"The market is not a sofa, it is not a place to get comfortable."

Jim Cramer

Chartz and Table Zup on www.joefacer.com....

I've been pretty much reporting on what's happening lately. Lots of charts, links, and a table or two. My strategy of riding the market up and standing aside when the market cracked has been pretty successful. It was loaded and cocked back in late '07 and other than trying to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller with small positions until mid June, I was heavily in cash at the end of the first quarter. Charts and tables on my website tell the tale. It is AMAZING how well being cautious has worked out. Risk control is HUGE in a self directed plan.

But Now What? That's EASY!!!

Check out the charts on my site. www.joefacer.com We had a huge earning opportunity from 9/04 until 10/07. During those three years the worst stock fund in the 401a made 11% a year and the best fund returned 30% a year. Since 11/07, all of them except the American Funds Government Securities Fund and the Met Life GIC have gone into the toilet. The economy and financial markets run in cycles. The overall direction is up. But there are pitfalls to be avoided along the way. No shit. So I want to be in the market when the direction is up and out when the direction is down. Furthermore, I want to be in the right places in the market. I'll take what the market gives. Will things be as good as the last time? Doesn't matter. Ya gotta play what yer dealt. we'll see....

What about "Buy And Hold". Is "Buy And Hold" dead?

"Buy And Hold" died for me in 1998. See http://joefacer.com/id18.html for how and why. If you have 40+ years before retirement and in blind faith don't wish to make the effort regardless of the risks , it may still be alive for you. Whatever.

What about "You Can't Time The Market."

That's just dumb. You look at the run up from '98 to '01 and the run up from '03 to '07 and read the papers (the thoughtful articles, not the cheerleaders) and you can't recognize the top? You can't recognize a time to be REALLY cautious? A buddy at work went all cash in December of this year at my recommendation. Earlier, he and his wife had looked at a house they wanted and got all the way to getting qualified for the loan. He looked at the loan and figured the payments were 80% of his take home pay and he walked away. "You Don't Need A Weatherman To See Which Way The Wind Blows." Shit like that ALWAYS goes bad at some point.

Wall Street earns money off your investments. They can't justify fees on cash. They will ALWAYS tell you to "Stay The Course." Furthermore, the big money funds are $100's or $1000's of millions of dollars. They can't turn on a dime. Buy and hold is what it looks like even when they are bailing as fast as they can. I used to be able to turn on a dime. The McMorgan era was so gawdawful that I never contributed over the minimum. I didn't put much in and McMorgan didn't earn me much. When we got the new funds, I could spread my money around a little and get in and out of the market in three days. Now I'm contributing the max and have made a lot on my investments in the 401a. Now it takes some thought, but all the way in and all the way out takes about a week or so at the minimum to about a month at the maximum. If the cat walks on the keyboard and I gotta unscramble the account from some horrible gawdawful allocation, the fix takes a coupla days to get in gear and a week to a month to undo, regardless. No biggie. THIS is what it means to be "In It For The Long Run". If you sell when you shouldn't have, BUY IT BACK! Held on a little too long? Sell it late. Was it a mistake? Fix it! Being wrong by being too cautious or too aggressive for a week or a month is meaningless in the long run. It is not a sin being wrong, positioned either too risky or too safely. Everybody makes mistakes. The sin is to stay wrong long enough to dig yourself a hole you'll never get out of...

So there are two things to be dealt with sometime in the future.

When Is The Right Time To Get Back In? And Where Do I Go?

Well, GM, Ford and Chrysler warn that they see themselves crashing into bankruptcy and taking the economy with them by the end of 2008/2009 GM/Ford Chrysler. So they want the US taxpayer to make $50 to $100 Billion dollars available to them to see if that helps them work things out. AIG has spent the original $85 billion of taxpayer money and is starting in on an additional $36 billion and either wants more or a change of terms so that they are eligible to borrow more. That is only two of the many major problems we face now and in the near future. This looks like it will take time for things to work out if they do work out at all. So I've got plenty of time to look for when to get in and time to write about where to get in.




....In The Meantime...Here

Smokin' synopsis of the election....

Prescient

See ya here later this weekend...

LIKE NOW!!!

CLICK THESE IMAGES...



CLICKIT


You know how I feel about bonds if you read this... http://joefacer.com/id11.html . Enuf said. Check out the chart above if that AIN'T enuf. It shows the two bond funds available to the 401a. Ordinarily you'd invest in these bond funds for safety. Check out the charts on my site's chart pages for what the cost of safety was for investing in bonds between 2003 and late 2007. Your performance sucked. Look at the cost of safety after 9/21/2007. It either blew you out of the water or you did OK. Let's see why...

CLICKLIT!!!!


The first image is from MORNINGSTAR for which I have a link up above. It shows part of the RETURNS page for the RBFFX bond fund. The data shows that the fund did really well between 2003 and 2006 compared to the Lehman Bros Index and the category of similar bond funds. However returns in 2005 and 2007 were not as good. Returns in '08 have been disastrous. It is still kind of a respectable showing for a short time period. It is a respectable showing in terms of the category and in terms of realizing not as much gain in return for safety and low investor effort. Still if the safety is not there, especially if the market changes, then you can't make a real serious case for being in the fund even if you didn't want to go through the effort and risk of doing better with stocks. The RGVEX government bond fund and the MET LIFE GIC offered competitive returns in bonds or a cash like fund year over year and maybe more safety. We'll have to look at them next week.
CLICKIT!!!




Above is the MORNINGSTAR DATA INTERPRETER page for the RBFFX Fund. Morningstar looks at the fund from a different view point and puts on its analyst hat. Morningstar is not impressed. Rather than looking at the returns in individual years, it lumps the years together and looks at trailing returns versus other funds. The bad '07 and '08 returns ripped the guts out of the total picture. The safety was not there. The fund had 26% of it's (your) money in mortgages and 48% of the money in corporate bonds. When these sectors went down in flames so did the safety and your money. Returns were low and the risk was high. The worst of both worlds. Add in the "unusual securities" and "structured notes which are basically bonds" (HORSE EXHAUST) and this fund looks like trouble.

The bottom line is TANSTAAFL. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The word bonds does NOT mean safe and you can never look away from your money or it may go away. When things were good, I never saw the returns from this fund being good enough to make me want to put money in. There were stock funds and the GIC and RGVEX bond fund. Once things went bad, there was too much risk and big losses and only the thinnest illusion of safety in RBFFX. There are auto loans in there along with the mortgages. Check out the Morningstar Portfolio page.

So RBFFX ain't for me. Could that change? Yep. That's why I run the charts weekly for all the Funds and read many more articles than the links I post.

See ya at the hall.

"Fear is an insidious virus. Given a breeding place in our minds it will eat away our spirit and block the forward path of our endeavors."

--James F. Bell

Chartz and Table Zup on
www.joefacer.com

HERE'S WHAT'S ON MY MIND...

I GOT THE FOLLOWING FROM THE HALL.
CLICKIT!!!!!


THE OTHER SHOE HAS FALLEN. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE 401A HAPPENED TO THE DEFINED BENEFIT (what many call the "real pension")

Here's what I see...

My pension has been poorly managed for over a decade. You know all about that by now. Compared to the better managed pensions of other unions in the area, I don't have nearly what I should have. Therefore it is important to maximize what I do have, and to above all, not put myself further behind than I am already. So I gotta plan to avoid or minimize anything negative that could affect the plan.

What's the worst that could happen? From the mailing from the hall, excerpted above, if the defined benefit pension plan fails, the PBGC will provide roughly a third of my former pension dollars less all other benefits than the monthly check. That's assuming that they are capable of doing so. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... w3FJ3Nhf1Q Note that Fed and the treasury are already supporting the housing market, insurers, providing currency swaps to foreign central banks, funds to prime brokers, public corporations, private corporations, insurance companies, investment banks, retail banks, foreign owned banks, individual borrowers, hedge funds, mortgage holders and who the hell knows who else until we read the morning news. If the government is considering floating GM (public corporation) and Chrysler/Cerberus (private company/hedge fund)big bucks to close down half the jobs and support all the pensions of both companies in a bid to avoid the bankruptcy of both parties, which it is, the PGBC is likely going to be under major stress in the near future from this and similar events. If we can't make our defined benefit pension plan work, we'd risk being just another pension plan in a long line of plans in trouble looking for our fraction of a share from the taxpayers through the Fed/Treasury/PGBC.

The health of our defined benefit plan comes FIRST!!! Stay tooned...

Second comes the 401a plan. The defined benefit plan may require more funding to meet what has already been promised us. Greater contributions without increased benefits is a real possibility for the defined benefit plan. However, any additional funds going into the 401a plan go straight to the individual account holder's pocket. In an environment where EVERYTHING is going down, ya start of with a substantial tax savings equal to a coupla VERY good years of investment appreciation. And you have room to maneuver to eliminate or minimize risk. I work with a number of individuals with very substantial balances who lost at most a thousand or two dollars this year because they practiced risk control as I suggested. Being insanely aggressive and an active trader myself, I'm down less than $4K along with keeping my substantial profits from the good years. I practice risk control too. But I do lean to he long side. I'm comfortable with a little more exposure to risk in order to expose myself to a lot more upside.
So...As part of that, I've upped my 401a contributions the final two notches to the max available...I think it's the smartest move possible.



Clickit!!!!!

The intention not to lose my money in a VERY dangerous investment environment has kept me leanin' toward cash for much of the year. The chart above of the progress of the investable funds in the 401a shows the good sense of that. Avoiding losses is good. But...

There was a very nice bounce at the end of the month. I left a 10% gain on the table. I'd prefer not to do that... This weekend I'm going to have to think about that. I'll prolly write about that here.....
Like now.

CLICKIT!!!

The bull market rolled over in November of '07. But we had a very nice bear market rally between mid March and May of '08. Everything was on the way to hell but the market went up 10%-15% anyway. Is the week long upturn of last week another of the same? Will it last long enough to play? How risky is it? Can it be played? How about rapid trading restrictions? Stay tooned...

CLICKIT!!!!

All the insurance companies are in the toilet. They are FINANCIAL companies. That has kept me out of the GIC for a coupla weeks. The RGVEX (treasuries and mortgage bonds)that I'm using instead is somewhat volatile and has cost me some bucks over the GIC. With the FED and the Treasury using the taxpayer to rescue the whole goddamned world, why not MET? The gov WILL support mortgages and treasuries. It MAY support MET. At some point this gets to be like the early/mid 80's. Either we're all going back to living in caves or we'll mostly make it through. At somepoint in the near future I MAY put some money back in the GIC on faith.......





My daughter in law won't open up her 401k. A buddy's wife logs on to her Schwab account every Saturday and screams, "STOP DOING THAT!!!" at the screen. You learn about risk control the hard way, if at all.

Clickit!!!!

'mazing!!!

"When the plane is going down and the oxygen masks have dropped and parts of the plane are peeling off as you plummet toward the earth, that’s not the time to pull out the little card in the seat in front of you and say, ‘Gee, where are the emergency exits?' Everybody should have an emergency plan. The time to make these decisions is not when people are running around with their hair on fire."

Barry Ritholtz

UPDATED 10/27;I'VE INCREASED MY 401A DEDUCTION TO THE MAX. IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

CHARTZ AND Table Zup on www.joefacer.com

I got a lot to say. Not a surprise. See ya here later this weekend.

Like, say...... NOW!!!

Things Got Ta Get Better Inna Little While...... Eric Clapton

Got Ta Make This Smokin' Heap O Cratered Crap Back Into A 401a Inna Little While........ Joe Facer

Clickit!!!!!

Ya gotta stand back in awe; We were told by liars or the clueless that the problem was contained and that all would work itself out in the short term, and after all, we were in it for "the long term".

I'll be 58 years old in a matter of weeks. Don't talk to me or anybody my age about getting back to even in "the long term". If I'd have stood there and taken the hits in the Balanced Pooled Fund, I'd have lost four years of investment income in 10 months. Make no mistake, The 401a WILL turn around someday and start to go back up. The only question is whether or not you want to start rebuilding your 401a from a crater in the basement or to continue on from where you stepped off the elevator on the way up. What makes it more complicated is that I see no reason to believe that we're gonna get growth and return rates equal to that of the bubble era we just went through. Maybe it'll take many of us six to eight years to undo the lost returns. Only to end up where we already were many years previously.

You have to understand that the 401a is a "self directed" plan. I can't for the life of me figure out why you were told that what that meant was the 401a was a "do nothing" plan.

Risk management is the key. That's why I stepped off of the elevator after it topped out.

THIS IS HUGE

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27368452/

I'm back to thinking that the MetLife GIC MAY be OK to invest in. The returns are better than treasuries and mortgage bonds and the safety MAYbe a toss up... The American Funds Gov is half mortgages.....not good. The GIC per the K and G website says that they pay off if it is not inconvenient to do so..... not good. WTF, the tax payers (us) are gonna cover it all.... not good. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I sense a theme....

When the world is running down
You make the best of what's still around.
The Police

Stay tooned.



See ya at the hall. Anybody gonna show up at the Nov 6th 401a meeting?

There is nothing that will benefit your portfolio more than avoiding losses when the market is acting poorly. If you can keep from incurring losses in your portfolio as the market falls, you avoid the very unproductive task of recouping losses once the market is more favorable.

James “Reverend Shark” DePorre

P.S.

NO ONE'S RETIREMENT MONEY NEEDS TO BE OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE STOCK OR BOND MARKET SINCE THE FIRST OF THE YEAR WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF TREASURY BONDS. THE ONLY TRADING SUCCESS I'VE HAD WITH MY TRADING ACCOUNT MONEY RECENTLY HAS BEEN WITH CRAZY FAST INSANELY AGGRESSIVE DAY TRADING WITH A HOLDING PERIOD OF MINUTES AND BIG TIME MARGIN. THIS KIND OF TRADING SCARES ME TO DEATH, AND I DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD FEAR.

OF COURSE THERE'S A LOT OF OTHER WORDS I'M NOT REAL CLEAR ON....

Do YOU feel lucky? DO YOU????

I'll let you know when I think the risk/reward ratio is sane enough to put MY retirement money out there. It's way too insane for me right now...Cash and government securities are the only thing I have a use for. But we WILL have to discuss insurance companies later this week....

The table below is the 401a plan fund's performance over the last three weeks and Year To Date

CLICKIT!!!!!





The Truth Hurts
CLICKIT!!!!

I'm deadly serious about them losing a page of the instructions and not telling you. Think about what you were told about how to manage your 401a...

HOW COULD YOU SAVE FOR YEARS AND NOT LOOK AT THE MONEY FOR A YEAR OR LONGER AT A TIME? HOW COULD YOU TRUST YOUR MONEY TO FLY YOU TO THE FUTURE ON AUTO PILOT? HOW COULD YOU BE SEDUCED BY PROMISES OF HOW EASY IT WAS ALL GOING TO BE?

Because you trusted what the "experts" said.

The alternatives are that the experts weren't smart enough to understand how the game is played and made a well intentioned but unbelievably damaging recommendation to you about how to manage your 401a plan. Or, that they had some other thing going that was a higher priority than your well being and financial future. Or that they really didn't understand what happened 2000 to 2003 with McMorgan and they did it to you again. Or did what happened, happen for a purpose?

This is a godawful set of choices to choose from, isn't it?

To them it was "OPM" "Other Peoples Money."

This needs to be fixed.....and only each individual can do the fixing by taking care of his own money.

A few members of the local went to cash before the crash happened. That was no accident. That was brothers and sisters taking their earnings, savings, and investments seriously.

It's not too late for many of us.

10/20
HOLY SHIT, CAN THIS BE RIGHT?

10/22
CLICKIT!!!!

You prolly thought your third quarter report was as bad as it gets. The chart above shows you what has happened during the last three weeks since the quarter closed. God forbid and I hope and pray that this doesn't shows up on your fourth quarter report. Hopefully the market turns up and repairs a significant part of the damage. But hope is not a strategy, you can't depend on it, and it ain't a part of what I do....

Early in 2005 I showed a small group of brothers and sisters how I intended to manage my 401a. Since then, on occasion I've shown other brothers and sisters the same things. I've had an open offer to do more of the same and I've run my 401a with an open hand on my website and on my blog since 2006. I feel good about the brothers and sisters who've taken advantage of what I've made available. And I feel bad about the ones who haven't. Pisses me off. There's not enough of the first and too many of the second.

Are You Mad As Hell And Are You Not Going To Take This It Anymore?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE

Talk to me the next time you see me at the hall.

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down."
--Mary Pickford

UPDATED 10/16

I think that a very poor job was done explaining just what 401a participants were getting themselves into. I don't think that they were given the tools needed to manage their accounts. The risks weren't explained adequately nor was risk control explained at all.

We should talk. Spread the word... especially to those who are not aware of what I'm doing or are off line and can't access my website and blog.

Can you think of any reason to believe that what happened to your 401a didn't happen to your Defined Benefit ("real" pension)?


Clickit!!!!!!


Infuckincredible in a kinda ghastly way.....



Print this up and post this on the job....
See ya at the hall.

10/16
Enough of that.... I put a tiny amount into LRSCX for a coupla day.... drawing it back out and putting it back into the Gov Securities Fund today.... There will be rallys in the days and weeks and months ahead. With 401a money, I'm better off waiting.

"The primary objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better."
-- Jim Rohn

Chartz and Table Zup on www.joefacer.com

UPDATED 10/13

CLICKIT!!!!

The Funds In The 401a

My Account

On the one hand, I've stayed informed and done the right things. The charts and tables tell the tale. I've played with an open hand and anybody who wanted to follow along could do so in almost real time. I've averaged just under 8% return over four years and I'm down a little over 5% this year in my investment gains. This is mostly 'cuz I tried to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller during the first half of the year and I'm also stuck with a minimum in the B/P Fund which is puking money. Overall, including contributions I'm up 9%+ in the 401a Year To Date. Look at the individual funds numbers. A modicum of caution makes me look like a genius. But that's compared to the brain dead "Just put the money in and don't even look at it more than once a year." strategy of total disregard and complete carelessness. So I wasn't really so much brilliant, as I was sensible. The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction is good, kinda. But I sure as hell ain't smug about it. Because on the other hand is the smoking ruin of many a brother's and sister's 401a account. That's just sad and takes all the thrill away.

But being ahead is not the same as winning by any means. There is always more to stay informed of and there are always more decisions to be made and always more opportunities to do the right or the wrong things. There's 401a money to be kept safe and more 401a money to be earned and put to work.

The past is over. Book it, move on, look back on it when ya feel like it, and put your head down, twist the wrist and ride on. Stay tooned for more posts including time permitting, how I do what I do, as the weekend progresses...

IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS FROM LAST WEEK...

IT'S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER....AND I'M NOT GETTING PAID ENOUGH TO STICK AROUND IN THE MET LIFE GIC. ALL OUT OF THE MET LIFE GIC AND ALL IN TO THE AMERICAN FUNDS GOV'MENT SECURITY FUND(RGVEX). THE TREASURIES THAT MAKE UP HALF OF RGVEX ARE GOOD AS IT GETS. THE GOV'MENT HAS SAID THEY'LL SUPPORT THE MORTGAGE AND AGENCY PAPER IN IT. I DON'T LIKE IT, BUT I CAN ACCEPT IT. MET LIFE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO NOT MAKE GOOD ON THE GIC IF THEY DECIDE NOT TO DO SO. IT'S ON THE K AND G WEBSITE. AND THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE GOV'MENT SUPPORTING THE UNINSURED PAPER OF A PUBLIC INSURANCE COMPANY IN FREEFALL. I BELIEVE MET LIFE'D TOSS THE GIC OVER THE SIDE BEFORE THEY DEFAULT ON THE POLICIES THEY'VE MADE. TOO MUCH STRESS IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS, AND MAKE NO MISTAKE; MET LIFE IS A FINANCIAL STOCK, AND MET LIFE WILL NOT PAY INTEREST ON THE GIC. WAY TOO MUCH STRESS AND WE CAN GET IN LINE WITH ALL THE OTHER CREDITORS FOR OUR PIECE OF THE CARCASS. FOUR PERCENT RETURN IS TOO LITTLE RETURN FOR TOO MUCH RISK OF LOSING A CHUNK OF IT AND ACCESS TO ALL OF IT FOR A TIME, SO READ THE TABLE ABOVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I DID ABOUT IT... ....
DO I THINK MET LIFE IS GOING UNDER? PROLLY NOT. AGAIN, I'M NOT GETTIN' PAID ENOUGH TO RISK IT. WHEN THE RISK IS GREATLY REDUCED, "AHL BE BACH"

In the meantime, here's some links...

UPDATED 10/13/08

I like the prices. The market is a smoking crater but the market isn't going to zero. It just feels that way. Caution is the key word. Forget "Buy And Hold". Think "Buy And Profit". It's not day trading, it's position trading....

I think that given the recent freefall, at some point between now and the end of the year, the markets will be enough higher than they are today to allow me to sell for a profit... So...

I pretty much bought and held between 9/04 and 4/08. I refused to hold anything but cash or cash equivalents between 4/08 and now. Now it's time for something in between....

A tiny little 2% of my balance into the Lord Abbett Small Cap Value Fund today to test the waters. If it goes down significantly, I'll sell to minimize a loss. If it goes up, I'll prolly sell to realize a gain. We'll see how it goes....

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
-Thomas Jefferson

UPDATED 10/9

Chartz and Table Zup on www.joefacer.com

Whatcha Gotta Know Is I'm All Cash (GIC) In The 401a And Have Been For A While. Congratulations To The Guys Who Listened To Me And Went To Cash Early Last Year And Those Who Went Cash Between Oct And March While I Tried To Pick Up Pennies In Front Of A Steam Roller.

Stay Tooned....Stuff Will Appear This Weekend As Inclination And Circumstances Permit....

A look at the stock and bond funds available to the 401a for the last quarter...CLICKIT!



A look at the last day of the quarter and the subsequent action (in the elipse in the chart above)...CLICKIT!



It's about marking up the quarter as best can be done. As long as you realize that as bad as your quarterly statement looks,

IT'S WORSE....

Straight talk...

Read "Haste makes waste by Lewitt...

more stuff;

I hope it's still up when you CLICKIT!!!!!;

Here's what I want to do next:

In regard to investing my 401a money; NOTHING DOING....

Things are so crazy and hypervolatile that I do not believe that it makes sense to try to make money buying stocks or funds and either holding or selling them on an uptick unless you can open a position and close it in a few minutes to a few hours time. That is not how 401a investing works. So I'm uncomfortably in the MET Life GIC unless and until the Board of Trust can arrange a real cash money market fund for the 401a. Here's a glimpse of why I'm uncomfortable;

CLICKIT!!!!

Details explaining the chart are in last week's post.

So if I can't expect to make money, there's no point in doing much of anything which makes this a pretty dull blog. So maybe I'll write about the investing tools I like and how I use them to do what I do. Stay tooned.....

UPDATED 10/9

IT'S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER....AND I'M NOT GETTING PAID ENOUGH TO STICK AROUND IN MET LIFE. ALL OUT AND ALL IN TO THE AMERICAN FUNDS GOV'MENT SECURITY FUND. THE TREASURIES IN IT ARE GOOD. THE GOV'MENT HAS SAID THEY'LL SUPPORT THE MORTGAGE PAPER. THE ENVIRONMENT IS NOT GOOD FOR SUPPORTING THE UNINSURED PAPER OF AN INSURANCE COMPANY IN FREEFALL....

CLICKIT!!!!

"There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring."
Ernest Hemingway

Knowledge is power. Take the time. You are not powerless to protect your future.

See ya at the hall....

The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled; public debt should be reduced; and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.
- Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

Charts and Table Zup on my website. There's gonna be a lot more here a for the weekend is over, But in the meantime, here's the moments' major personal concern, followed by some links... which are of incredible value for understanding what is and is not coming down this weekend...

UPDATED 10/2

CHECK IT OUT!!!!

Brothers and Sisters,
I'M CONCERNED AND NOT HAPPY

My 401a allocation;

ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GICALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GICALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GICALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC)ALL CASH(MET LIFE GIC

AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM!

From the K and G website;

The MetLife Stable Value Fund provides a guarantee of both principal and interest for participant-initiated withdrawals.
AND
Guarantees are subject to MetLife's financial strength and claims paying ability.

Met Life's health is a matter of concern to knowledgeable individuals... See last week's COFGBLOG entry.

I've gone to "all cash" and it has been a very good move for me; See the charts on my web site. But I don't really have an insured cash balance like I should have. What I have is basically a solemn assurance from Met Life about the GIC. A qualified promise to pay unless circumstances intervene.

Met life is an insurance company, like AIG was. Is it too big to fail, like AIG? I don't want to find out. AIG has already failed and been rescued by the government and provided with $85 Billion of taxpayer funds. The public is in no mood to keep handing out money and the risk is Met Life might be allowed to fail as Lehman Bros was allowed to fail between the Bear Stearns rescue and the AIG rescue.

I'M CONCERNED.

My family IRA's and my trading account are all cash. As such, the cash balance is held in my broker's money market fund sweep account, where it is SIPC (Security Investors Protection Corporation) insured. The money in the bank savings account is FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) insured. The Federal government has stepped up to insure all the taxable money market funds after the Reserve Funds family "broke the buck". But...
My 401a "cash" is not insured.
But, I do however have a promise worth what a promise is always worth about getting my money back.....
I need an option in the 401a that is insured NOW, and I think you do too.
Call a Trust Fund Trustee in the morning and say so. Ask for an insured money market or insured deposit cash option in the 401a as quickly as possible.

If you agree with me, pass this on to other brothers and sisters in the local and spread the word. This is very important to me and I think it should be to you and all our Brothers and Sisters too.

If you have any questions, email me or check out www.joefacer.com.

Fraternally yours,

Joe Facer

Here's those links...

Merkel always make a ton of sense and plays in a much tighter, less forgiving kind of arena. This carries a lot of credibility with me...

An alternative to papering over the problem with our money.....

Think about how close the FDIC might be to the edge...

Clickit!!!!!



"Careful. We don't want to learn from this."
--Calvin & Hobbes comic strip.

UPDATED 9/29
ONE MORE DAY LEFT IN THE QUARTER, THANK GAWD!!!!!

CLICKIT!!!!



I HAVE NO PATIENCE WITH "YOU CAN'T TIME THE MARKET".
I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH "THE LONG RUN" TOO.
I CAN'T AFFORD TO LOOK AWAY.
I WORKED HARD FOR THE MONEY.
NOW I WORK HARD TO KEEP IT.
I'VE SAVED MYSELF A LOT OF "CATCH UP".
EXACTLY WHAT DID I MISS BY BEING OUT OF THE MARKET?
CLICKIT!!!!!


9/30 BETTER, BUT NOT GOOD.......

CLICKIT!!!!!



10/2 STILL IN A DOWNTREND... THIS LOOKS LIKE AN UNCONTROLLABLE HEMMORAGE OF FUNDS LEFT IN STOCKS. ONE DAY THIS STUFF WILL BE CHEAP AND BUYABLE. BUT NOT TODAY. PROLLY NOT TOMORROW EITHER. I'LL POST RIGHT HERE WHEN THINK IT'S TIME TO PULL THE TRIGGER ON REINVESTING OUT OF CASH AND INTO STOCKS....

CLICKIT!!!!!

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
--Sir Winston Churchill

401A CHARTZ AND TABLE ZUP ON MY WEBSITE!

UPDATED 9/23.....

Excerpted from the previous link...

The losses incurred by Bear Stearns and other large broker-dealers were not caused by "rumors" or a "crisis of confidence," but rather by inadequate net capital and the lack of constraints on the incurring of debt.

--Lee Pickard, former director, SEC trading and markets division.

>

Is Financial Innovation just another word for excessive and reckless leverage?

Apparently so.

As we learn this morning via Julie Satow of the NY Sun, special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years -- as well as the massive current unwind

Satow interviews the above quoted former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right -- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.

Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up."

ROUND TRIP.!!! CLICKIT!!!


THIS IS WHAT "THE BIGGEST TWO DAY GAIN SINCE 1929" LOOKS LIKE IF YOU ADD IN THE OTHER 3 DAYS OF THIS WEEK....



THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IF YOU LOOK AT THE REST OF THE YEAR...
I DON'T FEEL LIKE I MADE A MISTAKE BEING IN CASH FOR MUCH OF THIS YEAR...INCLUDING THIS WEEK.

9/21

Google "Mauldin" and "dead men walking"

I'm not happy.

Yeah, it's more work watching your money than not...



But, is it really too much trouble?
It only took four months to lose how much?


Got this in an email....

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
--Napoleon Hill

UPDATED 9/17

SUNDAY NIGHT: GOIN'DOWN IN FLAMES? GIC...THE PLACE TO BE...

UPDATE 9/17 courtesy of STOCKCHARTS.COM
CLICKIT!!

DEFINITELY NOT GOOD!!!!!!!

CLICKIT!



HOLY SHIT...

CLICKIT!!

IN FUCKING CREDIBLE.....

The three great lies: "Of course I'll respect you in the morning,' 'The check is in the mail,' and "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."
--Herschel Chicowitz

"The art of investment is the art of selling. Buying is a lesser skill and holding requires no skill at all."
-- Harry Schultz

Holy Shit!!!!

Click the SOB to get a GOOD look...

RERFX which made me some money over the last few years is down 22% for the year. Calamos, which also made me some jack over the last few years is down 24%. CHECK OUT THE NON GOV BONDS!!!! DOWN OVER 6% YTD!!!! Balanced Pooled Fund down 7% plus. I can see why the 401a advisor says to look at this no more often than once a year. Kinda like he hopes it'll be back up to even then.

HEY!!
There is nothing that will benefit your portfolio more than avoiding losses when the market is acting poorly. If you can keep from incurring losses in your portfolio as the market falls, you avoid the very unproductive task of recouping losses once the market is more favorable.
James “Reverend Shark” DePorre


Scope out your losses for the year to date and figure out how much you have to lose and how much you can keep with a little effort.

I'm maxed out in cash. Have been. Shoulda been a coupla months sooner.... I can live with that. I earned it when I could and kept most of what I made....

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires 10 times as much skill to keep it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chartz and Table Zup on the main site.

"The first step to making money is not losing it."
-- Ed Easterling

CHARTZ AND TABLE ZUP On The Main Site!!! I've revised a few of the chart set ups and I'm happier with them. You may not be, because of what they show. Check 'em out...

Three day weekend and ain't no excuse why I can't write some more here, since this is the weekend I decided I gotta do a top to bottom review of my retirement investing and trading. See ya here at the very end (Late Monday Evening) of the weekend. Stay Tooned

Cell Genesys

Working....
Every so often, I figure it's time to lay something down so it stays there. It's usually something basic that illuminates the Why of what I do and why it's right. I usually grind it out here and post it to COFOG BLOG Essays on the main site later. I got the next riff in my head, When I get caught up on my post vacation stuff, it'll appear here.

"The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists."
-Joan Robinson,

Smart Investors Have to Wonder Who's Dumb Now: Michael R. Sesit

There was this cruise tour of Alaska, and I was gone for a while, and it was great. Then there was this software update when I got back , and I deleted a file as per instructions and the COFGBLOG disappeared. Flat fuckin'

DISAPPEARED.
Gone.
TOAST.

I'm BAACKKK!!!

STAY TOONED.....

"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries."
-- James A. Michener


Charts and Table Zup onna main site. Stuff to appear here later.

Don't worry about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination.
-- Sir Thomas Treves

Charts and Table Zup on my site...

The worst is over!!!

NOT!!!

I see it differently.

401a

IRA's & trading account

There is nothing that will benefit your portfolio more than avoiding losses when the market is acting poorly. If you can keep from incurring losses in your portfolio as the market falls, you avoid the very unproductive task of recouping losses once the market is more favorable.

James “Reverend Shark” DePorre



Charts and Table Zup on my site.

Think about Fannie Mae, Bank of America, Lehman Bros, and Merrill Lynch. Good solid American companies you can trust to put in your retirement portfolio and look away from for a year or two at a time.

CLICKIT!




STAY TOONED...


Fer Stuff Like This...Click onna charts....

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ ... enial.html

In case ya ain't sure, I'm still cash in the 401a and hedged and levered short in the IRAs and trading account. I trailed the B/P Fund pretty significantly when i tried to get a few last dollars outa a too late/too little attempt to ride the post March bounce. Being all in in the GIC for the lsst month has healed some o' that hurt.

Fanny and Freddie and Indy Mac bank.

Let's look at a banking index. CLICKIT!!



It's prolly gonnna get worse. How much and for how long?

There's the issue...



7/15/08

Everyday, In Every Way, A Little More Worser....CLICKIT!!!!

For purposes of action, nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
-- Henri Frederic Ameil

Charts and Table Zup On My Site!

This was the week that the world figured out that no game goes on forever and eventually ya gotta tear it down to get at the rot in the walls. Hang on... But CLICKIT first




Down 6% in bonds and 25% in the Washington Mutual Fund in 8 months and with more to go. That's just pathetic.

I'm just not totally clear why being defensive and "timing the market", which I do, is the wrong thing to do here. It's not like there was one correct moment to get defensive and that there will be only one correct moment to reinvest in the market. There was/is a certain slow motion aspect to this train crash. Ask the guy's who went to cash before/during/after I did.

Read this!!!

http://www.thestreet.com/files/tsc/land ... pprentice/

But most especially THIS!!!

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscs/comment/ ... 50118.html

UPDATED 7/7

"It is not how right or how wrong you are that matters, but how much money you make when right and how much you do not lose when wrong."
-- George Soros

UPDATED 7/2

Charteses and Table Zup!

AGAIN!! Clickit...

The trend is down. Trends tend to persist. That's why they are called trends. The DOW 30 and S&P 500 are down aroun' 14%+ or - for the year. The 401a stock funds are down from 5% to 18%. What do YOU see in the near future that will change the trend and turn things up? In the meantime, we all gotta contemplate how bad and how long it'll hurt to buy food and gas. Explain again why you would want to retire now and lock in your pension for life at the current level if you didn't have to? Me too.

In my 401a, the name of the game is keep it safe. I don't have the ability to play the finer points, I'm stuck in huge funds that change directions like continents, and the money within each fund is NOT nimble due to trading restrictions. That means the GIC for me. A sure small gain is better than maybe some gain sometimes but for sure big losses for the foreseeable future. I'll put what money I choose to put to work where it can work the most safely; my trading account and IRA's. Leveraged short side and cash has been a great place to be recently and I've been one or the other or both.

GIMME A BREAK!!! CLICKIT

IS

Charts and Table Zup!!!

There's only a some of the stock funds in the 401 I chose to track and I don't invest in them all and even then, only some of the time. Here's how those select funds are doing as of the last five weeks. I'm only in the B/P Fund for the absolute minimum and allergic to stocks in the 401a here and now. I overstayed my welcome in stocks (trying to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller) and gave back more than I'm comfortable with. That's the other side of playing for serious return. It's how much you keep that qualifies how much you make. Oh well. It's keep it mode in the 401a and playin' the dark side of the street in my trading account and IRA's.

CLICKIT!!!!!



Enuf said...

I'm big time (95%) CASH (GIC) in the 401a. I'm also cash and select long and hedged with leveraged shorts in my trading account and my and my wife's IRA's.

Make it when and where ya can with the emphasis on keepin' as much as ya can.

Pretty damn clear to me.

See ya at the hall, Bro and Sis.

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
-- Mom

Charts and table Zup.

Yo K. B., Check out the 5/24 post. See ya at the hall...

Stay tooned for more this weekend.

UPDATED 6/17

"There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world."

John Maynard Keynes

"Is there a choice in the 401 that I can put my money in and not have to pay attention to it?

Local 342 'fitter

If prices are stable in the short, intermediate and very long term, if society and the economy remain essentially unchanged during your lifetime, if no new technology is ever introduced, if resource availablity and scarcity remains unchanged over centuries, then the whole pension investing thing gets a lot easier. There might be one or more "choose this and look at it again when you decide to retire" choice. But that ain't the world I live in and I suspect it might not be the world you live in either. That leaves us in this world where there is the possibility of major mistakes with catastrophic consequences occurring if we make a bad decision(s) let them run for extended time and and don't bother to fix it (them).

Me

Chartses and table Zup

"Opportunity knocks, but it has never been known to turn the knob and walk in."
English Proverb

Chartz and Table Zup!!

UPDATED 6/3 SEE BELOW...

CLICKIT!!

5/3 Update;

"No emergency can justify a return to inflation. Inflation can provide neither the weapons a nation needs to defend its independence nor the capital goods required for any project. It does not cure unsatisfactory conditions. It merely helps the rulers whose policies brought about the catastrophe to exculpate themselves."
-Ludwig von Mises


CHARTZ AND TABLE ZUP

Checkitout!
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ ... res-o.html

Rick: Your cash is good at the bar.
Banker: What? Do you know who I am?
Rick: I do. You're lucky the bar's open to you.
--Casablanca

UPDATE; 5/22. I CUT MY EQUITY EXPOSURE IN HALF!!! WAS IT WAS A BEAR MARKET BOUNCE AND NOW IT'S OVER? WE'LL SEE...

Chartz and Table Zup!

CLICKIT

CLICKIT

CLICKIT

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. -- Marcus Aurelius

ChartZ and Table Zup!

October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February."

-- Mark Twain

ChartZ And Table Zup!

Updated 5/5

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure....

UPDATE;

Chartz and Table Zup.

"The market is not a sofa, it is not a place to get comfortable."

Jim Cramer

"Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless."

Milton Friedman

ChartZ and Table Zup.

Ya got roughly 3 million too many homes (1 million of them empty) to get rid of. Whose gonna throw good money after bad when the bank examiner may come knocking?