KOL “will seek to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Stowe Coal Index (COAL). As of December 31, 2007, COAL comprised of the stocks of 60 publicly traded companies engaged in the mining and/or transportation of coal, the manufacture of coal mining equipment and the production of clean coal. COAL is calculated and maintained by Standard & Poor’s Custom Indices on behalf of Stowe Global Indexes LLC.”

The coal industry has been one of the top performing sectors in a tough market. And whenever there is major demand for something, we can be sure that Wall Street finds a way to quench the thirst by creating ETFs for the public to play, be it agribusiness, dot-com, China, biotech, commodities, currency, etc. Market participants must be aware of the phases of the sentiment cycle and invest/trade accordingly.

Let’s take a closer look at the companies that are part of the Stowe Coal Index and trade on US exchanges. As usual, the price bars are colored according to the status of our relative momentum indicator. Red = underperform. Yellow = neutral. Green = outperform. The dots are the InVivo.Stops.

As Charlie Chaplin eloquently said “In the end, everything is a gag.” Be sure to follow a balanced trading plan to avoid being part of the ‘gag’.