I was looking through the Investor's Daily Edge archives page the other day. I came across one of my articles from the first quarter of '08 and realized how dead on of a prediction it had been. So keeping with the spirit of every newspaper in the country, I decided to do a "best of" list.

The article that caught my attention was from President's Day. I borrowed a line from the movie Wall Street as my title: The Other Malfunctioning Corporation Called the USA. Here is the last paragraph of that article:

Like I said, I hate to publish this article on a holiday that celebrates the great men who helped make this country great. However, the current state of the economy forces me to provide my analysis on the corporation that is the United States. My conclusion is that USA Corp. should be rated as a sell right now.

This conclusion proved to be dead on in what was in store for the rest of 2008.

The next article was from March 24. This was at a time when many people were calling for government intervention in the oil markets, but I said "Let The Market Fix It". Here are the last two paragraphs from that article:

The advent of mini oil futures and ETFs such as the U.S. Oil Fund (USO) has allowed the little guy to speculate in the oil markets just like the seasoned pros. But these amateur speculators may not realize when the market has shifted into a bear market. The pros certainly will, because most of them have seen it before.

So my suggestion is to just let the market take its own course and it will eliminate most of the speculators. Just give it time. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next month, but it will come eventually. It always does.

I was a little early in calling for a top in oil, but as you all know, oil has dropped like a rock since mid-summer and is now under $40 a barrel.

One of my favorites of the year was my Hey Cramer, Look At This article from May 5. Here is the opening paragraph from that article:

CNBC commentator and entertainer Jim Cramer declared an end to the bear market back in March, but I can't see calling an end to the bear just yet.

And I concluded the article with this:

All things considered, it looks to me like the market is getting ready for another down leg. Between the dramatic shift in sentiment, the technical resistance, and the overbought levels on the RSI and Slow Stochastics, this is a lot to overcome.

I, unlike Jim Cramer, will wait to declare an end to the bear market.

INTERNAL ENDORSEMENT

Stock Market Shocker: How a Bunch of

5th Graders Made Fools of the Trading Elite…!

Wall Street wants you to believe that you have to entrust your money with the professionals and all their skills, resources and systems, if you want to make money in the markets. It's what these guys do for a living! How could you possibly beat them?!

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I have used an embarrassingly simple secret to make $15,048 in just 30 days… and boost my overall account balance 152% in less than a year.

Keep reading to learn how you could join me each month…

The absolute high for the S&P in 2008 was on May 15. Cramer did change his tune in July and declared stocks were doomed.

One article that I had forgot about was on September 15. The article was titled "Wall Street's Mood Changes With The Weather, But The Seasons Are Still Predictable". I advised readers that the trend was to the down side and that while there could be sharp rallies in the interim. The best part was the last two paragraphs:

If you are a long-term investor and have not taken action to protect your portfolio from the downside move, you need to act now. Either buy an inverse ETF that gains in value as the market drops, or buy some insurance by purchasing long-term puts on the Spyders or QQQQ.

At the time of this writing, you could get a December 2009 123 put on the SPY for $12.50, or $1250 since options are priced in 100s. Should the S&P drop all the way back down to the 800 level as it did in 2003, these options would be worth at least $4,300 each. If you purchase multiple contracts, this could go a long way towards offsetting the losses from the rest of your portfolio.

I don't know if any of you took my advice or not, but I sure hope some of you did. In November when the SPY dropped to 75, the options I mentioned in that article would have been worth a minimum of $48 or $4,800 for a gain of almost 300 percent.

My personal favorite was on my birthday, "A Birthday Wish" on May 26. It had nothing to with the market and there weren't any predictions made. It was simply a wish for this country. Over the last seven months things have not changed much, some people are happy that President-elect Obama will be taking over on January 20. Others are upset by this fact. I really hope the bickering settles down. I don't expect to go away completely, but in 2009 hopefully we can work together to fix our country. Surely that is the goal for both parties.

Good luck and good trading,

Rick

[Ed. Note: Subscribers to Rick's KISS Investing service recently closed out gains of approximately 154% on Gilead Science and 187% on Juniper Networks. Click here to learn more about KISS Investing]

P.S. To let me know what you thought of today's article, send an e-mail to: feedback@investorsdailyedge.com.

NULL
NULL