Influences of Stock Options on National Issues (Part 1)

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The stock market is not a level playing field. Stock quote dice are heavily loaded in favor of large corporations and large financial institutions. Small investors agonize endlessly over the tempestuousness and lack of logic of stock price trends. Derivatives, hedging, and short selling by large holders of stocks may be behind every unexplained movement in stock price. Regulations limit degrees of fluctuation within a single stock trading day, but officials are either helpless or parties to massive manipulations in day trading of some stocks. The situation, in this respect, is no better in developed democracies compared to totalitarian states.

You need not be a sacrificial animal to the stock market plays of the powerful. The roles of national policies in protecting certain stocks can be discerned by a patient and analytic observer. Deliberations in legislatures and the alacrity with which some new laws are framed are dead certain clues when it comes to predicting which stocks stand to benefit in a near-term perspective. Similarly, statements by executive heads of state and influential bureaucrats will often yield crucial information about which stocks stand to gain or to lose from sudden administrative actions. You cannot use this technology for long-term financial planning, but it can be useful for short term trading in selected stocks.

National Stocks for and against MTBE

Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) is a suspected carcinogen. Water becomes unfit for human use with no more than traces of MTBE. These completely unacceptable risks are stacked against minor and outdated advantages. MTBE helps old automobile engines function better. A host of new technologies are now available that do not require MTBE at all. The European Union is amongst the progressive and environment-conscious parts of the world, which has moved decisively against MTBE. There have been some feeble attempts from some quarters in the United States to eliminate MTBE from our water bodies and automobile engines, but they have borne scarce fruit.

Senator John Thune from South Dakota sponsored a bill to amend the Clean Air Act to rid our fuel supply of MTBE. The proposal has been under General Orders since May 2005. It remains in this moribund condition until the festive season of 2007. You have no fears if you have petroleum sector stocks, for MTBE shows no signs of going away. Even a shift to an ethanol oxygenate, which would benefit our farmers, is firmly tied in strong red tapes of technical controversies. We are not even able to impose strict deterrents against careless MTBE spills in to water bodies.

Influences of Stock Options on National Issues (Part 2)

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