Michael Covel: News & Info.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain’t what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.

The Arabic version of “Trend Following” is available.

Hmm…

Feedback:

I wrote to you in June ‘07 to thank you for the inspiration received from the Battle at Kruger video clip that you sent with your weekly. This week’s piece on Mark Cuban was good also and obviously these two messages are meshed. I wholeheartedly agree with your comment about reinforcement and inspiration when a person looks at the stories of others who have gone before; I need to keep bathing in the positive atmosphere. When I listened to George Svoboda’s music I was transfixed. Here’s a man that’s in flow. It’s like I’ve been given unspoken validation in pursuing (sticking-to-it) trading success and my dream to take up the guitar again some day. I’ve been encouraged again to keep on the entrepreneurial path in life. One of the keys for me is to focus on how it will be when I get there, rather than what might happen “if” I fail. Words fail many times in describing feeling, but here’s another thank you. Rick R.

Maybe it doesn’t really work.

I am no monster sweet tooth, but I do know today was the first time that I have ever bought a normal size candy bar (not one of the monster ones) and have had the cashier ask for more than $1 dollar. Price? $1.01. Inflation? Prices just about everywhere are rising. So does the Fed save real estate and stocks or curb inflation? And if they sputter around with no real plan, what next? Anyone else have the feeling the ride is just beginning?

I received a nice note recently from a retired pathologist. Some subtle sarcasm came in today from him:

This week I was at an ice creme shop in a fancy part of town. A visiting hegd fund evaluator sat down next to me and in our conversation he said his approach involved more than metrics on financial performance and included finding out if a firm attended to the business side of the business. This reminded me of the latter 1/3rd of your book which focussed on turtle subsequent success. I mentioned that to the evaluator who knew of your work and the “trend followers”. Because he was not a trader himself, I suggested he might find your book well worth the read. He also was concerned about the explosion in volume, variety and interconnected risks in his world. I wondered if we are really in for a rough ride given [what he described of] W.D. Gann’s admonition that log rises are followed by severe contraction and Soros’s contention that speculative markets tend to always get out of control, lacking reliable self correcting homeostatic mechanisms and credit default swaps daisy chained to India. “Come on.” said the retired pathologist as he finished up his cup of rum raisin.

Vivek Kaul’s review from India.

A take on the proposed mega merger. The YHOO trend was definitely not up!