The big economic number of the week is the Retail Sales numbers coming out Friday from the U.S. Census Bureau.  For those that are interested to look at more details on the numbers you can go to Census Bureau .  The upcoming numbers are for the month of November.  The market is expecting an increase of 0.6% month over month (from Oct to Nov).  The prior month saw an increase of 1.4% (from Sep to Oct)

Below is a big picture chart showing all the data from the Census Bureau, which goes back to Jan. 1992.  You can see the significance of the financial crisis with the large drop that started in 2008.  The recession of the early 2000’s doesn’t even show a blip compared to the current recession.

The next chart shows a zoom in of the large dip that started in 2008 and recent numbers.

Below is a PDF with the NHF weekly.  Click on it for the 2 page report.

Tops and bottoms in markets are an exciting event that consistently lure investors into pulling the trigger too early. No one is immune to the temptations and commotion surrounding these events. This is especially true this day and age with all of the potential skeletons in the closets of banks that they are holding closed for the time being. Jumpiness is never a good thing when it comes to trading.
As a rule of thumb whenever I get that energy from deep inside that overcomes my mind with a sense of urgency in making a trade I walk away from the computer. You know that feeling the one where the market is rallying hard with green spikes pushing upward and shows no end in sight and you have to jump in ASAP!! This almost always results in buyers remorse as soon as you click that emotional trade in. Below is a chart from the top in 2007 that illustrates an order that could repeat itself where housing tops off first and the patience needed to wait for the market to follow suit.

A couple of interesting videos on a couple of the latest topics:

Ben Bernanke bashing:

Below is a PDF with the NHF weekly.  Click on it for the 2 page report.

As a play off of Japan’s “Lost Decade” I wanted to show a decade long chart of the SPY (S&P500) to put things in perspective.  The point being if you are typical investor out there you have invested for the past 10 years and are still at a loss.  Typical investor being someone who is involved with the ridiculous scenario of being unable to play the short side of the market and are continuously getting duped into buying dinosaur long side mutual funds resulting in maximum kickback for their broker.  We are still in a dangerous area for these types of investors and if you are one of them (Don’t worry no one can see you) this chart should be a wake up call that you need to get control of your money and your future.  I understand that the 401k does the contribution matching, which is free money and should be taken advantage of, but you need to learn how to protect and hedge yourself.  This way you can make money no matter which way the market decides to go.  There are some older posts related to these thoughts:

http://www.nakedhedgefund.com/finance/3-ways-to-short-the-stock-market/

http://www.nakedhedgefund.com/finance/hedge-against-your-401k-2/

Below is a PDF with the NHF weekly.  Click on it for the 2 page report.