Due to travel plans and local commitments, our usual report will be extremely abbreviated today.  However, since many people are interested in our Trading Models, the ChartPack section is available this morning.  Yes, this morning’s report was done in a timely manner as always, but this is one of those odd “Server ate my homework” mornings…  4-hours of research and writing gone overnight when my server decided it would restart to apply an update.  Expect a longer than usual report Wednesday as a result.  Now, a few headlines, coffee, and those charts…

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Every so often I accumulate ideas, clusters of this-and-that’s which don’t fit neatly under a single heading.  Timewave Zero’s follow-ons post 2012 fit this mold. So rather than spend (waste?) a lot of time coming up with a logical framework for “hanging it all together” I thought instead this morning I’d share what amount to a series of “Post-Its” for folks like us who are trying to make a buck, minimize our tax consequences, and then hide it from the ravages of inflation and deflation.  Oh, and along the way make a few more bucks.  So today we look at “novelty,” “change,” and “release periods.”  After headlines and coffee, of course.

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This morning a few “notes in the journal” about how life (finance/tech/rural) is changing and how our strategies may change as well as aging shows up and world conditions are anything but stable.  Think of this morning’s notes a waypoints along the path. 

Worthwhile thinking points with the world at the edge of global war. The attack on Net Neutrality, in this context, is my long-predicted replay of the government seizure of the radio waves via the Communications Act of 1934 come to life.  You might remember, my friend Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com and I wrote a short book titled “11-Steps to a Strategic Life” which is available on Amazon.  But times are changing so we’ve begun thinking about an update because stability in life is starting to hit the fan. 

Changes in conditions are likely to change the definition of “the good life” in large and chaotic ways.  Some notes on where that leads makes sense. After we get some coffee, of course.

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10-years to dark is about it.  Maybe less.  By my reckoning, depending on the resource wars.  Your not hearing about it because some greedy bastards are planning to bend you over, but good on the way to the reality of Peak Oil.  Peak Oil is real, so if you’re patient, what is going on with the stock market is just marking time until really bad impacts of a modest economic recovery show up.  Then energy prices are set to double thanks to some energy traitors in Kansas and the cost of money.  What comes with higher interest rates, a growing appetite for oil, and oh yes – the Ben Dover part: a freeze up in how many new rigs are going out to work oil.  There goes production and shortly after, the Dollar. So as we make up for a slacker time last week prior to Easter, this is a bit of crucial forward thinking to get right.  We’ll sink and swim in the stuff after a helping of overnight headlines and a check of our Trading Model.

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Own energy, own the future:  I was sitting around Friday, trying to noodle out what is likely to happen in Ukraine next week and how that would play through in global markets when a novel thought slapped me awake.  I do some of my best thinking in semi-snooze mode, you see.  Sure enough, when I looked back on a Peoplenomics report from 2001, the pieces began to click into place…how it all fits together:  Putin’s buddy-buddy talk down in the Bush ranch late 2001, stories about New World Order… and bingo!  We may have a larger game and Donetsk in play.  We’ll run some numbers and you’ll see what I mean, perhaps, but not without some good strong coffee and a few headlines to shake us awake, first…

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Coming up with all the assorted ways of looking at various financial data is a whole pile of work and if we can’t use the work product to make a buck, then what’s the point?  This weekend we’re going to have a heavy duty chart talk about gold and we’ll lay out some expectations about the future.  Even if you don’t hold a single round, you may still find the discussion a useful introduction in how to look at a financial asset and develop a measured view toward the future.  I’ll save my own outlook for the end, but you might want to have some lighter fluid and a Zippo handy if you’re a real dyed-in-the-wool gold bug.  First, however, a set of headlines to keep the festive midweek mood going…and another one of those “most curious dreams” I have every so often…

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Imagine Indiana Jones being broken up into a weekly series of smaller adventures.  Except instead of being on some Last Crusade, we’re just looking for a way to steal back the Lost Fortune of ‘Merica.  The clues are often occult, but every so often, there’s a glimmer and a thought or two which crosses our path.  We’ll check the snares up the trail after we get through a few headlines and coffee…

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Mark Twain, I think it was, said “Work is what a person is obligated to do.  Play is everything else…” or words to that effect.  With the opening of fresh-water fishing season at hand, we “cast about” for some ideas on how to make money by doing what you like.  All in a very personal set of recollections about business learned from (of all things) fishing.  Work before play around here, though.  And that means some long-term impacting headlines and charts.  Toss in a cuppa coffee, or three, and we’ll be off to the closest boat launching ramp in no time…

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Most times, our topics in Peoplenomics follow a logical sequence:  How to keep the “wolf away from the door” is the starting point.  Then we get into “wolf trapping” and finally, throwing in with the bears now and then (as in yesterday’s market action) to skim a buck or three in trading.  But there are unpleasant tasks in finance, too.  Like doing up a Will.  Or, this morning, what to put into a modern “dead letter” – which goes way beyond a simple set of instructions to the executor(s).  Morbid stuff, to be sure, but it’s one of those items that has come up on my to-do list that’s very much financial and therefore, worthy of discussion.  After some morning headlines, of course.

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Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  And this morning we have both.  Sadly, our prediction earlier this week (starting with our ‘heads up’ early Sunday morning about elevated earthquake risk came to pass with our “April Fools Quake” right (and unfortunately) on schedule.  The good news is that our Trading Model continues to sing “It’s Alright” as the market keeps nudging in new highs.  So a few cups to slurp and a few brain cells to jar and we’re off into a midweek adventure through the data of life…

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I’m not the brightest light in the chandelier, but as the future is coming evermore into focus I’m starting to find my son’s pessimistic/live-for-now future may be one of the better coping mechanisms for the time ahead over the next three or four years.  Think of it as descending into an economic black hole.  Except this one, instead of spitting you out into a different Universe, just grinds you up and that’s that. And if that’s not enough to sour your weekend mood, how about the phone call I had from my friend who jets about the world with the PowersThatBe.  “You have some clients in related areas…you need to be looking at the emerging plans for modular manufacturing…”  And no, he didn’t mean of homes.  So this particular edition, besides coffee and Danish, we plan to be passing out Tums and Kaopectate.  You might need them both as we update some of our outlooks.

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We’ve got data, we’ve got prejudices, we’ve got expectations.  But a dollar collapse?  Gold soaring into the thousands or Bitcoin going back to $1,000+?  Maybe in some alternate reality, but this morning we’ll line up a few ducks in the real estate world and, as we do so, a very unflattering outlook lies ahead.  After coffee and headlines.  But the simple version is Q2 looks to disappoint both the bulls and the bears.  The only ones who may do well?  No surprise here: Bankers.

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Although it has been a horrifically busy week around here, one of the main “Occupy Brain” problems has been trying to sort out whether the arrival of a “new kind of thinking” among the young of today needs to be factored into investment decisions.  If you’re “over 50” and haven’t noticed, the young really have adopted some new ways of thinking (which we’ll drag out for discussion) and as a result, they really do see the world through different eyes.  It leads to some interesting insights in modern demands for constant reframing of our worldviews…which we’ll get into after coffee and headlines.

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