Uncategorized

Time to Start the Inflation Watch: The economy continues to be a major topic of conversation for most of the country. The European Debt Crisis continues to be a major talking point and news item. However, I have serious concerns that the European Crisis while very severe in nature is also distracting us from our own economic problems here in the United States. Our economy has stagnated as a businesses adopt a defensive posture over concerns about rising regulatory costs and general uncertainty. Additonally you do not need to talk to anyone in business for too long before they start to voice concerns about rising inflation as a result of the sky-high budget deficits being run by the Federal government……In case you think I am barking at moon or crying wolf, I took a look at our current expenses and compared them to five years ago. In our household we have seen a 40% increse in our….

Last Friday was the end of the 3rd quarter for 2011. I thought I would take a look and see how the various indices I track performed for the quarter and year to date. The results were worse than I thought. With the exception of 2 sectors which were mixed, every sector of the market I track was down for the quarter. The best performing sectors were the Gold/Silver and Utilities; both of which had mixed index performance for the quarter. I’ve posted the results below for everyone to review. It’s worth noting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost approximately 1,500 points for 12.1% in the 3rd quarter, and the Dow Jones Transportation Average lost approximately 1,234 points for 22.76% in the quarter as well. For those who follow the Dow Theory, this is a clear signal of a bear market; and in my opinion an indication that we will be back in a recession within the next ……………….

Since the previous edition of the Sterling Weekly the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 248.13 points or approximately 2.2% to 10,992.13 The overall market sold off sharply late last week and looks to be starting this week off with another large move to the downside. The selling right now is being attributed to the European sovereign debt crisis. This is a very legitimate cause of market concern, but in my opinion it is not the sole reason for our market downturn. The other major issue effecting the market that is not currently getting as much attention as it deserves is the slowing economic growth rate……………………