1000th post

This post is my 1000th post.

If you don't have anything of quality to say, make up for it in volume. That's my motto.

Or at least it would be, if I start having a motto.

Crazy Delicious

Nope, no new analysis (or even a new video), just a lazy Sunday



.... Snack Attack Motherfucker

Who? Who does not want to wear the ribbon?!!

Nothing particularly predictive or useful here. Just having fun playing with MA ribbons. This is really just a bit of (ch)art. :)

If the market keeps this up, I will start making Tommy Boy quotes again

Well, the Ending Diagonal count no longer looks particularly compelling, and I have yet to see a nice count that doesn't make me want to 'puke my guts out'.

Time to start eating paint chips and wait for the market to resolve the divergences.

Avast!

Here be me reasons for thinkin this wave be done.

..... [alright Captain binv, let's lay off the pirate talk, okay?]

fine (sobbing into his Rum)

Exhibit 1 -- The VIX. Has been putting in a bottoming stance complete with positive divergence for several weeks. Today marks a downtrend breakout.


Exhibit 2 -- the McClellan Oscillator. Has been diverging for a couple weeks as well. This is very common before a trend change.


Exhibit 3 -- Decisive trend breaks on *ALL* the major US indices. See highlights in yellow.


Exhibits 4 and 5 -- Major indices either flirting with or trading back below major moving averages.




Exhibit 6 -- It just "looks done". Clear break out of the wedge accompanied by some serious negative divergence on a 60 minute chart.


--------------------------------

So could this be a fakeout? Yep
Could we trade higher? Yep

This market has been eating bears alive for months. But the fact that all of this behavior is confirmed across so many indices means that I think that this is not simply a 'B wave' down or some short term trend change (Minute degree or lower).

This (to me at any rate) has the earmarks of a Minor Degree trend change.

.... Arrrrr :)

Ahoy Matey

Are we be seein' the hump of a Wave 2 peak. Methinks ... "perchance", with a very strong inclination towards "aye" ... :)

(Hey Q!, if you be around :) )

Here is my favored micro



And here is my favored Minor Degree count. Just look at all these massive negative divergences. Go on, LOOK AT THEM SAYS I !!!! ... [Capt. binv needs to lay off the rum]



Avast!, the NYMO continues to diverge!

Ugly Ugly

Moe: I've been called ugly, pug-ugly, fugly, pug-fugly ... but never ugly-ugly.


Moe is ugly. Moe starts with "M". Market starts with "M".
Coincidence? .... I think not!!!
Is correction done today? Could be.

If this is the case, and a 38% retrace was all she wrote, then we should expect a massive down day tomorrow. Retraces within extensions are typically 23-38%. Tomorrow might be real ugly. (and not pug-ugly, but ugly ugly).

Man, I *love* being wrong

I was saying that I thought the move yesterday was most likely a B wave. I was skeptical of a set of 1-2's based on the lack of dynamics (and I thought OPEX manipulators would give us a huge run up today). Market instead decided to start shitting a brick (question: if you have diarrhea and you are about to shit a brick, is it just clay?)

Just a question because the market is looking like a pile of loose stool.

.... Hey, I warned you *months* ago of my affinity for poop jokes. But you keep coming back for more!! MWAAAA HAA HAAAAAA!!!!



.... anywhoo .....

I am glad to be wrong in the count because this keeps getting more imminently bearish and my shorts are A-OK with that.

We are now back to where we were 1 week and a half ago, 1 trillion dollars poorer. No trader or fat-finger trade to blame the sell-off on.

This is not "evil short sellers manipulating the market down". This is the bulls getting a hangover from a year and a half of binge buying. This is not selling pressure as much as it is a lack of buying pressure. And when the dip buyers really give up ... watch out below.

Some say wealth is an illusion...

[for any Arrested Development fans out there]

Give me a dollar, no! the twenty. This is gonna blow your mind. Some say wealth is an illusion, well let's just see. For one moment it's here and the next...


.. Monopoly. You don't have it do you?

George Michael Bluth: I think I might.
Gob: Thats good cause alot of the pieces are missing. Ah, to play monopoly with my family again. I'd give anything to be eight.
George Michael Bluth: I'm thirteen.
Gob: Nah, I wasn't crazy about thirteen. The acne, the self-consciousness, the erections. You okay?
George Michael Bluth: Yeah, I'm good
Gob: Hey! there's the man I came to see.
George Michael Bluth: Uh, Uncle Gob where's the twenty?
Gob: Hey! a magician never reveals his secrets, that's what I started the whole alliance about.
George Michael Bluth: I don't need the secret I just need the...
Gob: What you need to know...
[dramatic pause]
Gob: Is that it's magic.
George Michael Bluth: Wow... It's so much like stealing.

hmmmm..... Monopoly money, stealing, where have I heard that one before... oh yeah:

This is my BOOMSTICK!!

So I am looking at Smith & Wesson Holding (SWHC). I have not done a single drop of fundamental analysis on this company and I had not looked at their chart in years (back when it was crashing). But I am looking at it now, and it looks good. Real good. "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun." And in this case, it looks like guns are good.



This chart has definitely piqued my interest.

Shop smart. Shop S(WHC)-Mart. You got that!

Now it's sale time, so remember, we don't take no-- No shit from anyone! No. Um, we don't take no prisoners! We don't take no for answer. Oh yeah.

Except me, I should take no for an answer :(.

Ending diagonal is dead, impulsive it is. (golf clap from the gallery)

I Will Not Count Corrective Moves As Impulses

I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses. I will not count corrective moves as impulses.

.... All work and no play makes binv a dull boy.

Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid? [laughs] Why?

LOL! This action is just funny. ... funny is the word I am looking for right?

I had a great alternate title lined up for today, but I may not get to use it :(

Oh well. Let the Tommy Boy shtick continue!!!

Bull Math?

When thinking about being bullish or bearish, consider this equation:

Bull equation: Add positive news and subtract negative news. But negative news has a minus sign. So subtracting a negative is a positive!! = *everything* is bullish!!

(portrait of binve courtesy of Master33) :) Thanks man!

For the love of God, sir, there are two seats!

Burns: (sticks his head out of the pod for a second) I like to put my feet up

It's the Montgomery Burns / Lloyd Blankfein / Goldman Sachs Escape Pod taking off!! All the bulls jump on board!! Time to leave the bears (and Smithers) behind!!



For those of you not familiar with the episode, please read this synopsis to learn what happens to the escape pod

This is Officer 1BDI, Requesting Backup.

.... We'll be there in 5 minutes.

And you know what else needs some backup? Yep, you guessed it, the old Baltic Dry Index (BDI). My last post on the BDI was back in October (If the BDI is a Leading Indicator ...). It turns out it needed to make one more high, and in doing so went up to the 38% retrace line and a large resistance zone and turned sharply back down.

This week it confirmed the downtrend by breaking through its first small support. Larger support lies just a little bit below that. If the next support is broken ... look out below.

Additionally, I am continuing with the "Leading Indicator" pun for the BDI. Some still maintain that it is a leading indicator (which is debatable), yet it began its turn down nearly 2 months before the current correction in the equity market. So again I ask, if it is a leading indicator, what direction does it seem to be forecasting?

.... your call dude.



And the title, besides being a pun on the Baltic Dry Index / BDI symbol, is taken from Leela's call sign in Space Pilot 3000 from Futurama. Good times :)

You My One-Eyed Crab

We are in the middle of silly season. The market is meandering like a piece of tissue paper blowing in a bullish breeze.

So to add a little lightness to the Holiday Season, I wanted to share a picture that amuses me a lot. Our cat got a catnip stuffed crab for Christmas and within 2 minutes he tore one of the felt pupils off the poor crabs eyes



So I have the line "One-Eyed Crab" stuck in my head, to the tune of Brown-Eyed Girl of course :)

Just sharing a little bit of binv's insanity. Be thankful, this is just one post. I have to live with myself every day .... :)

(Hidden Camera) Investor, Do You Realize That the Last 9 Months Was Not the Beginning of a New Bull Market But Just a Large Bear Market Rally?

Sorry to continue this shtick, but when you are on a roll ... :)

To go along with the jokes that I made in these posts (Sit Ubu Sit .... Ubu?, Knock Knock, If You're Friends With P, Happy Fun Ball and Sometimes the Truest Points are Made Through Humor) here is one last one.

This rally has obfuscated the truth, that we are in a secular bear market. The long term (next several years) direction for the US equity market as a whole is down. But because the rally

a) lasted much longer than most bears thought likely
b) came with Wall St. analysts upgrading everything in sight and
c) was accompanied by Government economists declaring victory and the end of the recession,

it has suckered in a huge number of LTBH retail investors into becoming the bagholders.

See my rant in this post here: VIX Thoughts to Accompany a Few Count Options

So when we start crashing again (and I do not use this term lightly) and investors will realize they were mislead *again* (through Wall St. chicanery or simply outright incompetence) here is the reaction I would expect:

Knock Knock

- (Knock, Knock)
- Who's there?
- .... (scratching)
- Who's there ...?
- (scratch, scratch)
- What the? ... (sound of door creaking open)
- AHHHHHH!!!!!!
- ROAR!! (jaws snapping, claws scraping against wood, etc.)

... What did you expect the bear to say? It's just a bear.

Who wants a snack? (thanks MissMalibu !!) :)



So here is my count. And I know, I know, in my last post (RUT Broke the Oct 2 Low !!) I said maybe this is P2, maybe not, we will deal with it later.

But with the Russell breaking its Oct Low, this count has increased in possibility (moving away from the other alternate counts) by a huge margin.

So I feel entitled (and very happy) to use it :)



Here is the pattern chart, confirming the bearishness of the move.



So, lets revisit the P2 *confirmation* criteria, from from http://marketthoughtsandanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/whew-one-crazy-week-however-i-think.html

The most obvious question is: Did we reach the top (end of P2) last week, or if we have one small wave up next week, will that be the end of P2?

The best answer anyone can give you is: maybe.

That's all. I have opinions and thoughts on this matter, just like any analyst does. But they are irrelevant.

The top will happen when the top will happen. And we will never *know* it is the top when it occurs, we will only know after a confirmation move. What would be a confirmation move? I would like to see a clear impulsive *MINUTE DEGREE* wave down (5 full Minuette degree waves), followed by a 3 wave Minute degree correction with a lower high on all the major indices (SPX, INDU, RUT, COMPQ, and NDX), and then followed by another Minute degree wave down.

I think a move of that size will a) obviously break the 7 month wedge lines and b) be too large to ignore as a bull market correction because c) a 5-3-5 is either a 1-2-3 in an impulse or a zigzag, and I don't see another realistic Minor degree zigzag X-wave to extend this out to be a triple zigzag (I think we are in the 3rd zigzag now by my preferred count).

So thinking about P2 some more, there are a few things that we would expect to see at the end of P2. The final wave of P2 should have:

- Low volume
- Low volatility
- Low breadth and decreasing breadth as it moves up
- Daily divergences of technical indicators (MACD, RSI, and TRIN more importantly)
- Lots of extension with little pullback and possibly a 5th wave extension for a blow-off, not because of a bullish move but because of little bearish resistance.

And so while I am not calling the top here, I am remarking how much this current wave from Oct 2 fits nearly all of the criteria above.

Update 2:51pm

Here is the big count for good measure. Based on Columbia's count several weeks ago: http://ewtrendsandcharts.blogspot.com/2009/10/week-end-thoughts.html.

Thanks for all your awesome work Col !!!

Happy Fun Ball

We got a nice bounce off the 50% retrace Happy Fun Ball Style

Watch for a turn here. If the bulls want to continue this rally (i.e. if P2 is not over) then this is a critical point to put in a reversal.