Trade Deadline...

If you follow sports there is always a part of the season where the right to trade a player from one team to another comes to a close, this is the 'trade deadline'. And in the NBA this year its come with some big names on the trading block. Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks and Deron Williams to the New Jersey Nets sounds like these franchises are solidifying their rosters with serious talent.

Its time to solidify our roster of stocks with as many 'Melo's and Deron's as possible because turbulence is starting to set in on the markets. Many people forget when investing that you must really consider the entire global landscape these days. Listening to the news for a few seconds leads to a crash course in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya...and then flickers of concern with names like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran. The unrest in these countries is the main reason why you must solidify your roster with serious talent.

I have been expecting a pullback for sometime but its always difficult to tell when it may occur. The economy is chugging along but there are still mixed data signals telling us the coast is not close to being clear. Unemployment, housing prices dropping back to historic lows, gas prices, and quantitative easing all make me uneasy. The catalyst of the pullback may oddly enough be Tunisia!! So its time to evaluate the roster and TRADE:

~ Trade your stud who's maximized their talent.
~ Trade your players who are not panning out.
~ Accumulate money to acquire the biggest stud out there (i.e., Lebron James)

I took the following actions:
~ Sold (or traded) Iron Mountain (IRM) shares for the roughly 30% gain accumulated in the last few months. This is a stud I wanted to take profits of before they reported earnings & before this pull back eats my profits.

~ Sold (or traded) Republic Services(RSG) shares for the roughly 5% gain accumulated in the last few months. This is a stud I wanted to take profits of before this pull back eats my profits. I hope to reacquire this prospect later.

~ I will buy a few Lebron James...starting with my 2 premium screen alert stocks. And keep the extra cash (or dry powder) for a rainy day

All that Glitters...Might be Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium

I have to admit I am big on Glitter right now. And I am not referring to Mariah Carey, who may have done an album and movie with the same title. I'm taking about the glitter of shiny metals. You know the metals that coined the phrase Bling Bling in the hiphop world. Don't believe me check out the old Cash Money Record artist BG who had a huge song that turned this phrase mainstream.

But back to my purpose for writing this article. My goal is to point out that it appears we have been fairly right about the direction of the economy and how it keeps chugging along. This is a slow and steady chug that has been scary because at times it feels like we could fall back to those dreadful days of 2008 & 2009. I struggled back then with identifying exactly how to setup and reallocate my portfolio for the future. If you recall I was in the camp that the economy was really bad and I even made the drastic decision to pull the string on all risky and mediocore stocks in your portfolio. The fact is they never should have been there but thats another story for another day. My guess back then was to increase your exposure to the following investments:

~ Gold (through ETFs)
~ Treasury Inflation Protection Securities (commonly known as TIPS)
~ Dividends

Well it was arguably a good call back then but the hard part for me was actually finding out the best ways to take advantage of this strategy. I have been very slow outside of identifying the obvious which is through ETFs. So I am going to place more of an emphasis on the identifying which stocks can help fulfill this strategy.

These asset classes are important because the Federal Reserve is acting to stimulate the economy which is suffering from limited core price appreciation (inflation) and job losses (9.6% unemployment, 17+% underemployed). Because politicians won't stimulate the economy the Fed realizes that someone must. They shouldn't be the only game in town because they don't have all of the tools...like say calling for a tax cuts or passing a huge infrasture bill. So their best solution is to flood the economy with CASH. This does a few of things:
1. Makes holding safe cash investments less desireable; stocks and riskier assets will rise
2. Supposed to make banks lend more because interest rates will be low and attractive
3. Make American made goods cheaper and easier to export as the DOLLAR loses value

Where I plan on exploring:

Hard Assets - Not just Gold but silver, platinum, palladium, real estate tend to rise in value and the dollar loses its value. These are stocks I will be exploring more of:

• Glitter ETF (GLTR) - Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium
• Barrick Gold (ABX)
• ENSCO (ESV)
• Cheasapeake (CHK)
• Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM)
• Mariner Energy (ME)
• Ultra Petroleum (UP)
• Interoil (IOC)
• Platinum Groups Metals (PLG)
• Plains Exploration (PXP)
• Gold ETF (GLD)
• Gold Miners ETF (GDX)
• Petrobras (PBR)
• Suncor (SU)
• NovaGold (NG)
• Cobalt International Energy (CIE)
• PetroHawk (HK)
• Abraxas Petroleum (AXAS)
• Vale (VALE)
• Allied Nevada Gold (AMV)
• Exxon Mobil (XOM)
• Gammon Gold (GRS)
• Minefinders (MFN)
• ATP Oil & Gas (ATPG)

TIPS - no change here, this was a good call and inflation, while low now, should increase. Don't believe me check the FED minutes where they outright said they are looking for higher rates
Dividends - I like the recent stocks CLCT, IRM, RSG, EPD and other solid dividend plays.

As you can see I've got some work to do to find value for the future. Peace