Gene Morphis ' View

As you'll see on the chart link, Wal*Mart has been in a trading range for years. I've been a long-time holder of Wal*Mart - which hasn't be rewarding in a long time. During the years that Wal*Mart stock has been stuck, it has added dozens of billions in revenue and opened hundreds of stores in China. Obviously, like most companies, it was overvalued in 2000, but while some have recovered to 2000 levels, Wal*Mart still trails. The first chart shows the trading pattern with a defined trading channel....actually enough to short at $50 and cover in the lower 40's....the question is did the company breakout over the last few days? The penetration of $50 was done on good volume (note on the lower part of the chart) - an excellent technical indicator. From a fundie viewpoint, the company report positive - if small - same store sales for the Dec. and Jan. time periods while arch-rival Target was negative. And some old retail contacts tell me that Target store managers are...

The conservative talk show hosts - with the exception of Bill Bennett - have been excoriating John McCain. A summary comment might be that they can't imagine how any Ronald Regan style conservative could possibly support McCain. Let's examine some of their complaints. Sean Hannity, sounding like a paid political consultant instead of a radio and television personality, whines that McCain should have criticized Nancy Pelosi et al for their failure to support the troops fully, as opposed to criticizing Donald Rumsfield. This complaint would be risible except that is ineffectual. Let's reflect on what transpired. General Tommy Franks and Don Rumsfield had an impressive strategy for destroying the Iraqi forces and capturing Bagdad. From that point on, however, Rumsfield's performance deteriorated. Highly regarded General Anthony Zinni told everyone that holding the ground while rebuilding would take a minimum of 300,000 troops. Rummy wasn't having any of that, and Zinni...