I'm Baaaaack-- More Notes

Just got back to the office after an early flight home from New York. A few thoughts:

Natural Gas:
Jim Farrish wrote about natural gas this morning, and suggested buying dips. I agree that the fundamentals for natural gas remain quite bullish, but in the short run energy can certainly correct further from here and in four of the last five years, nat gas has made important lows in the August-September time period. The only exception: 2005 & Hurricane Katrina.  Be bullish on natural gas, but beware you may have time to pick at it over coming weeks.  If looking for exposure to the sector, consider the gas-focused Canadian energy trusts like Advantage (AAV) or Paramount (PMT-U in Toronto, PMGYF O-T-C here in U.S.), which are flush with cash at the moment-- no surprise given where gas has traded in recent months.

All-Star Game:
The strangest thing at last night's All Star game, which I was lucky enough to attend? A scoreboard statistic shown when Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs came up to bat... it called him the holder of the Cubs team record for home runs in a season-- with 38! For that to have been possible, one has to ignore the 5-season stretch from 1998-2002 in which Sammy Sosa averaged 58.4 homers per season, including his 66 dingers in 1998.

The question that went through our minds immediately upon seeing this: have they erased Sammy from the team's record books already merely on the suspicion of steroids use? I just looked it up, and it must have been an honest mistake, becuase Hack Wilson, Andre Dawson, Dave Kingman, Ernie Banks and Derrick Lee all have higher single-season totals, which makes sense. Still, we started questioning our statistical recollecitons of some of these guys and we're left wondering if we were witnessing a slap in the face of epic proportions. We weren't, but I'll post the scoreboard picture in a day or two to prove I'm not crazy.

Banks:
They rallied big today. Good time to keep in mind the old saying, "bear market rallies are more spectacular than bull market rallies."

RTH:
The Real Todd Harrison is at it again. I think EEJS buried Todd's latest article in Lifestyle without featuring it for fear the content was a little too wild, but if you're not easily offended and want a good laugh you HAVE to check out RTH's latest: Dynamite Comes in Small Packages

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