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YATES CONVICTION OVERTURNED

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/26/yates.trial.ap/index.html

All I can say is, UNFRIGGINBELIEVABLE.

This insanity plea is a copout. Everyone that kills 5 children that is theirs' is insane!

I agree with you Minstrel.

To Succeed, Get Mentally Tough
07/26/2006 8:54 AM

Mental attitude always plays a big part in investing success but it is more important than usual in a difficult environment like we have now. It is particularly important that we not let the challenges we face weigh us down, and that we stay flexible and adaptable. Stubborness and an unwillingness to adapt carry a high price if we aren't careful.

The most important mental adjustment we can make now is to simply embrace the fact that we are faced with a downtrending market that is struggling to find support. We shouldn't be overly optimistic about the short term because the difficulties are still quite evident, nor should we be so pessimistic that we refuse to even consider the idea that things may improve.

As we have seen, even a nasty downtrend offers up surprisingly strong rallies. If you are fleet of foot and finger, you can profit from them, but we can't forget that we are still stuck in a downtrend and that the market is not healthy.

Although we need to respect the fact of a downtrend, we also must constantly keep our eyes open for signs of a change in market character. When we start seeing evidence that things might be changing, we prepare ourselves mentally so that we can act quickly and decisively when the time is right.

In the last couple of days, we have had a few positives. Technology stocks showed some relative strength in our big rally on Monday, and we have made some higher highs and higher lows. Yesterday we even managed a little follow through and saw the second day in a row with a strong finish. That certainly isn't enough to turn the market tide but they are things to tuck away in the back of your mind and consider as you contemplate the action the rest of the week.

Success in this market depends on your mental attitude. Make sure you appreciate the challenges and don't let the difficulties get you down. I assure you that if you persevere and keep an open mind, you will enjoy success.

Market Msg from John Murphy -- 7/26/06


RAILS AND OTHER TRANSPORTATION LOSERS WEIGH ON INDUSTRIAL SPDR -- ENERGY SPDR FAR OUTPACES OIL SERVICE HOLDERS
     
       

DOW INDUSTRIALS VS. INDUSTRIALS SPDR ... I've written several times over the past few months that the Dow Industrials were holding up a little better than the rest of the market, and interpreted that to mean that investors were switching from riskier small cap stocks into more stable industrials. That's been especially true for some of the recent Dow defensive leaders like Altria, AT&T, Pfizer, Merck, and oil giant Exxon Mobil. The Dow Industrials shouldn't be confused with the Industrials Sector SPDR (XLI). Chart 1 shows the Dow Industrials bouncing off their June low and trading back above their moving average lines. Its relative strength ratio has held up pretty well against the rest of the market. That's not true of the Industrials ETF shown in Chart 2. The XLI has undercut both its June low and its 200-day moving average. Its falling relative strength line peaked in May and has fallen especially hard over the last month. Although some industrial stocks accounted for the heavy selling, most of it came from transportation stocks. Yes, the XLI includes both industrial and transportation stocks. UPS has been one of the biggest losers this week and over the last month. It saw the biggest drop in its history yesterday and is down again today. Most of the other selling has come from the rails. Two of today's biggest losers are Norfolk Southern and Burlington Northern. Over the last month, the two rails have lost 20% and 12% respectively. That's hurt both the Dow Transports and the Industrials SPDR.

TRANSPORTS GET DE-RAILED... The next two charts show the serious chart damage done to both of the big rail stocks. Both have tumbled well below their 200-day lines and are trading at the lowest levels of the year. Their falling relative strength lines show how badly they've done versus the S&P 500. The RS line for NSC in Chart 3 has broken a yearlong up trendline. BNI hasn't done much better. And both have fallen on monster volume. It seems only fair to suspect that plunges in these economically-sensitive stocks are warning about waning strength in the economy and the stock market. It isn't good news for Dow Transports either which are threatening their 200-day line for the first time in nine months.

DISPARITY IN ENERGY ETFS ... Chart 5 shows crude oil futures gaining another dollar today and trading well above its 50-average and its June peak at $74. Gasoline prices have a similar chart pattern. Natural gas, which has been weak, is starting to bounce. That's giving a big boost to energy stocks which are the day's strongest sector. When looking at energy stocks, however, it's important to note the significant difference between the two main energy ETFs. Chart 6 shows the Energy Sector SPDR (XLE) which bounced off its 50-day moving average on Monday and is hitting a new three-month high today. Its relative strength line has risen steadily since mid-June. Most of the big buying in the XLE has come from oil giants like Chevron Texaco and Exxon Mobil which are trading at record highs. A number of other energy stocks are approaching that milestone (see below). That hasn't been true of the oil service group which has lagged way behind the XLE. Chart 7 shows the Oil Service Holders (OIH) climbing back over its 200-day line today, but still well below its July peak. Of the two energy ETFs, the XLE is the stronger by far. That's where most of the energy money is being made right now. Continuing strength in the oil patch may also have something to do with the recent selling in transportation stocks.

ENERGY STOCKS ON THE MOVE ... Three recent leaders in the Energy Sector SPDR are shown below. ConocoPhillips is trading at three-month high and nearing a challenge of its all-time high at 72 (Chart . Devon Energy has just broken a six-month down trendline (Chart 9). XTO Energy is nearing its all-time high at 48 (Chart 10). Renewed confidence in energy may boost the stock market over the short-run, but could pose a problem if it means even higher oil prices. Rising energy stocks and falling transports are a bad combination for the market.

Time Is on the Rally's Side

By Helene Meisler
RealMoney.com Contributor
7/26/2006 9:01 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by Helene Meisler             
Technical Analysis

    * The market can make rally attempts right into month-end mark-ups.
    * The Bank Index ratio to the S&P isn't good enough yet to justify a bet on banks.
    * The ratio of the SOX to the Nasdaq has shown a negative cross.


Isn't it exciting? We've now had two up days in a row!

Funny, I recall saying the same thing last Wednesday morning as well. Maybe I jinxed it by taking notice; we got one more up day and that was that.

On the oscillator chart, you can hardly see these last two days. That's because the oscillator still has time on its side.

There is still time left for the market to make rally attempts for the remainder of this week.

Coincidentally, that leads us right into the end of the month, where we have the potential for mark-ups.



But more than the rally, I've got two ratio charts on my mind. I want to follow up on the ratio of the Bank Index compared with the S&P 500. When I last discussed this chart, I said I expected it to back off from that downtrend line, and it has. It continues to do so this week, despite a 28-point rally in the S&P.

I expect that sometime in the next week, we'll begin to see this ratio hold and turn upward. If and when that time comes, I will be sure to let you know. For now, the banks continue to be underperformers.

I also want to discuss another ratio I keep but have shown on an infrequent basis. It's the ratio of the Semiconductor Index to the Nasdaq. As you can imagine, it has been declining in recent months, and is now at 19%. There is nothing special about 19%, except that in January 2005 we got that low and bounced, and did the same in April 2005. The first trip down there post-2000 came in October 2002.

For that reason, I submit that a break of 19 would be considered quite bearish for the semiconductors.

Of course, when we look at the chart of the SOX, we see that this 480-ish level corresponds with the ratio chart's 19% level. In fact, there is plenty of support all of the way down to around 375 on the SOX chart. And if it gets down there, it probably will be oversold enough to rally. My concern is not so much for the support breaking on the SOX chart; I'm more concerned about what we see when we look more closely at that ratio chart.

Note on the ratio chart that the surge up through 20% that came in February 2000 (point A) was a breakout of sorts and we haven't really broken back down below this level since then. Yes, even in the depths of the bear market in 2002 the ratio remained above this level. Therefore I would consider a break of this level serious.

The SOX really ought to try and hold this 375 support the first time down, but if this ratio breaks, I believe it means the next time down the SOX will break 375 rather easily.

And because everyone seems so concerned about crosses as bad omens, I can tell you that the SOX actually got one around mid-June. The 200-day moving average on the SOX has rolled over, so the two moving averages are both heading in the same direction.

Party crashers
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
July 27, 2006

Dan Wetzel
Yahoo! Sports
Less than seven weeks since they were lifeless, the Minnesota Twins left Ozzie Guillen speechless and now everyone in the American League is sleepless at the thought of October in Minneapolis.

Or do you think dealing with Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano in a five-game divisional playoff series sounds like a good time?

That is, if the Twins don't ruin your postseason dreams before they start.

Minnesota finished up a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox with Wednesday's 7-4 win, moving their torrid record to 34-8 since June 8, which includes victories in 12 of their last 13 games. With that, the Twins moved even with Chicago (and a half-game back of the New York Yankees) in the AL wild-card race.

And maybe most impressively, the Twins even shut up Guillen. Sort of.

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"For the first time in my life, I'm speechless," the White Sox manager told reporters after the game.

You can't blame Ozzie. Who saw this coming? In early June, the Twins were 25-33 and destined, it seemed, to watch the White Sox and Detroit Tigers spend the summer battling for the Central Division title and/or a possible wild-card bid.

They were the Roger Clemens of major league teams – they took the first two months off.

Now Minnesota hosts Detroit – which still holds an 8½-game lead – this weekend in Minneapolis in what is shaping up as a most unlikely monster series.

The Twins will trot out both of their young, seemingly unstoppable aces – Liriano (12-2, 1.93 ERA) goes Friday, Santana (12-5, 3.04) pitches Sunday – to try to tame the Tigers, who are winners of 12 of their last 13 series. As an added bonus for Minnesota, it gets to avoid the Tigers' lights-out rookie Justin Verlander.

Anyone else circle this series with major playoff implications back in April?

"Even when we were playing as bad as we were the first month-and-a-half of the season, we still didn't give up on ourselves," outfielder Michael Cuddyer told reporters after the game Wednesday. "We still played with enthusiasm. And we still knew that if we played the type of baseball we're capable of, we could get back into things."

No one else believed, but they do now. If nothing else the Twins have thrown a wrench in what was shaping up as an orderly, if intense, playoff chase in the AL. Essentially Detroit, Chicago, New York and the Boston Red Sox were competing for three playoff spots – the AL West wouldn't factor in the wild-card chase and the Toronto Blue Jays were a possible X-factor but probably couldn't hold up.

Now Chicago is reeling, Detroit is wondering and fans in Boston or New York – at least the few who are aware of teams west of the Hudson – should be worried. Minnesota got its act going soon enough to avoid being last year's Cleveland Indians – the best team down the stretch who couldn't overcome a pathetically slow start and wound up out of the action.

One hundred games into the season, the Twins (59-41) have as good of a shot as anyone.

This may not be the most loaded roster in baseball, but with Santana and Liriano, you can practically bank on two victories every rotation. Get one more win somewhere else and you are playing .600 baseball.

That, of course, would be a decided cool down for the Twins, who are playing .810 baseball of late.

Minnesota is a home-grown club – almost everyone came out of the farm system – and it will be interesting to see if the Twins gamble and grab another bat (Alfonso Soriano is on the block, in case you hadn't heard) before Monday's non-waiver trade deadline.

Obviously, the Twins aren't going to stay this hot the rest of the way – at least we think – but Santana and Liriano (a combined 15-2 since the turnaround) have the look of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson as Arizona Diamondbacks circa 2001.

That is why everyone is leery of Minnesota, even Detroit. The Tigers still have a big cushion in the AL Central (although we'll see by Monday), but everyone else is in immediate sight for the Twins, who aren't looking to let up on the accelerator.

With Chicago stumbling, Ozzie silent and the White Sox's once 11-game advantage over the Twins gone, Minnesota just kept looking forward on Wednesday.

"We knew, eventually, if we were to keep winning," Cuddyer said, "we'd catch whoever was in front of us."

Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist.

DOW CHEMICAL HURTS CHEMICALS AND MATERIALS SPDR -- FEDEX AND DOW TRANPORTS FALL BELOW 200-DAY LINE -- DOW COMPOSITE INDEX MAY OFFER CLUES TO MARKET DIRECTION
     
       

FEDEX LEADS TRANSPORTS LOWER ... The transportation sector continues to get battered. Yesterday we showed UPS and a couple of rail stocks falling below their 200-day lines. Today's most notable casualty is FedEx. Chart 1 shows that stock breaking both its 200-day line and its June low. Even an amateur chart watcher knows that's bad chart action. A couple of other big transportation losers today were Ryder and JetBlue. That was enough to push the Dow Transports below their 200-day moving average (Chart 2). That economically-sensitive index has also broken its June low. Rising energy costs have been one of the reasons cited for this week's poor performance numbers and weak forecasts. The same is true for chemical companies which fell hard today.


Chart 1


Chart 2

DOW CHEMICAL LEADS GROUP LOWER... Chemical stocks were one of the day's weakest performers. That's not really new. The DJ US Chemical Index in Chart 3 peaked at the start of 2005 -- both on an absolute and a relative basis. After forming a double peak in May of this year, it's started falling again. Today's plunge keeps it well below its 200-day average and close to a new low for the year. [The 50-day line has dropped below the 200-day which is another negative sign]. The biggest culprit today was Dow Chemical which plunged 10% to a new three-year low. Chart 4 shows that the biggest chemical stock has been falling since the start of 2005. It turned in a disappointing second quarter report and gave a weak forecast for the rest of the year. The main reason given was rising energy and material costs. It seems like we've been hearing that a lot lately. Dupont also succumbed to selling. Chart 5 shows that it has been a big underachiever as well. Chemical selling explains why the Materials SPDR (XLB) was today's biggest percentage loser (-2.1%). It just so happens that Dow Chemical and Dupont are the two most heavily weighted stocks in the XLB. Today's selling by those two chemical giants pushed the XLB back below its 200-day average


Chart 3


Chart 4


Chart 5

WATCHING THE DOW COMPOSITE INDEX ... The Dow Utilities have been rising while the Dow Transports have been falling. While the transports have broken their 200-day average, the Dow Industrials remain above their moving average lines and sit right between the other two Dow Indexes -- neither hot nor cold. One way to decipher the overall trend in the Dow family is to study the chart of the Dow Jones Composite Index (DJA). That index is comprised of 65 stocks and includes the 30 industrials, 20 transports, and 15 utilities in the three Dow indexes. Chart 6 shows the DJA forming two declining tops in May and early July which gives it a negative slant. It's trading below a "falling" 50-day moving average (which is more serious than trading below a "rising" moving average). Most of the recent losses have come from the transports. I suggested last week that it's not a good sign for the market when the defensive utilities are rising while the cyclical transports are falling. The Dow Industrials meanwhile are being kept aloft by defensive and energy stocks. I don't take those as positive signs for the market. That's why the Dow Composite Average may offer a realistic view of things. It's worth watching very closely for any more serious signs of weakness.

Bulk of the Advance May Be Behind Us

By private Arms
RealMoney.com Contributor
7/28/2006 9:13 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by private Arms             
Technical Analysis


The rally I had been anticipating that was signaled by the very oversold condition of the shorter-term Arms Index numbers has developed nicely. The Dow has rallied to very close to the highs made on the prior rally earlier in the month. Because of this, some resistance was to be anticipated, and that seems to be what started to show up in Thursday's trading. The early rally hit that level, and then the indices all backed off for the rest of the day.

The Arms Index moving averages are no longer oversold, as you can see in the chart below. The five-day had already moved to neutral territory, but now the 10-day is back to that area also.

We aren't yet overbought, so I'm willing to watch and wait a bit longer. I would be inclined to hold most long positions here, but the bulk of the advance we had been anticipating may already be behind us.

Market Masks Its Pain

By Jeff Cooper
Street Insight Contributor
7/28/2006 6:54 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by Jeff Cooper             
Technical Analysis

I showed a chart Wednesday in the Pivot Points section of the Trading Reports that indicated the S&P 500 was poised to pull back and test initial support at 1264.

The early opening strength on Thursday was a bluff. Nevertheless, most stocks found a first-hour high, if not a first-half-hour high, before rolling over. In the process, the S&P pulled back between my initial 1264 S&P support and secondary support at 1260. The index made a low of 1261.90 before a feeble bounce at the bell to close at 1263.20.

Last-ditch support as shown in Wednesday's 10-minute chart is 1255. Nevertheless, despite my belief that the indices can and would hold up into the end of the first week of August and the Aug. 8 Fed meeting, many stocks are in a crash-and-burn pattern. Support on many names is being broken, with large-range gaps to the downside in just too many names for me not to believe that an accident is waiting to happen for the indices as a whole.

On Monday, I said I did not want to be short over the next couple of days. The market has really held our feet to the fire and taken us to task on that notion. We got a rally, but individual stocks gave up a lot of gusto on Thursday. The important thing to remember is that we are trading individual names and must honor stops and pivot points on what we are trading regardless of what the overall market is doing. Many times, the market can mask deterioration under the surface for a while.

Conclusion: Thursday scored an outside day down on the S&P -- meaning Thursday's high was above Wednesday's high. In addition, the index snuck back below its 200-day moving average once again. This large-range reversal is not a good omen coming after the three-day swing chart turned up Wednesday, but not totally unexpected.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier in the week, the turn up with the three-day swing chart often defines a high when the big picture trend is down, and such was the case July 3. Moreover, Thursday's reversal also puts in the prospect of a third lower high, which as you know often indicates a Power Surge to the downside.

If 1255 S&P does not hold, the market itself may not hold up into the Fed meeting. Be that as it may, the market is certainly in defense mode and I would not get aggressive on the long side unless it is on an intraday basis.

It's still in the cards
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
July 28, 2006

Jeff Passan
Yahoo! Sports
ANAHEIM, Calif. – I went to a baseball card show and a bling contest broke out.

In the right light, a refractor card may very well blind someone. There is more chrome on cards today than in the world's best-stocked rim shop. A guy is selling parallel cards on special, and it sounds like a great deal, if only I knew what a parallel card was.

I half-expect to see cards sprinkled with diamond dust.

"Good idea," Luther Wallace says.

Wallace is manning a table in the middle of the Anaheim Convention Center. He's at the National Sports Collectors Convention, the world's biggest gathering of card and hobby enthusiasts, and since it's his first card show, he's hoping to make a splash with his collection of signed Felix Hernandez cards. Already Wallace is a well-known trader on eBay, going by Big Loot, which is the nickname he picked up during his four years in Washington-state prisons on weapons charges.

Loot says he's reformed now, out of the drug game and into the card game, which is likewise lucrative and much more legal. Baseball cards, the It hobby of the late 1980s and early '90s, have been reinvented from an industry built on mass collections to one of simple microeconomic principles: Limit supply and demand will spike. Prices have, too, thanks to the short-print-run subsets that include cards paired with jersey swatches and game-used bats and autographs and all sorts of gimmickry to justify charging, in some cases, hundreds of dollars per pack.

Luther Wallace, aka Big Loot, turned to dealing cards after doing a couple bids on weapons charges.

From that have emerged two markets: Older cards, which carry sentimentality as well as appreciated prices, and new ones, which in many cases make the old ones look like penny stocks next to Berkshire Hathaway. Though the fight isn't quite like the stats-vs.-scouts debate among baseball executives, there is some friendly jabbing. As Roger Burns, a dealer in pre-1941 cards, says: "I don't carry shiny stuff."

Yet there is enough interest in the shiny stuff to draw an expected 30,000 people through the weekend. While it pales to the reported 100,000 who graced the 1991 show in Anaheim, it proves that baseball cards are far from dead.

No, they've just changed, and for those who grew up during the card boom, it may well represent their first I'm-getting-old moment. I pointed to an autographed Hernandez card and asked how much.

"I want 25 for it," Loot says.

Not bad.

"But I'll take two," he says.

Two dollars? Deal.

"No, no," Loot says. "I meant $2,500. And I'll give it to you for $2,000."

Loot explains that it was one of 10 Hernandez cards signed with a red pen, which made it rarer than the ones signed in blue or green. And with a grade of 9.5 on a scale of 10, it was the highest graded out there, he claimed. And, well, forget Hernandez's ERA that has spent most of the season around 5. Scarcity took care of that little problem.

Limiting cards was the industry's direct response to a flaccid market, and while it worked in the short term, baseball cards' longer-term prospects are tenuous. The Donruss brand wasn't granted a license from the Major League Baseball Players' Association and isn't making baseball sets. Fleer, one of the big four companies, went broke. Topps, the granddaddy of trading-card companies, allowed three disgruntled shareholders, led by hedge-fund whiz Timothy Brog, to join its board Friday in what could be the first move toward a major front-office overhaul. Conventions have closed, stores have shuttered and still, the industry finds itself here, with 750 booths and young men such as Loot, 29, carrying around hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise.

"Excuse me," says a kid, no older than 10, drawing Loot's attention. "How much is that card?"

"Five thousand," Loot says.

The kid laughs, then walks away with his mom.

Before I got to the National, a card-collecting friend issued a warning.

"All those cards we grew up collecting," he said. "If you look in the Beckett, you won't see them. After four pages, it jumps to 1997."

He was right. Today's Beckett Baseball Card Monthly is a thorough compendium of the current market with barely a nod or wink to the past. Fifteen years ago, it was my bible. New issues arrived with all the promise of an oil well. If the price of a card I owned included an up arrow, I felt like I'd struck. I always wanted to write into their "Hot or Not" section and include Cleveland Indians reliever Rich Yett as "hot." Even though calling Yett pedestrian would be a compliment, his 1987 Topps card remains my favorite for its picture, which features Yett's resplendent blond mustache.

"Those were the good ol' days in the sense of simplicity," says Dr. James Beckett, the magazine's founder. "A lot of kids in my neighborhood did collect."

Baseball cards used to be about kids in the neighborhood – first flipping them or putting them in their spokes, then, spurred on by the proliferation of pricing guides such as Beckett's, buying them with a two-fold premise: enjoy them now and sell them later to pay for college.

The days of kids going to one another's house to trade cards are nearly extinct. Some have been priced out, others not interested in baseball.

"Whenever I was on a team, I would ask my teammates who their favorite player was," says Brad Petersen, a 13-year-old from Yorba Linda, Calif., attending the National with his father and two brothers. "I'd go home and get cards out and give it to them."

None of them started collecting. Which leaves Brad to talk cards with his dad, Larry, and his brothers Kevin, 11, and Luke, 10. Every two weeks, Brad gets his allowance. And he heads straight to his local card shop.

There, he scans the selection. Usually it's the same card, but he's got to look, just in case there's a new Derek Jeter. Along a wall, boxes overflowing with packs tantalize him. He wants to buy one with a jersey card, but for that price he could get plenty of inserts in packs that cost $1. It's the same question that has vexed kids for decades: What's the better risk?

Until the discontinuation of Donruss and Fleer, there were almost 100 sets and subsets. They had names like Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade Swatch Single Jumbo Reverse. Topps and Upper Deck sell 40 types of cards today, some mass produced, most in limited numbers, which drives prices, Beckett said, "even if it's contrived."

Cognizant of the industry's direction, Beckett sold his company in January 2005 to a group headed by Peter Gudmundsson, now Beckett Media's CEO and president. Beckett had made a lot of men rich. He turned Mickey Mantle's 1952 Topps rookie from a valuable card into an industry icon. He kept raising the price of the 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner until it passed $1 million. Beckett loves baseball cards, old Roberto Clementes in particular, and can avert his eyes from today's sheen to see their substance.

"You'll always have the traditional thing," Beckett says. "Even in the show, you'll see it. It's the same-old, same-old, basic thing. You're putting cardboard with players on there."

The only thing sheen coming from Alan Rosen's table is off his bald head. A few years ago, Mr. Mint, as he's called, finally gave up the ruse and went Bic. He looks great, and not just for a 60-year-old: With outlandish, if not stylish, glasses, an earring, a distinguished gray goatee, a white T-shirt and jeans, Rosen plays the big-money shark with a coolness that keeps his wife, Marnee, a busy woman.

"I'm an eighth-grade dropout … " Rosen starts a story.

"No you're not!" Marnee yells.

Alan Rosen, aka Mr. Mint, represents the old-school collector.

"Ninth."

"No."

"Tenth?" he says, getting a bit defensive.

"No," she says. "He's got his GED."

Whatever his education, Rosen's standing among his peers is unparalleled: He is considered among the most powerful dealers in the business. Over the first two days at the National, he has spent $83,000, and he's complaining it's been slow. He just bought a Johnny Bench rookie card, from an older couple who told him it was the only one in circulation graded a perfect 10, for $3,000. Minutes later, Rosen finds out there are six other 10s out there, so he finds a buyer and flips the card for $4,000. Fifteen minutes, $1,000 in Rosen's pocket.

For years he has worked like he's on speed. He scans each side of a Tom Seaver rookie card like a gemologist looping a diamond. He thinks fast, talks fast and does business fast. Money doesn't burn a hole in his pocket; it torches his whole pant leg. All of his ads include pictures of Rosen fanning out at least $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills.

"My motto: Flip, flip, flip," Rosen says. "If I buy, I'll sell. Unlike coins, stamps and Pogs, baseball relates to people 7 to 70. Because it's the American game, it will never go away, and this business never will, either."

Still, the direction of baseball cards disenchants him. He scans the room, looking for kids.

"There's one," he says, after a minute of looking, and there aren't any others in sight.

"You know why?" Rosen says. "When I was a kid, it was affordable to collect cards. Now it just costs $17.50 to get through the door here and $75 to buy a pack."

The debate on card companies' social responsibility – are they in business to create a huge market like commodities trading or to help promote the game of baseball to kids shying away from it? – is one without a definitive answer. Rosen entered as a hobby and saw it evolve into a business. Big Loot sells strictly for business, and he's so confident in the industry right now, he's taken on severe debt to finish his purchases.

For all their differences – Rosen doesn't deal in shiny stuff – he and Big Loot share the goal of making money, which still leaves the people who don't flip cards or float them on eBay but buy with the intent to hold.

"That's what this business is about," Rosen says. "Recapturing your past."

We called it the coin shop. I'm not sure why. About 5 percent of its inventory was coins. The rest was baseball cards.

For a kid, it was Mecca. Walk in and Ken, the mustachioed owner, gave warm greetings. Look at the new selection, he said, pointing to a few packs and a few new cards. Buy a box of this '90 Donruss. If it doesn't have a John Olerud rookie in it, he said, I'll give you one. What 10-year-old would turn down that deal?

I remember the first card I got. It was 1986, and Todd Worrell had won National League Rookie of the Year. His rookie cost $2. Sounded like a bargain, and when mom peeled off a pair of singles, I was hooked.

The next year, I got my first box. It was 1987 Topps. Heinous-looking cards – brown borders, funky lettering and awful pictures. What did I care? I had 36 packs to perfect the method of pulling out the gum, then piling the cards straight in my left hand and flicking them with a thumb to the waiting right hand. At 17 cards a pack, I practically doubled my collection.

Nothing could make the author happier than one last, glorious fling with an anonymous 1980s pitcher.

So it was with some surprise that as I meander around the convention center, I run into a man selling boxes of '87 Topps. I ask where they came from. He says he'd kept them in his garage for almost 20 years hoping to get rich. Cards from the '80s and early '90s have plummeted in price because of saturation. When '87 Topps came out, the per-pack price was 40 cents, and the dealer offers me the box for $15, meaning 19 years made him a 60-cent profit.

His bust is my bargain. I hadn't bought a pack of cards, let alone a box, in almost 15 years. I wonder why it had been so long, and as I tear open the first wax pack, I don't have a good answer.

Outgrowing baseball cards is natural, I guess, yet I'm completely drawn to the mystery that awaits inside every pack of baseball cards.

(And I'm not talking about the chewing gum, which I do try. As one may well imagine, gum is not scotch. With every chomp, the 19-year Topps Vintage disintegrates into fetid globules of sugar that curdle my taste buds and leaves an aftertaste of amalgamated dog breath and rotting corpse. The remaining 35 pieces are transported to a local hazmat center, where they are promptly destroyed.)

I wonder whether I will get a Barry Bonds or Bo Jackson rookie (I do, in pack Nos. 19 and 23, respectively). I am stunned to see a Julio Franco card and delighted to see the back of a Jose Canseco card stained – with wax instead of acne, but still. I learn, thanks to the information tidbits Topps used to include on the back of its cards, that Jeff Stone was one of 15 children, Howard Johnson was the co-winner of a rib-eating contest among professional athletes and Terry Mulholland worked as a gas-station attendant in the offseason. Presumably before he made $25 million over a 19-year career.

Satisfaction doesn't come until two packs remain. As I sort through the second-last pack, left to right, I get it. The Rich Yett card. No. 134. The one I really wanted. In Rich Yett's short career, which lasted 414 1/3 innings, I'm guessing the only people happier to see his face than me were pitchers.

The cards begs to be studied. Yett's mustache isn't as resplendent as I remembered. His hair, on the other hand, is classic: poofing out from under his hat and curled up, like a plant reaching for sunlight. Yett's jacket collar looks popped, and he seems in the midst of a deep thought.

Forget the Bonds and Bo and Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Larkin rookies. The card I really want is here, and while it's not the same as I remember, it's still great.

Which reminds me of something Jim Beckett said earlier: What a card is worth isn't always in the book. It's what you think it's worth.

Big Loot can take his Felix Hernandez cards. And Mr. Mint can take his million-dollar collection. They represent the new and the old. It's funny that the generation that collected cards from the middle of the boom is the one that went bust. Oh, well.

I'll take Rich Yett, whose card, according to Beckett is worth 5 cents. Cards like that, ones that are practically valueless, are called common. To me, it's anything but.

Jeff Passan is Yahoo! Sports' national baseball writer. Send him a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Stocks Go Down Easy, Too Easy

By Helene Meisler
RealMoney.com Contributor
7/28/2006 9:07 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by Helene Meisler             
Technical Analysis

    * We don't need the averages to be down 20% before we know it's a bear market.
    * When stocks go down more easily than they go up -- which is the case now -- I believe it's a bear market.
    * And utilities have made a most un-bullish reversal.

I know it doesn't feel this way, but the market is up this week, and so far, up big. The DJIA is up well over 200 points this week, the S&P 500 more than 20 and even the Nasdaq is up more than 30. Yet it feels like this has been a major down week.

That's because the stocks that go down fall multiple points, and do so on huge gaps, while the stocks that go up, rise only a few points, and do so rather mildly.

A few months ago, if you were short a stock, you looked to cover it quickly if it went against you, while if you were long a stock and it went against you, you could wait it out and sell a rally. Now, if you're long a stock and it goes against you, it keeps going down; if you're short a stock and it goes against you, you can wait it out, because eventually it'll just come back down.

I point this out because it takes us back to the discussion from Monday about this being a bear market. We don't need the averages to be down 20% before we know it's a bear market: When stocks go down more easily than they go up, I believe it's a bear market.

I believe it also tells us something about sentiment. If a stock can fall on a gap multiple points after already being down, then we know we haven't cleaned out all the longs yet.

Just look at 3M (MMM - commentary - Cramer's Take). It preannounced and the stock went from $82 to $76, and kept on going -- to $70. Just when it appeared all the selling was done, management said something else folks didn't like and the stock fell another $3 or $4.

When sentiment is truly bearish, that doesn't happen. In a bearish environment, no one would have cared to bottom-fish in the stock at $70; the bad news would have cleaned out all the sellers. I believe the price kept falling because folks were betting the bad news was already in the stock.

About a week ago, I highlighted the utilities and said I thought they would stop around 430. I was clearly wrong, as they barreled through that level without batting an eye. Thursday they got all the way to 438.54 -- and then reversed, big-time. I believe it would have been much more bullish for the sector had they stopped at that 430 area, consolidated and then regrouped for another launch higher. But that is not what they did.

We absolutely need to keep our eyes on this, because the previous high, made in October 2005, was 438.74. This reversal is not bullish, especially since it came right at the old high. Maybe the Utes can save themselves by coming down to support and holding, but the reversal has me concerned that they will not hold support and this will end up being a double top.

For the market as a whole, there is still a chance for some rallying attempts as we close out this month and enter the new one, but as I discussed Thursday, the problems are mounting for the market once again.
Overbought/Oversold Oscillators

For more explanation of these indicators, check out The Chartist's primer.

Article Title: "Big Trouble In Thailand "
Author:
Section: Issues & Insights       
Date: 7/27/2006
Three more people were killed this week by brutal Islamic separatists. The victims included an old farmer who was stabbed and apparently burned alive and a teacher who was shot, chalk still in hand, in front of his class. Just a few days earlier a 60-year-old Buddhist man was shot to death as he drove a motorcycle with his wife in Pattani, one of three insurgency-torn southern provinces bordering Muslim-dominated Malaysia.

Buddhists, local government officials, police and troops are often targeted by the Islamic militants. Last fall, the terrorists murdered a monk and two boys in raids on Buddhist temples.

Earlier this month, terrorists staged an unusually well-coordinated ambush on a police checkpoint in Pattani, killing three guards. It would have been worse if police hadn't defused a bomb nearby.

It was one of the bloodiest attacks in Thailand since April 2004, when insurgents raided 15 police and military outposts, screaming, "We are ready to die for Allah for our beliefs!" They rallied local Muslims to revolt using the Krue Se Mosque's loudspeakers. As many as five police and military personnel were killed.

Muslims seen as sympathetic to the government are also attacked. Earlier this month, a Muslim who was active in local politics was killed outside a mosque, apparently because he maintained friendly ties with the government. Such sectarian attacks mirror those seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A 34-page booklet officials found on dead terrorists in April 2004 urges Muslims to rise up against Thailand, and all non-Muslims to restore the former glory of Islam to the south. The booklet, written in Arabic and the local Yawi language, also threatens Muslims deemed hypocrites.

"If any Muslim betrays Islamic principles, even though he is a father or friend, you should kill him," it says.

Another leaflet warns against cooperating with the mainly Buddhist government forces. "Stop getting close to soldiers and police, being a tool of infidels and cooperating with them," it says. "Otherwise, you could be unsafe."

This is no small uprising. Separatists have an estimated 5,000 combatants and as many as 70,000 sympathizers that help facilitate attacks against police. The rank and file are recruited from Saudi-funded Islamic schools, or madrassas. And al-Qaida appears to be behind their training in terror tactics.

Last year, authorities found a video of an al-Qaida training session among items seized at a school in Pattani. Some of the terrorists have attended al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They may have sanctuary across the border in northern Malaysia, with groups tied to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked terror group that blew up Western tourist spots in Bali in 2002 and 2005.

In 2003, Thai authorities captured al-Qaida's leader in Southeast Asia, Riduan Islamuddin - aka Hambali - in Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok. He and his wife had stayed in southern Thailand. In 2000, two of the 9-11 hijackers traveled to Thailand for several days after a planning session Hambali sponsored in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Muslim terrorists are picking up the pace of attacks in Thailand.

In 2004, assassinations in southern Thailand averaged one a day, bombings averaged six a month and raids for the year totaled six,the U.S. Naval Institute estimates. There were no major ambushes.

Last year, by comparison, there were an average of two assassinations a day, 19 bombings a month and a total of 43 raids and 45 ambushes. Violence this year is on course to top 2005's.

Bangkok set a curfew and dispatched more troops to the region.

"We are waging a war in the south. Until now, the state has been at a disadvantage," Defense Minister Thammarak Isarangura Na Ayutthaya told the Thai press. "We have to start retaliating now. We cannot just sit still amidst the attacks."

No doubt. But human-rights activists - ignoring the brutal tactics of the terrorists - have protested the Thai government's crackdown as heavy-handed. Now the United Nations is stepping in to complain about the security forces.

The U.S. must respond in kind. We must show unequivocal support for Bangkok in its efforts against becoming al-Qaida's next domino. More U.S. military aid and training should also be in order.

Much is at stake. Al-Qaida, which recently seized Somalia, already has its claws in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

If terrorists weaken Thailand's government, al-Qaida would have a major footprint in Southeast Asia. Does the world want that?

Global War On Terror: Thailand, the Land of Smiles, is close to becoming yet another front in the global war on terror. A bloody Islamic insurgency in the south has already left 1,400 dead. And al-Qaida may be fueling it.

Follow Sell Rules To Avoid Weak Market

BY JONAH KERI

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 7/26/2006

A bad market can manifest itself in various ways.

Sometimes the start of a correction, or bear cycle, will be painfully obvious.

The major indexes will flash a series of big distribution days in a short time. The economy or global hot spots may contribute, ushering in bad news daily. Portfolios will quickly turn to dust.

But other times, the market may provide more subtle hints. You'll see only sporadic selling in higher volume. There may not be any obvious news items suggesting bad times ahead. The masses may often take a bullish stance, just as the market's hitting its peak.

Fortunately, you don't need tea leaves to predict when a bad market will occur. Actually, you don't necessarily need to identify a bad market as it's happening at all.

Following a sound set of sell rules with your own stocks will force you out of a bad market, even if you don't know it's a bad market.

The cardinal rule of investing is to always cut your losses at no more than 7% to 8% from your buy point. This tack allows you to avoid big losses that can cripple your portfolio and your confidence.

If you see your winning stocks showing choppy action, consider taking some moderate profits of about 20%.

Stocks that violate key support levels such as the 50-day moving average can also be sell candidates.

By staying attuned to how your stocks are acting, you can make informed decisions on each one.

Often you'll find that selling stocks at the right time will usher you safely to cash on its own, even if you haven't yet spotted any obvious weakness in the broad market.

United Industrial (UIC) broke out of a nine-week, cup-with-handle base over a three-day stretch Feb. 13 to 15 of this year 1. The stock ran up 52% from its buy point of 46.36 to its peak of 70.38 on May 3 2.

View larger image

A look at the Nasdaq's daily chart in the days leading up to that point shows distribution days on April 11, April 17 and April 21 3.

Another down day on higher volume followed on May 3, the day United topped 4. Though the market was nominally still in an uptrend, it was starting to weaken.

Three sessions later, on May 8, United plunged 20% in one of the heaviest volume days in its history 5. This was a clear sell signal.

The Nasdaq hadn't officially ended its rally or started a correction. Three straight distribution days May 9 to 11 made it official 6.

Listen To The Market, Not Wall Street Opinions

BY JONAH KERI

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 6/3/2002

Click on most financial TV shows and you'll see it: two talking heads, maybe a forum of Wall Street figures, debating the state of the stock market.

As they sit decked out in expensive suits, carrying years of experience, you might be inclined to trust these folks' opinions.

Don't. No matter how impressive an opinion may sound, it's just that — an opinion. The market doesn't care what anyone thinks. It acts on its own, without regard for pet theories.

Want a better way to gauge the state of the market? Use objective analysis instead of opinions.

That means following daily and weekly price and volume cues. A healthy market generally trends upward. It logs gains on higher volume than the prior day or week. Leading stocks hit new highs. On down days and weeks, the opposite tends to occur.

These trends reflect the power of institutions. Given those big boys control three-fourths of the market's action, they'll tell you a lot more about stocks than the brightest market star ever will.

Facts and opinions rarely vary more than at market extremes. When the major indexes sit near a top, sentiment tends to run overwhelmingly bullish. When the market nears its bottom, bears show up in droves.

Studying the charts of the Nasdaq, Dow and S&P 500 can help you slice through the noise to the truth. A big up day after a prolonged down stretch could signal the start of a new rally.

Instead of forming your own opinion based on emotion, wait to see if the market can confirm its attempted rally. A follow-through day, discussed in Wednesday's column, might do the trick.

A look at past opinions at market extremes further shows how objective analysis is your best bet. On March 31, 2000, Robert Robbins of Robinson-Humphrey noted on TV: "We're in a super bull market where the Fed is crushing inflation and . . . has a new paradigm of monetary policy that's anti-recessionary and anti-cyclical, which means the risk of holding stocks is much less."

The Nasdaq tanked 27% over the next two weeks as it kicked off a brutal bear market.

On Sept. 25, 2001, on CNN/fn, Forbes Associate Editor Bernard Condon quoted money manager Seth Glickenhaus, who said the Dow would fall to 6,000 and the market would take 16 years to recover. "I wouldn't dismiss it," Condon said. "The guy's been around for a long time."

The Nasdaq and S&P 500 followed through three days later. Though the market's had its ups and downs, the Nasdaq's still up 18% since then, the S&P 500 14%.

Pacifists versus peace
By Thomas Sowell
Friday, July 21, 2006
Send an email to Thomas Sowell

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

Remember the Falkland Islands war, when Argentina sent troops into the Falklands to capture this little British colony in the South Atlantic?

Argentina had been claiming to be the rightful owner of those islands for more than a century. Why didn't it attack these little islands before? At no time did the British have enough troops there to defend them.

Before there were "peace" movements and the U.N., sending troops into those islands could easily have meant finding British troops or bombs in Buenos Aires. Now "world opinion" condemned the British just for sending armed forces into the South Atlantic to take back their islands.

Shamefully, our own government was one of those that opposed the British use of force. But fortunately British prime minister Margaret Thatcher ignored "world opinion" and took back the Falklands.

The most catastrophic result of "peace" movements was World War II. While Hitler was arming Germany to the teeth, "peace" movements in Britain were advocating that their own country disarm "as an example to others."

British Labor Party Members of Parliament voted consistently against military spending and British college students publicly pledged never to fight for their country. If "peace" movements brought peace, there would never have been World War II.

Not only did that war lead to tens of millions of deaths, it came dangerously close to a crushing victory for the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese empire in Asia. And we now know that the United States was on Hitler's timetable after that.

For the first two years of that war, the Western democracies lost virtually every battle, all over the world, because pre-war "peace" movements had left them with inadequate military equipment and much of it obsolete. The Nazis and the Japanese knew that. That is why they launched the war.

"Peace" movements don't bring peace but war.

The Middle East conflict is hard to solve but easy to explain
By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Send an email to Dennis Prager
     

The Middle East conflict is difficult to solve, but it is among the simplest conflicts in history to understand.

The Arab and other Muslim enemies of Israel (for the easily confused, this does not mean every Arab or every Muslim) want Israel destroyed. That is why there is a Middle East conflict. Everything else is commentary.

Those who deny this and ascribe the conflict to other reasons, such as "Israeli occupation," "Jewish settlements," a "cycle of violence," "the Zionist lobby" and the like, do so despite the fact that Israel's enemies regularly announce the reason for the conflict. The Iranian regime, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians -- in their public opinion polls, in their anti-Semitic school curricula and media, in their election of Hamas, in their support for terror against Israeli civilians in pre-1967 borders -- as well as their Muslim supporters around the world, all want the Jewish state annihilated.

In 1947-48, the Arab states tried to destroy the tiny Jewish state formed by the United Nations partition plan. In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan tried to destroy Israel in what became known as the Six-Day War. All of this took place before Israel occupied one millimeter of Palestinian land and before there was a single Jewish settler in the West Bank.

Two months after the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967, the Arab countries convened in Khartoum, Sudan, and announced on Sept. 1, 1967, their famous "Three NOs" to Israel: "No peace, No recognition, No negotiations."

Six years later, in 1973, Egypt invaded the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula, a war that ended in a boost in Egyptian morale from its initially successful surprise attack. Though nearly all of the Sinai remained in Israel's hands, the boost in Egyptian self-confidence enabled Egypt's visionary president, Anwar Sadat, four years later (November 1977), to do the unimaginable for an Arab leader: He visited Israel and addressed its parliament in Jerusalem. As a result, in 1978, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in return for which Israel gave all of the oil-rich Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt.

Three years later, in 1981, Sadat was assassinated by Egyptian Muslims, a killing welcomed by most Arabs, including the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Why welcomed? Because Sadat had done the unforgivable -- recognized Israel and made peace with it.

The lesson that Palestinians should have learned from the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement was that if you make peace with Israel, you will not only get peace in return, you will also get all or nearly all of your land back. That is how much Israelis ache for peace.

Think about Israel for one moment: Israel is one of the most advanced countries on earth in terms of culture (most books published, translated from other languages and read per capita; most orchestras per capita, etc.); major advances in medicine; technological breakthroughs; and decency as a society, as exemplified by its treatment of its women, gays and even its large Arab minority (particularly remarkable in light of the widespread Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and desire to annihilate Israel). This is hardly a picture of some bloodthirsty, land-grabbing society. And Jews, whatever their flaws, have never been known to be a violent people. If anything, the stereotypical Jew has been depicted as particularly docile.

As a lifelong liberal critic of Israeli policies, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman wrote just two weeks ago: "The Palestinians could have a state on the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem tomorrow, if they and the Arab League clearly recognized Israel, normalized relations and renounced violence. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know Israel today."

Give Israel peace, and Israel will give you land.

Which is exactly what Israel agreed to do in the last year of the Clinton administration. It offered PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat about 97 percent of the West Bank and three percent of Israel's land in exchange for peace. Instead, Israel got its men, women and children routinely blown up and maimed by Palestinian terrorists after the Palestinians rejected the Israeli offer at Camp David. Even President Clinton, desirous of being the honest broker and yearning to be history's Middle East peacemaker, blamed the ensuing violence entirely on the Palestinians.

Israel's Camp David offer of a Palestinian state for Palestinian peace was rejected because most Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim supporters don't want a second state. They want Israel destroyed. They admit it. Only those who wish Israel's demise and the willfully naive do not.

If you don't believe this, ask almost anyone living in the Middle East why there is a Middle East War, preferably in Arabic. If you ask in English, they will assume you are either an academic, a Western news reporter, a diplomat or a "peace activist." And then, they will assume you are gullible and will tell you that it's because of "Israeli occupation" or "the Zionist lobby."

But they know it isn't. And it never was.