Archive for April, 2008

Insider Selling, Market Direction

I overlaid DJIA and my favorite Insider Score chart (from InsiderScore.com, a link is in my Blogroll). Before 2007 insider activity was all over the place, but since early 2007 seems there’s been a correlation between the market (as represented by DJIA, at least) and insider buying/selling:

It’s not perfect, obviously, but I’m betting on the market going down in the short term.

6 long positions, 3 short.

Media Noise

Does anyone else find this phrase meaningless?

The International Herald Tribune
has reported that business confidence
in France is the worst in 1 1/2 years.

So business confidence is the worst in 1.5 years, but not the worst in 2 years. Why pick such an arbitrary number like 1 1/2 years? Because “second worst in 2 years” doesn’t sound dramatic enough. This is just an example of news being plucked out of the air, meant to fill space and with any luck to stir emotions in the reader (other than skepticism :) ).

I’m still trying hard to avoid market noise, though can’t say I’m entirely successful.

On a different note, to commemorate U.S. dollar’s recent rise (whooo whaaa!), here’s a cartoon I’m borrowing from The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

Circle and Cycle of Money in the U.S.

Stimulus money is old news by now, but this is more about Walmart, which remains #1 company in Fortune 500. (I just had a sort of funny thought, any Walmart employee can say “I work for a top Fortune 500 company.”)

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