<p>I am curious to see what the volume is today.</p>
<p>[Is</a> the Bond Market Signaling the End of the Equity Rally? | Breakout - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/bond-market-signaling-end-equity-rally-121553601.html]Is”>Is the Bond Market Signaling the End of the Equity Rally?)</p>
<p>This guy is implying that since bond yields are going up, investors are going to leave equities because they can get a safer yield in bonds. I thought that as long as yields go up slowly it won’t be disruptive to the equities market. Others are saying the exact opposite of this guy - that when bond yields go up, people will leave bonds because the prices are dropping. Why are these guys on these shows. Nobody knows what they’re talking about (including me)</p>
<p>BCE, you forgot NEM unless you exited that position.</p>
<p>Interesting comparison between bulls and bears: [Stock</a> bulls vs. bears: A 12-chart battleground - Slide Show - MarketWatch](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-bulls-vs-bears-11-charts-shape-the-battle-2013-03-07]Stock”>Stock bulls vs. bears: A 12-chart battleground - MarketWatch)</p>
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<p>That’s in my wife’s account. That position is down about 37% but it’s a small position - I just always have to have a little gold. My major holdings are PBA, PSEC, QLD, TNA, GOOG. I have small positions (under $100K) in MFC and ORCL. She has ORCL, NEM, PBA, TNA, MFC. The largest positions in her account are PBA and TNA.</p>
<p>Are you still planning on holding qld and tna with the runups they’ve had?</p>
<p>Leavitt Brothers is watching a bunch of indicators within their expertise and I’m watching David Kneupper’s indicators looking for sell signals. Basically I’m on my toes. I don’t have a real plan - when the indicators line up a lot more in the sell direction compared to the buy direction, then I will start reducing my positions.</p>
<p>I sound like a chartist.</p>
<p>The market action so far today seems like a top - I’m not certain what is going to drive the market higher after the news today.</p>
<p>Friend of mine is showing a house to a few buyers today - in a moderate snowstorm: $2.4M. I imagine he’s going to get a nice commission.</p>
<p>Where is the house? Boston area?</p>
<p>Just read an interesting article and now I understand why the Canadians want Keystone XL so badly. Western crude sells for $68.77. West Texas Intermediate sells for $90.44. Brent sells for $110.93. The Canadian discount amounts to $18 billion a year. Getting the oil from Alberta to someplace where it can either be refined or shipped looks to be a major hassle right now.</p>
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<p>NYC. Not a house of course.</p>
<p>I keep thinking that goog is traveling the same path as aapl. We’ve got the $1000 price target, it is the number 1 pick by the hedge fund community and its talked about every day on cnbc. The question that was asked with aapl in the same situation is “who’s left to buy?” I’m wondering the same thing with goog.</p>
<p>“Just read an interesting article and now I understand why the Canadians want Keystone XL so badly. Western crude sells for $68.77. West Texas Intermediate sells for $90.44. Brent sells for $110.93. The Canadian discount amounts to $18 billion a year. Getting the oil from Alberta to someplace where it can either be refined or shipped looks to be a major hassle right now.”</p>
<p>What is the impact of the pipeline on the refiners like Valero and Marathon?</p>
<p>I like goog…</p>
<p>I kind of like aapl too…at this level…</p>
<p>I think that the chances of GOOG going into bubble mode are good - I would expect to see an acceleration of price as opposed to the channel that it’s in now towards a blow-off top. The question is how long do I want to play chicken.</p>
<p>GOOG announced that it’s laying off 1,200 (I think that’s the number) from Motorola Mobility today. They want to focus on higher-end smartphones.</p>
<p>I haven’t followed the refiners in a long time. I held Valero for many years in the previous decade. Valero has a bunch of operations and they have the ability to process sour crude - that used to be a big competitive advantage but I don’t know if that’s still the case. I don’t really even know where the Keystone pipeline is supposed to wind up. Maybe somewhere in the Gulf. I just know that there’s a Canadian impact because my main holding is in Canada.</p>
<p>So VLO may benefit from another source of crude - that source would probably depress WTI.</p>
<p>And goog is down nothing today…</p>
<p>I would love to see goog drop…</p>
<p>I would like aapl to have a whoosh down…</p>
<p>I think there is a good chance aapl will be down today…</p>
<p>I have a bid in on a call spread…</p>
<p>I probably won’t get filled in aapl…</p>
<p>I’m closing out my position in vlo. I’ve also closed out my bac position.</p>
<p>I was bullish on Intel some time ago and on Microsoft too.</p>
<p>Intel has a huge technological lead on its competition and they are at parity on mobile chips but mobile chips are cheap. I have been seeing problems with their more expensive chips. Know anyone that has bought a computer with a Core i7 lately? Most enthusiasts that I know that want a performance system are getting Core i5s. People that don’t care about performance (vast majority) are getting Core i3s. I’m sure that I’d be fine with a Core i3 myself. There is so much compute power available these days and most people don’t need that much.</p>
<p>And then there are tablets. A lot of functions done by PCs in the past are now done by tablets. Not all functions of course but instead of getting another PC, you might get a cheap tablet and carry it around with you. And I see those two things pressuring Intel on not being able to sell as many high-margin chips.</p>
<p>On Microsoft - they appear to have made a number of blunders with Windows 8 and Surface. I personally like Windows 8 but I can fix the shortcomings. It would not take much technically to fix their problems but they would have to change the business and marketing focus and messages to win back the desktop upgrade user. They should dump Windows/RT. Dumb idea.</p>
<p>I think that GOOG is poised to do well in a variety of areas - they are experimenting around with all sorts of things. Some things are winners and some are losers. But they are doing all kinds of experiments - I think that these experiments don’t cost them very much. Google puts out products that are partially completed or that have flaws or things missing but they are useful enough so that people use or buy their products and then get hooked on them. I look at GOOG as a very innovative company, even though their products don’t have the polish and marketing discipline of products from Apple.</p>
<p>I do like Apple but I feel that they have lost a step in the last year. It’s not surprising because they seem to be competing with 80% of the tech world out there.</p>
<p>A Canadian trader friend that’s into energy sent me a few notes on pipelines. Canadian shale crude is heavy sour like that from Venezuela. It can be processed by refineries in the mid-west and the gulf. It could display oil from Venezuela and it could also be exported. It appears that there are some countries that won’t import from the US but will import from Canada (strange to me) and I guess that they’d consider it Canadian, even though it went through US refineries.</p>
<p>There is a plan to build a twin-pipeline from Alberta to BC with oil going via tanker to Asian countries. This plan has been shelved many times - maybe the potential of Keystone would mean that they don’t need the west coast pipeline. It seems to me that VLO could get heavy sour from Venezuela or Canada - the additional supply from Canada could drop WTI.</p>