Well, I am fresh off of my Europe trip and ready to study the charts this week. I’ll start by posting a few charts of the US dollar. I have talked about these buy and sell signals in the past and wasn’t surprised to see this pattern upon my return. I was witness to the USD gaining some strength over the past few weeks while traveling. The large chart shows that this is the first true buy signal in more than 3 years (2005).

12/17/07: US Dollar Snapshot

UPDATE: You can trade the USD like a stock by buying the long or short ETF:
Long: PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Bullish (UUP)
Short: PowerShares U.S. Dollar Bearish (UDN)
I will cover these in an additional post later this week.

The metals have been weak; especially Platinum and Gold (see this February post, 02/18/08: Platinum Climax Top?, where I highlighted the climax top in Platinum). I’ll admit: these things take time but typically work out if you stay with the signs and have the patience to pounce when the move begins. The signs started in February but didn’t give the signal until July.

My final summer trip is coming up (the big one to Europe) so I will be bringing along two books (I hope the dog and his house sitter get along; by the way, Continental quoted us $1,800 one way to fly our 100lb lab to Europe):

The first has to do with real estate, something I have been focusing on over the past several months; the Nickerson book is a RE classic from the 1950’s & 60’s (don’t even think “get-rich-quick - can’t stand those). The second is a fiction classic that I have never read and have always wanted to. Or, you could always stick to the stock market books listed below; I have read them all!

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Learning about Stocks (Fundamental and Technical Principles):

System Development and Market Psychology:

Great All-around Reads:

All Others: