With the price of oil passing $90 a barrel I can not help but wonder if the declining value of the American dollar is negating all of the gains the DOW is making. As an exercise I took a look at the graph of the value change in the US Dollar compared to the Canadian Dollar and matched it up with the growth of the DOW.
A scary picture begins to emerge, does it not?
When you compare the growth of the market to the decline in the value of a dollar it begins to look like the market is flat, if not falling behind.
Not long ago the US Dollar and the Euro were 1:1. Today you need to spend about $1.50 to buy a Euro. Looking at it that way just how expensive is oil? That $90 barrel of oil only costs 60 Euros. If oil was back at $60 a barrel would you still consider it expensive?
The last time the US Dollar was even with the Euro was back in late 2002. At that same time the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the CDN Dollar was $1:$1.60. How the mighty have fallen.
Yes, the market is booming, but is it really booming or is it booming because the US Dollar is dropping in value? I hate to be a doom and gloomer but it looks to me like the wonderful growth years of the Bush economy have been greatly overrated.
Just this morning I received the following stock tip in my inbox:
In the markets, A unique product is always rewarded, and the company will always soar as long as there is demand and have growing markets to explore.
Now we would like to present a new concept thats been hitting globally and a real company with real and unique product.
Introducing ShotPak (SHTP)
Whats the unique product??
The ShotPak is a new and innovative concept in alcohol packaging. The shot is a single serving shot of alcohol or a Ready-To-Drink (RTD) mixed cocktail in a soft portable pouch. It eliminates the need for you to carry glass bottles, mixers and bar tools when you go out.
When full, the ShotPak is lighter than a 50 ml airplane botle and more convenient to carry. The ShotPak was developed to target people who are enagaged in an active lifestyle and are on the go.
If you don’t believe this works, read their latest press releases and see the craze grow.
Don’t be left out, look into SHTP ShotPak Inc
I left in the typos
So, what do we know about this stock?
52 week range: 0.05 - 0.61
Three month chart:
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? What happened in August? At the end of June Shazam Stocks printed an article on Shotpacks. The articles reads well and the product looks promising so why did the stock drop so far?
I also found this article which says the company is trying to find out who owns their stock and what positions those investors are taking with the stock.
Shotpak has also ordered DTC reports for further assessment. Both lists will be utilized to reveal possible short positions.
“Maintaining our shareholders’ rights and enhancing shareholder value are our main goals. We believe that a NOBO list may provide a clue to the recent peculiarities in Shotpak’s stock price movements,” stated CEO Ignus Hattingh.
If you look at the news coming out about this company it looks good. They are signing distribution deals left and right, so why am I getting junk email about them?
Can this stock take off and be good? I’m not sure. What I have to wonder is why, with all their distribution deals going through, no bigger company has gobbled them up?
My personal opinion? As people begin to fear the worst in the world (war, and recession) alcohol sales go up.
I recently came across an interesting website that allows me to play the market using fake money. The site is a cross between Facebook and the Stock Exchange. Wondering what site it is? It is called My Wall St dot net.
I will be using this site (and my portfolio) to test out some of the amazing stock deal offers I get in my email.
Review of Oct 4,2007 trading
- Purchase 1,000 shares of LUM for $2.59 each
- Purchase 500 shares of YHOO for $27.24 each
- Purchase 10,000 shares of EGCP for $0.59 each
- Purchase 10,000 shares of LUM for $2.68 each
- Sell 1,000 shares of LUM for $2.68 each (profit = (($2.68×1,000)-($2.59×1,000)-$20 comission) = $70)
- Buy 92 shares of GOOG for $580.00 each
- Sell 92 shares of GOOG at $577.63 each (loss = (($580.00×92)-($577.63×92)+$20 comission) = $238.04)
- Buy 112 shares of LUM for $2.83 each
- Buy 10,000 shares of LUM for $2.82 each
Where I stand now
My original $100K equity is now worth $101,699.99 and I have $24,903.55 cash on hand. My daily return is 1.7% and I gained $1,699.00. That is more than I make in a week!
According to the leader board I am ranked 46 in the daily standing, 91 in the weekly standing and 196 in the monthly standing. Not too bad for my first day.
Caution
There are a few bad points about playing the stock market game on this site. The most notable one is the enforced 20 minute delay on trades going through and the one hour hold time on stocks. There is also no way to cancel a trade once you put it in the system.
If I put in an order to buy Apple stock because I see it at $145 per share and it suddenly jumps to $150 a share during that 20 minute delay I end up buying it at $150 a share. I then have to hold it for an hour before getting rid of it.
They say that this is to keep people who have up to the minute data from abusing the system but it still annoys me. When I was trying out the system I put in a couple of bad orders on accident and had to wait an hour and twenty minutes to undo them.
So why am I doing it? Because they offer a $1,000 weekly cash prize to the top rookie on the system!
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