Morning Note: The Critical Investing Skill

In this week's main message I'll be touching on the China property bubble saga, the toppiness of U.S. equities, incentives (or constraints if you will) with regard to policy makers' approach to the financial markets and, amid palpable uncertainty, a few things we know for sure. Time permitting, it'll hit your inbox sometime later today or early tomorrow.

As for this morning, we're seeing a bit of an across the board (save for most commodities, ex-precious metals) bounce (although its fading as I type) after yesterday's drubbing.

Asian equities (save for Japan returning from holiday and catching down to the rest of the world's Monday selloff) were mostly higher overnight (China and So Korea still on holiday till tomorrow).

Europe's rallying nicely so far this morning, with all but 1 of the 19 bourses we follow presently in the green.

U.S. stocks are up to start the session: Dow by 151 points (0.44%), SP500 up 0.20%, SP500 Equal Weight up 0.05%, Nasdaq 100 up 0.04%, Nasdaq Comp up 0.15%, Russell 2000 flat.

The VIX sits at 24.51, down 4.63%.

Oil futures are down 0.09%, gold's up 0.52%, silver's up 0.92%, copper futures are down 2.08% and the ag complex is down 0.41%.

The 10-year treasury is down (yield up) and the dollar is down 0.04%.

Led by uranium miners, wind stocks, Eurozone equities, Asia-Pac equities and silver -- but dragged by metals miners, MP (rare earth miner), base metals futures, energy services stocks and KRBN (carbon credits) -- our core portfolio is up 0.22% to start the day.

"The world is full of uncertainty, much more than you think. Almost every important decision you make will be in the face of uncertainty. Therefore, learning to think probabilistically (assessing subjective probabilities of various scenarios and updating these probabilities with new information) is a critical life skill."   --Dan Levy. Maxims for Thinking Analytically

And THE critical investing skill... of course...

Have a great day!
Marty