October correction continues

This has been a pretty interesting week. The market was up and down and up again.
It was quite confusing for me to determine if I should get in or stay out.
It was a long weekend. We had a pretty good weekend. Thanks giving weekend is always fun. I think C is going to do well in the long run. OPC is just stuck at $ 2. I hope this stock makes a move. I think it may, the question is when.

I played in a poker tournament this weekend in FM. The format is very poor. I am glad I was third. I went out in spite of holding a dominant hand. I could have been 2nd. I went out holding K9 vs. K3. My opponent hit his 3 on the river. Oh well! Better luck next time.

- Oil prices rose to near $74 a barrel Tuesday as the weakening dollar made commodities -- which are priced in the U.S. currency -- cheaper for international investors and increased their appeal as protection against inflation. By mid-afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for November delivery was up 53 cents at $73.80 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained $1.50 to settle at $73.27 on Monday amid expectations of stronger demand during the U.S. winter. Crude has shuffled between $65 and $75 for months as traders mull signs of an uneven economic recovery and consumer demand. "Today's oil demand fundamentals remain weak but the oil price is being held within a $65-$75 per barrel range with a weak dollar coming to the rescue whenever the price heads to the lower end of the range," said KBC Market Services in Britain. The dollar has slid over the last month on concern that massive stimulus spending designed to spark economic growth will eventually trigger inflation.

"We expect commodity prices to be heading north over the next 12 months as a hedge against inflation," said Melvyn Boey, deputy director of Asian equity research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "That includes oil and gold, down to soft commodities such as palm."

- NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday, threatening to break a six-day winning streak, as Johnson & Johnson's (NYSE:JNJ - News) third-quarter sales figures disappointed investors. Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest healthcare company by market value, posted a higher-than-expected profit and raised its full-year earnings outlook, but its sales came in lower than Wall Street's consensus. The shares slipped 2.9 percent to $60.72. "The J&J news seems to be major factor causing some profit taking," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills, New York. Ghriskey said that "whisper expectations", or private earnings forecasts talked about on Wall Street, may be too high. "Does everybody already expect companies to beat at least on the bottom line? And is the focus going to be just on the top line?" he asked.

The Dow Jones industrial average (DJI:^DJI - News) dropped 56.68 points, or 0.57 percent, to 9,829.12. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (^SPX - News) dropped 8.24 points, or 0.77 percent, to 1,067.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index (Nasdaq:^IXIC - News) dropped 9.22 points, or 0.43 percent, to 2,129.92. Crude oil pared gains to trade below $74 per barrel mid-morning as the U.S. dollar recovered some of its earlier losses, removing the earlier boost to energy and natural resource stocks. Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc (NYSE:FCX - News) fell 1 percent .

- NEW YORK (AP) -- An international energy think tank says oil demand in developed countries likely peaked in 2005, well before the recession sent crude prices plummeting. IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates said Tuesday that oil consumption started to slump four years ago as consumers bought more efficient vehicles and countries expanded their use of alternative fuels like ethanol. Vehicle ownership also has leveled off in the developed world, as has the number of women in the workplace, CERA said. The research report focuses on demand from 30 countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and make up 54 percent of the world's oil demand. Demand for oil in the U.S. has fallen by 2 million barrels a day since 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration.

- WASHINGTON (AFP) – The financial strength of Al-Qaeda is weakening in part due to global sanctions but the Taliban in Afghanistan is gaining from the heroin trade and other criminal activity, a US official said. David Cohen, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said at a conference Monday that the Taliban "are in much stronger financial shape than Al-Qaeda." Cohen, whose comments were released in a transcript of Tuesday, said US officials believe that Al-Qaeda "is in its weakest financial condition in several years, and that as a result, its influence is waning." He said that Al-Qaeda's current financial state "represents one good measure of the success of these coordinated strategies" to cut off financial support for groups involved in terror attacks. The situation is different for the Taliban, which is spreading its footprint across Afghanistan, according to the official. "In Afghanistan today, the Taliban finances attacks against US and coalition forces through a wide range of criminal activity," he said. "It extorts funds from those involved in the heroin trade by demanding protection payments from poppy farmers, drug-lab operators and the smugglers who transport the chemicals into and the heroin out of the country.

- DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistani jets bombed militant targets in the main insurgent stronghold along the Afghan border Tuesday ahead of an expected ground offensive there, while the army killed 26 insurgents elsewhere in the northwest, authorities said. The army's resolve to launch the offensive has been deepened by a recent series of bold and deadly attacks. On Tuesday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide assault Monday that killed 41 people, including soldiers, in a northwest district next to the troubled Swat region. The army says 80 percent of the militant attacks plaguing nuclear-armed Pakistan are planned from South Waziristan, while the United States says insurgent leaders blamed for spiraling violence in Afghanistan are also based in the lawless, remote area. The army and the government have agreed to launch what is expected to be a bloody and difficult ground operation in the mountainous region. An army spokesman Monday declined to say when the operation would begin, but there has been speculation it could be imminent. For the past three months, jets have been bombing targets in the region, and the military has been trying to cut off militant supply and communication lines. Authorities are also trying to secure the support of militant factions that in the past have agreed not to attack Pakistani troops.

- OSLO – Members of the Norwegian committee that gave Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize are strongly defending their choice against a storm of criticism that the award was premature and a potential liability for the U.S. president. Asked to comment on the uproar following Friday's announcement, four members of the five-seat panel told The Associated Press that they had expected the decision to generate both surprise and criticism. Three of them rejected the notion that Obama hadn't accomplished anything to deserve the award, while the fourth declined to answer that question. A fifth member didn't answer calls seeking comment. "We simply disagree that he has done nothing," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told the AP on Tuesday. "He got the prize for what he has done." Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe. "All these things have contributed to — I wouldn't say a safer world — but a world with less tension," Jagland said by phone from Strasbourg, where he was attending meetings in his other role as secretary-general of the Council of Europe.

- NEW YORK (AP) -- Insurer American International Group Inc. said late Monday it has agreed to sell its nearly 98 percent stake in Taiwan unit Nan Shan to an investor group led by Hong Kong's Primus Financial for about $2.15 billion. Nan Shan, which serves more than 4 million life insurance policy holders in Taiwan, is the third-largest life insurer in the country by total premiums. Established in 1963, it operates a network of 24 branches and 450 agency offices. The Primus consortium, which also includes investment firm China Strategic Holdings Ltd., will maintain the Nan Shan brand. It also has agreed to retain existing compensation and benefits packages for Nan Shan's 4,000 employees and the agency's organizational and commission structure for at least two years after the deal closes. The current Nan Shan management team will remain in place. When the credit crisis hit last year, the U.S. government rescued New York-based AIG with a loan bailout package worth up to $182.5 billion in exchange for 80 percent ownership of the huge insurer. AIG is shedding assets in an effort to repay government aid. In July AIG completed the sale of 21st Century Insurance Group, part of its personal auto insurance division, to Farmers Group Inc. for $1.9 billion.

- TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian authorities have opened an investigation into former presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, a report said Tuesday, in a possible first step toward unleashing the hard-line judiciary on the opposition's top leaders. No formal charges have been filed, but the probe signals that Iran's Islamic leadership could use the courts against the most senior dissenters — whose claims include widespread vote fraud in June's disputed presidential elections and abuses by security forces against protesters in the violent aftermath. The powerful Revolutionary Guard and other pro-regime groups have urged for charges against the top opposition figures, including Karroubi, fellow reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and former President Mohammad Khatami. More than 100 activists and political figures have already been tried on charges that include seeking to overthrow the Islamic system. The official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as saying an investigative file has been opened on Karroubi and the case is under review by a special cleric court.