I would just like to warn you at the start of this blogpost that you probably will not learn anything from me today.
Okay, so S&P downgrades US treasuries last Friday afternoon. I'm still not quite sure what message S&P was trying to send. If it was that the U.S. could never retire its national debt, well their right. I told you so at http://johnmurraycpa.typepad.com/blog/2010/06/index.html If it was that the U.S. is likely to pay its obligations back with an ever decreasing value of the dollar, well their right on that score as well.
So I wait with some excitement about what will happen when the market opens Monday. For your information, my portfolio includes a mutual fund that shorts the treasuries and several gold and silver mining companies. Well, what happens, all of the major indices turn sharply down while the yield on the treasuries go down. Now when a debt obligation's yield goes down, that is pretty much the same thing as a stock's value rising. Monday was followed with two more days of strength for Treasuries which is somewhat inexplicable since we were just downgraded.
A final rant on gas prices, oil went down from its April high of around $118 down all the way to $80 a barrel. I feel like the mule who's carrot has been taken away. I drive a Nissan Titan, so let's just leave it at this - near $4 gas is "effecting" me. I took some solace that with the disappearance of so many trillions of American's collective wealth, at least gas prices would be going down (maybe even to the valhalla of $2.5, one can hope)
Of course gas prices have not really went down at all. I've heard it all before - "the gas that stations are selling are actually last weeks pricier gas and they cannot lower prices just because the oil price goes down. But let me tell you, should a major hurricane form in the gulf or some conflict begin in the Middle East, gas prices are gleefully raised the next morning.
As I stated earlier, this post was more about me expressing some angst than trying to impart some nugget of wisdom.
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