Deliberate Destruction? Crooks, Thieves, Liars?

Like many traders, I've been having a rough go of it for the past month. It has been one of the toughest months I've ever had. At this writing, I have no trading positions, and am down to my bottom line core positions (2 stocks, 3 mutual funds) and mostly in cash. Because I have been so overweighted in commodity type stocks, this selloff has been particularly vicious.
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And yet, my opinion has not changed. The people who hate commodities and tell you that they are/were in a bubble cannot have it both ways. If the economy and the markets do well, then commodities must also. If commodities go into the tank, so does everything else. The reason is simple. This time things are different. China, and to a lesser extent India and the other Asian economies, have permanently altered the demand in the supply and demand equation.
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China is bent on becoming the world's superpower. When I think China, I think Germany 1936. Just as Germany tried to use the 1936 Olympics to impress the world, I expect China to do the same in 2008 when they host the Olympics.
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There is already a worldwide shortage of some commodities, copper for example. That makes it frustrating to hear that a stock such as PCU is bubble like when it has a trailing PE ratio of 6.85 and a projected PE ratio of 5.32 for the next 12 months, grew its revenue at 18% YOY (year over year), paid out 11.6% in dividends over the past year, and had 61% return on equity and a PEG ratio of 0.32 (all figures from Yahoo Finance).
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Or XTO, which is my all-time favorite, not because it is the best stock ever, but because it has been the one that has been the best to me over the years. XTO has a trailing PE of 9.42, a projected forward PE of 8.83, 0.47 PEG ratio, 39% return on equity and 91% YOY revenue growth. They also spun off shares of royalty trust HGT to shareholders this past year as a special dividend. Doesn't seem like a bubble to me in any way, especially compared to some of the 'glamour' stocks that we hear about all the time. Some of those stocks are not profitable, and won't be for a long time, if ever, but are still media darlings.
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Take Sirius Satellite and XM Radio, for example. I had a conversation with a man several months ago who thought that XTO and oil and gas stocks in general were 'too risky', but he was heavily into Sirius (SIRI). The stock has wide coverage and gets a lot of publicity by the talking heads. It has no PE or PEG ratios because it has never turned a profit and even at its current price sells for over 17 times revenues, not earnings because there are no earnings. It returned a minus 233% to its investors. But it's all good, no bubble there.
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Two interesting articles this morning caught my attention:
Mark Cuban, known mostly for being the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, though he made his fortune by selling Broadcast.com several years ago in the dot com era, is going to start a web site that will investigate the crooks in the business world. It will concentrate on stock fraud and other corporate wrongdoing. Should be no shortage of material there, and it promises to be very interesting if it gets going.
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The second was an article entitled Crashing The Dow by Alex Wallenwein. He is the editor and publisher of The Euro vs Dollar Currency War Monitor and he makes me feel like a flaming liberal. His contention is that the central bankers of the world are coordinating their efforts to collapse the commodities. That does make sense to me and would explain a lot of the relentless selling we have seen in the past month. When you are on the opposite side of the central bankers you are up against the deepest pockets and almost unimaginable powers in the world. Lots of charts and documentation in this article, and well worth the read. Some startling political commentary as well. Please read.
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Markets are due for a bounce, and the futures are up this morning at this point. It is also options expiration week, a week where trading is often unpredictable in the best of markets as option positions unwind and the markets try to hurt as many participants as possible. Paranoid? Perhaps, but there is even what is called a Max Pain barometer, a calculator that computes the figure that would hurt the most option traders at expiration. The result is the Max Pain number. Some traders use that number as a target for trading in options expiration week.
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The trend is solidly down. It will be down until it changes and starts up. Too simple? Just follow the money and try to stay out of trouble until the PTB (powers that be) decide to take it up. The IBD philosophy of waiting for the follow through day after a rally attempt is one good way to stay out of some trouble. Lots of differing opinions out there.
...I subscribe to Louis Navellier's Marketmail, a free weekly newsletter. Louis is usually bullish. In the latest Marketmail he thought the market had found a bottom last Thursday, was oversold, and this was the best buying opportunity of the year. On the other hand, 'dcb', a ClearStation pundit, says that the trend is solidly down, the bear market has resumed, and all rallies should be looked at as selling opportunities. I respect both these guys and their opinions, but they couldn't be more opposite in their outlooks. For the record, I agree with dcb.
...I also believe that we are undeniably in the last days before the return of Jesus Christ, and yes, that does affect my outlook on the markets, the economy and most everything else. See my other blogs for more on that, as this blog is for investing.