Odd Lots

Template Change Ok, so you noticed that the template for the blog has changed. That was not an aesthetic decision that was gremlins on Google which dismembered the custom template I was using and left it unusable. Since I am not much of a techie, I, along with all the king's horses and men, could not bring the template back together again. The template I am using now is a standard version that is idiot proof. I have a cry for help into Google, but with 40 million people using the service, it might . . . be forever before I hear from them. In the meantime, I'll be orange for a while. The red template was just to hot for a conservative money manager. Client Appreciation Dinner -- Indianapolis The DCM team just returned from our client appreciation dinner in Indianapolis. It was just wonderful to see old friends and new. We had a full house and everyone was particularly interested in our presentation for the evening which was entitled: Retirement Roulette. We will be having our Evansville dinner at the end of this month. If you are a client from outside the Evansville area and would like to attend, please call Carol Stumpf at 800-321-7442. We are planning client dinners in Birmingham, Alabama and other cities where we work right after the first of the year. I am pretty sure we will continue to speak about the looming problems facing retirement. I will put the highlights of the speech I gave in Indianapolis on this blogsite in the coming weeks. Market Comment All the major indices are approaching 2005 yearly highs. The market is doing what it always does -- climbing a wall of worry. In this case, I believe it is way over due. As I discussed in a previous blog, only by using the actual inflation rate could you justify a Dow Jones of near 10,000. As PPI and CPI came out this week and showed inflation had dramatically receded, stocks have pushed much higher and are now positive for the year. I said in Indianapolis that I believe the Dow is at least 1,000 points undervalued. It will take more good news on inflation to get there, but I have little doubt that we will see a Dow Jones of near 12,000 in the next twelve months, unless something catastrophic happens.