It seems the market has lost all confidence in the Obama administration’s policies, and rightfully so.  Every time he opens his mouth and moves his silver tongue the stock market shudders.  Tim Geithner doesn’t help, Bernanke comes off as the smart one in the group, and Press Secretary Gibbs is revealing himself as a two-bit hack when it comes to politics and communication.

You don’t single out the most highly visible characters on Wall Street, take a few back handed shots at them, and expect the market to have any trust in your leadership, especially when those shots follow the revelation that it’s Obama’s desire for capital gains rates to go up on nearly everyone.  Not to mention the fact that Obama wants to raise taxes on the “rich”; lest we forget that the “rich” are the ones still spending money these days.  Brilliant!

The fact that Gibbs is making any mention of Rush Limbaugh indicates that the administration is looking for a diversion from its own policy, or lack there-of.

The President tells the nation that it should go out and invest in stocks, even after his own treasury secretary (Geithner) goes on camera and single handily drops the market like an old pair of underwear with a rotten waistband.  No details for the financial sector, no bull market bounce for you, Mr. Geithner.

Further, Obama tells the public that the stock market shouldn’t be viewed as a “tracking poll”; obviously worried about how he and his administration are to be perceived when those monthly brokerage statements hit the mailbox.  The fact is, the stock market is the biggest tracking poll we have about our economic health (at least when it’s not manipulated by the government) of which the policy of Barack Obama narrowly guides.  Ask anyone with some skin in the market how their account is looking today and you’ll get a glimpse at those poll results.

Obama is a great speaker, to be sure, and the words he uses are well thought out, the sentences well structured, and the tone well managed.  However, at the end of the day, that’s all he’s got; a bunch of empty words with little real leadership and understanding of major problems needed to inject any substance into his rhetoric.

Economics, Finance, Investing Barack Husein Obama, Economics, Stock Market

I’ve been perplexed by the market these last couple weeks, so much that I’ve started wondering if what we’re seeing happen right now is actually for real.

Is this a complete melt down of our financial system that would cause a collapse of the stock market, or could this be the most golden of all buying opportunities?

By in large, I think the stock market will be ok, so long as the government doesn’t try and step in and strong arm a fix for this mess that stems well beyond the stock market.  So is this a buying opportunity then?  Yes, I think so.

I thought I was doing pretty well when I bought more Provident Energy (PVX: chart, web, Y!) last week at $7.30 per share.  I felt otherwise when the price dropped below $5 per share by the end of the week.

So what’s happening here?  Obviously there is a huge demand for cash by institutions.  Normal Joe investors like you and me don’t have the pull to chop 50% off the top of any stock, let alone the entire market.  Hedge funds and institutional investors do, however.

I think what we’re seeing is a demand for cash by lenders, which is forcing those who don’t have cash to find it quickly.  So you’re seeing a run on many stocks that isn’t completely justified.  At least not to the extent they’ve been beaten down.

Consequently, this has pulled the market cap down well below what is reasonable.  For normal Joe’s like you and me, this means that there are some golden buying opportunities out there right now in companies who carry little to no debt, and are going to do just fine given enough time.

So what about my Provident?  The yield is up around 22% as of the close last Friday, and it’s been years since it’s been this cheap.  Obviously PVX is tied to the oil and gas market, which has also been beaten to a pulp lately.

But we’re on the verge of winter, which should stabilize the price of natural gas and heating oil, and should provide some stability to the natural gas players, of which PVX is one.

Honestly, I’m in the stock for the dividend, as I suspect most are.  So far, they’re holding the line at $0.12 Canadian for the October distribution, and will report Q3 operating results on November 12th.

Investing dividends, oil and gas, PVX, Stock Market

Between the lousy weather and the battered down stock market, it’s been a very mundane weekend.  I’ve taken to, in large part, ignoring the day to day happenings in the stock market, and I think I’m a bit more sane for doing it.

Blogging about many of the financial headlines these days doesn’t seem to interest me as much… Are we in a recession or not?  Who cares?

For the last week, I’ve been checking in on the overall market trends about once a day, versus once an hour or so.  My investments are tied up in fairly secure long-term, proven companies, so it’s not like I’m hunting for the straw that broke the camels back in any one of my holdings.

I’ve got a ton of money sitting on the sidelines, just waiting to be invested, but until I start seeing some money and volume coming back into the market, I’m really hesitant to pull the trigger.

What say you? Has the market burned you out?

Finance Investing, Stock Market