Thursday, May 22, 2014

Good Morning America, How Are You?

I was up at sunrise here on the Canadian Border in Washington State.  I did not see the baby geese this morning.  The river is in flood stage, and I don't think they are ready to swim downstream to Lake Ron Paul (which is not a real lake; it is only an overflow into an alfalfa field from the Kettle River). 

My Broccoli is very close to being able to be harvested.  I use to dislike Broccoli, until my daughter grew some Blue Wind.  Now I am a fan, and I've been nurturing the Blue Wind plants though temperatures in the low teens at night for 2 months.  I've been harvesting Kale for months now. 

Sadly, my daffodils are past, but the good news - Lilacs are in bloom and creating a wonderful smell throughout my 2 acres of landscaping.  Deer love my lilacs, but once the lilacs are 7 foot high or so, they just keep the shoots trimmed back.  :) 

My old (25 years old at least) peonies are set to bloom this week.  Then in 2 weeks or so, my new peonies and my tree peonies will bloom.  I LOVE PEONIES. 

Last night temperature touched 32 degrees at 3:30PM PST.  I just planted tomatoes.  I use Wall-of-Waters, and I put decomposing compost inside.  Tomatoes look very happy at 5:00 AM PST.  I'm thinking that combination works.

I know you will think it ridiculous, but I enjoy hearing from someone that they were able to use my ideas.  I never hear from anyone about finance, but someone yesterday said they used my fertilizer formula for their gardens, and they got that formula from papers I wrote.  Unfortunately, the manufactures no longer manufacture that formula, and several years ago I converted to organic gardening.  So, I made up compost and compost tea (from grass and green weeds) that is very close in NPK composition to Morcrop.   I gave the fertilizer (along with limited instructions) to her, and instructed her to use like Morcrop and Epson salts (what I use to use).  Making the compost, however, seems to be beyond most people's tolerance for labor (or maybe persistence).  I turn out about 2 cu yards of compost per month for my gardens, with most of materials coming from leaves and grass.  Seems to work. 

Summary:

The markets are unsettled. The S&P 500 is up just above fair value which suggests a higher opening than yesterday's close. 

The stock market remains choppy and erratic.  Trading volume yesterday was anemic even though the market recovered from Tuesday's drop.

I often wonder about the talking heads on Bloomberg, and other TV.  Last nights summary seem to have a consensus.  Most seem to agree that the FOMC minutes drove prices up, and stating that investors did not have to move up expectations for interest rates to rise.

If you watched the price action yesterday, the FOMC minutes had almost no effect on price.  Most of the days gains happened well before the FOMC minutes were released.  What may have been significant over night (Tuesday night /wed moring) was China's PMI reading with ticked up from 48.1 to 49.7.  While that still signals contraction, it is moving in the correct direction. 

Today, existing home at 7:00 AM PDT (10:00 AM EDT) may move the markets.  It will certainly make an impact (or at least I think It will).

Retail Store earnings were reported last night.  Mixed information and responses.  Sears got hammered, as they reported another big loss.  Best Buy beat expectations.  So what do we have?  Retail Sales results are as erratic as the stock market.