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“Freedom to protest proves protesters wrong - Las Vegas Sun” plus 4 more

Freedom to protest proves protesters wrong - Las Vegas Sun
The planes, trains and automobiles rally - CNN
Joe Biden makes surprise visit to Baghdad - Los Angeles Times
Momentum Oil Trade Hits The Skids - Forbes
A look at expected airline losses around the world - Boston Globe

Freedom to protest proves protesters wrong - Las Vegas Sun

Posted: 15 Sep 2009 09:53 AM PDT

Joel Rector, North Las Vegas

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 | 2:03 a.m.

After watching the coverage of the protests in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, I was both proud to be an American (once again, people were able to peacefully gather to voice their concerns and seek redress from their government) and confused by the comments made by some of the protesters.

Many said they had gone to D.C. from across the country to take their freedoms back from the government and the Obama administration. It was a curious thing to say, considering that these folks were able to travel, unimpeded, through various states to get to their destination.

They also were able to assemble peacefully and voice their opposition to government policies without fear of persecution or prosecution. They carried signs, some insulting and others downright crude (depictions of Obama as Hitler or the Joker) without being hauled off to jail or attacked on the street by "jack-booted thugs."

Some carried signs saying Obama is converting the U.S. to a fascist nation. Really? I wonder if any of these fine Americans can tell me precisely which "freedoms" they lost and need to "take back."

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The planes, trains and automobiles rally - CNN

Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:28 AM PDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If you're looking for confirmation that this stock market rally might actually be for real, look no further than the stodgy world of transportation.

The Dow Jones Transportation average hit a new high for the year in mid-August and has continued to climb since then, closing above the 4,000 level on Monday for the first time since November.

And some investing experts think this is an extremely encouraging sign for the economy at large.

Now you might wonder how relevant the transportation sector is these days. Railroad stocks? This is the age of Google, Facebook and Twitter, not the era of robber barons.

Of course, that's true. But the transportation sector is still a vital part of the economy because it is a key gauge of consumer spending.

Without trains, boats, trucks and planes to ship all those netbooks and iPhones to warehouses and retailers, there would be no mobile gadgets available to buy and you wouldn't be able to tweet and update your status on the go.

"If transportation stocks are getting tanked, that means people believe that nothing is getting shipped. The move higher may mean that the economy is bottoming -- even though we're not out of the woods yet," said Frank Ingarra, Jr., co-portfolio manager with Hennessy Funds, a money management firm with about $850 million in assets.

So the spike in the Dow Jones Transportation average, or the transports for short, is worth exploring. The transports consist of 20 key companies within the sector, including leading railroads Union Pacific (UNP, Fortune 500) and CSX (CSX, Fortune 500), airlines JetBlue (JBLU) and Southwest (LUV, Fortune 500), and several truckers and maritime shippers.

And according to a trading rule known as the Dow Theory, it's often considered a bullish sign when the transports and their far more well-known counterpart, the Dow Jones industrial average, both are doing well.

Usually, investors look for one average to "confirm" the other, which means that if one of the two hits a new high for a certain period of time, the other average should also soon hit a new high if the rally has legs.

With the transports now comfortably above the January level of around 3,737, investors got the confirmation they were hoping for: The Dow 30 hit a new high back in late July and hasn't looked back since.

One big reason that the transports have surged -- the average is up more than 85% from the March lows -- is that airline stocks are no longer being priced as if every carrier is on a one-way flight to Chapter 11.

The major airlines traded at extremely distressed levels earlier this year but have roared back on hopes that oil prices are stabilizing and that travel will pick up as the economy recovers.

But airlines aren't the only group in the transport sector to improve on expectations of better times ahead. Last Friday, one of the largest components of the transports, shipper FedEx (FDX, Fortune 500), surprised Wall Street by saying that profits for the next two quarters would be better than expected.

That news helped push shares of FedEx more than 6% higher on Friday and lifted the stock of UPS (UPS, Fortune 500), its top rival and fellow Dow Jones Transportation component, by nearly 4.5%.

The upbeat outlook from FedEx could be a good omen for the broader economy since it may mean that consumers and businesses are becoming more willing to loosen up their purse strings.

John Kosar, director of research with Asbury Research in Chicago, said there are signs that this may be happening in other areas of the financial markets as well.

"A lot of people look at copper as an economic barometer since rising prices could mean that more goods are being made. The performance of the transports is letting you know if goods are being shipped. So that's why they have significance and meeting," he said.

The better-than-expected retail sales for August also appears to confirm that there is a nascent consumer recovery.

Jason Seidl, an analyst with Dahlman & Rose, a boutique investment firm based in New York that covers the transportation, energy and agricultural industries, said he's cautiously optimistic that business is turning around for railroads and truckers.

He said there has been a pickup in auto shipments thanks to the government's Cash for Clunkers program and added that demand to ship chemicals and steel is increasing as well. But, he cautioned, sales and profits for transportation companies are still likely to be lower than a year ago over the next quarter or two.

"We've seen an uptick off the bottom but we're not ready to declare victory yet. On an absolute basis, the numbers still don't look great," he said.

So will this transportation rally continue? FedEx will release its full results on September 17, so it will be interesting to hear if executives are witnessing a real increase in demand or if its new profit guidance is being driven more by lower expenses.

If FedEx executives don't sound too excited about their sales outlook, that could be a cause for concern.

Talkback: Is the recent increase in consumer spending a sign the recession may be over? Are you starting to spend more again? Share your comments below.

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Joe Biden makes surprise visit to Baghdad - Los Angeles Times

Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:36 AM PDT

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Momentum Oil Trade Hits The Skids - Forbes

Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:21 AM PDT

The price of oil and other petroleum products tends to top out in October and find a bottom during late winter, sometime in February. However, this year's weak summer travel season and slower than expected consumption of crude may be contracting that cycle.

During the summer travel months, oil prices climbed as demand for refined oil products such as gasoline increased, but crude has given up those gains. A loss of upward price momentum in the exchange-traded U.S. Oil Fund (nyse: USO) paints a bearish picture for the fund, and suggests that we may have already seen the highs in crude oil for 2009.

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Using a price channel, we can see the breakdown in action. The chart shows the upward channel in which USO had been moving. When the price bounces off of support, it's a buy signal. When it is rebuffed at a key level of resistance, it's an exit signal.

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The USO recently bounced multiple times off of support from the channel's lower band, but in August it found resistance at the channel's 50% line too challenging to penetrate. This is an early warning sign that the trend may fail.

Currently the USO is fighting to maintain support at the bottom of the channel, breaking support but striving to retake it presently.

Another warning sign for oil comes from the Rate-of-Change (ROC) indicator seen below the price chart. As the USO created higher highs and higher lows to make this channel, the ROC made consecutively lower highs. This waning of upward momentum is a sign of weakness because buyers are not willing to step in and accelerate their buying.

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We are waiting to see if buyers return to USO with conviction. If the bulls can't hold their ground look for the price to drop at a minimum to the same height as the channel. In the case of USO, the channel is approximately $6 in height, which would give traders a price target of about $29.

So, short the USO, buy a put or sell a call.

Ryan Campbell is a chartered market technician and content manager for investor education company Investools. To read more of these kinds of articles or for more ideas to establish investing plans of your own, visit www.investools.com.

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A look at expected airline losses around the world - Boston Globe

Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:21 AM PDT

-- Middle East carriers are expected to lose $500 million, improved from a prior estimate of a loss of $1.5 billion as they gain long-haul market share by expanding capacity and hub connections. The weakness of economic recovery, however, could mean continued excess capacity and further losses.

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Travel and Leisure

Tuesday, September 15, 2009