RE: [RT] Trading Diary: False Breaks Warn Of A Market Top, RealTraders Email List Archive

Hi Lenny,

Fosters. What have you observed in Jupiter?

Regards,

Gene

From: realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rosow@xxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 9:51 PM
To: realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [RT] Trading Diary: False Breaks Warn Of A Market Top

Gene,

I'm in Jupiter, FL and work in Palm Beach Gardens. What local tavern are you talking about??

Lenny

In a message dated 12/10/2007 8:19:34 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, gene@xxxxxxxxxxcom writes:

Hello All,

For what it’s worth, I just came back from my yearly “solo week” in Florida, Singer Island to be exact. I like to just go and detox, hang out at local establishments, stick my feet in the ocean and clear my mind, while staying as far away from the upper end hang outs as possible. My observations were a little disquieting and I’d like to share them with you.

The taverns I like to hang out in have always been among the most popular, usually crowded to capacity on any weekend night, including Sunday, and still at least half-full on a Wednesday. One of them happens to be have one of the greatest Karaoke stages I’ve ever seen. Very elaborate stage with very high-end speakers and mics and even lighting. Very popular DJ, people coming from 100 miles away to get there. This is very a very locals oriented place. I’ve been going there now every year at the same time since 1999.

Last year, it started to change, fewer people, but still a good time. But this year, I was in total shock at what I saw. I came in first on a Wednesday, and Mel, the DJ I’ve known for years, tells me “Gene, I think I gotta hang it up soon. There’s no traffic anymore. My nightly fees are being cut. They’ve cut out Sundays and it looks like Wednesday is going too. I can’t live like this. ” He was right about the traffic. The place was like an empty bowling alley. I had to wait an hour past the normal start time just to get one more singer in the joint.

Then on Friday night, I returned and it was the same thing, perhaps 10% of the normal crowd size for a Friday. Then came Saturday. I go to pull into the parking lot at the regular time, and there were no cars around AT ALL except the employees. I was stunned. I went in, and I’ve never seen so few people in that bar, ever, on any night, in all these years. It was worse than the previous Wednesday, and you never see that. The jukebox, which is usually cranking until the Karaoke starts, was silent. The employees and bartenders looks rattled and scared, roaming around aimlessly.

From my conversations with them, they told me the same story over and over. Nobody has any money to go out and have a good time anymore (remember, this is a very local joint, not some here today, gone tomorrow tourist hang out). Their customers all tell the same story, that gas is too expensive, food is too expensive, and their mortgages are swallowing up all their money. They can’t afford to go out.

This particular bar is also one of the rare ones in the area that closes at 5 AM, therefore, it becomes a bartenders bar after all the other places close up at 2 or 3 AM. They tell me that this crowd is gone as well. The other bartenders and waitress’s business is so bad, they have no tips, therefore no money to use after quitting time. So this is not just the tale of some dump that fell under the radar. This IS the place to go around these parts. I think it’s a hell of a barometer, one that is not being picked up on in the press.

So what is this saying? If the majority of the populace cannot afford to go out for a good time anymore, and/or there’s no tourists coming around, are we already in recession and why aren’t we hearing more about this? Even 9/11 or the hurricanes didn’t affect business this much. What I saw was truly outside the bell curve. Where else is this happening? These people are truly frightened for their livelihoods.

This may just be a localized phenom, but I wonder about that. To quote my friend Mel, “People I know, older couples up north tell me they can’t afford to come down here anymore. They got too much to worry about back up north.”

One more Mel quote: “My friends that work at local Publix supermarkets say the average “ticket” per customer is way down, as if they’re getting very selective in what they’re buying.”

Just one man’s observations. Anybody else out there have any anecdotal evidence?

Gene

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