One thing I really enjoy about writing my own investment blog is that I get to put my own wild ideas out there for anyone and everyone to see. I woke up with an off-the-wall idea this morning and thought for a moment this one might be too crazy. But the more I thought about it the more it seemed to make sense. Or at least it makes sense to me right now, half-way through my first coffee of the morning.

This ¾% interest rate cut the Fed made the other day has bothered me since I first heard the news. My first reaction was that it would do no good. Indeed the market's first reaction was just that. Sorry, that won't quite do it. My later reaction was that a ¾ point had to have some effect. Surely enough, the markets seemed to have the same idea. We saw a rebound.

The markets will open in a little over an hour. Futures point to what's known as a gap down day. That is, there will be a sizable gap between where market indexes, and the stocks of which they are comprised, closed on Friday and where they will open this morning. The only real question to be answered at this point is: How low will it go.

There are over 2 million mortgages out there covering homes sheltering families who are overextended. If they can barely make payments now, what happens when their payments go up as their Adjustable Rate Mortgages ratchet up to market rates?

Even if some plan is enacted which freezes their rates, many are still in trouble. A recession invariably puts people out of work. This recession looks as if it will occur in an inflationary period. Higher prices for food and clothing and transportation will certainly put a strain on homeowners already strapped trying to make mortgage payments.

We've now come to the point where everyone finally believes we're headed for, or in, an economic recession. So far so good. Now begins the process of identifying the quick fix.

We all want a quick fix to this thing: Just take this pill and go have a nap. When you wake up it will all be over and we'll live happily ever after. Trouble is, tax rebates aren't going to do much good, if any. A good portion of the rebates under discussion will simply be socked away.

And it's easy to see why the economic stimulus package under discussion is the leading quick fix candidate. This recession is fueling itself with a nasty combination of rising prices and contraction in the business cycle led by slowed spending on the part of the consumer. Handing the consumer a check to go out and spend presumably will jump start spending, providing needed cash to businesses, who can use the cash to pay suppliers, who will then in turn spend that cash with their suppliers...

If people take their tax rebate checks and stash them away - Incidentally, this is a good time to invest found money in stocks. - the cycle of spending never begins. The quick fix won't work.

Assuming you're like me and live in the United States, you're no stranger to the fact that the US investment climate hasn't been very good lately. That's a bit of an understatement, I know. Sorry, it's early in the week.

Anyone out there still trying to time the market? Buying on dips? Where are you finding additional funds to invest? Last week the NASDAQ ended a 9 day losing streak. The next day it resumed its succession of lower closes. How do you decide when you've reached the bottom of a dip?

One of these days we'll get around to making it official. It takes a committee to decide, and they have guidelines, but soon they'll say the word. Recession.

Until they do the US markets will remain ugly. They may stay that way until well after economists make the recession proclamation. Me, I'm focused on whether this recession stays at home or goes global.

The New York Times is running a story today describing a study run in the northwest. Utility customers were given a digital "knob" to turn on a web page. The position of the knob indicated to the electric company how much discomfort the customer was willing to trade for lowering his or her electric bill.

The idea is simple: Choose a range you're willing to live with. That sets a range for your demand. The electric company then aggregates demand from all customers. The result is a range of electricity demand which they can go to market to purchase.

It's a pretty clever idea. By going to market with a range of supply to purchase rather than a fixed amount, the utility company gains purchasing power. If the price for an extra kW of power is incrementally too high, they can choose not to purchase it. The customers for whom the extra electricity was not purchased, by extension, don't have to pay for it either.

It's not unlike your deciding to buy a smaller bunch of bananas at the supermarket this week because the price was higher than you like.

Whatever happened to the leading indicator? Remember the days when leading economic indicators were the hot news topic? These days the news tells us things we already know. Things that have been developing and going on for months now.

Didn't we already know the economy was headed south? Who thought, for instance, that higher gas and grocery prices and record mortgage foreclosures probably would not take a bite out of spending somewhere? How many people have that much left over after gas, groceries and mortgage that they can shift over?

Well I guess there is always the old standby, the credit card. Ah, but wait, we can't go further into debt because we're already maxed out on our credit cards. Gotta make those minimum payments.

What happened to the leading indicator? Somewhere along the line we decided it was better that we not know. Or rather we decided that we did not want to be told.

An old acquaintance called me up a few weeks ago with a business proposition. He wanted me to come in as an investor in his business. I said I might be interested and agreed to meet with him to discuss it.

Since that time we've met on a few occasions. Our last meeting was just a few days ago. In each of these meetings the pitch has remained the same: I should buy in, because when this business takes off again in a few month's time it'll be a lot more expensive.

Now, when I'm presented with an "urgent" opportunity, the first thing I usually do is toss it into the round file. I couldn't exactly do that here. My fallback action is to ask questions.

I hope you had a fabulous holiday. I know I did. Every year is brighter and better than every year before. Having the family together again, even for only the very short time, was long overdue and very rewarding. I even found it instructional in one way.

My sister brought a new idea to our family get-together this year. She asked everyone to bring a low-cost gift to contribute to a gift exchange game. The game she wanted us to play involved a combination of strategy and chance. All he gifts were put in the center of the room. Depending on the roll of the dice, each player would either choose a gift from the pool of gifts, give his or her gift to someone else, or take a gift from someone else.

It's been a decent market this year. It'll likely continue into next year. Nevertheless the market has had its weak spots. If you're like most good investors, you're doing the end of year juggling act. You're working on rebalancing your portfolio; positioning yourself ahead of the trends for the new year; staying on top of gains and losses; and watching the tax consequences of everything you do.

It's not easy. Further complicating the matter is the Wash Sale Rule. The Wash Sale Rule was put into place to prevent investors from gaining a tax benefit by marking stocks to market.

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning when I saw this article: Buying Opportunities Are Certain to Return in the Wall Street Journal.

So much can be said in so few words. I hadn't even realized I'd missed a buying opportunity! Ah, but there is hope. The title hints there will be other buying opportunities. It practically begged me to give it a read to find out when and where.

It turns out it's an article about the author's Common Sense market timing strategy. In a nutshell, his system says that market declines of 10% are buying opportunities and that rises of 22% are sell indicators. Those aren't hard and fast trigger points. He says if you want to trade more actively you can set the trigger points closer together, say at 8% and 20%. Or if you don't want that much trading activity, just set them further apart.

The Common Sense timing strategy is intended to take advantage of market volatility. It quantifies the "buy on the dips and sell on the spikes" strategy. That's all fine and well in theory, but I have to ask how one goes about putting it into practice?