Subj : Market Action To : All From : Paul Rogers Date : Thu Mar 17 2005 05:32 pm Content-type: text/plain "My mind's made up, don't confuse me with facts." I hope one of the examples I set is being open-minded enough to be a little skeptical and question representations made to us. Things like "NEW BULL MARKET". This morning I heard one of the Congresscritters say, "We need to do this for energy independence. Most of the oil is controlled by countries who are NOT our friends." This morning, as I was volunteering in the park district garden, I began to wonder if that made any sense, or was Mr. Congresscritter trying to blow smoke up my fanny because his agenda was more important to him than the truth? With prices at record highs, wouldn't you be selling as much as you could and laughing all the way to the bank? OPEC quotas have always been one of those traditions "more in the breach than the observance". OPEC's pumping 27.7M bbl/day, just raised it .5M bbl, and says maybe they could go up another .5M bbl. We're sucking up about a third of that (see below). Would you not sell your product to Fred for cash on the barrel-head because he once insulted your sister? I doubt it, but even if you're that crazy, I'm not! I'll buy your product and sell it to Fred. Open market commodities, like oil, are fully fungible--anybody with the money can buy it. Does America really have any trouble buying the oil it needs? That makes no sense. When I got home this afternoon I asked Mr Google about "2004 crude oil imports by country". The first page was from the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy that Mr Congresscritter gets information from. Here's the top 15 countries we import from: Country Jan-Dec 2004 Canada 1611 Thousand Bbl/day Mexico 1597 Saudi Arabia 1494 Venezuela 1294 Nigeria 1062 Iraq 651 Angola 306 Kuwait 241 United Kindom 235 Equador 228 Algeria 214 Russia 150 Norway 146 Gabon 142 Colombia 138 Now just which of those countries are threatening us? Canada? Mexico? We still have friends in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Gulf War I. What the heck is Mr Congresscritter talking about? Nobody's threatening our sources of supply. Now, that adds up to 9.51M bbl/day. If their best projections are correct, how much of our "foreign dependence" would ANWR relieve? If'n we were smart, we'd use up theirs and keep ours in reserve! I'm sorry, I think the agenda has gotten in the way of rational decision making. Congresscritters, politicians in general, don't have to be intelligent, they just have to be electable. I remember when the speculators drove all of SE Asia into near bankruptcy, speculating in the currencies. I also remember Enron and manufactured energy shortages. I think they're doing it again in oil. The speculators are making a short term killing and we're greasing their pockets. Oh, the market today? It was up a bit, but volume fell a bit to only +2% above average. It hardly mattered. I don't see any reason to change my grumpy mood about the market. Price Vola- Momen- Volume Oscil- Summ. Change tility tum lator Index -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ -__+ _<__ _|__ _|__ _|__ <___ ___| 03/11 __<_ _|__ __|_ _<__ _<__ ___< 03/14 _<__ _|__ _|__ _<__ |___ ___< 03/15 _<__ _|__ _|__ __<_ <___ __<_ 03/16 __<_ _>__ _|__ __<_ |___ __<_ 03/17 Timing Signals: I don't use or recommend timing signals, but they're fun to watch. If I did though, well, I might use something like this. (Be warned!! It tends to whipsaw around signal points!) Last Signal: SELL Date: 03/15/05 S&P: 1198 Winner or Loser: Loser By: -9 See my market tracking charts for '03-'04 and my investment strategy study at my website(s): http://www.xprt.net/~pgrogers/Pers.html http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers/Pers.html http://www.geocities.com/paulgrogers/Pers.html Paul Rogers, paulgrogers@yahoo.com -o) http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers /\\ Rogers' Second Law: Everything you do communicates. _\_V .... In a clear field you can disk forever. ___ MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.35 --- * Origin: The Bare Bones BBS (1:105/360) .