The 10 Best Random Trading Strategies

S&P downgrade. Risk off. Hurricane Irene. Risk on. Obama's next speech. Risk off. German court ruling. Risk on. Italian austerity? You've got to be kidding.

The markets are moving so fast these days that fundamentals are out the window and meaningless grasping at headlines is the only hope for investors to avoid the coming global economic train wreck. Which makes it a great time to be in the headline business. Unless you have to rank them.

7. A paralyzed President faces a hostile nation with nothing more than a warmed-over stimulus plan and an oratorical insistency that has long since triggered the automatic mute button. Risk on. Dow industrials average rises 276 points.

2. A well-baked Lothario thumbs his nose at Europe while playing politics with an austerity plan that's the only hope of dragging Italy out of a widening chasm dubbed Lehman 2. Risk off. Markets plunge. A week later, the Italian parliament passes said plan with almost no teeth in it whatsoever. Risk on. There will be another one soon enough.

10. A revered central bank turns its back on global markets and institutes a rigid currency floor against the euro in a desperate attempt to save itself from being dragged into recession by the popularity of its currency, the Swiss franc. Risk off. Nobody likes a currency war.

5. Comment on Swiss National Bank move from Maurice Pomery, chief executive of Strategic Alpha, speaking to the Financial Times. "After currency wars come trade wars, and as we see the exporting world pressured, as the developed world contracts, tensions will rise." Risk off. Great Depression redux, anyone?

8. Gold falls $50. Risk on. Forget precious metals or the Swiss franc. The Norwegian krone is the new global safe haven. The downside is they only come in coins, and you have to take delivery.

3. The markets are so bad, and Fed chief Ben Bernanke so unwilling to flood the financial industry with a third round of bond-buying, that investors are looking to emerging markets, such as Brazil, for badly needed liquidity to keep them afloat. Everybody now in unison with Roy Scheider: "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat." Risk off.

1. The trigger to the collapse of Europe, the global financial system and capitalism as we know it lies with the financial stocks. Heads they lead us out of purgatory into a new, frenzied era of profits, housing bonuses and derivative trading products. Tails we look back fondly on the collapse of Lehman. Place your bets. Risk on.

9. Forget Greece. There's a mergers-and-acquisitions boom coming in the tech sector as the doors to tens of billions of dollars of corporate cash hoards are thrown open to spend on buying Yahoo (YHOO - News), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - News), Research in Motion (RIMM - News), Netflix (NFLX - News), and AOL (AOL - News) at crazy cheap prices. In the end, there is only Zynga, and we are all merely characters in its Animal Farm game. Risk on.

6. When investors do return to fundamentals, and they always do, they will find the bond bubble still there and Treasuries will be the last place to be, as yields leap and China cashes in some chips. Stocks, overlooked now for more than a decade, will finally attract attention again and the dollar will trend shift back into its traditional reserve currency role. Companies will start hiring again and someone will offer to buy your house. Risk off. Hope is not an investment strategy, as they say.

4. Buy-and-hold is not dead. It's just not fun, as proven by its performance since 9/11 a decade ago. But considering what everybody was thinking about the future after Sept. 11, 2001, it hasn't been the worst investment plan either. Afghan heroin poppies? Now those were a bad investment. Risk on.

Obama Goes Big — and Political — with $450 Billion Stimulus Plan

President Obama is finally laying out his latest plan to boost economic growth. The particulars of the American Jobs Act are important, and meaningful for an economy laboring under slow growth.

The administration believes the package, worth about $450 billion, is good economics. The centerpiece: extending and expanding the existing payroll tax holiday for another year. Instead of paying 4.2 percent on the first $106,800 of income, Americans will only pay 3.2 percent. (The usual rate is 6.2 percent) There are also tax cuts for business, funds for infrastructure and states, and money to support mortgage refinancing.

But, as a senior administration official described it to me this afternoon, the American jobs Act was also designed to be good politics. And with just 14 months until the 2012 presidential elections, the political calculus is almost as significant as the economic one.

President Obama frequently anticipates Republican criticism of his proposals by bargaining with himself instead of making declarative proposals. In this instance, he's anticipating the criticism — any measure will cost too much and add to the already large deficit! — by pairing the legislation with specific offsets and reforms, like the closing of corporate tax loopholes, and higher taxes on the wealthy. The plan he presents will be deficit neutral. What's more, ten days from now, he'll go to the Congressional deficit supercommittee and present plans on larger long-term fiscal reforms.

Many business groups objected to the payroll tax holiday on the grounds that it benefitted employees and did nothing for struggling employers. This time, Obama is going the extra mile for companies. The American Jobs Act offers a more generous payroll tax holiday for companies than for individuals. Businesses will receive a 50 percent reduction — paying 3.1 percent — on the first $5 million of payroll. (The theory: big businesses have plenty of cash and small businesses can use the help.) In addition, companies that add new positions will be exempt from all payroll taxes for the first year. That's a significant cut. Businesses will also be able to take advantage of accelerated depreciation, and tax credits for hiring veterans and the long-term unemployed. (more)

Crude oil supplies tumble by 4 million barrels

Crude oil supplies fell last week, while gasoline supplies grew, the government said Wednesday.

Crude supplies dropped by 4 million barrels, or 1.1 percent, to 353.1 million barrels, which is 1.9 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts expected a decline of 1.7 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 2, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline supplies grew by 200,000 barrels, or 0.1 percent, to 208.8 million barrels. That was 7.2 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected gasoline supplies to fall by 900,000 barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Sept. 2 was 2.9 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.1 million barrels a day.

U.S. refineries ran at 89 percent of total capacity on average, down 0.2 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to drop to 88.1 percent.

Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 700,000 barrels to 156.8 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to increase by 600,000 barrels.

Benchmark oil rose 56 cents to $89.90 per barrel in New York.

Buy BP as You Get Back to the Wall Street Grind

Investors dragged themselves back from the long Labor Day weekend in a grumpy mood. But the damage wasn’t as bad as might have been expected after the 4% drubbing in European stock markets Monday. Down 308 points at the mid-morning low, the DJIA pared two-thirds of its losses by the closing bell. Broader indexes, such as NASDAQ and the S&P 500, held their ground somewhat better – and after today’s rally the market is actually up about 1.5% so far this week (as of this writing anyway).

For the financial markets, it’s becoming obvious that Europe presents a much bigger problem than the United States. In fact, we got a fairly encouraging data point on the U.S. economy Tuesday morning, when the Institute for Supply Management said its gauge of activity in the service sector ticked up to 53.3 in August, from 52.7 in July.

Economists were predicting a drop to 51. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.

If the service sector (three-quarters of GDP) can keep its head above water, the nation has a fighting chance to avoid the double-dip recession Wall Street currently dreads.

On the other hand, the European situation has reached a delicate stage. If Italy can quickly enact a credible package of fiscal-reform measures (a vote by the Italian senate is slated for this evening), it would go a long way toward easing fears that the “Greek contagion” might be spreading.

However, there’s no time to lose. Deposits are already quietly slipping out of European banks. (The banks hold huge amounts of the continent’s sovereign debt.) Italy must act immediately, or investor confidence will erode further.

Last Friday, I suggested waiting for the S&P to dip to 1,150 before resuming your stock purchases. The index traded as low as 1,140 yesterday, so you could have done some nibbling. Given the unsettled news background, though, I suspect we’ll get more buying opportunities below 1150 in coming days and weeks. Take your time and put new money to work on market weakness only.

Here’s one name to buy if it drifts back down just a bit. I recommending selling BP (NYSE:BP) seven months before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill crushed the shares in April 2010. Today, most of BP’s liabilities from the incident are known and provided for. The company has also put new, more safety-conscious management in place.

At less than 6X this year’s estimated earnings, the stock is extremely cheap compared with other international oil firms (Exxon (NYSE:XOM) 8X, Chevron (NYSE:CVX) 7X). BP yields a generous 4.6%, too—and there’s no UK withholding tax on your quarterly dividends, making the shares suitable for your retirement account.

Buy BP at $36 or less. I’m targeting $50-$55 within a year.

Data Suggests Silver Correction Ahead

In 2004, 2006, and 2008, the price of silver experienced three large separate moves followed by similar corrections of magnitude and duration. Our in-house analyst, Chris Puplava, averaged them into a single composite (red line below) and compared the current chart of silver (black line) to see how closely they compare. As you can see below, the similarity between silver currently and the average of the past three moves has been very close.

Click here for larger image

I bring this chart to your attention again—Chris first featured it in his article “Silver’s Destiny with 200”—since, as you can see, the composite is forecasting a steep drop in silver sometime soon. Given silver’s current bias as an industrial metal and global economies around the world facing recession, weakened demand should translate to a lower price. If the composite is any guide, we should expect to see support in the mid-to-upper 30s before heading higher.

Marc Faber: This Will End in Disaster & You Must Own Gold

With gold consolidating recent gains and continued volatility in global equity markets, today King World News interviewed legendary investor Marc Faber, author of the Gloom Boom and Doom Report. When asked about the action in global markets Faber responded, “My view is that we made a top between February of this year and June and that we had a very sharp decline. Thereafter a rebound on the S&P from around 1,100 to around 1,200 and that we are drifting again lower and that we will break the low that we made in July/August at 1,101 (on the S&P). So we’ll head towards 1,000 I guess.”

Marc Faber continues: (more)

Top Five Mistakes Made When Submitting Your Resume

The lackluster economy, rising unemployment numbers and dozens, if not hundreds of applicants vying for the same job. With all these obstacles in the way of job seekers, any constructive advice can give you an advantage. If your resume hasn't been updated in years, or you are using an outdated online template or the resume you are emailing to potential employers doesn't contain key words, you probably won't even get an interview, much less the job. (To help you score that dream job, check out Sell Your Skills, Not Your Degree.)

The following tips and ideas may not get you the job, but they will help move you closer to the top of the pile and help you to better market your qualifications.

Use Keywords
Nearly every Fortune 500 company and many smaller employers use software that scans keywords in resumes. With the economy, most employers have been so overwhelmed with resumes they have had to turn to scanning systems to quantify applicants.

They also use this same technology to view resumes posted on job boards such as Monster.com. According to the National Resume Writers' Association, 80% of employers now search resumes by using keywords.

Keywords are words geared specifically to both the job description listed by the employer and words that are specific to your profession. You must use both in your resume to pass through the initial scanning software and have your resume put into the hands of a real person.

If you don't include these all-important keywords, you probably won't even earn an interview. Using MS Word, you can easily increase the keyword searchability in your resume by using the "Properties" feature found under File in Word '03 and under the Word Button in Word '07 then go to Prepare, then Properties. You can also add a link here to any web resumes you have posted online.

Appearances Count
Have you ever emailed your resume to yourself? You should. Cyber-glitches, email attachments, and different programs used to open those attachments can distort or destroy your perfect looking resume. Pages can break where they aren't supposed to, lines can be added between sentences, words cut off, and fonts that looked great on your computer can appear very different in an email. The best suggestion is to send your resume to yourself and several friends to ensure that it looks good on multiple computers. (For more ways to get your resume seen, see 5 Ways To Make Your Resume Stand Out.)

Words to Avoid
While keywords are vital in your resume, there are some words you should never include. Words that are overused, tired, make your resume appear dated or are just annoying like, "team player," "trustworthy," "problem solver."

Hiring managers, human resource consultants, and employment agencies suggest eliminating these words from your resume. In their place, you should show how you used these traits on the job. How did you solve problems? If you came up with a new way to cut costs, explain how. What makes you trustworthy? Were you trusted with multiple financial accounts? Finding new ways of explaining your talents using keywords instead of overused words will help get you that interview.

Spelling Counts
Spell check does not catch every error, nor will it fix bad grammar. The best option is to have someone else read and proof your resume. You've probably spent weeks writing, refining and tweaking your resume to create the best sales tool possible. After spending so many hours reading, editing, and rewriting it, odds are you won't see the mistakes that could be lurking there. Having someone else, or better yet, several others review your resume could save you from sending it out with mistakes and costing you a potential job.

Include a Cover Letter
Yes, it sounds "old school" particularly in today's fast-paced Internet world. While email speeds your resume to multiple potential employers, many still look for that personal cover letter. Tailoring your cover letter to individual employers increases your chances of have your resume reviewed and gaining an interview. The cover letter should be pasted into the body of the email, not sent as an attachment. Remember, this is still a business letter, follow the standard rules of business writing protocols.

The Bottom Line
There is no magic formula to having your resume reviewed by a potential employer. These tips can help give you an edge over the competition. Your own skills, experience, and determination will be the keys to open career doors for you.