Yesterday I got a corrected 1099 from E-Trade but despite its having come a day before St. Patrick’s Day, it still shows that my now-sold shares of Cryptologic (CRYP of Dublin, Ireland) as having been subject to withholding taxes by Georgia (a country in the Caucasus). My latest 1099 also still shows my various Australian shares as having been taxed by Austria.

But the new correction (my 3rd 1099 from the brokerage) adds a new error. It shows that my account paid withholding taxes to North Korea on a Big Board-listed company I own shares of. I can just imagine how the International Revenue Service will react to this information. North Korea, the Hermit State, is a Communist outlaw. It has no stock market and no listed stocks in the USA.

Kim Sung-Il, the fellow with the funny hair, the high heels, the sunglasses, and the nuclear weapons, does not stroll down Wall St. Except in the imagination of E-Trade Financial.

Now with so much stupidity in my 1099 from E-trade, I naturally begin to wonder if the other tallies of payouts to me are corect and taxable accordingly. One big ticket worry is the $2000 shown as “***rights sale” via 7 separate operations in the course of April and May of last year. I did in fact sell the shares in question, in HSBC, a bank, and I did get about $1600 in proceeds from the straight sale. But I cannot even find the rights payouts in my monthly statements.

Because I am off to Europe tonight, I have filed for an extension with the IRS. Presumably when I have returned to the USA on April 21, there will be more corrected 1099s from E-trade for me and the accountant to go over. I will of course file my blogs.

Tom McClellan writes that “Tuesdays’ close in the April Gold contract was above the Price Oscillator Unchanged line.” The chartist service says “this promises us a higher closing high on the ensuing move.” Tom, a 2nd generation chartist, edits The McClellan Market Report. While I am skeptical about technical analysis for individual stocks, I think a macroeconomic major indicator like gold may be chartable. GLD, IAU

Paul Renaud writes from Thailand:

Note how the Thai SET rocketed up yesterday, just as they spilled blood in the streets.

More for paid subscribers on his stock picks there follows as well as word on stocks from South Korea, Israel, France, Germany, and Brazil.