McClellan Financial Publications, the publisher of daily and weekly updates on the famous McClellan oscillators and the Summation index (pictured on the chart on the right with NYSE Composite Index), is offering a free trial of their daily edition. This comes as a celebration to the addition of a new indicator to their daily edition. This is definitely worth checking out. The registration process is quick and easy and once done, you will have access to 4 weeks of previous daily reports. This should be enough to give you an idea of what the daily edition is about and maybe even push you into doing a little research on your own. The website features quite a bit of free content, which is definitely worth going through.

So, for anyone that’s interested, here’s the link: McClellan Financial Free Trial

From NY1:

Police are on the scene in Times Square this morning where authorities say they discovered and are in the process of dismantling a bomb inside an SUV. The device, made of three propane tanks, fireworks, and two five-gallon full gasoline containers, had two clocks with batteries attached to it. There is no word how much time, if any, was left on the timer.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE FULL SIZE. Images from Times Square webcam.

Luckily the bomb was discovered before it went off. Reportedly a t-shirt vendor noticed smoke coming from the car and noted a mounted police officer nearby. It is not clear whether the bomb failed to go off or the bomb squad managed to dismantle it before the detonator went off. In any case, this is the second failed terror plot on New York City and the third on the United States in a very short period of time. What kind of sick people do this? As I understand this, the propane and the gasoline would not have produced a lot of structural damage to the surrounding buildings, but it certainly would have been enough to set people on fire and cause a lot of cuts (a lot of glass buildings around). Indeed, the stampede resulting from the panic would have caused numerous injuries (Saturday evening = a lot of people around Times Square).

New York is fortunate to have avoided a disaster this time. Let’s hope they’re as lucky next time around. New York is one of the greatest cities I’ve been to and I wouldn’t want to see the city being taken over by fear and terror.

Some time ago I placed an order at my local book supplier for Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street. Since it had pretty good reviews on Amazon and it was also on Jim Puplava’s recommended reading list, I thought it was a sure bet. Every now and then, I order a book that has relatively good reviews but in the end turns out to be a waste of time and money. Since this book was so high in almost every list, I didn’t have doubts about it. Boy, how wrong I was. The book came in today, everything looked fine until I opened the package and discovered that the book was made for little kids, not adults – it was smaller than a pack of cigarettes. What kind of a cruel joke is this? An investment book that you can read in five minutes? What the f***? This isn’t even funny. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view; and yes, the paper clip is of regular size; the numbers of the ruler run in cm (2,5 cm =1 inch).

Repo 105, the accounting gimmick used by Lehman Brothers before it collapsed on itself, has been making the headlines as of late. But what is it and how did it help to ‘cleanse’ Lehman’s balance sheet? Well, this video should help you understand. If you haven’t fulfilled your Lehman appetite, then this list of links by Barry Ritholtz should do the trick.