Credit crunch taking its toll

I'm convinced that the worst is still ahead for the financials. The headlines are just terrible. I'm sure that after the weekend--or Monday at the latest--there won't be any Lehman Brothers anymore, and Merrill Lynch and AIG will follow shortly, but only after wiping out a bunch of investors, but I won't be one of them, because I'm going to short the whole lot of them. You see, I can do that with any number of inverse ETFs, exchange traded funds that will perform exactly opposite--in this case--the finance sector. Naturally, I don't own any financials. I saw it all coming late last year and cleared everything out. Well, okay, not everything, but I wanted to. I kept thinking things would get better, and they didn't.

So, on Monday, September 15, I'm going to buy the ProShares UltraShort Financials ETF (SKF) and watch my profits roll in.























And here's a link to the live chart: ProShares UltraShort Financials

Commodities are history

Well, I'm convinced the whole commodity thing is over with. I made some nice money on natural resource stocks--hot ones like BHP Billiton and Potash (fertilizer was the place to be.) Was, that is, that game is history. These stocks are gapping down every day, and I've finally drawn my line in the sand. Everyone knows that lower lows and lower highs are baaadddd. I own Anglo American (AAUK) and Vale (RIO). Vale is the world's largest iron ore producer, and there was a time when China needed iron ore to make stuff for the Olympics (man, if that wasn't a monster buy signal, but maybe more on that later.) AAUK was my cool call on consolidation in mining industry . . . a little too cool, I guess; hasn't happened yet. If you want, check out the charts:

CVRD
AAUK

Do you see that monster gap down in AAUK? The Japanese call those things windows, and like the windows in my house they're tough to close. These things just keeps breaking down, so I'm getting out of them tomorrow--beating the rush and selling at the open. His-to-rie.

Need to live to fight another day, store up some dry powder, so I'm ready to go back later, when the dust has settled, and pick up some low-hanging fruit. I'm getting my buylist ready now, but mark my words, commodities are history, and they are not on it. Jim Rogers, you had your moment in the son, now you can go back to learning Mandarin Chinese. Any rube knows that one bubble's leaders go in the dustbin for a long, long, super-cycle (ha, ha, Jim) long time.