Economia portuguesa quase estagnada desde final do ano passado

[LTCM]

Over the past five years, the Crawford letter has achieved an annualized gain of 3.1%, vs. 0.8% annualized for the total return DJ-W.
But over the entire period that the HFD has monitored Crawford, the letter has achieved only a 4.7% annualized gain, vs. 8.8% annualized for the total return DJ-W 5000.

This is because, every once in a while, Crawford's hot hand turns into a cold claw.
For example, Crawford was one the 10 worst-performing letters of 2006. See Dec. 29, 2006 column
Nevertheless, Crawford has been basically short for the last several months at a very propitious time.

Right now he says: "The full moon of Nov. 13 is in tight harmonic aspect with the position of planet Neptune, forming the angle of a "T" within one quarter of one degree! Expect a trading rally in inflation-hedge commodities (gold, oil, CRB, etc.) to begin a few days prior and maximize on or very near that full-moon day. If you have familiarity with trading these vehicles, BUY any positive technical break-out from today forward.

Then SELL and SHORT on Nov. 13, most likely in the earlier half of the day. Possibility exists for a double top on Monday, Nov. 17. After that one might add a trailing top-loss or simply hold into the first week in December."
My reaction to this: hmmm.

Crawford continues: "In addition, Mercury enters Scorpio on election day. We have noticed that maximum numbers of planets in Water signs (of the Fire, Earth, Air, Water categories) often coincides with panic lows in stocks. That would point up the period Nov. 5-16 as a potential panic bottom."
Crawford thinks this pause will be significant: "We have quoted this warning over the last few months: We have been bullish on assets in the ground and particularly gold, metals, oil since April 4, 2001. We are now becoming a bit more skeptical about much more immediate continuation in the inflation hedges, looking instead for a few more weeks, and possibly months in correctional phases.

"The long term, multi-year bull market in real things is probably not over, but this correction is liable to be longer and deeper than previously experienced. We judged that the exponential blow-off moves were carried too far recently, and will require a more protracted retracement period in both time and price." End of Story

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story

[LTCM]

Does the lunar cycle affect the behavior of investors/traders, and thereby influence stock returns? In the August 2001 version of their paper entitled "Lunar Cycle Effects in Stock Returns" Ilia Dichev and Troy Janes conclude that: "returns in the 15 days around new moon dates are about double the returns in the 15 days around full moon dates.

This pattern of returns is pervasive; we find it for all major U.S. stock indexes over the last 100 years and for nearly all major stock indexes of 24 other countries over the last 30 years." To refine this conclusion and test some recent data, we examine U.S. stock returns during intervals relative to the dates of new and full moons since 1990.

When the date of a new or full moon falls on a non-trading day, we assign it to the nearest trading day. Using dates for new and full moons for January 1990 through October 2008 as listed by the U.S. Naval Observatory (233 full and 233 new moons) and daily closing prices for the S&P 500 index over the same period, we find that:

The following chart summarizes average S&P 500 index returns over the 11 trading days (about half a month) centered on new moons or on full moons over the entire sample period, during the 1990s and during the 2000s. Results are in rough agreement with the conclusion of the study cited above, with intervals centered on new moons outperforming those centered on full moons. The difference for the 1990s is, however, small.

o resto aqui: http://www.cxoadvisory.com/blog/internal/blog11-06-08/