It's time to start doing your gift shopping. Here are some great investment, finance, and stock market books to give your friends and relatives. These are in no particular order other than the approximate order that I wrote about them, within the categories. You can click on the title of each book to get more info about them. And if you aren't sure what books are right for gifts, how about an a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00067L6TQ/ref=nosim/?%5Fencoding=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"Amazon Gift Certificate/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /.br /br / center span style="font-weight:bold;"Fiction/span /centerbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804119120?ie=UTF8tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=0804119120"A Conspiracy of Paper/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20l=as2o=1a=0804119120" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by David Lissbr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDay-Trader-Stephen-Frey%2Fdp%2F034544325X%2Ftag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325"The Day Trader/aimg src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=antiquestocka-20amp;l=ur2amp;o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" / by Stephen Freybr /br /a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSet-Up-Paul-Erdman%2Fdp%2F0312968051%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1194850092%26sr%3D1-1tag=antiquestocka-20linkCode=ur2camp=1789creative=9325" The Set-Up/aimg ...

We are headed to Las Vegas this week and weekend for the Traders Expo.Here are the details:Las Vegas, NV: The Traders Expo, Mandalay Bay Resort,November 19-22, 2008Are you planning to attend?Here's a snapshot of some last minute fares to Las Vegas. There's another good travel site to consider called FareCast. They are good at forecasting airfares for flights and letting you know if a current price is above or below the historic average. They also developed a cool tool called FareGuard that lets you protect the lowest fare for one week without buying a ticket.We are hosted again by Scottrade this year as well as a couple of other new partners. Please look for us at their booth and talk shop.Presentations Not to MissScottrade's presentation on Thursday and see how Trade-Ideas excels inside the ...

As investors survey the landscape of beaten-down ETF's, different methods come into play.  Some are looking for value.  Some seek sectors with rebound potential.  Others look for news-driven potential. When we examine ETF charts and our model output, we see the results of this analysis.  We see factors like Trends and Cycles and try to Anticipate the best opportunities.  It is an interpretation of how the market is reacting to fundamental considerations.  Each week we choose a sector for a more detailed focus.  (For new readers, there is a more complete description of our methods at the end of the article.) Spotlight on Agriculture We follow the Ag sector via the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO).  The security is based upon the DAXglobal® Agribusiness Index.  MOO is down about 36% YTD.  The current P/E ratio is about 17 with a price-to-book ...

Our writer, Jeff Miller, is also a columnist on Real Money - and through this we have access to the insightful commentary of his colleagues. Detailed below will be several observations by other Real Money writers as of November 5. James Altucher was the first to note that Asian markets were experiencing positive numbers “on the heels of an Obama win.” He also dug up a couple of Obama’s very own stock picks: AVII, a company developing cures for “diseases related to bioterror,” and Skyterra, a satellite company. According to Altucher, stem cell stocks are also likely to be sensitive, most notably STEM. Altucher later appeared on CNBC to discuss his favorite Obama sectors: Infrastructre (KBR and MTW), Healthcare (HMA), and Taxes (TYW); and overall he stressed stocks that were cheap and worthy of buying “regardless of policy.” Jim Gulbrandsen warned that trying to ...

James Altucher of thestreet.com recommends the following companies that are raising dividends

http://trackthepros.com/stocks/category/1812

      

James Altucher of TheStreet.com believes 7 Chinese stocks will double in the near future.  Track the Pros has the picks and tracks them:

http://trackthepros.com/

COGO

EJ

SNDA

ADTH

GA

CPSL

CBAK

On Monday, April 28, James Altucher of Formula Capital recommended which food-inflation trade to CNBC viewers?

Picks included Sysco (SYY) and Sadia (SDA) while pans included General Mills (GIS), McDonald’s (MCD - Annual Report) and Kellogg (K).

So, Barron’s did a piece on Mr. Cramer this weekend and the jist of it was that it was not a flattering portrayal. Some blogs have rushed to Cramer’s defense but before you buy into their reasoning, check their motives.

First, as is my standing policy I will not name folks but readers who do their homework can come to their own conclusions.

A principal mission at “A Dash” is developing a guide for the intelligent individual investor.    Sometimes our interest intersects with that of more active traders, and this may be one of those times.

Our Current Posture
As we have indicated, our investment posture varies with the time frame.  Since we have different products for different investors, our positions may seem to be at odds.  It is actually quite consistent for those with different time frames to have different perspectives.

This is the sort of day that scares the daylights out of most investors. If they read news or tuned into CNBC it was even worse.