July 23rd Meeting Summary / Picks

Our meeting was a round-table discussion format. Tim West made opening welcome remarks, reviewed the MISSION of our group and reviewed the winner from last month was CASEY ALLEN with his short DIA pick. Although he won with 2.8 ranges, he was up nearly 7 ranges at his best. We reviewed the spreadsheet of picks (link is available at the bottom of this post). Tim also paid the winner of last month's contest his prize - congratulations MARK JUVILER for winning in June! The portfolio of ideas as a whole was down just over 3% last month, leaving our group picks up just under 20% since last October's start date. This puts our drawdown at over 5% now, but still an impressive return in my opinion.

We decided on the next meeting to be held on August 20 and to move the location to Bogey's Grill and Tap Room at the top of Main Street at the junction of Rt 57. We can use the upstairs room where it is much quieter. Our round-table discussion went to 7PM and then we went into random discussions of topics on people's minds. Options strategies were mentioned. We discussed ways to save energy, including solar, hybrid automobiles, geothermal, and radiant floor heating. We went around the table and had each person lay out where they thought crude oil would be for the balance of the year. My notes will reflect that many think the top is already in place yet a few left open the idea that prices could go much higher or at least make a new high. Another thought crude could drop under $100 in the near term and potentially hit $75-$80 before rebounding. A trophy was an idea for each winner to posess for a month until the next meeting. A prize for the last-placer was another idea. Whoever is stopped out first, perhaps in the event that we get multiple stop-outs, as we had last month. I'd like to stop putting up money for the prize, although I value the picks and do want to encourage participation and put some pressure on you to find out what you truly feel is your best idea for the month. So if we want to do a prize from now on, we'll have to each kick in some money to make it happen. I'll be banker and collect a per pick prize.

Tim West announced that Glenn Neely is available to speak to our group this fall. He is the author of Mastering Elliott Wave and a legend in the world of logical, rules-based wave-counts. Glenn has added rules to those set out by R.N. Elliott and so popularly marketed by Robert Prechter that Neely labels NEoWave. NEoWave was needed to nail down logical wave counts that are consistent with post-pattern market reaction to justify a wave count. To summarize, Glenn is brilliant and has offered to speak to our group. I'll send around an email describing in more detail and you can visit Neely's website at www.neowave.com Glenn will most likely be speaking at MTA this fall in NYC.

Picks until the next meeting August 20th.

Timothy West; buy sugar using SUV8 futures. I still feel that sugar is cheap relative to corn as I had stated last month. Corn dropped over 20% from our last meeting!
Tony Sanfilippo (although he didn't make the upstairs meeting, he came early to meet with us and to the 5:30pm-6pm downstairs meeting) told me to short XLF using the ultra-short etf because the huge bounce in XLF was overdone and unprecedented. For future portfolios, I'd like to make sure that everyone hears a forecast as presented by the individual and not through me. Which brings up Stan Katz who didn't make the meeting at all. Stan has been shorting the EuroCurrency since last October at every meeting. In his absence, I felt it was important that we include his forecast despite that he wasn't there. I will presume he feels the same for this meeting.
Bob Gifford offered a long in Home Depot as we are in hurrican season.
Randy Shapiro suggested we buy gold as August has historically been the best month for gold.
Mark Juviler felt that the e-mini Dow futures were a good long.
Bill Green believes Macquarie (MIC) is overvalued and vulnerable and should be shorted.
Chris Chessari sees e-mini S&P futures as a good shorting candidate, although he admits he is a very short term trader where 10 minutes is considered a long term investment.
Miriam Bakker also thinks the S&P is a short sale using the SPY etf.
David Evans said there is more damage to Wachovia Bank and UBS. Short these stocks looking for lower prices, is David's advice.
Thanks for contributions from new members David Evans and Bill Green. I consider you members for coming to the meeting with the mission of accomplish the goals of the group: TO help each other to find ways to make money from the market. We welcome you to future meetings and hope you can continue to enlighten us with your insights and perspectives!

Please post any replies to update your position and you can view the spreadsheet for this listing by clicking on the following link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p4P2Qbq7qqC1UZpy1VImeAw

Here's the crude oil forecasts for balance of 2008:
Tim W: 100-130, high is in.
Mark J: new high coming, long term oil is cheap now, Mark encouraged by "high is in" comments by others.
Randy S: 100-130
David E: high is in, demand destruction
Bob G: high is in, long term in question due to laws for drilling offshore
Chris C: 116-145
Casey A: high is in. hold here (125)
Miriam B: dollar new low, crude new high coming
Bill G: 120-160, bear mkt (recession) hurts demand
Jim S: high is in, will break/test 100. Possible 75-80 low. Europe may slow.

We wish you all the best of good fortune and look forward to seeing you AUGUST 20 at the next meeting at Bogey's!

Timothy West