President's Day Posting

Light posting this weekend due to the President's Day holiday. As a reminder the Market is closed on Monday as will be Lumen Capital Management.

1) Mid-term election years tend to trade sideways for the first nine months of the year.
2) I am less worried about the consequences of the slow down in housing than others. Still I do think that there are housing markets that are overbuilt and where some people are going to get burned. Parts of the New York area may fit this bill. (See a glut in new homes)
3) Will commodities become more popular than hedge funds among institutional investors?
4) An interesting article on stock market tops and bottoms. A bit on the technical side however. You can find part 1 here. http://www.thestreet.com/_tscrmb/markets/marketfeatures/10269345.html. Here is part 2. http://www.thestreet.com/p/markets/marketfeatures/10269355.html
5) If you want to see a couple of articles about the Dutch response to disasterous flooding in 1953 go here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering. Unfortunately something long term like this probably needs to be done in New Orleans.