Mark Lowry

Ridin Down The Canyon
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Eric Sprott

When Money Dies
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Should You Go First

George Younce quotes a very touching poem about loved ones who have gone before us.

Should You Go First



Farewell to Vestal and Gaither Stars

I've Never Been This Homesick Before

Highway to Heaven - Jessy Dixon

JESSY DIXON with GAITHER HOMECOMING FRIENDS
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quoting Adrienne Toghraie

In the last few months I have been getting calls from traders who are frustrated, angry, sad and sometimes lost. They talk about bosses, wives, children, and the government that is the source of their upset. While people in your life can create an atmosphere of turmoil, you are ultimately in charge of your own power. When you lose your power, trading losses will follow.

Not good for me

Ken called to tell me that a month ago he had broken up with his girlfriend of 2 years. He told me many reasons why this was not a good relationship and that he knew it had to end. That conversation followed with him telling me that she was getting married. He was obviously upset, but insisted that he did not love her and that if he married her, it would have been the worst decision of his life. I told him that he had let this woman take away all of his power and she did not even know it. I asked him how long he was going to let this go on.

Ken had the sense to stop trading while he was going through his upset. While his focal point was on his ex-girlfriend, she was the catalyst of other issues that were bothering him in his life. His trading was not giving him the results that he wanted. He was unhappy about what was happening in the world. And most of all he was lonely.

Power is energy

What we focus on feeds us with positive or negative energy and that generates power within. When this energy is positive, it allows us to:

· Think rationally

· Give our best performance in trading and in other areas of our life

· See opportunity

· Give good advice to others and ourselves

· Have more energy time

· Create better relationships

· Feel more optimistic

· Have a sense of purpose

· Look forward to the day’s activities

The broken toilet

Kelly was extremely angry with the fact that her landlord did not send anyone to fix her broken toilet after she had left several messages. She then decided to take matters into her own hands and hire a plumber taking the cost out of her rent. Her landlord called and yelled at her for over 10 minutes. As a result, she could not trade for the next few days. This is when she called me.

Kelly told me the story repeatedly until I repeated it back to her and asked if I had missed any of the points. She said that I had not but wanted me to agree with her that she did the right thing. I asked her how long she was going to give up her power by thinking about what had happened over and over in her mind? I asked her who else had yelled at her in her life and told her that she was bad when she had made a decision that most people would think was right. After much discussion, she said her father and her ex-husband.

Who is taking away your power?

If you are presently dealing with an upset, ask yourself these questions:

· What or who is bothering you?

· Is there anything else going on in your life now that is also bothering you?

· Are these feelings you are having similar to other feelings that you have had in your life?

· Does your issue deserve the attention that you are giving it?

What to do?

Here are a few steps that you can take to overcome giving up your power:

· Write down your problem until there is nothing more to say about it.

· Write down what actions you can take immediately and in the future to overcome this and/or to not let this happen again

· Make a plan that is filled with positive activity

· If you cannot handle this on your own, get help

Conclusion

Only we can take away our own power. It is important to recognize when we are allowing our power to be sapped away and take care of it before it escalates and takes over our lives. Remember, not to trade when you do not have power over yourself.

tradingontarget.com

Clive Maund

Those interested in going long gold investments in the near future should "keep their powder dry" but stand ready to wade in big time if gold drops into the bright green "aggressive accumulation zone" shown on our chart. ~Clive Maund

Robert Shaw Chorale

Shenandoah

O Tannenbaum

In the Bleak Midwinter

shale gas - article

Shale Gas – It Ain’t Everything They Said It Would Be

By the Casey Research Energy Team

from Casey's Daily Dispatch, September 29, 2011

Billy Sunday

Billy Sunday Warns America (1929)

Steal from the Devil: The Story of Billy Sunday

Billy Sunday Preaching About Alcohol

quoting Chris Mayer

Opportunity Now

It’s hard to believe autumn’s days are here already. As the poet Charles Bukowski wrote, “The days run away like wild horses over the hills.” The leaves are already turning. The air is getting cooler. The sunsets come earlier. The fall seasonal brews have been tapped.

I love the changing of the seasons, and it always puts me in a thoughtful mood. I guess because it makes me more conscious of the passage of time, something you can lose in the day-to-day tending to a life.

Such thinking also tends to force some perspective. I think the world is full of opportunity. I think it is a great time to be an investor. Of course, with the constant onslaught of depressing news out there, it’s not always easy to remain alert to these opportunities.

Recently I received an email from a reader of my Capital & Crisis newsletter. I thought the email echoed pretty well some of the concerns investors have right now, so I’d like to take the opportunity to address a few of those points today.


“If the bank stocks run into trouble and there is less liquidity in the market, will that not impact on business in general? Will it not affect businesses that are otherwise well run and in good shape? Will it not bring about a contraction overall?”
The short answers are yes, yes and yes. But those things are hard to predict. In fact, I would say they are impossible to predict reliably and make money. If what I’m saying weren’t true, then a lot more economists would be richer investors. Yet the greatest investors — Graham, Buffett, Klarman, Greenblatt, Whitman, Lynch and many others — are not economists. Not only that, but they pretty much ignored economic forecasting altogether.

In my experience, there is little point in going through life thinking every year is going to be 1929. As an investor, you have to invest through good times and bad. I gave you my personal example, in which I’ve managed my own money through two periods when the market was cut in half from peak to trough (2000-2002 and 2007-2009) yet each time my account rose in value far more than it fell going in. The same was true in Capital & Crisis in the latter crash. (It wasn’t around for the first one.) I think this 2011 episode will bring the same result.


“Now, I know that you believe in finding businesses for which all the fundamentals are good, but surely these too will be negatively impacted if the above scenario is correct. You quoted Buffett as to the fear factor — ‘Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful’ — but is it not still early days? Do you not think that the fear factor will rise still more if the above scenario comes to pass?”
We don’t know if these are the early days. Things could get worse or they could get better. I come at these things with wide historical perspective. I can show you how every decade there are people who think it is end of days. Yet each time, humanity figures out a way to move forward and markets recover. Then the market cycle repeats, endlessly, through the years.

What’s interesting in our times is that we’ve had several crises packed closely together. And things seem to unfold at hyper speed. But otherwise, I am of the opinion that what we are suffering from is just another turn of the market wheel in a long history of such turns.

Humanity has done an awful lot of self-defeating things. Yet somehow, here we are. Despite all that the 20th century threw at it, the stock market still produced many sparkling gems, a long list of iconic franchises — Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Home Depot, Apple and many more. I think the 21st century will be no different. We’ll have many calamities, but we’ll also create many opportunities.

I believe in people and incentives and the idea that the true economics of a business will prove out over time. I believe in the classic principles of investing for the long haul that have served so many so well. I believe in patience and discipline.


“So, I guess that really I would like to know if you think that we are on the cusp of a crisis or just a temporary slowdown.”
I’ll give you the only possible honest answer: I don’t know. But here is what few others will tell you: You don’t have to know the answer to that question to succeed as an investor. George Soros, the billionaire speculator, once said, “My financial success stands in stark contrast with my ability to forecast events.” And Warren Buffett said, “Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster, but nothing about the future.”

It’s something of a myth that great investors are great forecasters. They aren’t — and they realize they aren’t. They play the odds, buying cheap stocks in good businesses, backing talented people and sticking with their winning investment philosophies even when (and especially when) times got tough.

I wouldn’t invest unless you are in it for the long haul, unless you can hold onto a name for a few years. Don’t bother buying stocks if you are not committed as an owner. Think of stocks like real estate. You don’t go around willy-nilly buying real estate. Why? Because you know it is not easy to sell. It’s a hassle. So you are careful about what you buy.

This is why, getting back to the reader’s initial concern, the much- ballyhooed benefit of “liquidity” — the ability to buy and sell with ease without impacting the price of the asset — is the most overblown idea on the planet as far as finance goes. In 1960, the stock market turned over about 14% of its names. Meaning, people held stocks for, on average, seven years. Nobody complained about liquidity. Today, the whole market turns over in less than eight months. There are few owners anymore.

In the end, there will always be people telling you what can’t be done. I’ve heard this chorus since I started writing Capital & Crisis for the public in 2004. But I feel oddly optimistic. I feel like now is one of those times — like the pit of 2008 and early 2009 — at which we’ll look back and be glad we stayed in the game.

Of course, only time will tell. Until then, don’t forget to enjoy the present — the tasty fall brews, the company of friends and family and “the teeming autumn, big with rich increase” — as the old Bard had it.

Regards,

Chris Mayer,
for The Daily Reckoning

gold

Here are some words from Master Kenny:

“If December does NOT correct with lower closes over the next one or two days, but instead closes above $1695 over the next several days, then our figures would consider this corrective action as finished – albeit the normal back and forth widening action to come, notwithstanding. The other option (still in play), is a continuation of a V bottom and a spike rally moving very quickly up to the second resistance level at $1800/$1850, with very little widening along the way.”

jsmineset.com