Well I don’t know about you but I am getting tired of hearing over and over how this $700 billion rescue package is the answer to all problems, I wish they would just pass it already and then we can see the impact…the longer they talk about it the less immediate good it will do.

It is interesting to be here in Italy watching the BBC and reading the European papers, it’s a very different perspective. Anyway, the panic on Monday caused most of the commodities and everything else too, to drop like a rock, and then we saw a modest recovery Wednesday. Bottom Line is this is a bad time to be initiating any new trades in my opinion, but our current 4 positions in GCA are holding up very well in spite of everything.

I was pretty surprised to see the folks (whoever is running it now) over at Resource Trader alert issuing a new trade in corn for 2009, not very wise ahead of 2008 harvest and also I feel corn is not a good bet for 2009, for various reasons, but I don’t run that portfolio anymore so I wish them all the best. One market I am looking at right now has some great opportunities, I will tell my GCA readers shortly in an upcoming issue this week most likely. Yesterday I took a break from watching the markets and writing and went to the island of Murano with Katrin…

Murano is a very pretty island near Venice and it is famous for glass artistry, it’s a fantastic place to see. We watched a glass blower make a horse right in front of us in about 2 minutes, it was amazing.

Check out all the photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/katrinkerr/

Then we bought it for 5 euros to take home to Alex, (she loves horses)

I will post a short video of it all in my next entry.

After the glass blowing, we had a lovely Italian lunch and then took the boat back walking through St. Mark’s Square on the way back to our house.
When I returned I saw that the stock market and some commodities had recovered quite a bit and we will have to let things shake out a bit more today and the next day to see what opportunities we have before us as well as where our current positions stand. Please check back later today for another entry and everyday this week. For GCA subscribers you can expect a big mailbag this week Thursday, so stay tuned and stay safe in these wild markets.

And this just in from our friends over at jurojinweekly.com for all the charts and the full daily update email me at kevinscottkerr@mac.com and I will be happy to send you the full issue and tell you how you can get the Jurojin Focus Report FREE too.

THE SAFE HAVEN TRADE

When the global economy becomes an uncertain place, investors speak with their feet. All investment objectives are tossed out of the window in search of safety.
Consequently, assets around the globe look for places to park money.

Treasuries
The flood of capital into short-term treasuries has driven down the yields to practically nothing in the past week. The low in the 3-month Treasury yield was 2 basis points – that’s 2/100th of a percent.

*chart shows closing values (Charts will be sent by email just shoot me a note at kevinscottkerr@mac.com)

US Dollar
Though the American economy is ground zero for the financial market chaos, the American currency benefits as investors buy dollar-denominated treasuries and dollar-denominated gold. The dollar index made a low in March of this year, down 41.5% over the last seven years. As turmoil has elevated, the tide has changed. The dollar index is up 5% in just the last six trading days – now up 4.5% on the year.

Gold
When Lehman collapsed and Merrill was force sold to BOA, investors plowed into gold driving it $85 higher in a day — the biggest one day surge in gold since 1980. Gold has risen 26% since the 11th of September.