Perseverance.  What is it?  One definition is steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement.

By Monty at economicnoise.com
For those invested in the stock market, Wednesday was a great day. The Dow rose over 250 points. [The rally has also extended into Thursday and Friday]

We’ve talked in the past about how the major credit card issuers don’t allow merchants to require a minimum transaction amount in order to accept a credit card (e.g., here and here). Well, guess what? That appears to be a thing of the past.

It has been a very telling day as I said this morning it would be.  ISM Services just came in at 51.5 versus expectation of 53 and previous month's 54.3.  Again, ISM Manufacturing gets all the press as if we still live in the economy of 40 years ago, but ISM Services is the much more representative report.  The S&P 500 sold off an entire 1.5 points on the knee jerk reaction.  Two weeks ago ...heck earlier this week, this would of caused a 2% swoon.

I said I'd be looking to add some long exposure but that does not mean I am not going to sell some as well; what I want to do is sell some of the overextended names and buy some things that are not so overbought.  This way I can keep a decent long bias, but just change the mix of names & exposures.

Here are some sales (I've included Relative Strength index in the chart to show one signal of 'overbought')

I'm selling half of remaining Acme Packet (APKT) near $36 and will look to buy back on a pullback.

I need someone to help on video research. The research would involve searching CNBC online clips looking for particularly egregious fundamental predictions and other notable crazy statements since 2007. Not designed to be a paying job, but it would be a great project for a financial website and or small fund. I will make sure [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Research Assistant Wanted", url: "http://www.michaelcovel.com/2010/09/02/research-assistant-wanted/" });

The past two days there has been a litany of economic news and it has been mixed.  You would not know that by the reaction in the market which has almost erased all of August losses in 2 sessions.  This goes to the point that at times the market wants to do what it wants to do, and it will cherry pick the required news as needed.

At the end of each quarter, corporations listed on US stock exchanges file their earnings usually prior to trading opening or more often after the close. I try to listen in on these conference calls for the companies that I follow as much as possible. Here is a quick guide:
What?
Conference calls where company executives present the financial and operating activities, comment on future expectations and also answer questions from selected financial analysts

Over the past week or so, my wife’s 2004 Odyssey has given her a blinking green “D” (drive) light on several occasions. After looking in the owner’s manual, we were a bit concerned because the blinking green light is a sign of transmission trouble.
For those that are unaware, the 2nd generation (1999-2004) Honda Odyssey has a history of transmission troubles, particularly in the earlier years. We were thus concerned that we might be facing a major repair.