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| Tuesday Aug 22, 2006
Trading Tactics: Have You Heard of the Euro Currency Trust (FXE)Taipan Group's Dynamic Market AlertBy J. Christoph Amberger---------------------------- -- Trading Tactics: Have You Heard of the Euro Currency Trust (FXE)
-------------------------- Trading Tactics: Have You Heard of the Euro Currency Trust (FXE)by Bryan Bottarelli During the past few years, the U.S. dollar has fallen against most major currencies. For example, one U.S. dollar buys about 30% fewer euros and Canadian dollars than in August of 2001. Based on this fall, I've been receiving questions on the best way to play the continuing fall of the dollar. I usually leave those inquiries for Adam Lass to shoulder. But recently, I've come across, what could be a simple and easy way for individual investors like you and me to profit from the continuing fall of our greenback. The idea is simple: If you think that Europe's unified currency will rise against the dollar, then a good investment for you would be the Euro Currency Trust (FXE). The FXE is an exchange-traded fund that moves in parallel with the movements of the euro. So if the euro rises, then the FXE rises. And vice versa. Why does one currency lose value in relation to another? From what I understand, the value of a country's money reflects interest rates and other broad economic factors, notably inflation. So basically, a position in the FXE can work to offset your total portfolio, which is most likely denominated all in U.S. dollars. It's a simple way for you to devote a small portion of your portfolio to non-dollar assets without being versed on the complexities of currency trading. With the year-to-date return of the FXC currently at 9.44%, it's clear this instrument is outpacing all the U.S. indices -- and at the same time, counteracting the deterioration of the U.S. dollar. Based on those parameters, the Euro Currency Trust (FXE) may be worth a look.
Clowns & Harlots: Food for Thoughtby Christopher Corbett America is worried about being fat. You hear this a lot, especially on television between commercials for junk food -- things designed to make you fat. The press says size matters, and dangerously so. Obesity has health consequences. Americans are said to be, by and large, well, large -- very large, very, very large and humongous. We are a big people and, by God, we seem to be getting bigger. All of my life -- at least since the Great Golfer was in the White House -- America has been worried about its waistline. First we worried that we could not touch our toes. Then we worried that we could not see our toes. Now we worry that many have not seen their toes in years. Toes? What toes? We are a fat people. We look bad. We are what we eat. We eat all the wrong things. We eat too much. Half of what is for sale in any supermarket is bad for you. Foreigners are horrified by the American appetite. All-U-Can-Eat, for instance. Not all you should eat. Not all you need to eat. But all you can eat. Can’t you eat just a little more? Mmmmm. Gluttony, for those of you without the benefit of a convent school education, is one of the seven deadly sins, my children. I used to go to one of those old-fashioned All-U-Can-Eat cafeterias. Not to eat, but to watch people eat. Like at the zoo. The place was a giant trough. A field of steam tables. A groaning board of foodstuffs and those who would stuff themselves. Bus-loads of trenchermen would be brought here to feed. They would gorge themselves insensible and then actually sleep on the tables only to rise again and eat more; restored by the postprandial nap. I believe people died eating in there. Or exploded. It was scary. I have seen other versions of such places in my travels. You pay a flat fee (or fat fee?) and the challenge is to break the bank. Or the waistline. Bust a gut. You pay $14.99, or whatever, but you eat $39.99! That’ll show ‘em. Nowhere on the planet do people eat like this. You have to go back to the time of Caligula or Nero or dip into Petronius and the Satyricon to find such displays. This stuff is straight out of the Last Days of Pompeii. Man as beast. I believe the Vikings dined like this. Henry VIII. Jack Falstaff. William Howard Taft. In public places there is nothing to eat that is good for you. May I begin with airports? (We’ll do malls another time.) Since 9/11 travel has been made insufferable by increased security that requires Curly, Larry and Moe to strip-search nuns, the blind and the wheelchair-bound. Special attention paid to quadriplegics. Osama won’t slip another one over on us, by God. Long may it wave! This work tends to be the exclusive province of former fast-food workers given battlefield promotions by Homeland Security. And so they have gone from asking, “You want fries with that?” to tormenting the nation’s travelers. Here we see the imp of perversity. No sight could be less comforting to anyone worried about security than to watch the mutts and strays assembled at the airport to guard the unfriendly skies. But the real danger at airports is the food. (Has anyone explored the Saudi Royal family’s connection with fast food?) This could keep Michael Moore busy. And he could afford to drop a few el-bees, too. Less Moore, so to speak. I fly a lot. In the course of two weeks I was in Baltimore, Chicago, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Boise and Kansas City. I fly more than I wish. I’m a good flyer. I pack light. I eat nothing on airplanes. I can sleep next to choleric babies and drunken Kiwanians en route to Vegas. And choleric Kiwanians and drunken babies if it comes to that (and it could on Southwest). The only thing I want to do on the plane is get there. So I sleep. I never speak to anyone. I could be sitting next to the Hilton sisters and we would not exchange hellos. A long day in the nation’s skies can make one hungry. Face it, you have no options. That brings me to the Cinnabon. I have never seen a Cinnabon anywhere but at an airport (except rest areas on the New Jersey Turnpike). Twice the size of a regulation softball, a Cinnabon is a cinnamon-flavored glob, a delectable mixture of dough and grease lathered with a diabetic coma-inducing coating of frosting. Sounds tasty? Each Cinnabon contains the normal daily caloric intake for a family of 18 in Darfur. The sugar rush alone is enough to make the eater sweat, hallucinate, bark like a dog and bite the head off a live chicken. You see this all the time at airports. You want people to comport themselves on airplanes, you don’t let them scarf down a ball of white sugar before takeoff. I don’t care if there are air marshals on the flight. The Cinnabon has the same effect as PCPs (makes you stronger than a gorilla and twice as smart). And you can buy them to take with you. Just in case you might stop being fat while flying -- say a long flight you might lose a pound or two -- suck down a Cinnabon. Feel the fat. Hmmmm. You want to be sure that you arrive in Los Angeles barely able to waddle off the plane. I fear the Cinnabon is the reason we are losing in Iraq. Not that Freedom Fries have not done their part. In the made-for-TV movie that plays in our heads we send Bruce Willis and Steven Segal to sort this stuff out; we send Rambo; we send a legion of iron men and women with six-pack abs. Kick some A-Rabb butt. In Hollywood we trust, and in Hollywood we win. But in reality we send Lynndie England, a former fast-food worker if ever I saw one. In reality, we send the Cinnabon eaters. So you see, you really do get what you pay for. Dr. Samuel Johnson, and he knew his way around a buffet, used to say that he who makes a beast of himself takes away the pain of being a man. I’ll say.
---------------------------- Amcor Ltd, American Woodmark Corporation, Brown Shoe Company Inc, Dollar Tree Stores, Michaels Stores Inc, Regis Corporation, Smithfield Foods, and XETA Technologies Inc are releasing earnings. Brought to you by your FREE AmericanCapitalist.net
Unlock Dates for the Remainder of August 2006
Upgrades and Downgrades Candela downgraded by Cowen & Company from Outperform to Neutral. Nortel downgraded by Matrix Research from Buy to Sell. Dollar General upgraded by Deutsche Securities from Sell to Hold. Goodyear Tire upgraded by JP Morgan from Neutral to Overweight. XM Satellite upgraded by Bear Stearns from Underperform to Outperform. Brought to you by GRESSOR.com
Quote of the Day "The Republicans seem to have run out of ideas, while the opposition isn't offering any alternatives. So the slogan for Election 2006 is...'Vote Democrat: They have different no ideas.'" - Scott Stantis, "Prickly City", August 18, 2006 ---------------------------- TAIPAN TIDINGS
As Oil Prices Continue to Skyrocket, Here's Your Chance to...
P.S. Prospering WITHOUT OIL The biggest winners on Wall Street over the next three to five years will be the small group of companies that successfully replace oil and energy. I call them “Free Power Technologies”
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