Metals Stocks Fall With Prices: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Everyone, this is crazy. People are going off in the news about worries on inflation, yet the prices of precious metals is dropping? Either inflation isn't the real reason for last weeks drop, or the market has been so overvalued that it is time for a sell-off. Im thinking sticking with the reason that the market is just overvalued.
Metals Stocks Fall With Prices: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

WSJ.com - Midas Touch Fades

And just in case you can't read this article, I've taken a quote they use from David Gaffen:

3:24 p.m.: Sure, stocks have been volatile of late, but it's nothing compared to gold, which in the last week-plus has lost 9% of its value, closing down today $22.90 to $656.70. Jim Vail, manager of the ING Precious Metals Fund, believes some of the pullback can be attributed to a tailing off of speculative interest in the commodity, along with some technical factors, but he still believes the fundamental picture points to eventual rallies in gold once again. "In the three weeks of May nothing has changed," he said. "It's just a long-needed correction to get the hype out of the market."

-David Gaffen

Bubble Measurements

12:13 p.m.: How much of the run-up in commodities is due to speculation? A lot, analysts say. Richard Bernstein, chief quantitative strategist at Merrill Lynch, estimated in a recent note that prices of commodities at the end of April were about 50% higher "than they would be if prices were based on fundamentals." He fingers ample liquidity as the primary driver behind the moves in commodities such as gold, silver and copper, and also reiterates an earlier point that prices of commodities traded on futures markets have sharply outperformed those that do not have a futures market. Jim Bianco of Bianco Research says that the money flowing into commodities is coming from long-term investors like institutions trying to find an asset that is not correlated with stocks and bonds. Speculative positions in assets such as copper have dropped off in recent weeks and as of last week, speculators were actually short copper.

Darin Newsom, senior commodities analyst at DTN in Omaha, says investment demand may be driving commodity markets higher, but not every market is in a bubble. Gold and silver, yes, but copper, no, he says, because fundamentals, such as economic growth in China and India, justify higher prices for that industrial metal. "We all know investment-driven spikes don't last as long, but in these markets like copper, unleaded gas, and corn, where you've got these longer-term demand shifts, we may indeed be establishing new price ranges that don't reflect a bubble but a long-lasting change in the dynamics," he said.

-David Gaffen

And always keep in mind that you can't get to caught up in day to day news: Chet Currier writes in Bloomberg that it's perhaps time to relax a bit if you're a long-term investor. "To keep the kind of perspective and patience necessary to be a true long-term investor, I can't get bogged down in too much ephemeral detail," he writes. "If I focus too intently on every threat that rears its head in the day-to-day economic news, I never run out of reasons to put off risking my money in anything more variable than a Treasury bill." -David Gaffen

I hope you guys found these quotes interesting and this article valuable.

WSJ.com - Midas Touch Fades

Stock Market News and Investment Information | Reuters.com

So is all this downside in the market really as bad as everyone is making it out to be? There have been record profits to date, and no one complained then, but now that there is a big drop everyone freaks out. I think this is all just profit taking, and I for one would love to grab a shopping cart and go down the aisles searching for cheap discounted stocks.
Stock Market News and Investment Information | Reuters.com

Online Discount Brokers, Online Stock Trading, Stock Investing, Mutual Funds, IRA - Scottrade

Online Discount Brokers, Online Stock Trading, Stock Investing, Mutual Funds, IRA - Scottrade

So for those of you interested in getting into investing, Scottrade is easy online, so is Sharebuilder.com, and Etrade.com.
Check em out, if you have any ideas which you feel is best, feel free to comment.
TtoT

Business and Financial News - New York Times

Business and Financial News - New York Times
I figured, hey, I mentioned how great the NYTimes Business section is, but for your convenience here is a link directly to their online newspaper. I love it, you get the business, the cultural attitudes of business in the news, and if nothing else you can read some quality writing and build your english skills.
TtoT

Debunking One of the Worst Ideas in Economics: The Naked Economist - Yahoo! Finance

Debunking One of the Worst Ideas in Economics: The Naked Economist - Yahoo! Finance
And this is one more reason to show that the GOP and its desire to cut taxes is crazy. Certainly if taxes were very very high, THEN there would be a good reason to cut them to increase economic growth and then produce more revenue...however, we can see that taxes, as unpleasant as they may be, are not in reality so high. So why not just leave taxes as they are, perhaps raise them a few points and get rid of this awful debt which is pushing the U.S. dollar continually down.
If you think a weak dollar is good for the economy, boy are you wrong. I'd rather have high taxes and a strong dollar than getting to keep my money, but having it worth diddly squat. And hey, this is all from someone who loves to invest and make money.
TtoT

WSJ.com - U.S. Home

WSJ.com - U.S. Home
Oh yeah, one must not forget the Wall Street Journal, as one of the best sources for news. Of course, there are always the other great business news sources...Reuters, NYTimes Business, and CNBC to name only a few.

Zacks.com - Stock Screening Tools - Custom Stock Screener

Zacks.com - Stock Screening Tools - Custom Stock Screener
So this Screener is by far better than the one Yahoo finance provides, you can screen for more variables, and I get this feeling that Zacks.com has more up-to-date information, simply based on looking at the price-book ratio and the current price of the company.

Technical Studies

Technical Studies are a method to determine what to buy and sell based off of what the stock does in previous weeks or months. Im not sure if it is a good or bad method. I have heard different ideas from different people, overall it seems a little risky, which is probably why it is often done by people looking for a short term investment.
Again, Yahoo finance is great for checking out their charts on stocks. Also check out StockCharts.com
Again, best of luck to all readers,
TtoT

So I'd like to post on Investment Strategy. For now I will just outline 2 strategies that people swarm around: Value or Growth. Of course this is slightly narrow in its listing, there are more than these two, there is Contrarian, and mixed methods which take components of various strategies to find the best means to invest.
My favorite is value for the long term growth in money. It seems to take on the least amount of risk for the long haul.
If we want to make money really fast though, I think the best idea would be growth. Check out the Investors Business Daily for the growth stocks that have "momentum," indicating that either a huge spike in volume or trading or price surge has occurred recently.
If you are looking for value stocks though, go to Yahoo Finance and see their stock screens.
Google finance is an up and coming site that will certainly provide great information on stock news.
More to come on investment strategy, and certainly on some healthcare and science issues!
Best of luck,
TtoT

Im back!

So after months having past I have finally come to find time in my busy schedule to restart the blog. I believe I will return to the idea of having an investing related blog that touches on healthcare and issues surrounding science. Once I figure out how to work the mystery of the ever challenging blog tools there shall be oh so much more to come!
Best wishes to all my few readers,
D