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Friday, October 21, 2011

Continuing Occupy Wall Street Article Saga

My latest posts to my Noozhawk article encapsulates the stupidity of the OWS movement participants:


For those who believe the OWS protesters are well-informed, consider this:
Wells Faro, the bank they were protesting in front of, chanting; “Banks got bailed out people got sold out,” was forced by Hank Paulson to take $25 billion in TARP money on October 28, 2008.  in December of 2009, they paid it back, along with roughly $132 million in dividends.  Pacific Capital, AKA Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, took approximately $181 million in TARP money.  Shortly thereafter they stopped making their dividend payments and the Treasury was forced to accept about $195 million in common stock.  To-date, SBB&T has not repurchased any of that stock owned by the Treasury.
If the OWS people are so well-informed, why were they protesting outside of Wells Fargo on Anacapa, when literally right across the street stands a bank that took taxpayer money and never paid it back?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Noozhawk article draws fire

Wow, if you are interested in reading a lot of back and forth on the issue of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, revisit my article at: http://www.noozhawk.com/article/101611_craig_allen_occupy_wall_street/.  I have drawn a lot of hate on this one!  I am really pleased to see so many people so passionate about an issue come down firmly on both sides.  Unfortunately many don't seem to have a clue as to what they are commenting on, but at least they are passionate about something.  It would be nice if they would do their homework and actually understand the issues and the facts surrounding those issues, but again, at least they are writing a post instead of playing video games, although some are probably playing video games while they are writing their posts.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Volatility in stocks results in tight window of opportunity

Stocks hit a high of 1356 on the S&P 500 back on July 7th and then dropped precipitously over the following two months, to an intraday low of 1074 on October 4th (last Tuesday).  This decline represented a 21% fall from that July 7th high.  I was buying heavily on Monday and Tuesday of last week, and was able to put a lot of cash to work at that time.  Since last Tuesday, the S&P 500 has rebounded roughly 10.5%, to a current level of 1188, gaining back fully half of what was lost over the prior 8 week period.  This quick rally from the low underscores the fact that buying opportunities in stocks do not last long in today's highly volatile environment.  Investors must be prepared with an actionable strategy in place, and must be ready to pull the trigger when the opportunity comes along, because that opportunity will not be around for long.

Stocks close the worst quarter since the depths of the recession; where do we go from here? Published in Noozhawk on Monday, October 10, 2011

http://www.noozhawk.com/article/craig_allen_with_stock_market_gasping_for_air_where_do_we_go_from_here/