Easter weekend!

As the U.S. markets pause for the Easter holiday, we can pause and take a look back at the first 3+ months of 2009.  The Dow this week finally hit and stayed above 8000!  This is quite a run up from a March 6th low of 6,500!  However, I would venture to say that we are still not out of the woods, and I would really like to see a SLOW move up in these indexes around the world, as too quick will precipitate sharp rises and drops and the inevitable sell offs (profit taking) that are more of a panic action with the mindset of the general public.  There is still too much of a polar opposite that isn't related to the reality of the value equation.  When there is any good news - things go up WAY too much.  Any bad news yields the opposite result but in the same excesses.

As far as industries go, there is some upwards movements (see Wells Fargo), but there are still more problems than solutions in the financial institutions.  There is some interest in building materials and builder stocks, though I believe that there will be some mergers with the home builders which will eventually make them stronger.  Commodities will still be an interesting play as inflation is still a distinct possibility with all the government money printing going on. The U.S. dollar still making positive moves against foreign currencies, gold and silver still up and holding their own, and oil is hovering just under $50 a barrel.

Turning to the U.S. automakers - Ford appears to be the strongest, though they have about one more year of cash (at this current rate of burn through), GM is still tinkering with bankruptcy (though I believe it will be controlled with them hanging on to Cadillac, Chevy and the foreign operations and brands; while attempting to liquidate or just close everything else), and Chrysler has less than 30 dates to complete a merger with Fiat or it receives no additional money from the U.S. government.

For those of your with a long-term time horizon (10 years plus), I think there are some small glimmers of opportunities in this market.  You need to look real hard for those companies that have a product/service that is still needed during a recession like we have now, and when fixed, will still be needed in as large a quantity (or more) than now.  Look for cash flow, look for some earnings, or at least a slowing of losses, look for little to no debt.  And when you find it, you are buying it somewhere between 30-50% off!  It is easy to make money with those types of purchases!