Happy Super Saturday everyone. “Experts” expect a 1% rise from last year in retail sales for the season (which was down over 5%, so this year should be an easy comp, but we’re just barely treading water so far). Today will be the make or break day for retailers. I don’t plan on buying anything today–I’m done!

However, I share your sentiment when I think of how the primary dealers and bond funds were able to take time paper and simply converted to cash or its equivalent – now THAT was the true bail-out, along with AIG and the fact we ring fenced EVERYONE’S off balance sheet exposure insured through the financial products division – that even po’d Bernanke.

Re: TARP (Capital Purchase Program because it wasn’t a troubled asset relief program)

The banks raised cash by selling assets (stock and warrants) to Treasury. The capital raised in most cases was in very close proportion to each’s troubled assets per their balance sheet. This was on top of their loan loss reserves.

All of the warrants were out of the money and banks that bought them back were out of pocket – period. Interim interest was also paid on the preferred. Please remember how for months and months good banks were subjected to inaction and therefore malicious lies as regulators dithered because money center banks (C) and GSEs were bankrupt AND everyone on Wall Street knew it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=BDIY%3AIND

he’s a good guy

All that you said in your last paragraph is true. MACD trendlines above the zero line and staying is trending up. So, their making a cross-over below the zero line has, in many cases, less significance than when they are above.

Often, the 5 or 15min MACD can be trending up above the zero line while the 1min is trending down. That’s because the 1min is re-cycling its MACD on the 1min. Then IF and WHEN the 1min MACD starts turning up again, it’s time to buy. IF and WHEN the 1min MACD continues down, pulling down the 5min, it’s not time to buy. The same goes for stochatic where a lower time frame and a higher time frame bottom out OR begin turning up together.

Any two indicators can be used on different time frames. Lately I have traded several times only using MA crossings. Like today with BBT and others. Similar to Tres Cruzar except only using two or using the highest time frame’s stochastic. I plan to write how to do this and I’m going to call it “MAjek Trading” – the “MA” referencing Moving Averages.

The MACD is a proxy for the MAs basically. And with the settings I use, one time frame’s MACD is the higher time frame’s stochastic. Check that out. It works out very well 99.99% of the time. Sometimes extreme volatility will make one or the other lag.

There’a a difference between only using MACDs or MAs. Notice on a single time frame that price can continue up (and MAs follow) while the MACD trendlines turn over and start going down (but they are above the zero line). This is a good warning in some cases that price is going to turn over, but not very accurate for managing the trade. In these cases, there are two choices: follow the MAs in that time frame or go to a higher time frame and follow the MACD.

So, why follow MACD – or use it? Because it is more accurate than MAs when there is volatility. MAs can cross down while the MACD has not crossed. So MACD is very valuable to filter out bogus moves.

More later…

You’re gonna get a lot of sleep counting all of those sheep. ‘Bout time.

I’ve never had a real problem with TARP, I’ve always believed there needed to be assistance to business. I do have a problem with the way it was handled and distributed. Those top-down assistance methods work occasionally but bottom-up is better. Heck, even China knew that.