Mid-Day Musing

Surprise surprise, precious metals and related miners are up, retail, financials and real estate are down, and both the Swiss Franc and Yen continue to show strength, even though the market is posting a moderate move to the upside. A tip of the hat to Mike Shedlock, who has a great post over at MGETA related to my rant about AXP. We share the same view of the credit card debt industry, and he has some very nice charts confirming my thesis of the next wave of financial disaster.
There has been some great performance by GDX and SRS this morning, but the real winner is HGU.TO which returns 200% of the S&P/TSX Gold Miners Index. HGU.TO has been on a stellar run in the past couple of weeks, up 40% since mid December. Anyone following GLD's bullish pennant could have guessed HGU.TO was due for an enormous move, especially after its break past 28. It is still making all time record highs, and continuing upwards at an incredible pace. A pairs trade long HGU.TO and long SRS (200% inverse of Dow Jones Real Estate Index) could prove quite valuable, providing some relative market neutrality.
As always, 7% trailing stops are a wonderful way to avoid major mistakes; leveraged ETF's tend to be incredibly volatile and costly when they are entered during consolidation periods.
Keep an eye on BPT, an oil trust supposedly yielding 11% with a great looking chart, and a recent breakout above 80.
Other movers include SSG with a much needed 5% pullback, probably due to renewed strength in Intel (dead cat bounce?). Semiconductors have been leading this market down, and I see no reason (yet) that this trend should end. With Intel's numbers coming out soon, perhaps it is best to wait on the sidelines and short any strength that may come from earnings week.