Before the race began I was sitting on a curb resting my legs along with hundreds of other runners. I chatted with two who were nearby and saw one with a knee brace. I asked if she was injured and she said she was. I then asked, "Why are you running a marathon?" She said, "10-10-10. When I saw it was on this date I had to run it." Strangely enough, several others said the same things. It is odd the way numbers exert a strange hold on our minds, but they clearly do.

While we waited for the race to begin everyone was going through their preparations. People were eating sandwiches, drinking fluids, etc. I was doing this as well. And then, about 45 minutes prior to the race I thought, I better take a final bathroom break. I went to the long line of porta-potties and saw line after line of people standing in front of them, each about 100 people long. I stood in the line and waited to see how fast it would move. Since my line was serviced by three of these potties I could calculate that I just might make it in time. The race began at 7:30 AM and I was in and out at 7:20 AM. I then quickly moved to enter the race. Uh oh. The entry point was jammed and not moving. There was no place for these people to go until the race started and began to clear the traffic jam away. So I walked around to the side which was fenced off and saw people on the other side of the fence almost pressed against it. Even if I hopped the fence I would have had nowhere to go. Maybe I would have been carried over a sea of hands like I was in a mosh pit, but I decided not to experiment. I kept going further up the line and time was running out. Finally there was enough room so I jumped the fence and got ready to race.

The Start

The start of the marathon is horribly crowded. It took about 11 minutes to reach the starting line and once there you became part of a human wave that went along at a pace that was difficult to speed up or slow down. Most people are very cordial at the start of the race. Towards the end, whether because the runners are not thinking clearly, or because they are endorphin-deprived, the ettiquette deteriortes. People bang into you as they cut in front and don't say, "Excuse me." The end of the run is very different from the beginning.

The Sights and Sounds

There are always unusual sights and sounds during the marathon. I can now say I have seen Captain America, with shield in hand, in a marathon. Wonder Woman too. I didn't see any Elvis impersonators, and they are usually present in force. The most spectacular costume was a person running inside of a replica of the Eiffel Tower. The tower was not small, maybe five feet tall, but to carry all of that clumsy-bulk for 26.2 miles was impressive.

The signs were out. There were the dour Christians ("The wages of sin is death"), the born-again Christians ("You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God"), and the evangelistic Christians ("Believe in the Lord and be saved").

There were signs with a good deal less religious sentiment. One sign that I saw for the first time, and saw it at several different stops along the way, was "Run Bitch!" I am not sure this sign was directed exclusively at women, but either way, I question its motivational value.

My favorite sign was, "Toe nails are over-rated." This was a reference to a common occurrence for marathon runners. They develop black toenails that later fall off. I received one of these on this marathon run and I could feel it during the run.

The music was loud at different places along the way. The only tune I recognized was one by Lady Gaga. Much of the rest of it was either the pounding of drums, or music of any genre so long as it had a pulsing bass note. As for my iPod, I could barely hear it for the last half of the run. My ears would fill with water after I poured a cup of it over my head. Which brings us to yet another weather-related marathon.

The Incredible Impact of Heat

Typical of Chicago's weathermen, they were all wrong. It was much warmer than anticipated at the start of the race. It was forecast to be round 59 but it was actually 66. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a big difference, especially once the sun comes out.

Still, the race started under a code green, or favorable conditions. I was moving nicely during the early morning hours. At mile 15 I was averaging about a 9 minute pace, which is what I wanted to maintain through at least mile 20 or 22. Then I figured if I fell off that pace a bit I could till hit a sub 4 hour marathon.

There was one powerful obstacle standing in my way. The heat was rising fast. By 9:40 AM I had finished a half-marathon in about 1:57, but the code was now yellow and the heat was around 80 degrees. By 11 AM the race was code red for potentially dangerous conditions.

Heat has an enormous impact on performance. The perfect temp for men (it is slightly different for women) is 50-55 degrees. Every 5 degrees above 55 degrees can result in adding about 30 seconds to your minutes per mile pace. I've read elsewhere that it can add 9 seconds per degree of heat added, or 45 seconds every five degrees. So If I was running a 9 minute pace, then 80 degrees could theoretically add 2 1/2 minutes to each mile I was running (using the more conservative measure of 30 seconds per 5 degrees of heat). 

Since the temp was at 66 degrees at the start and climbing quickly, my 9 minute per mile pace could easily have been a 10 minute pace, but I was determined to beat my personal best record at the very least.

From mile 15-18 I noticed my pace had fallen dramatically, and getting below 4 hours was not in the cards. The heat was taking its toll. I even passed one of the official 4:00 hour pacers. (A pacer is someone who can run a marathon much faster than the pace they set for others. They carry signs the entire run showing the pace they are supposed to set for others. This pacer had hit a wall and would not make it to her four hour time.) My time was falling to a 10:30/10:45 pace as the heat started taking its toll. Nonetheless, I was still able to run the final two miles at a 10 minute pace and that was a small victory of sorts. My personal best was 4:14:02 at the USAF Marathon at Wright-Patterson AFB in 2008. This time I finished at 4:11:35 for an avg pace of about 9:35 per mile. Considering the heat, I was pleased. And if the heat-performance-degradation ratios (30 seconds slower for every five degrees of heat) are close to accurate, then I feel like I will be able to break through this 4 hour barrier fairly easily (ha!) should the temp be in the 40-50 degree range.

The Finish Line

At the end of the run you get processed through a line that gives you a warming blanket (not needed on this day) and your medal. This year the medal prominently featured the date of the marathon 10-10-10 and most everyone I've spoken to said they thought it was cool looking. This was followed by food (bananas, whole wheat bagels, cookies, etc.), water and gatorade. It is important to eat within 30 minutes of the race because research shows it dramatically speeds up the healing process and marathon runners need to heal. Consider this: micro-tears in muscles releases a chemical in the blood. Marathon runners have a higher concentration of this chemical in their blood than gun shot victims.

After putting as much effort into my run as I did, I was in need of healing. My legs felt far more tired and stiff than during the previous three I'd run. Going up and down stairs was a real chore that Sunday. Today I feel remarkably better. Not back to normal just yet, but able to negotiate stairs without wincing and a much faster pace.

I suppose one never sees it all when it comes to marathons, sporting events, shopping at a mall, or anything else. I got a chance to see more than I bargained for at the end of this marathon. I was walking in a happy daze, endorphins overcoming the pain, relieved that the run was finished, when I thought I saw someone undressing near a fence. It was one of those times when you wish you were looking away. As I glanced over at the fence I saw a 60 year old man pull off his running pants and go commando for a few moments as he wrestled on his underwear. Yikes! Gone was the happy daze. I headed to the Goose Island booth where they were pouring cup after cup of 312 beer. I suppose someone could have stayed there for a second, but the one beer went down so slowly that I didn't even consider it.

Will I run again next year? Probably, because I am eternally optimistic that one of these days I will get a chance to run in cold weather.

Who could have imagined that this Tea Party movement, so decentralized, so spurned by the mainstream press, would turn into such a force? Will it compel the Republican party to return to its fiscally conservative roots, or pushing it too far away from the center where the majority of people vote? That outcome has yet to be decided. One thing is certain, the Tea Party is having an unexpected, out-sized impact on he 2010 election.

What is less clear is this: will it try to form a third party? Possibly. If so, then that is bad news for the Republican Party because Tea Party candidates would definitely siphon away votes. But if it tries to go down this path it chances of success seem slight based on the past 100 years of U.S. political history. Interestingly, it was 100 years ago come 2012 when Theodore Roosevelt entered the presidential campaign under the Progressive Party banner. It was popularly known as the Bull-Moose Party (Teddy was never known for subtlety) and it managed to win a large share of the vote and insure the election of Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt came in second in this election and became the first third party presidential candidate to do so. The combined votes for Taft, the Republican nominee, and Roosevelt, were 58% of the vote. But Wilson's 42% carried the day.

Here is an interesting story from TR's election campaign that has a horrific opening but a good ending. While Roosevelt was campaigning in 1912 he was shot in the chest by the owner of a saloon in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is a little known assassination attempt. The bullet went through his steel eyeglass case, a folded speech of about 50 pages and then lodged in his chest. Since he was not coughing up blood he believed the bullet had failed to reach his chest cavity--he was right--and so he refused to go to the hospital. After all, he had a speech to give! So he gave it, spoke for 90 minutes, while blood was seeping into his shirt. Yes, he was a bull-moose of a man.

The 2010 Election and the Market

At the moment I am convinced of only one thing regarding this market's behavior. It will do whatever it possibly can to move against the accepted wisdom. Previously, the accepted wisdom (and historical fact) was September is the worst month for stocks. It turned out to be one of the best months for stocks in 2010. Now the accepted wisdom is that the Republicans will either win the House of Representatives, or so dent the Democratic majority, that a legislative logjam will result that will put an end to the radical Obama agenda regarding energy policy and so much more. The result of this swing to the Republican side of the aisle will cause stocks to skyrocket higher. The narrative has a certain ring of truth to it. The promise of a more fiscally conservative approach to the nation's finances should be viewed as a plus by the market. Yet I am beginning to think the short sharp correction I've been waiting for will now turn into a more protracted descent that will take us into December. Should that prove to be true, then mid to late December will be an excellent time to buy stocks.

Yesterday was just what I thought it would be, namely, a lot of up and down thrashing around with no real direction. Stocks finished virtually where they began on Thursday and this was on good job news--continuing claims dropped on Thursday. This morning the monthly jobs report is producing an uncertain reaction in the premarket. The market moved higher on the news, but not much. It has since lost much of those gains. Again, the numbers in the report are not as important as the market's response. In other words, the report can be good and the market can still tank. Or the report can be awful and the market can rise. So it appears the market will open in a choppy fashion, try to determine a direction and then take it. There are 40 minutes left before the market opens, but I sense it will head lower today. (While I've been writing the techs began to sell off, but a few minutes from now they may be higher.) Time will tell.

As always, there is never a guarantee that anyone's investment ideas are right and you are responsible for your own investment decisions, no matter who you are listening to.  So develop your own system, test it, and if it works, stay true to it.

Marathon Weather

Finally, the marathon will not have the cold weather I hoped for. The temp is expected to climb into the 80s on Sunday. This will mean I have yet to run a marathon in weather that remained below 80 degrees. To give you an idea of what weather can be like on marathon Sunday, last year's Chicago marathon featured weather in the low 30s at the start of the race... and a course record was set and a record number of runners finished the race. Grrr. One of these days I hope to have cooler weather, but it looks like it will not be this year. Whatever the weather, I will be out there giving it my best shot.

Safe travels,

Tom

The last long run before the marathon. Yea! It was only a ten miler, but an hour and a half of running is in my books a long run. The lakefront was its usual crazy scene. There was a so-called "run" for research going on, but I saw more walkers than runners (and it was only 3.1 miles!). Some of these walkers clogging the path would have benefited from one of those scooters I see advertized on TV, but at least they were out for a good cause. About four miles north of this was a Loyola-sponsored lakefront run. First off were the high school boys--gazelles that made me look like I needed a walker. I was long gone before the College runners arrived. It is salutary to be humbled, but it is easier to take when the humiliation does not come all at once.

Yesterday evening I thought, "It is best to train according to the way you plan on running the marathon." So I got up early, ate a big chicken sandwich about 3 hours before I started running, drank about 20 oz of water to hydrate, and wore a short-sleeved running shirt and short running shorts. The fueling was fine but the clothes were a tad light for the 50 degree weather and 19 mph north wind (wind chill of 43). The first five miles I was headed north into the teeth of the wind and I must say, I never remember feeling warm, much less hot, and I can't remember sweating.

As I went further north I saw fewer and fewer runners until finally I felt as lonely as a birther at an Obama fund raiser. What surprised me was the way I ran sub 9 minute miles into the wind, because I was not trying to go fast. It was probably a side-effect of just trying to stay warm. When I turned back south I just needed to lift my legs and let the wind blow me.

As I was running I was thinking of many things and one of them was the way this market may be about to head higher for a good while. The question for me is how long and how far will it drop? I think the drop will end around 10-8-10, but it may go on until 10-12-10 (or longer). One of the things that could lead the market higher or lower is its response to JP Morgan's earnings (Oct 13 before the market opens). The following week many other financial stocks report earnings: Citigroup (C) reports the next Monday, Oct 18. Bank of America (BAC) and Goldman Sachs report the 19th, and Wells-Fargo reports the 20th. I think their reports will be catalysts for the market to move higher and two of the stocks that I think have the best chance to more than double in size are C and BAC. When I do start buying stocks these will be my two financial holdings.

Material stocks should do well. Alcoa (AA) is considered the stock that starts earnings season and it typically get hammered after they announce their earnings. Since they announce on Thursday afternoon (10-7-10) they might be a key indicator of the market's direction for Friday. If AA drops to c. $11 I will be a buyer. I will also be a buyer of US Steel (X) if it drops to around $37, or on a breakout to the upside (c. $47). Materials will be needed for all of the global economy's infrastructure projects, planes, weapons of war, etc. Of the two stocks I like X more than AA.

In the world of tech I am still trying to figure out which stock has the greatest growth prospects. Here's a hint: it aint Microsoft (MSFT), but even this stumbling giant will grow in the coming stock market ascent. I am studying mid-cap tech names to see which looks the most promising. Akamai and Ciena look very good but I remain convinced that there are better options out there.

In the energy space I am looking at Apache (APA). They seem to do well with the leavings of the oil giants. They recently bought some mature fields from BP and they have proven before that they do a much better job of squeezing oil out of these types of fields than the previous owners. Plus, if I am right about an oil disruption then, at the very least, these oil companies should enjoy a few weeks or quarters of amazing gains.

Sunday night it is a choice between Rubicon and Mad Men or the Chicago Bears vs the NY Giants. Hmmm. Da Bears!

Enjoy the remainder of the weekend and

As always, there is never a guarantee that anyone's investment ideas are right and you are responsible for your own investment decisions, no matter who you are listening to.  So develop your own system, test it, and if it works, stay true to it.

Safe travels, Tom.

Tomorrow I look forward to my last +20 mile run before the marathon. It will probably be a 22 miler with a one mile cool down at the end. Then the training drops dramatically until the week before the race during which I may run a total of six miles. Yea! I'm in the process of lining up a cause to support for next year's marathon.

I had an interview with Joe Marra this afternoon and enjoyed my time with him. Tonight I will be interviewed by Anthea Appel, a woman who has a most interesting background--she served 20 years as an NYC police officer. So, I look forward to that one as well.

With respect to the markets, today produced little. The Dow was up 13 points, the Nasdaq was up .5% for a reasonably good gain, and the S&P, like the Dow, was up fractionally having risen only 1 point. If the market continues to rise, as I expect it will, it should experience a surge that finally draws back in many investors who have been sitting on the sidelines. I think that strategy will end in disaster, because a sharp drop often follows those ecstatic peaks. I look for the S&P 500 to hit around 1170 on September 22. It closed this Friday at 1126 so that would represent a 3.9% gain over three days.

If the market hits this level I will take a small short position in advance of the Thursday jobless claims report and then add to it should the market start falling. Other than that, I plan of resting my bones and enjoying the great fall weather we are having, and I hope you are able to do the same. I will also watch my Chicago Bears take on the suddenly fallible looking Dallas Cowboys. With the exception of last week's final drive, our defense looks like it is better than expected and the offense can move the ball (okay, "can move the ball against the Lions"), but can't seem to hang onto it after having marched down the field. Go Bears! But over the next three days, Go Bulls!

As always, there is never a guarantee that anyone's investment ideas are right and you are responsible for your own investment decisions, no matter who you are listening to.  So develop your own system, test it, and if it works, stay true to it.

Have a great weekend, Tom.

When you run on the Chicago Lakefront during the summer you know that anything can happen. Today my run was given a detour because of a Swim and Bike. What the heck is that? My goal was simple: run out seven miles and run back seven miles so I was forced to re-route. No big deal. As I am nearing the seven mile mark, near the Hollywood exit on Lakeshore Drive, I see a familiar water fountain and a strange man doing yoga stretches next to it. I am about to dive down for a quick drink when he breaks his pose and starts to drink, and drink, and drink. After he fills his camel hump I take a drink and head out.

The guy is shirtless, 60-65 years old and wearing shower shoes, flip flops, call them what you will. So off I go. I am running at an 8:50 minute per mile pace when I hear a snapping sound approaching. Its the guy with flip-flops and he is soon passing me and evrybody else. I pick up my pace because I figure this guy can't possibly keep up this pace wearing shower shoes. Au contraire. Two miles later I can't even see the guy.

When you run long distances you are used to being passed, but I can safely say I have never been passed by a man wearing shower shoes. Personally, I wear Brooks running shoes. However, I am having second thoughts. This guy, after all, was moving awful fast

By the way, the eggplant caprese salad with grilled tomato, basil vinaigrette was easy to make and it was a big hit. You can simply type "eggplant caprese salad epicurious," into Google and you can check it out yourself. If you've never used Epicurious for recipes I would highly recommend the site.

Chicago was hit with monsoon like rains over the weekend. Some places received about seven inches in a fairly short period of time and the result was flooded interstates. I got a chance to experience it first hand. Saturday is the day of my long run, and lately it has been getting longer as the marathon approaches.

As I began my 16-mile run around 5:30 AM it was drizzling. Then the heavens opened up and a hard rain came down without let. I was into mile five of my run and my hands had been so continuously soaked that they were pruning up. I’ve never had this happen to my hands before on a run and I was just getting started.

There were initially a few puddles across the running path that lines the lakeshore, but later on the path was largely submerged. I was amazed when one of the puddles was above my ankles in depth and I had to high step through it. But that was early in the run and the rain kept coming down. By the end of the run the puddles were up to the middle of my shin and went on for several hundred feet.

Runners were scarce that morning and I found that odd. It is so much easier to run in the rain than in the brutal heat we’ve been experiencing. The only downside with running in a downpour is the way it makes your skin so tender and turns your clothing into a very fine grade of sand paper. By the end of the run you are severely chafed, but other than that it enables you to run much easier and recover much faster.

The markets finished higher yesterday. I enjoyed nice profits from Mosaic (MOS) and sold the stock, plowing the profits into Potash (POT); POT has lagged behind MOS but is announcing its earnings soon. I’ve recently turned bullish on the market but would not be surprised if Monday stocks opened higher, or climbed higher and then began a mid-morning decline that lasts a few days. Several stocks have run up so fast and furiously they seem very likely to fall. Freeport-McMoran (FCX) and Joy Global (JOYG) are among them. So I have trimmed positions and will go long again after a decline of at least two days.

As always, there is never a guarantee that anyone's investment ideas are right and you are responsible for your own investment decisions, no matter who you are listening to.  So develop your own system, test it, and if it works, stay true to it.

Safe travels, Tom.

The Chicago Marathon will occur on 10-10-10, or October 10, 2010. This is the week that many will begin ramping up their mileage. The 10 mile runs begin and are replaced by 11 miles, 13 miles and so on as we creep up to three twenty-mile runs before the marathon begins. The purpose of the long runs has to do with building endurance, obviously, but more importantly it is to accustom your legs (bones, ligaments, etc.) to the stress of 26.2 miles.

This marathon will be my fourth and hopefully my best. When you are as slow as I am you don't look to set impressive numbers, you only look to beat your best time. That best time for me is 4 hours and 14 minutes. It happened at Wright Patterson AFB on an unseasonably hot day. The two previous attempts in Chicago were unseasonably hot as well. I only hope the cold weather that was present in 2009 returns for 2010, because few things impact time like heat. My first marathon was in 2007 when the temperature and humidity spiked to levels that forced the city to cancel the marathon for the first time ever. I finished in five hours and two seconds, an abysmal showing, but at least I finished.

The one thing I have learned about marathons is this: it is not the number of miles you put in, but the quality of the work outs. When I trained for my first one I was following the advice of professionals that I needed to run five times a week and log at least 45-50 miles in some of the weeks prior to the marathon. It was this sort of unbalanced insanity that led me to stop running them. I was not willing to give them that much of my time. But now I run only three times a week and focus on 3-4 things. Early in the training (November-March) I work on speed training on one of the runs, lactate-threshold-endurance (tempo runs) on another, and then distance for the weekend (8-10 miles). As the event approaches I change to hill training (on a treadmill--Chicago is as flat as Houston) for one of the runs, a tempo training run, and a long run.

Today is a tempo training run of 6 miles at a 7:47 mile a minute pace. That is not the fastest I can run a mile, but it is fast enough to make me feel uncomfortable for those six miles as my legs must work against the lactate building in the muscles (hence the lactate-threshold-endurance designation). Then Saturday I will log 12 miles, 11 will be at a decent pace and one will be a cool down. Last Sunday I got caught in the rain during my long run, and the cooling effect helped tremendously. I ran 10 miles at an 8:24 pace and had a cool-down miles of 10 minutes tagged onto it.

My goal is to hit 26.2 miles at an 8:45 minute-mile pace (about 3 hours and 48 minutes). However, if I get below 4 hours I will be pleased.

If you are a runner with an aging set of legs--like me!--then I highly recommend running no more than three times a week, Focus on the quality of each run, and enjoy the recovery time in between. It is during the recovery time that the real progress is made.

All the best,

Tom

I ran my first marathon to dispel what I believed to be a myth. I heard all of these people quietly boasting about how they’d run a marathon and I thought, “It can’t be that tough.” It’s not. My first marathon was Chicago’s infamous marathon in 2007, the year it was so hot people were dropping faster than ambulances could carry them. This problem required calling in ambulances from surrounding areas to help out. Tragically, one runner even died.

Many runners were stopped from finishing. I was almost in that group. I was struggling with the 88 degree heat, high humidity and no breeze and suddenly I see a police cruiser moving into the running path. I accelerated (went from a blazing 3 mph to 4 mph) and our city’s finest almost sent me in for a hip replacement. I kept motoring along and then people started yelling at us to stop running. I stopped like almost everyone else, then I saw others still running and thought, “Did you train this hard to quit now?” So, after a 30 minute walking break, I looked at my watch, did some quick calculations and thought, “I think I can still break five hours.” Like I said, blazing speed. I thought I had it made but their watch counts, not mine, and I finished in 5 hours and one second. Grrr. But I finished, went home, and stood for the next four hours at a post-marathon party that was held at our house.

Had I not been told to walk, and then complied for about 30 minutes, I might not have felt so great. And this brings me to my point. If you go slow and steady a marathon is no big deal. If you push yourself hard, then you will feel it for a few days.
Since those first marathons I’ve developed some insights into training for it that I wish I knew three years ago.

#1 rule: to run faster, run faster. This is a huge insight and you probably think I’m joking. Think about it, how do most marathoners train? They run longer. The most important thing, they often think, is to build up to those long training runs. To run longer, run longer. Yes, the long training runs are essential, but they will not dramatically improve your time. They are designed to keep you from injuring yourself. If you want to run faster, then run faster.

Here is why. I was doing some hill training for strength and some tempo runs to increase my ability to endure the build-up of lactate in the muscles, and these helped me improve my times, but not like interval training.

What is interval training? It starts with a warm up run to get the muscles loose and prepare them for what is to come. Let’s say you start with a mile to a mile and a half at a ten-minute pace. That equals a 10-15 minute warm-up. Then you run a half-mile at a pace that really pushes you, but not to the point of exhaustion. If your normal pace is eight and a half minutes per mile for ten miles, then this might be a seven-minute pace. You could go faster, but you have several more intervals to do. After that half-mile at a seven minute pace is finished, then you go slow for an equal amount of time (3.5 minutes). Then run another interval, go slow, run another, and build up to doing five or six of these.

Here is what I noticed after interval training. My feet moved faster when I ran my long runs without me trying to move them faster. My legs and feet were following a new muscle memory. This made the faster pace natural, not forced and the time improved dramatically. To run faster, run faster.

I never trained this way for my first three marathons because I did not know how essential it was. This next marathon, God willing, will result in a dramatic improvement in performance.

WARNING: speed training is typically where you hurt yourself so you have to be safe. The warm up training is essential to prepare the muscles. Torn muscles perform poorly. Also, know what your safe heart-beat range is and wear a heart monitor. Finally, if you are out of shape, then build up to speed training slowly.

I took a break from marathons in 2009, because they took up too much time. The next marathon post will cover how I made the training program efficient so that it stopped taking up too big of a chunk of my time.

Market update: under the heading of fool’s rush in where angels fear to tread, I will hold off shorting JPM and INTC. JPM looks like it will hit $49.50-51 probably by COB 4-19-2010. I will be surprised if INTC goes much higher than $24 (it is around $23.50 at the time of this writing.) Home Depot also looks like a promising short, but it too may have a little more room to run up.

I think the S&P is heading to around 1250 before moving lower.

Thankfully, as forecast, the ag space is continuing to be hammered in what is otherwise a strong market upswing. I am looking for MON to fall to around $64-64.50 today (it is at $66.37 right now) and I will close my positions. POT hit the initial targets (low, thus far, of $107.92), and then bounced off of the resistance. I still think it is headed lower.

As always, there is never a guarantee that anyone's investment ideas are right and you are responsible for your own investment decisions, no matter who you are listening to.  So develop your own system, test it, and if it works, stay true to it.

Safe travels, Tom.