A month ago I was not checking the VIX daily. The Volatility Index hit a new high of 59.06 during Wednesdays sixth straight fall for US markets.
For the Dow and the S&P 500, Wednesday capped their biggest six-day point loss ever. It was a session of wild swings, with no clear direction determined until the final minutes…
In the last hour of trading, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that the turmoil “will not end quickly.”
In possibly unrelated news. Last night I decided to re-read The Book of Investing Wisdom, …

No not superheros, super as in superannuation or retirement account. You try finding an image for Self Managed Super Funds
As I wrote last week Australian’s are 1st in the world in our readiness for retirement due to our superannuation system. One option for Australians is to completely manage their own retirement account, namely a Self Managed Superannuation Fund or SMSF for short. I setup our SMSF a few years back and completely manage it myself, except for the mandatory auditing which obviously I am not allowed to perform. …

With the S&P 500 trading below 1100, the U.S. stock market is now in the upper range of what I consider to be reasonable valuations. Stocks are certainly not “cheap” or undervalued overall, but they are no longer priced to deliver unacceptably poor long-term returns. I have no strong belief that stocks have reached a bottom.
Ditto for my sentiments. However as per my heavy investment today I do have a strong conviction that we are at or near a short term low.
Hussman provides an update on his projections for 10-year …

I believe Monday October 6 at 2.45pm (US market time) could mark a significant market bottom. Whether it is the market bottom remains to be seen, but certainly a tradable bottom was more than likely put in.
As I have mentioned before the signal I have been waiting for is a watershed of fear. The volatility index (VIX) spiked to an all time high yesterday, hitting 58.24.

Fusion Investing Portfolio
Consequently the Fusion Fund is investing heavily. The fund currently has 69% cash, $681k. The fund bought the following:

NASDAQ Index via …

Sadia (SDA) is a Brazilian based international purveyor of meat and other processed foods.
They are a classic fallen knife which fell hard and fast due to their finance department screwing the foreign exchange pooch. They were caught by both the US dollar appreciation and the fall in commodity prices. They were hedged the other way, double doh!, and the result is a massive hole in their balance sheet. the opportunity maybe that the stupidity could be a one-off thing and their core business remain strong and growing a good clip, …

Following on from yesterday’s How Low Can We Go, I thought it would be good to look at the S&P earnings data. The S&P data shows TTM reported earnings have been falling for a year after peaking in Q2 2007 at $84.95. Earnings are down 29% to $60.39 as of Q1 2008. As if that is not bad enough, estimates for Q2 08 predict earnings hitting a low of $51.68 before improving slightly in Q3 and improving thereafter.
A rosier view is gained by concentrating on the quarterly earnings rather than …

How low can we go? Dow 8000? S&P 500 in the 900s? Or are we already close to the bottom? It’s time for a historical refresher. The S&P500 closed last week at 1,099.23, the Dow at 10,325.38. It has been a very bad year thus far as this poster on TMF points out. Since 1926 this is currently the fifth worst calendar year for the S&P and the fourth worst rolling decade.

“The Paulsen plan was a cynical scam to extend the finance bubble and to pass it off onto the next president.”

I don’t have time for a write-up now; however, this is a heads up that STP has once again fallen to bargain basement prices. The Fusion Investing Portfolio plans to buy 2,000 shares on Friday 3 October.
You can check my previous articles on Suntech here.
The good: PEG of 0.53, forward P/E of 11.66, dominant low cost solar provider, good margins and return on equity, excellent R&D.
The bad: High debt, earnings not translating to cash flow due to investments in growth.
Just bought 1,000 at 32.50, not the low I was after …

Margin investing is fraught with danger. Following these ten steps will help you stay safe while playing with fire.