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Off to the races. Yesterday was an up day after the big down day on Monday (two steps forward, one step back) as we head downward. Today had both. We started out down, raced upwards and then came falling down late in the day. We've had a successful retest of the upward channel that the markets were riding on the way up. Next week we'll be seeing the S&P back below 800 again if all goes according to plan. I'm short and hope to hold on for the full move without chickening out. Even though I have target prices I worry about any changes in trend and tend to sell early.We still have a lot of quarterly earnings to go. Just a matter of which ones are nothing but smoke and mirrors. The outlooks for future quarters aren't looking very good so far for the companies that have reported so far.Watch the banks. That's what I'm short (a 3x bear fund named FAZ).And how about them 'Canes!!! A big win with 2 tenths of a second left in regulation. Incredible.
Everything is still right on track. The peak I called for at 850 was exceeded by 3%. I can live with that. Today was the first substantial pullback in quite a while. A big 4% down day on the S&P.My target of 750-770 appears to be right on. The only question is how long it'll take to get there. The usual 2 steps forward (down), 1 step back (up) should take place. I went short on Friday but when I saw the premarket trading so low I took my 8.5% profit and thought I did well. I missed out on an extra 22%. Amazing. I was in a 3x bear fund (FAZ) and it was up 30% today! That's ok, I'll get back in as soon as the market moves up a little.Keep an eye on 768 as the magic point. If things feel right I'll put all of my retirement in around that point.P.S. - The banks earnings that everyone was so excited about were all smoke and mirrors and in a quarter or two it's going to be shown just how horrible shape they're in.By the way, after we hit 768 we'll resume the rally upwards and get to the 1000 level (remember 10,000 on the Dow is very possible and likely).
850 was broken on the upside and we peaked at 875 late last week. I won't be surprised by one last gasp up to 881. If it happens, that's it for now... down we go. We could just head down from here. I'm not sure of a target. 810... 770... 750 are all in play.It's so funny reading the CNBC.COM website on a daily basis. Headlines run the full spectrum "S&P headed to 1000"... "S&P to break down to 600". I'm glad they give equal time to the bulls and the bears, but all it does is confuse everyone. I try to focus on analysts that have been right in the recent past. Nobody is right all the time, but you kind of have to go with who has the hot hand. Knowing when to switch to someone that has what sounds like an outrageous call is hard to figure out. Roubini, Whitney, Schiff all sounded like crackpots in 2006/2007 when they were issuing warnings of what was coming. Now when do you listen to the hairbrained comments that the S&P will hit all time highs by the end of 2009 (yes, there was a guy on CNBC this morning that actually said that). That's why I'm becoming a pure technical analysis and pattern kind of guy. The charts will guide you.Let's see what Wall Street wants to do with our money this week.
Today was a good start on the move back down today. Goldman Sachs earnings looked good initially but the stock took a 10% haircut today for a couple of reasons. One of which was the 5 billion in new stock they were selling and the other was that in their earnings release there was an extra month (or a missing month) in there. They changed their calendar year and the month of December which was a huge loss somehow got lost in the shuffle and not included in their numbers. ALSO, in January and February they received huge payments from AIG for bad investments (AIG insured them). Unbelievable. Our tax dollars going to AIG in order to payoff Goldman who also received bailout money and Goldman tries to pass it off as "profit". Manipulation at its finest.I won't be shocked by one more quick pop up but I don't think it'll actually happen. Intel released their numbers after the bell and are getting smacked down in afterhours trading. 770 is looking like a valid target. Two steps up, one step back. 666 - 864, 50% retrace is typical, would take us to 765.Check out the new addition to the My Blogs list on the left. Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor has some very interesting things to say in his posts. Today he talks about Tim Geithner about to go back, hat in hand to Congress to ask for more TARP money... unbelievable.We're still a long way from this entire mess being fixed and better. The rally we'll see that takes us to Dow 10,000 will be the last gasp of hope... and then reality will set in.But we know what's going on and we will be prepared for it. Right? Right.
I hereby declare this rally temporarily over. My target of the 850 range has been hit, now it's time to backtrack a little bit. I'm sticking to my revised number of 770 as the target. The talking heads have been having a field day the past 5 weeks proclaiming the recession and the depression over. We've had a nice 25% rally from the bottom. However, if you look back to October, November we had it happen once before and then we continued moving down. We've hit a very interesting resistence line and if we do start moving down it'll be interesting to see how far down we end up going.I bought some short shares Thursday and today and I'm hoping for the pullback now. And if things look as I expect them to I'll be putting my retirement money in.Have fun everyone.
Wake me up when something happens. We hit the top area of my target. Could still see one last mini-spike to the 855 area of the S&P, but then we should roll over. Earnings season is starting and there's no telling what to expect. Sure, things will be bad, but everyone has known that. The question is, will it be far worse than expected?There are still so many games being played particularly by the big banks that it's difficult to get a grasp of how things truly are. Don't be suprised if Citi and Bank of America report better than expected earnings but that's only because they received some huge payoffs from AIG. Yep, our tax money at work... bail out AIG so they can pay off their bad bets to the banks that are also receiving our money... it's ludicrous. I'm in no rush to get back into the market. There is nothing enticing to me at this point. Is there anything as far as data that makes things look promising? Not yet. At least not to me. I may very well be a little late to the party, but I'd rather be late than early in this case. I'll be ready though and I look forward to it.See ya at 750? Who knows. Could be 900.I'm sticking to my prediction. 750-770 is the next level.
Alright, my Iggy call was for the S&P to hit 835-850. It hit 845 today. Next stop is down if things go according to plan. I called for 710-730 but I think that's way too far now. With your permission I'd like to adjust that to 750-770. We moved too high, too fast for us to go back as far as I first thought. We'll see if I get close. I'm hoping so, I want to get the big money back in and working for me. It's been a wild ride this past month. Much sharper rally than I expected that's for sure. I hate that I missed half of it. But I'm happy being in the cautious camp. I don't want to get caught surprised on the downside.Hopefully my next update will have us in the mid 700's.
With end of month, end of quarter, mark to market, G20 summit, auto gyrations and a number of other events, the market has been jumping all over the place.We ended March on a good note with an up month for the first time since August. Where to from here? I dunno.My call the other day is still in play. We never made it up to 835 range, and we dropped to the 780's, but haven't hit either end of my spectrum. I'm sitting on the sidelines until something is definitive. I want some certainty before I get back in. If there's another leg down, fine, get to it already.If we're heading up, fine, let's go.Q1 earnings will be coming out soon and they won't be pretty. But has that been priced in already? We'll have to see how the market reacts. If there's bad news and we move up, we're ready to rally.Wake me up when things start happening one way or the other.
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