Well it took $1 trillion to do it but seemingly the fear and panic that the market experienced last week has subsided. The European Central Bank finally got it and took the necessary actions to shore up their crises and instill the confidence that the global markets were desperately looking for. So once again, a low interest rate environment coupled with global government support bodes well for the bulls.

Happy Investing.

~George

One of the metrics I use in determining the health of the speculative investor is  the year over year, month over month Gross dollar volume on the otc bulletin board and I gotta tell ya, speculation is back and back in a big way.  Just comparing the month of April, in Apr. 2009 the otc bulletin board had a gross dollar volume of aprx. $722 million compared to over $2.38 billion just this April, a whopping 230% increase. And this trend has been consistent for some time now.

Now I know the overall markets were jittery last week, but this metric cannot be overlooked. Hopefully there will be less panic this week and that cooler heads will prevail.

Good Luck to all and have a great week

~George

What happened today with the markets was so dramatic it broke a record, The Dow at one point was down 998.50 during the course of the trading day. Not the kind of record you want to see broken,  if you are long this market. But to my point on yesterdays blog, markets in part are truly driven by the two most powerful emotions, fear and greed. When fear hits the market it seemingly has a much more powerful effect pertaining to % moves to the downside, than greed does to the upside. Having said this, more times than not in an environment like we had today, small-caps and especially micro-caps are typically not caught up in the hysteria and panic that comes with days like today. Of course you always have to be selective when investing in the small-cap and micro-cap space, for indeed  enormous volatility can exist there as well.

Lets see how this shakes out over the next few weeks and hopefully the European Central Bank will instill confidence in their system by providing liquidity and buying up some of the Greece, Portugal and Spanish debt that seems to be the biggest fear factor going right now.

Good Luck to all and stay tuned.

~George

We all know by now markets can be driven by fear or by greed, and its easy to lose sight of the fundamentals when either emotion is in play. Lets not forget as long as we remain in a low interest rate environment and governments around the world continue to provide liquidity to the systems, this should continue to bode well for the markets. This especially rings true in the small cap space where small caps and micro-caps can benefit by low interest rate money and the speculative deployment of capital. Prudent investors see that small and micro-cap companies have much more upside potential than its larger cap brethren which have already realized enormous gains over the past year and change. Thats not to say that large caps wont continue to perform well, but select small caps over time, can significantly outperform its counterpart by leaps and bounds.

For now it may be a good idea to let the current fear subside a bit before putting more money to work, or for the more aggressive investor, this may be the perfect opportunity to step in a bit and take advantage of the current fear in the marketplace.

As always, best of luck to all and happy investing.

~George

In early trading this morning all major indices were taking their hits on renewed concerns about Europe’s debt problems. Lets see if bargain hunters step in today or if fear will rule the days action. The Vix (fear gauge) is up over 20% this morning, so lets see how the rest of the day fares. Select small caps are holding in the midst of the large cap sell off. Patience in this type of environment is essential.

Good luck to all.

~George

Quite a busy weekend, between Warren Buffett declaring continued support for Goldman Sachs even as they are under attack and now the Euro partners agree on $147B Greek bailout.

Also interesting article over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal on the outperformance of the Small Cap marketplace. Looks to be setting up as a potentially bullish week across the board.

Happy Investing.

~George

Unnerving as the markets were this week the Dow held 11,000 even though Goldman Sachs is being attacked from multiple agencies now and the Greek crisis is seemingly picking up steam. Good news for Goldman is that Warren Buffett of famed Berkshire Hathaway today declared his support for the company and said he has no plans to sell his stake in the bank. Makes you wonder what the real motives of these attacks are? For the most part small caps held their own as well. Trying to figure out the strength of the market is a daunting task however as the saying goes “don’t fight the tape” or will the perennial “sell in May and go away” theory apply? As long as we continue to have a low interest rate environment coupled with strong earnings, the bulls may stay in charge for a while.  Lets see what kind of investing opportunities come up in May. Good luck to all.

~George