Thursday, August 2, 2012

I'm giving up in disgust

I'm finally giving up on trying to make money on the stock market. I'm losing even though I switched from stocks to an agricultural ETF. I'm now in DBA which is an ETF which follows a wide basket of agricultural futures. The drought is getting worse and yet the DBA goes down.
 I think the thing that drove it down today was that some politician was saying something about cancelling the mandate for ethanol production. 40% of American corn goes to ethanol so it would make a difference in the price of corn. I don't think anything will come of it but it is affecting grain prices now.  
Yesterday someone in Russia said that they expected to export wheat. This was in spite of a drought in Eastern Europe. I think he was simply lying. These things affect the price of DBA.
I saw something on CNBC today. Someone was comparing the S&P to macro events. It appears that there is a positive correlation between the S&P and all the macro events.
Yesterday Cramer displayed a group of metrics that he watches to anticipate where pending macro events will lead. This shows me that people who are in the know can predict what will happen better than I can. So I'm not only competing against events that I can't predict but there are people who have inside information on a regular basis who are betting against me. It's a losing game. As soon as I can get out of the grain position with a gain I'm pulling out and finding another way to make money.
I hate to say it but I'll probably have to work at Wal-Mart. They probably need people to work the graveyard shift and weekends. I just have to be careful not to make too much money and mess with my disability.
I should also try renting out my spare room. It didn't work very well, last winter, but this time I'll rent to someone who doesn't work the graveyard shift. I'm coming up about $300 short each month. I can make it up somehow.  Investing isn't doing it.
I might move into a cheaper apartment. Things would work out if I lived in a truly cheap apartment in a little town. The trouble is that I would be bored out of my skull. There aren't even any Internet Cafe's there. I would also be quite a distance from where I could get a job. I think I'll forget about that idea.
Later.

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