Students Of Success

Next week is options expiration week, which is typically volatile. Also, important economic reports next week may generate even greater volatility. The Fed (i.e. Federal Reserve) has adopted a “data dependent” policy, which makes inflation related reports most important for the stock market.

Next week economic reports are: Mon–None, Tue–Retail Sales, and Business Inventories, Wed–Capacity Utilization, Industrial Production, Empire State Index, Net Foreign Purchases, Oil Inventories, Thu–Building Permits, Housing Starts, Import & Export Prices, Unemployment Claims, and Fri–PPI, Michigan Consumer Sentiment, Philadelphia Fed.

Inflation related reports are Capacity Utilization, Import Prices, Unemployment Claims, and the PPI. Moreover, the market may perceive strong production and consumption as inflationary, although weak growth with inflation, i.e. stagflation, is also of concern. One month of data don’t make a trend. Nonetheless, the market may react strongly to these reports.

Over the next few weeks, the market will estimate future monetary policy by tying together recent economic reports. Real economic growth is expected to pick-up this quarter to above 3% from the 1% growth rate in the fourth quarter. So, inflation data will be of particular concern.

The unwinding of options will also generate volatility. Some Feb Max Pain expirations are: SPX 1,275 with the value of calls roughly three times greater than the value of puts, OEX 575 with the value of calls over three times more than puts, and QQQQ 42 with the value of calls about 25% greater than puts.

The chart below is an SPX daily chart. Last week, SPX traded within the Dec consolidation area (also, see extended Price-by-Volume bar on left side of chart) roughly between 1,250 and 1,275. Feb Max Pain expirations indicate SPX will trade in the consolidation area again next week. However, the following week, SPX should break to the upside or downside.

In late Jan, the MACD indicator moved towards a potential bullish crossover and then gave a bearish kiss (see circle). Consequently, SPX fell shortly afterwards. Currently, MACD is moving towards another potential bullish crossover, which may determine a breakout above 1,275 or breakdown below 1,250.

The recent bearish megaphone pattern (of higher highs and lower lows) favors a breakdown. However, a MACD crossover may cause a powerful short-term bounce, while another bearish kiss may cause a breakdown below the lower line of the megaphone pattern. Nonetheless, uncertainty about monetary policy may persist for several more weeks, while the market and the Fed are “data dependent.”

Charts available at http://www.peaktrader.com/ Forum Index Market Forecast section.

Arthur Albert Eckart is the founder and owner of PeakTrader. Arthur has worked for commercial banks, e.g. Wells Fargo, Banc One, and First Commerce Technologies, during the 1980s and 1990s. He has also worked for Janus Funds from 1999-00. Arthur Eckart has a BA & MA in Economics from the University of Colorado. He has worked on options portfolio optimization since 1998.

Mr Eckart has developed a comprehensive trading methodology using economics, portfolio optimization, and technical analysis to maximize return and minimize risk at the same time and over time. This methodology has resulted in excellent returns with low risk over the past four years.

Several years ago I began an online business.

At the time, the field I was entering was not all that crowded, search engine algorithms were much easier to manipulate, and links from relevent sites were not too tough to come by.

In short - if you wanted traffic, and were willing to do a little footwork, you could get it.

Over the past few years, things have changed.

Almost by accident, I stumbled upon a method for increasing, quite dramatically, the number of visitors to my website.

It turns out that almost everybody can design a really cool website…but very few people can write an interesting article. Writing is not a skill which is crucial in todays world, and very few can do it well.

(I, on the other hand, have the opposite problem…it’s one of the few thing I can do well)

So, what is a webmaster to do if he wants to provide well written content to his visitors? Obviously, he needs to get somebody else to write it for him.

That leaves two options:

1. Pay cold hard cash to a professional writer.

2. Find a way to entice good writers to write good content for free.

3. Trade something of value for well written content.

My father once told me that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I believe he was correct, so option 2 is out.

That leaves paying or trading as the only viable options.

Most webmasters have opted for trading.

But what, you may ask, do they have to trade?

The trading arrangement which has evolved is one of wriiten content in exchange for a hyperlink.

Hyperlinks are gold in today’s Internet economy. The more links a website has back to it, the higher it will rank in the search engines.

Therefore, if I, as a webmaster, can obtain several hundred relevent links to my website, my search engine rank goes way up, and I end up with a ton of visitors.

Do you see the possibilites? If you’re a decent writer, you can end up having your articles published all over the Internet, with hyperlinks galore pointing back to your website.

“But how” you ask, “do I hook up with website owners who will publish my articles?”.

Basically, there are several large article repositories online which will allow you to post your articles. Some of these are:

Go Articles
Article Beam
iSnare
Article Factory
Ezine Articles

There are actually quite a few more, if you do a search in Google.

Write a few articles, post them, and see what happens!

John Pierce is the owner and webmaster of articlebeam.com

Ever heard of the Fuller Brush Man? You know, those legendary guys who came knocking on the front doors of America, selling brushes, mops and cleaners?

I was one of them, back in my early twenties.

I had just quit a job in an employment agency after four-and-a-half very long, very stressful days.

Confined for eight hours a day to an incredibly tiny cubicle, ear pressed to the phone calling through the yellow pages trying to find job listings, then on my very first interview having to lie to a girl about a fictitious job the boss had advertised to pull in applicants. (Can you say bait-and-switch?)

That girl knew I was lying, and when she walked out the door, I walked out, too, almost on her heels.

So when I started a new job selling door-to-door, it seemed like heaven in comparison. No cubical - I was outdoors in the June sunshine and balmy breezes. No telephone - I was talking to people face to face.

And no lying. If I didn’t think a product measured up, I simply didn’t put it in my case; I only showed what I thought was the best.

I was ecstatic from the first minute of the first day.

Every house I walked up to, my heart sang and I said over and over to myself, “I am SO-O-O-O-O-O glad to be out here and not trapped in that cubical.”

I was deliriously happy to be where I was. Overjoyed to be doing what I was doing.

And sell? Man, I sold just about half of all the people I talked to. Back in the early sixties, a hundred-dollar-day was the holy grail of Fuller Brush men. Sales people would stay out till eight or nine o’clock every night trying to nail that hundred dollar mark.

But not me. I knocked off every afternoon about five or five-thirty with $120 or $130 worth of receipts in my order book.

Then, after a few weeks, something quietly changed. My sales began to sag. Each morning saw me going out a little less enthusiastic. I spent increasing amounts of time trying to figure out what was going wrong.

After a few months, I left that job, utterly disappointed in myself.

Afterwards I wondered how I could have taken something so obviously perfect for me and messed it up so badly.

In fact, that question followed me, haunted me for twenty long years. Eventually, though, I figured it out.

The secret had been right in front of my nose all those years, but just as a fish can’t see the water it swims in, I had been unable to repeat that undeniable success.

My big secret? It was simple, really.

I had filled my mind with thankfulness - undiluted gratitude - unreserved joy at being right where I was, doing exactly what I was doing.

Then, twenty years later, when I started being thankful again - but deliberately, this time - my life changed back.

Suddenly, all sorts of “serendipitous” things started occurring. People I barely knew started bringing me terrific opportunities.

Mark this: Joyous stuff started happening AFTER I went back to being overjoyed with my life.

Make no mistake - there were still challenges that needed to be dealt with. But I stopped seeing “problems” as personal affronts deliberately sent by life to impede me. In fact, with the right mindset, I couldn’t see problems at all. Instead, they looked like fascinating puzzles to solve and games to enjoy sorting out.

And even now, anytime I feel life becoming a bit too stressful, a bit too heavy, a bit less fun, I make myself stop and - against all logic - I start looking at all the stuff around me and calling it good.

And yes, I even make myself say, “I am SO-O-O-O-O glad to be right here, right now.” And I don’t stop saying that until I can feel it taking hold.

Now, I realize that on the surface, there is absolutely no logic to this practice… except for one tiny thing.

It works.

So if you decide to try this approach, do this: make a list of all your major problems and start through them, one at a time, saying, “I am so glad this is happening. This is actually very interesting now that I look at it closely, and I’m lucky to be here so I can gain some great new knowledge from this. I am SO-O-O-O-O glad.”

Warning: you’ve got to put some real oomph into it. Some real feeling. Just saying the words without working up some enthusiasm is like writing a letter without a pen in your hand. You’re going through all the motions, but no communication takes place.

So do that, and keep doing it till it starts taking hold.

How can you tell when it’s taking hold?

There are two signs. First, you begin to lose that tense, blocked, frustrated feeling. And second, your life starts working FOR you instead of AGAINST you. Lots of little things start going right instead of wrong. People begin treating you like you’ve always wanted them to.

And you go to bed each night feeling like you’ve just had a wonderful day.

If you’ve tried and tried all the logical stuff and your life is still a mess, try being illogical. Try being thankful for everything you’ve got.

Including the mess.

And you’ll find, just as I have, that indeed there is a miracle in every mess.

Charles Burke is the author of Command More Luck, the book that shows you why all those things keep happening to you. Learn why “luck” doesn’t work the way you’ve always been told. Not even close. The bad news — There’s no such thing as luck. The good news — There’s something even better. Learn how it works at www.moreluck.com