It seems odd, but after three months in Spain, with a couple of quick trips to Ireland and France, and over 5,000 miles on the road, I feel as if I barely got to know the place. I would still like to explore the whole western border with Portugal, the northern coast from A. Coru?a to Bilbao, and the southern tip of the peninsula and then into Morocco. I thought I could get all that done in three months, but I had some problems along the way that set me back just about a month. In any case, as I write this in my hotel room the night before my plane takes me home, I know I will return to finish my explorations. The only question is when …

Every morning, my day starts with news, information about markets, about issues that affect the markets, and in that news you can always count on something about the global economy, a specific country’s economy, or more than likely, the US economy. After all, the latter is the largest economy on the planet. It dwarfs the second largest economy on the planet (China) by some 300%. Given this, I am not sure how anyone can seriously write about fundamental market analysis without understanding and writing about the economies of the world. Thus, the question below perplexed me at first, but then as I thought about it, I understood where the reader was coming from and what he was asking for.

You always write about the global economy and the US economy. Why don’t you ever write about specific trades to make or specific markets that will go up or down? It seems that should be your job.

So the first part of the question I already addressed – I have to write about the global economies because they affect all markets. In fact, economies are all markets, in one way or another. As to the second part. I don’t offer specific trades because that is not my job, which brings me to the third part of the question – what is my job?

My job here at TraderPlanet is to educate you the trader or investor. Now there are many ways I can do that, but the way I choose to do it is the way I learned how to understand market movement. I learned early on that for me to understand market movement, broad or specific, I needed to understand economic fundamentals. Simply, “the market” is the clearest representation of the global economy I know. In fact, I would say they are in lock step, more or less. True, the market deviates now and then from the real economic flow, but the fact remains even if the market is misguided, it is still tracking the economic fundamentals on a global scale. Ultimately, the market cares more about the flow of money than anything else, and the flow of money is about commerce, and commerce makes up all global economies. In my mind, the difference between markets and economies is so slight one would need a highly calibrated, electronic instrument to measure it.

Yet, I understand where the reader is coming from. He is asking for what so may folks out there ask for – someone to point the way. Although I don’t point out specific trades, I do point the way. Sometimes I do it more indirectly than directly. A little over a year ago, I pointed to technology and financial as opportunities. A couple months back, I suggested you take care with the financial sector. Recently, I pointed to statistics around cell phone use and how smart phones were taking up the wireless real estate quickly. The important point I made was that smart phones were just small computers. In other words, keep your eye on computer/software technology, and all its associated threads.

So in the end, I do my job, which is to educate first and point to opportunity second. I hope that works because I don’t see myself changing all that much.

Trade in the day; Invest in your life …

Trader Ed