll just
change. And don't be surprised when we learn that the weapons were removed
from Iraq by our good friends the French, Russians and Germans, clearly
intent, from day one, on embarrassing the U.S. and Britain.
· In the new book A Mathematician
Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos, there is the story
of a newsletter publisher who sent out 64,000 letters to subscribers.
Half predicted a stock index would go up, the other half predicted the
same index would go down. He then does this six more times, each time
eliminating those who got the wrong predictions from his mailing list.
He now has 1,000 people who believe he is a genius. And he probably
is, albeit an unethical one! Imagine the damage this guy would do if
he were a broker, or better yet, an analyst!
· Yesterday, June 18, 2003, several
newspapers wrote about how more Americans than ever before are suffering
from depression. The study (appearing in the current Journal of the
American Medical Association) of more than 9,000 people over the age
of 18 found that about 52% of depressed patients were getting treatment
from a health professional, but only 47% of those getting such treatment
were receiving proper care. Part of the reason why they consider that
so few patients received inadequate care was that patients became "impatient"
(so then shouldn't they be called "impatients") with slow-acting
antidepressants and their side effects. These "impatients"
drop out early, before the drug kicks in. The study says that roughly
13 to 14 million Americans a year experience major depression (I'm getting
depressed just reading this), researches estimate, or 6.6% of the population
(I wonder how much higher the percentage is among brokers the last few
years). And in a "lifetime" about 33 million to 35 million
people suffer from major depression, or 16.2% of adults.
I don't mean to make light of this issue. It is a serious one. I am
annoyed, however, on how drugs are presented as the solution to this
problem. Nonsense. Don't get me wrong, I do understand that there are
some people with chemical imbalances where drugs are a miraculous solution.
But the majority of the depression problems are NOT chemical. And in
that regard the medical community fails miserably. They address the
symptoms, not the cause of the problem. That being the case, I will
go a little New Age on you. In my experience as a coach and manager
the following approach is MUCH more effective in addressing depression.
Here is an excerpt from the book Mystic Path to Cosmic Power,
1967, by Vernon Howard:
THE CURE FOR DEPRESSION:
"My chief negative emotion is depression. What causes it?"
"Follow carefully. Your understanding rids you of the problem.
Depression occurs when you catch a sudden insight into the emptiness
of your life. A man thinks he is happy with all his business and social
activities. But he catches a glimpse that it is all an act, which depresses
him. It is like dreaming about a palace and waking up to a mud hut."
"And the cure?"
"Be willing to see through your pretensions of having a purposeful
life. This is an awakening shock. But when we abandon a pseudo-purpose,
when we have nothing left of the false self, a true purpose enters the
life. Then, depression is absolutely impossible."
"I don't know what you mean by pseudo-purpose. There is nothing
wrong about building a business, a career, or having a happy home."
"No, of course not. Go ahead and be a successful businessman, or
homemaker, or whatever else you want on the worldly level. Be as outwardly
prosperous as you like. But don't think it can add anything to your
interior life. You must not use worldly success as a means of psychological
identity, such as picturing yourself as an important person. This creates
anxiety. Remember, you live in two worlds: the material world of business
and homes, and the spiritual world. Keep each in its place. If you try
to use exterior success to find your True Self, you will fail and fall
into depression. You can't paint the outside of your house and expect
the living room to look any different."
"Is this why successful people like movie stars often live so unhappily?"
"They get depressed because they catch a glimpse of their inner
poverty. This frightens them, for they fear there is nothing besides
this showy sham. There is something else. We find it by daring to abandon
the false. Then, we have no problems whatsoever with our exterior affairs.
This is what the New Testament means by seeking first the Kingdom of
Heaven."
"But no one really pays attention, do they? That is why everyone
suffers from depression."
"Work with these ideas so that you don't suffer."
Let's pause to inquire into the reason for our investigation of negative
emotions. Why spend so much time discussing unhappiness? The reason
is: it finally awakens us to the very life we seek. We cannot become
happy by altering our exterior affairs any more than we can improve
our handwriting by getting a new pen. The understanding of unhappiness
brings happiness. To see what is false is also to see what is true.
We are exactly where we have chosen to be. But we belong where our original
nature longs to be.
· Readers: Please do me a
favor. Tell a friend about StockbrokerPro.com and if you enjoy my NOTES
please urge people to sign up for them. Thank you so much.
· P.S. There are things being done
for this economy that are preparing us for a Great Super Boom! I'll
get into what those things are in future NOTES. (caveat: this is not
to say that we won't be testing market lows before this boom really
gets going).
· THE NEXT DECADE WILL BE A GREAT
TIME TO BE AN INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL!
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From Broker Coach, David McKee (603)598-3794
www.simpleintellection.com
The core of your accomplishments are determined almost completely by
your expectations. If you expect to be successful and perhaps are going
about it in the "wrong" ways, even then, if you expect to
succeed, you will adapt and advance. If you expect to fail, you will
not adapt, and you will fulfill your expectation.
In the world of technology there is a concept called "reverse engineering."
Reverse engineering is the breaking down of an object or process into
its component parts to understand how it works.
In personal performance terms, "whatever you have is what you understand."
How do we know you understand scarcity? Because that is what you have.
Reverse engineering of scarcity requires that you take apart those experiences
upon which your understanding of scarcity is built. The same goes for
abundance.
It is important to know that performance is composed of many parts,
each requiring careful study. Your being receptive and understanding
of these parts makes your participation with clients and prospects more
valuable.
Please accept the above as an introduction, not a summation.
Feel free to email me to discuss these concepts at alidade@tellink.net
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