Market Commentary and blog template update

The market has fallen about 6.5% since May 2nd, when the market hit the top of S & P 500 at 1370, now at 1280.

I went back and looked on the blog my thoughts that day. One of the great aspects of a blog, its a journal to see how you react as events unfold.

On that day, it was the day I panicked and hit out of all silver miners, most gold miners (non-core) and in general the market. I do remember how I hit the bids on the market open, only to be a little pissed the market did bounce during the day.

Looking back, being off by "hours" from the high of the day was meaningless as compared to the market trend in the weeks to come.

So for readers that followed me, it was a good decision, that granted, I did out of shock and awe of the silver collapse. But that collapse seems to have been the catalyst for an overall market trend change. They key item to look for a new "lower low", meaning the market trend breaks the last meaningful low at SPX 1250. Once that level is convincingly broken, it will show market chart watchers the market has changed in direction.

That coupled with my post on Monday, it doesn't bode well to be long.

The blog has been updated to have "prettier" view for phone. Blogger updated the site to detect phones and make the formats easier on the eyes.

Good luck, and its cash cash cash, or for those more daring, shorts!

1,000th Blog Post

Holly heck! I have reached my 1,000 th blogpost in WebSurfinMurf.blogspot.com, 999 days after the first post August 14th, 2008. Seemed like I averaged more than 1 a day over that period...well I guess technically I did!

When I started this blog in 2008, it was in frustration that I could not communicate the serious financial situation the US and the world was facing. Instead of ranting like a raged lunatic to every person I met, I figured best to find a more constructive outlet.

And in August 14 2008, this blog was born with first post titled "Welcome to my new blog".

Even though I work in IT, I hadn't done any social media until that day. Also, being a computer guy, I am not the best at writing. This should be painfully obvious by reading my first 12 posts compared to more recent posts.

I have found this blog to provide many benefits, including

• A way to vent, keep my pontifications in person to a much lower volume
• Improved my writing skills
• Provided a way to "keep me honest". I see too many people in this realm of market pontifications and global economics who skew facts to fit their current view. This blog keeps an honest account of my thoughts.
• Useful for myself , like a diary, to reflect back and use for current view / analysis
• Learned additional technical skills, if only marginally, by exploring various web tools and widgets.
• I hope it has provided some insight to those who read it, to help them prepare for what is to come, if only in a small way.
• Kept me focused at the awaking of what we face back in 2006 and continues to unfold in what will be a decade long ordeal. (2006 to 2016?)

I am sure I can figure out quite a few more benefits. But I hope those who do read this blog find some value out of it, as I do.

I don't want to hit 2,000 posts, I really do want to cut down my posting to once a week, but I haven't yet settled my mind into the key markers I want to strictly observe.

I find it ironic that the market is higher than when I started this blog. I continue to be concerned over the world economics as I did back then. After 1,000 posts, my best post, most comprehensive to date of my view is "Why Natural Resource assets is better investment than US Bonds"

Thanks for Reading!

From WebSurfinMurf's Financial Blog

Cool Blog Views

Blogger has released new options to view my blog.
Click on each, to see some cool tech at work!

http://websurfinmurf.blogspot.com/view/flipcard

http://websurfinmurf.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

http://websurfinmurf.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

http://websurfinmurf.blogspot.com/view/snapshot

http://websurfinmurf.blogspot.com/view/timeslide

I broke my blog

I logged onto Google analytics to see how this blog has been doing.

To my surprise, not one visitor since Feb 20th. Not one!

I found this a bit surprising, since I have on occasion loaded this blog from work (talking to someone, show them a link, etc).

I realized, of course, I must have broke my link...sure enough, Feb 19th post titled "Modified Blog Layout".

Well, it should be fixed now, but for 30 days I lost all data about blog hits.

I am sure in a couple of day's I'll discover 1,000's of avid readers... :)

Moral of the story....Changing ANYTHING in technology needs to be tested. I work in software development, it amazes me that even I don't think to double check all things that could go wrong when you make changes.

Oh well, back to the financial blog.

Modified blog layout

Did some tinkering today, modified the blog layout to be wider.
I run at 1920x1080, the blog was optimized for 1280 width.
I increased the width to 1400. The main text is width of 1100, so the article format should still look fine on 1280 monitors. Just the right hand side will get cut off.

Enjoy.