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Marc Faber`s Picks For 2010

photo-marc-faberDr. Marc Faber shared with the Economic Times his investment themes for 2010. Japanese stocks and shorting US Treasuries are his top picks for 2010:

“I would avoid US government bonds and I think as a contrarian you really want the contrarian play. You should buy Japanese stocks and Japanese banks. This is the absolute contrarian play. Nobody is interested in Japan all the funds have withdrawn money from Japan they have given up on Japan I guarantee you the economy would not do well, forget about the economy the population is shrinking but you can have an economy that does not do well but the companies do well that is a big difference and I think the Japanese banks are very depressed. All the banks in Asia have actually recovered very strongly but not the Japanese banks so as a contrarian play I would look at that.” in Economic Times.

World’s 10 Worst Economies

It takes a lot to kick a dying ailing man in the guts as he is already agonizing on the floor, but nobody wants to do it to poor old Uncle Sam, do they? And that’s despite the fact that the government in the US is inefficient and that economic development leaves a lot to be desired, these days. Even the World Economic Forum increased the ranking for the USA from 5th in 2013 in the world to 3rd position in 2014. Either the USA is giving some back-handed greenbacks to the committee or they really are not looking into things as well as they should be. What’s the US got to sing praises for these days in terms of economic ranking? We can only imagine that they will increase yet again in this year’s rankings once they get released if it is only for the greatest pleasure and most-intellectual masturbation of the elitist decision-makers in the country. The USA is at the top of the roost, isn’t it?

The World Economic Forum judges each country in the world according to a set of criteria that determine the productivity of a country and its ability to be competitive. Of course, the whole concept of competitiveness is a western-world set of values, isn’t it? Just like democracy, which has to be exported to all and sundry, whether they want or need it in their states, the liberal concept of economic activity has to be exported to the rest of the world. If you don’t, then you are going to be downgraded and dumped into the abysses of the rankings in the world. Who wants to come out last or get given the wooden spoon in the race towards that big dollar sign in the sky? Nobody. Not even those that don’t want liberal economies.

World Economic Forum and Competitiveness

Either you are an efficiency-driven economy according to the World Economic Forum that highlights the basic need of improving economic output and heightening efficiency of production (which basically means getting people to work more for less and at the same time produce more for the customer just as long as the latter agree to pay exorbitant sums of money); or you are a factor-driven economy, which is bad because they are the least developed and they can only afford to pay cheap labor a pittance and they sell of their natural resources (in abundance to the efficiency-driven economies). Whoever said economics was hard to understand? The third category of the World Economic Forum is those countries that are called innovation-driven economies. Those are the western-world nations that have managed to invent and innovate new ways of exploiting the previous two categories at will and in depth. Apparently, any country that is not in one of these three categories does not, will not and cannot exist according to the World Economic Forum. In its own words theWEF is “committed to improving the state of the word through public-private cooperation”.

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An economist’s XMAS

If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three.’ As Winston Churchill noted, economists rarely agree on anything. And the topic of Christmas should be no different. Here is our guide to the macroeconomics of Christmas:

 

Keynesians – place a lot of emphasis on the ‘macro stabilization’ properties of Christmas. Ideally, they would vary the number of Christmases each year according to the state of the economy. This is best summarized by Paul Krugman’s depression paper ‘Wish it could be Christmas every day’, in which he also acknowledges his love of British glam rock. The Keynesians would like to see a larger role for the state, including publically-funded Santas.

Austrians – Believe Christmas is dangerous because it inevitably ends with a nasty January hangover. Also worry about the moral hazard implications of gift-giving and the propensity for overinvestment in Christmas decorations. Reject the idea of ‘public’ holidays, arguing the free market would lead to a better outcome.
Monetarists – Convinced they are the only ones who know how Christmas ‘really works’ and quickly become frustrated with other economists’ lack of understanding. Their thinking can be reduced to a simple identity, though this is vulnerable to shifts in the velocity of Santa’s circulation. Hardcore monetarists believe in the tight control of chocolate coins to prevent the hyper-inflation of waist lines and the hyper-activity of small children. (more…)

THE GUESSING OF TRADING

Trading is based on our hypothesis. In other words trading amounts to our educated guesses, which means the more you invest in your education, the more likely you are to find yourself on the right side of the trade. One of the most widely overlooked parts of trading education by traders is the study of past charts. I make personal videos, so that like a football team I can review my plays and create better strategies.

Your chart will tell you almost every thing you need to know to get on the right side of the trade. The one thing it doesn’t tell you is what is going on behind the scenes and it will even give you a hint to that most of the time. Your bullish/bearish ENGULFING patterns are evidence that there are some secrets that the market keeps to itself.

Mastering your candlestick psychology, your support/resistance, and your trendlines are things that you want to major on and learn well. You may not win every trade, but having a firm foundation on these simple techniques can greatly increase your odds of a successful trade. I think the more simple your charts, the better and easier it is for you to enter a good trade.

Sometimes you will have the perfect trade set up and all of your analysis will be right and you will find yourself on the wrong side of the trade. No big deal, it happens to all of us, review that trade and see if you can identify the error. When you have reviewed it, look for the next trading opportunity. There is NO PERFECT TRADING STRATEGY!!!!!!! This is only a guessing game for those of us who like to play the odds. The better your education, the better your odds will be against the house.