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Jittery, that's an apt description of the intraday chart.  The Fed meets
tomorrow, Greenspan's last.  Prices closed up just over a point, but
volume sank to +4% above average.  So basically, the Street didn't want
to go out on a limb.

Notably, today Exxon-Mobil reported the greatest profits ever reported
by an American company: $10B or so for the quarter, $36B for the year.
Does the term "obscene profits" strike a familiar note?  Yeah, well it
all depends on your politics.  Well, I've commented on this before.
Eliminating the politics for a moment, it seems to me this is a
fundamental flaw in the way we do business.  In short, the common
practice of pricing by mark-up percentages causes it in most companies,
but Exxon-Mobil has its own ways of adding to it.  To be sure, Exxon-
Mobil is a player in the futures market.  It had its own reserves to
play the market at inflated prices.  And its refining business hasn't
yet paid for all the hurricane repairs.  But it has the "pricing
elasticity" to pass along the higher crude prices (let's see, those were
prices it paid to it's own drilling operations, reflecting the high spot
prices because it can sell all its reserves, to itself).  And then it
marks up the crude for the refining, but it's normal fixed costs didn't
increase at the same rate as the crude futures pits were speculating on
prices.  Man, what a racket!  Capone would be proud.

So what is it going to do with all that money?  Spend it on new refining
capacity we desperately need?  Or paying it's exploration company for
wildly speculative oil exploration, say like in ANWR?  Think it's going
to contribute to cheaper prices at the pump?  Wanna buy a bridge?

 Price    Vola-    Momen-   Volume   Oscil-   Summ.
 Change   tility   tum               lator    Index
 -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+     -__+

 __     __|_     ___|     01/24
 _     __|_     ___|     01/25
 __>_     __|_     __|_     ___>     __>_     ___|     01/26
 __>_     ___     __>_     ___|     01/27
 __>_     __     __|_     ___|     01/30

Timing Signals:  I don't use or recommend timing signals, but they're
fun to watch.  If I did though, well, I might use something like this.
(Be warned!!  It tends to whipsaw around signal points!)

Last Signal: BUY        Date:  01/26/06 S&P:    1274
Winner or Loser:  tbd                   By:     tbd

See my market tracking charts for '03-'04 and my investment strategy
study at my website(s):
http://www.xprt.net/~pgrogers/Pers.html
http://www.geocities.com/paulgrogers/Pers.html



Paul Rogers, paulgrogers{at}yahoo.com                       -o)
http://www.angelfire.com/or/paulrogers                   /\\
Rogers' Second Law: Everything you do communicates.     _\_V

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