But the bigger question. . . why does it matter what happened to cause the rally? The point is, prices went up. Bonds fell, the dollar rose, the Dow climbed 400. We know all this now. Now we have to deal with it and try to do so dispassionately, or we'll be trading based on conspiracy theories, wild ass guesses, hopes, and our own built in biases. This is why I am on sorta hiatus -- I was spending too much time on those intangibles and not on simple things like PRICE.
Today's action doesn't void bear cases for the near term, I realize (see Velo's count or, as I recall, Jerry Favors, who had been calling for a top today +/- 1 day, then a plunge to 7K Dow. If anyone has a Favors update, I'd like to see it, btw). Dow still seems wedgy to me. Volume sucks. (VIX is worrisome, though) No, today didn't turn me into a raging bull or a burnt short.
But that said, since July 24th, the market, particularly non-tech, has been trending up, and there's been a ton of focus on why the move isn't real or is manufactured or whatever. That's beside the point if one is trading, isn't it? S+P is up 140+ points. Even the sad Naz is up 10%. Countertrend or not, it's a genuine rally. Those shorting SHOULD have been able to stay out of most of the rise. Those trading actively shoulda caught a lot of the up. 17% S+P rallies are rare, ya know.
As AA said today, looking at "more bullish" versions of a count that allows this correction to stretch on seems to be prudent. You only have to look back to last September to see a bottom that wasn't THE bottom and was met with tons and tons of bear doubt. Ultimately, the move up from September was just a correction of some sort. . . but it lasted a long time.
Anyway, the focus on minutia while missing the bigger picture is what was behind my already-refreshing hiatus that will, I promise, continue in fits and starts <g>. So perhaps I'm just ranting. If so, I apologize. For all I know, tomorrow marks the top and we get our new lows. We'll see.
the freep |
