I guess it is I who is actually back.  We hope you did not miss us that much and frankly I was back last Thursday.  We have taken a few rough runs at starting this post but have waited until Easter Sunday night to actually make it happen.  Hope you all had a great holiday.  We had our first almost home cooked meal inside our home since before we left for Utah in December.  I say almost home cooked because we got the steaks from Hanna's.  We got them raw and enjoyed them on the barbeque.  So Dave and the gang actually participated in our first home cooked meal without even being there.  Yeah we have a kitchen and all the appliances in place.  Here is a picture of yours truly enjoying a bowl of Cheerios Saturday morning. 

That would be the WSJ and Barron's in front of me.  A cup of tea, Cheerios, the WSJ and Barron's.  Life don't get much better than that.

Speaking of Barron's

In his article "Look Out Below" Alan Abelson pokes a lot of fun at one Mr. Trump, who as you probably know has announced his interest in running for President of the United States.  Alan points out the fact that maybe Mr. Trump would be a good choice because of his extensive experience with bankruptcy.  Fact of the matter is he has seen billion dollar bankruptcy proceedings three times in his life.  Abelson is implying that our state of affairs might benefit from someone with such experience.

After that lighthearted approach regarding Mr. Trump, Mr. Abelson gets a little more serious about the current state of affairs regarding housing in the United States and in this weeks Barron's he uses some very sound Case Schiller Index data indicating that the state of housing in the US is in terrible shape.  That there may be anywhere from 23 to almost 30% of homes in United States that are underwater.  I was a bit confused with his definition of underwater.  He called a home underwater if the person could not sell the home and replace it for a like home at a greater value.  I always assumed (and still do) that someone that was underwater in their home when they owed more than they could sell the home for.

He goes on to point out that there are anywhere from 3.5 million to 8 million homes have what is called effective negative equity which is a homeowner that can't sell their house or buy another one after paying the real estate broker the sale proceeds in the 10 to 25% needed to get in a new home that will create a lot more future stress on the home owners real estate market in United States. He indicates that prices could continue to fall another 5 to 10%.  We see no evidence disputing that opinion.

Christopher Williams writes a great article about Nike.  I will not bore you with all of the details but it's a typical Barron's thorough analysis and basically the bottom line is, that NK NIKE is selling at about $80 a share. They think it could go to 90 to 200 over the next 18 months and it might will be worth taking a serious look at please please please do your homework.

In another interesting article Jay Palmer highlights the gadget of the week which is Google's Mapmaker.  He explains that now anyone can change and edit Google maps.  You can check out the website Google.com/mapmaker and you'll see how you can actually do community editing and change such things as misplaced roads where road turns differently than what the map indicates, a church that's not listed, a bike trail that you might enjoy, or even the company where you work.  Just when you though it was safe to use Google Maps.

We usually plod through the first, the main section of Barron's and there are some good articles and news we can use.  This week not so much.  We can usually get a good rundown on what went on this last week and what to look out for next week in Kopi Tan's Market Watch section opening article.  This wee was no different. 

In his article Vital Signs, he wrpas the previous week for us and gives pieces of information for our quiver of stalking the market this week.  He reminds us that this is our first gain in three weeks and our highest close in the Dow Since June 2008.  Happy earnings from the likes of GE, INTC, AAPL, and UTX adds to the 75% of companies beating their earnings expectations.  The only nasty was the Standard and Poor's Outlook drop for US securities.  If you remember we were a little confused as to why that did not create a bigger knock to the market and KOPI now explains that the S & P Outlook Rating is not as important as an actual rating drop.  (We may see that before the end of the summer.  Our words not his.)

He compares the market players to Cinderella, dancing while keeping her eye on the clock as they and she knows that it will soon be midnight. 

So what does he say the big casino bosses are watching?  Look for sign of loss confidence and economic inertia inhibitors.  Keep an eye on commodity costs and things like rail car numbers.

At the end of the 4 day week we were up 1.3%.  My index, The S & P 500 closed well above all resistance points to 1,337.  We wouldn't be surprised to see the index break its upper resistance point of 1,344 on Tuesday.  (We almost said Monday but we expect to see some profit taking tomorrow.  It would be natural, but we are getting ahead of ourself.)  Kopi closes with a bullish but sound article about UHS.  DO YOUR HOMEWORK.  We do not own UHS.

So let's take a look at the week ahead.

Monday Kimberly-Clark reports its first quarter's earnings and analysts are expecting a beat of about three cents a share to $1.17 the consumer staple giant time is a good tell what's going on inthe baseline economy.  The chainstore sales index comes out on Tuesday as well as the Redbook retail sales Index. That shoud give us a good feel for the retail sector.  (Remember the confidence issue from above.  Weak retail sales are one tell of weakening confidence.  If these indexes are weak, some big money managers might get antsy.)

KO Coca-Cola reports on Tuesday (WE NO LONGER OWN) and is expected to beat by about seven cents a share coming in around 87cnets.   Personally we think it'll do a little better net coming in at maybe 91. We will start see its margins erode later this yearsome of its cost like sugar continue to rise.   On Wednesday we will see BA Boeing and my bet is a small miss on the earnings, but we should hear some good news about the 787 Dream Liner.  We also see new factory orders for durable goods come out on Wednesday.  Bernanke has a big news conference and there are sure to be a lot of people hanging on every single word he says and if he slips up or delivers a bad message you can look for the market to correct substantially.

That gets you though Wednesday and it is getting late so we will bid a fine farewell.

Salve Lucrum