Click charts to enlarge
The chart of the Dow at the top shows the market's inability to break out of a 4 month trading range. Support is obvious, it's in the 7900 area with 7500 as the "last resort, must-hold or all bets are off" bottom. Resistance is not as obvious, but it is descending. That much is clear, hence the large descending triangle we drew on the chart. We used a 75 day moving average simply because it served as resistance in September and again in early January. If you want to use a moving average as resistance, start with the 75dma. A break of the 50dma is meaningless, as we've broken it several times with no great consequence. At some point, it is inevitable that the market will break support or resistance. The convergence of these lines suggests that one of them will be broken before April Fool's Day. Considering its a downtrending chart trading below a downtrending moving average, our guess would normally be that it will break down. As logical as this sounds, we have to take into account that the market is still grossly oversold (technically) from its crash in early October. The chart at the bottom shows the larger perspective.
The market "normally" corrects at the angle indicated by the channel. October's crash puts us into technical oversold territory. Our running theory has been that the market will "bounce back" to the averages before falling further. At least this approach carried little risk, considering another plunge following October's crash seemed a highly unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, there simply hasn't been enough buying interest to prop the markets back up. Hence this slow, painfully boring sideways market. Considering the likelyhood of a powerful, sustained rally is unlikely, it looks like only two options remain.
Option 1: A continuation of the same. A range-bound market which spends the next 12 to 18 months consolidating between Dow 7500 and 9500.
Option 2: A break of support. A new leg down. Dow 6,000.
We feel that while the market could make new lows, a substantial new leg down to a level like Dow 6,000 is unlikely. Dow 7,300 perhaps, but not much worse than that. We're going to take the approach of buying on dips below 8,000 and selling on rallies as close to 9,000 as possible. That's our game plan for 2009. If we're wrong and the market moves to 11,000, then we'll make a nice profit on the 33% of our account which is stubbornly staying in DDM and SSO through thick and thin. If instead the market moves to 6,000, America will be in such poor shape that our stock market losses will be the least our our problems.
Madoff update:
Madoff remains under house arrest after stealing $50B, free to distribute his stolen assets to his friends and family at his discretion.
A New Jersey toll collector was sent to jail for 3 years after stealing $11,000 from a safe, and has been ordered to return every penny of the stolen money.
The message is clear. In America, justice is served based not on your crime, but on the power of your legal team. If you plan on being a thief, just be sure to steal a few million extra to pay for the right representation. OJ was not available for comment
AI
