Remain calm at all times.

Jim Mattis had an expiration date too apparently.

The United States is currently "mixing it up" with the World and my bets are all down.

All self-inflicted wounds. Remember Boxcar's avatar about Obama, "One Big Ass Mistake, America"? Looks to me that he retired it 2 years too early!

They really aren't that wild. Oct 1987 when the DJIA dumped 500 pts it was nearly a quarter of the DJIA total. Today, it's not even 2.5% or a tenth of that. I know what you're saying CJ. It took me awhile to see a 450 pt gain and not say, "Whoa, what a day". I've gotten use to looking at my brokerage page, and toggling from pt loss of 200, to percentage loss of 0.8%.

DJIA is about 4100 pts off it's all time high, a drop of roughly 16%. I don't think the index reached 4100 in it's entire history until the '90s sometime.

I'm pissed about gas prices around the country compared to here. I think I paid $3.18 for mid-grade the other day. Reg unleaded just went under $3 this past weekend. Heating oil is $3.22. That's the low ball side of it at super markets and convenience stores. The national retailers like XOM, ARCO, and Texaco are about $0.30 higher across the board.

That is because we pay a bullshit gas tax of 67.8 cents per gallon (18.4 Fed + 49.4 state). It could be worse, we could be in California. Still, your prices in Seattle are still higher than other areas. I paid $2.99 at Fred Meyer in Sumner tonight.

See, that's an Unconstitutional Statement on your part if I read it correctly.

Do you think Obama should still be the President?

I am making a personal bet today as we are very close to the bottom of this down swing in the market.

I have 2-3 companies in mind to buy but I will not mention them until 12-31-18. On 12-31-19 I will list those stocks again with their closing prices.

There are too many positives happening in the economy and with the companies I am interested --plus the overall market-- not to be higher next year.

Good luck.

Of course not - I meant that Trump is the big mistake! Boxcar should recycle the avatar.

The US economy is decelerating. If credit spreads stay elevated/widen further, things will slow further. Not a political statement (I prefer not to debate politics in the financial markets area; I'm sure I've failed in the past).

Collective (add up all the major central banks' actions) reverse QE continues - turned negative just recently. Big headwind.

I like your focus on individual names - please post and good luck.

whenever new markets for goods and services opens up in the world, the US markets went up. now it looks like we are backing away from emerging markets and the regular places that we did business with have implemented large tariffs against our goods. right here and right now, we are in a big economic war that has not yet been decided.

the China mandate has always been to take over the world, they cannot win with military, but they are sure doing a good job economically.

i was looking for some real support and the only case i can make is the market went up to fast in the last 2 years so there really isn't any good support until it goes substantially lower than 2 years ago.

i am not saying you won't get a dead cat bounce at some point, but that will make for some real good shorting opportunities.

you may want to pick some individual stocks and find the needle in the haystack, but its not worth it at this point in time. you are better off waiting for the bounce and play short at that time.

I bought Coca-Cola (KO) this afternoon at $47.50 or so. Never ever looked at KO before but two events happened this year that I like, alot:

(1) KO sold off their bottlers and that is a big plus for someone such as myself that looks at Free Cash Flow as the major investing metric. Too much capital expenditures in the past and the bottling plants were a huge drain on cash flow.

(2) The company also named a young, new CEO who seems like he has the goods. Times will tell.

3.2% dividend yield for a company entering a (possible) growth phase while the money managers look at other companies to chat up is OK by me. I do not think KO is on anyone's radar screen.

Plus, finally, I am betting that rates will be lower or flat in 2019 and not higher, despite J. Powell's attempt to kill the Trump economy.

Not sure yet if this is it for me for 2018. I just don't like the way the market is playing.

the volume on this move is huge. usually, when markets move down, they go down pretty fast.

there is no fear in the market, that is a problem in paradise. market bottoms don't come without fear into. there are no real levels for support now and the math looks ugly for this very fast acceleration on the way down.

I went one post without violating what I just said, so call me a liar, but I can't let this pass. Who the hell appointed Powell? Yellen was an uber dove - that's what Trump wanted, but he couldn't keep an Obama appointee. So if Powell tanks anything, the Stable Genius owns it. No one, and I mean no one, thought Powell was as dovish as Yellen. Actually, he was thought to be the most hawkish Fed chair since Volker. Buck stops at DJT's desk. Sorry, he wanted all the credited, so now he takes all the blame.

All of the above said, I do wish you the best of luck with KO.

I can't believe the VIX isn't going absolutely nuts to the upside, so I agree with your comment.