Market Ruminations

It has been a very long time since I have made a posting. As most of you know I lost the month of January because of cataract surgeries. This is the first time I have been able to sit down and look at the screen and see what I have typed. The whole month of January the screen was just a big blur. The last half of December was taken up with a round of Christmas parties, New Years eve and all the other nonsense that takes place the second half of December. I did manage to put on a few pounds which are proving devilishly stubborn at coming off. Ok, so much for my problems and on the Ruminations on the markets. 
Once again, uncharacteristically, I am optimistic. Things are playing out much better than one would have guessed as recently as last summer. The stock market is up, employment is up and if it weren't for the fears of a European collapse most people would be starting to feel optimistic. I placed several bets back in late October which I will bring you up to date on. I bought an ETF fund called DDM, another called UGL and another called TBT, Here is how I fared. 
UGL which is a bet the price of gold will go up fell off a cliff and I got stopped out with a modest loss. TBT which is a bet the price of Treasury Bonds will go down went the other way like a rocket. Again I got stopped out with a modest loss. DDM is doing nicely. Here is the chart for DDM which is up 20.5% since Oct 20th. 

Symbol/Name	Price*	Change	Last Trade	Gain/Loss (USD)	Shares	Price Paid	Purchase Date	Gain/Loss (USD)	% Change	% Port	Value (USD)
DDM:US ($) ProShares Ultra Dow30	64.81	+0.64	13:35	+64.00	100	53.78	10/20/2011	+1,103.00	+20.51	37.41	6,481.00

Ok, so much for recapping. Where do we go from here. 
STOCKS: I think there is more room for stocks to move up although we are about due for a profit taking session before stocks start to move up again. 
BONDS: Bonds are in the bubble of lifetime and when they turn the price will go down and the interest rates will go up for the next 20-30 years. I am amazed they haven't turned already. 
GOLD: The massive sell off in gold was most likely caused by year end profit taking and will probably recover all it's losses in the near future. Long term Gold will go to $5000 an oz so there is plenty of room on the upside. None of the charts are showing a good buy point as of today. I'll send out another posting after the week end and devote that to the charts I follow and why I follow them.