Our forecast for 2012. Stocks End Up 10-15%. Housing Stays Crappy. Middle Class Struggles. Politics will continue to be politics. Don’t worry, there’s still good news in this article.

This is pretty fascinating, but Apple (AAPL) is actually leading the market… lower. I wrote a post for Seeking Alpha at the end of last week how Apple had closed below its 200 day moving average for the first time since early 2009. Since the stock stopped making new highs a few months ago it has basically led the stock market lower. How significant is this? Well, it’s not 100%, but it’s definitely significant. Apple has been viewed as a major market mover and leader …

The problem is that it is too easy to manipulate stock prices simply by printing more of the currency of which it is priced in. We could print trillions every day from here on out and get the stock market to 1,000,000 on the Dow, but would that really be a good thing? Since the printing clouds our judgment of true valuation of the stock market, it is wise to “price” the market in something else. What else? Read on…

We like to make big deals of these levels in the Dow.  We crossed 12,000.  Does it matter?  Well, first, I’d say that the Dow is sort of archaic and the S&P 500 is a better index.  Regardless, though, if you’re a bull, you’re cheering the new level.  The reality though is that 90% of these bulls only care about what the stock market does this year.  This is a terrible way to invest.  Ignore the short term cheering, and focus on the fundamentals, and the big trends that you …

Local and state governments are in terrible terrible shape.  States like California, Illinois, New York and even Florida where I live face serious challenges ahead.
The explanation is easy and is actually very simple.  The states have spent way beyond their means for far too long.  A “growing” economy for decades was able to mask the troublesome behavior, but once the growth stopped a few years ago, the crisis bubbled to the surface.
States are doing their best to combat the situation by doing some cuts – Illinois raised the income tax …

The US markets have enjoyed a nice run in the last month (nominally speaking of course – since they are in the red if you price them in gold).  The Dow closed above 11,000 last week for the first time since May.  It’s amazing how the market action determines how most people feel about the economy.  Back in August, thing “felt” much worse.  People were convinced we were heading for a double-dip because the market was acting like it.  Now, we get news of QE2, the market goes up, and …

Last month, stocks rallied big time. It was the best September in a long time. Why? I thought the economy sucked! The following quote should help you to understand why

Say that five times fast!  Stocks surge to start September.  Stocks surge to start September.  Ok, nevermind.  Dow jumped 254 points today to get everyone really, really excited!  Who cares about the month of August being down.  Traders are so funny – or maybe it’s just the clowns on CNBC – one huge day and you’d think that no problems existed in the economy!  Up and down.  Gotta be long / short these days I think.
Everyone wants to know will stocks have a big September? Does this start mean good …