XLF, FAS and an Investment Club

U.S. stocks fell Wednesday as Germany’s move to ban some naked short-selling fueled a fresh wave of worry about financial regulation.  Additionally, the mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more homeowners fall behind on their payments.  Stocks may be threatening to break down, however many people think that this may be a time for a trader’s bounce off of 1100 in the S&P.  As we have seen in the past year or so, the financial sector has a tendency to lead these types of moves, so tomorrow I would be monitoring some financial sector ETF’s for a potential swing trade.  The XLF and the FAS charts are illustrated below.  Notice how the XLF may be looking to bounce off of the 200-day moving average.

Recently, I have been thinking about starting a local investment club.  This would initially start out with a group of friends who also share a passion for the financial markets and are willing to meet once per week along with doing a few hours of homework for the group.  This would not be the type of investment club where we would pool our money to invest in actual securities (initially at least) but would be more of a means to meet for coffee on a Friday morning at 7:00 am before we all have to go to our day-jobs to discuss the markets in the macro sense, but also on a more micro level.  This will allow us to learn from each other, to give ideas for our own personal portfolios, and to socialize with other like-minded people.  I am pretty sure that there is a very limited number of people that may read this blog in the Raleigh-Durham area, but if you are a reader and want to get involved, send me a message.  We will have a trial run this week or next, and it may start out as 2 or 3 people, but it’s a start and no matter what, we’ll have a good time.