Porkbelly futures and plain-vanilla interest rate swaps not exciting enough?

Well now you can invest in a pitcher! For $50,000, you can buy 4% of 25-year-old minor league relief pitcher Randy Newsom's future Major League earnings. That means that he'll need to earn $1.25 million in the majors before you start raking it in.

Newsom has set up Real Sports Investments LLC to broker the deal, and he describes it this way:

Investing in a player is similar to investing in a company. If the company makes money, the investors get paid in the form of a dividend. If an athlete you own shares in makes it to the big leagues, then you will be paid a percentage of his contract .... Investors can also trade their shares to other willing buyers and sellers via this website. Shares will increase or decrease in value based on the athlete's future earning potential and supply and demand.

It's certainly an interesting idea, and Newsom is hoping to get other players to sign up to offer a portion of their future earnings.

One concern is that at 25, Newsom has never pitched past Double-A, although he did notch 18 saves there last year. But the idea certainly makes sense and Newsom definitely has a future in business, if not in pitching.

Ready to start your due diligence? Watch this YouTube video of him pitching and decide whether you think he has a future.

Invest in a pitcher! The next Nolan Ryan? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

U.S. government bonds have plunged in recent weeks, dragged down by worries over inflation, rising interest rates overseas, an apparent buyer's strike by some foreign central banks, and hedging by traders in other fixed-income markets.

However, a number of technical indicators suggest the selling may be overdone, at least in the short-term.

Using the iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (AMEX: TLT) as a proxy, the accompanying chart indicates that bond prices are near levels that have provided solid support over the past five years.

Volume has also spiked, suggesting that the most recent leg down represents a "selling climax" of some sort.

Finally, momentum, in the guise of 14-day RSI, a popular technical indicator, is at its lowest reading since the exchange-traded fund was first listed, signaling that that the market has likely gone too far, too fast.

While there are various signs that the long bull market in bonds could be over and that yields are now in the early stages of a secular uptrend, the immediate technical evidence nonetheless suggests that bond prices -- and the Treasury Bond ETF -- are poised for a decent bounce.

Michael Panzner is a 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes and The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle: An Insider's Guide to Successful Investing in a Changing World.

Bonds: worth a shot in the near term? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.