Monday night quarterbacking.......

Ran charts early tonight. I am amazed at how many good looking charts are still in the game. The charts only tell the facts, not what the corporate spinsters put out on the wires. Patterns seldom turn on a dime but they can turn in a nanosecond if they want. They usually do whatever they are going to do anyway with us or without us. The stocks don't know we own them and wouldn't behave any differently if they did. I like what I see. There's more money ahead. Performance anxiety for those behind the curve is a good place for those fully invested. Tech isn't dead.

Monday musings..................

Public "market" orders were once again handled properly at the market open. To the specialists and market-makers go the spoils. Exxon is making some serious coin; a billion a day in revenues is big even by today's standards. In todays Wall Street Journal the nugget of wisdom by Carl Icahn in the Letters to the Editor seems so honest from a gunslinger who puts his own capital at risk every day in the market. He brings to light what is wrong with corporate America. His claim is that there are no consequences for poor performance. I say the stock option grants, the warrants, the lack of putting personal money at risk is keeping the insiders from worrying about shareholder value and creation. They are all so worried about stock prices going up so they can sell into a rising stock price, not hold shares for the long term and build shareholder "value". I call it not having any "skin" in the game. I have said it before and it needs retelling. This Enron trial will bring up some days-gone-by tales of injustice. That whole Enron bunch should be locked up for a decade or two, even Mr. and Mrs. Fastow.

Palestinian elections...........

Hamas wins? A terror group in charge? Good will prevail some day. More mayhem and carnage will come first. May the Creator bless the innocent souls who will be lost before this nonsense ends.

Yes, it is a commodity......

The price will fluctuate and not necessarily with supply and demand at the margin like stocks trade. I am speaking of one barrel of crude oil. The average oil well in America maybe pumps a dozen barrels a day, if that.

In one barrel of crude oil equates to 42 gallons of crude oil. After refining, those 42 gallons of crude are produced into 19-20 gallons of gasoline. The rest is sold for other products.

Coming to your town soon.............

In 2000, only 52 meth labs were found in Georgia. IN 2004, 484 labs were found. In 2002, 1,532 meth addicts were admitted to treatment programs. In 2005, 4,329 were admitted.

If you are a stock trader you might want to keep an eye on the UCLA study on the drug protocol treatment offered by HYTHIAM. The symbol is HYTM.

Simply Staggering...............

Imagine these numbers. 34,785 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Monthly spending by these winers and diners is about $193 million. Did you get that number? That is a dollar amount spent PER MONTH. And you think your vote counts? To top it off, there were 13,997 pork projects that individual members of Congress slipped into spending bills last year without debate, without discussion, without any process. Said lobbyists are like reservation bootleggers. As long as the money is there to give, somebody will be there to take it and give something in return. Isn't that the American way?

Run little investor run...................

About a year ago the NASD and NYSE changed their modus operandi and announced to their arbitrator ranks some sweeping new rules that rankled many long time arbitrators, myself included. Remember who the NASD is. It is the brokerage houses themselves who are trying to police their ranks. In legalese it is called an SRO- a self-regualtory organization. I call it the fox still guarding the hen-house. As an arbitrator for over a decade the NASD decided that guys like me who are Registered Investment Advisors, (in my case, I am the Chairman of an RIA firm) who are fiduciaries, who have no axe to grind with commissions, in many cases are owned by brokerage-firms and have conflicts-of-interest. I have no conflicts. We are not paid to generate commissions and trading fees in any way, shape or form. In fact, at my firm we won't even allow soft-dollars to be used for research expenses.

NASD member firms are paying much more in fines than ever before. Arbitrators make the awards. Brokers were to cough up over $125 million in fines which was a 21% increase over the amount in 2004. Total fines collected over the past four years increased 84%. Six big firms were fined more than $40 million for unsuitable Class B and Class C shares in mutual funds. (The brokerage ranks feed off of switching mutual funds and hiding the sales charges in Class B and Class C shares, ask any mutual fund wholesaler honest enough to admit it) Those firms being fined were Citigroup (Smith Barney perhaps?), Chase, Merrill Lynch, American Express (now Ameriprise of all names), Wells Fargo and Linsco-Private Ledger of Boston and San Diego.

What we do.............

I am the Chairman of Chippewa Partners which is a private investment management firm and was the first Native American mutual fund manager. For over a decade I was an arbitrator for the NYSE and the NASD.

First, let me tell you what we don’t do; we are not financial planners, whatever that is: we don’t sell insurance, we don’t do taxes, and we don’t draw up trusts. I find it disturbing that every stockbroker, banker and insurance agent calls a pie-chart, financial planning. We do not involve our clients in annuities, commodities, futures, real estate or currencies.

We are money managers. We manage investments across the globe for some very wealthy people, and, for some individuals who are much less fortunate. Now, let me tell you what we are really about. We’re about doing the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons for clients who don’t have the time, training, temperament or discipline to establish and reach specific goals for the growth and preservation of their assets.

We plan for the attainment of your goals, and we devise a strategy that is appropriate to reach them. We set the investment policy in writing, then execute the strategy. In broad outline, our strategy is to create a professionally managed account that could encompass two major themes.

The first point is very simple. I believe in a strategy based upon a combination of passive and active investments. Study after study reflects what we all know: for the long-term investor, index funds outperform actively managed mutual funds more than 90% of the time.

My second point is that we spread the different risks and balance the volatility.

We have a lot of strengths to offer and are very good at helping clients define their goals, create rational strategies to meet those goals, and select solid investments to handle each portfolio segment. Let me be clear, we want to get you where you want to go, but we’d rather you not get there via a roller coaster.

I want to make a commitment that if you decide to hire Chippewa Partners, throughout all the years we work together, you will never find another investment advisory firm who will care more about you and your family, or who’ll be more committed to the realization of your financial goals. I promise to invest your capital as carefully as I do my own, because your hopes for the future are every bit as sacred to you, as mine are to me.

I commit to tell you the plain, unvarnished truth all the time, especially, when you may not want to hear it. Nor will I tell you I’ll do something and then not do it.

At Chippewa Partners we "eat our own cooking". We have what I often call "skin in the game". We own the investments that you own. Clients understand that the serious money we manage for them is serious business. It deserves serious attention. Clients recognize that what distinguishes us is that our assignment to manage their investments is not just about portfolio growth but about their goals, retirements, hopes, dreams and to improve the quality of their lives.

We invite you to contact us to see if our approach fits your investment needs.