I just wish I had gone long on any company that makes home winterizing products like insulation. I wish I had done that an hour before they aired Anderson Cooper’s interview with President Obama. The President defended his economic stimulus money package by using the example of paying to winterize homes because of the two fold benefit of creating jobs and reducing dependence over the years on foreign oil. But, don’t despair. The economic stimulus money is working its way painfully through congress with the usual political reservations. There will be lots of money spent. Having an early clue about where the money is going and which economic sectors will benefit will help the short term trader in the coming months and years.

Economic Messes and Opportunity

With the value of hind site economists currently believe that the Great Depression did not need to happen. The freezing of credit markets and trade wars initiated by America’s Smoot Hawley Act seem to have turned a recession into a depression of historic proportions.

The economic stimulus money may be just like the generals who learn how to fight the last war just in time to engage in the next. Nevertheless, the world wide consensus is that throwing money into the pot will get us out of our economic mess faster than not.

The amount of stimulus money envisioned is staggering. Already, under the Bush administration, there is nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus bailout money for financial institutions to keep credit markets going. Next will be the Obama administration’s stimulus money package aimed more at creating jobs, securing the social safety net, and rebuilding American infrastructure in everything from road improvements to upping inner city teachers’ salaries.

The huge amount of stimulus money being handed out is going to be a boon for any number of companies. To know how and where to trade in the coming days, picking a promising sector or two, and doing your homework are necessary starting points. Then following the news, following politics, staying current with which companies have the cash, expertise, and vision to capitalize on the coming government stimulus money will allow you to trade long, trade short, or stay out depending upon how solid your information is.

Green Investment in a Brave New World

The argument has always been that without government subsidies green investments do not make money. Then came, briefly, $150 a barrel oil. It is too soon to know how soon energy prices will go up again but we seem to have an administration that believes in green energy. The political choice of the future may not be so much whether or not green energy can stand on its own but how much the United States and other nations are willing to subsidize at home in order to avoid sending money abroad for imported oil.

Everything from wind farms to new hydroelectric projects will be on the table with the new stimulus money. Anything that creates jobs, now, will be favored. Now, for the short term trader is the time to read up on “green” technologies, who has viable ideas, the capital, and the energy to promote. Besides wind farms, methane recovery from hog lots, improved solar energy cells, and the rest the issue brought up at the start of this article is probably the “greenest.” Saving energy is cost efficient. The stocks to watch may just be those folks who sell products to winterize homes.

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