Given that the tiger is a ferocious animal, this year is generally not good for risky ventures. To succeed in investing, we will need the traits of a tiger - courage, stealth and strength.

In view of the challenging times ahead, I believe the stock market is too optimistic with its valuations of 15-25 times earnings. Stocks have rallied aggressively since March. Most of them are trading above their 200-day moving average and with no sign of slowing down. In this kind of bullish environment, fundamental analysis seems really foolish. A monkey, with no baggge of knowing how bad things really are, could have made huge profits just by throwing darts in the dark.

With each passing week, the case for a bearish reversal out of this stock market rally becomes stronger. For the time being, the bulls triumphed by breaking out of a potentially ugly double top pattern. This raging bullish sentiment pretty much sums up last week’s stock market actions.

On Monday, we had a fantastic stock market rally after the US Treasury engineered a takeover of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Regardless of it being the costliest bailout in US financial history, investors’ confidence were restored… for a while.
Suckers, er, investors rushed into the stock market again, picking up oversold stocks as […]

The US dollar, inspired largely by plunging oil prices and growing pessimism over the economic health of the EU and the U.K, is going gangbusters of late. It traded at $1.4455 Wednesday, a seven-month high against the euro.
On the other hand, oil prices continue downwards to $107.48 a barrel, as Hurricane Gustav’s path of destruction was […]

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