Special Report -- signalwatch.com
Rally anticipated as Nasdaq approaches bottom formation and intense nationalism surges.
This edition of SignalWatch is perhaps the most challenging of any I have written over the last three years of daily publishing. What does one say about the market in the wake of the events of this week?
As you know, I am a technician. I believe in chart patterns. And, I think we have seen strong evidence over these past three years that these techniques work. Markets react at key support levels, and tend to honor such things as trend line breaks and fibonacci retracements. Therefore, each day at about 5pm Central, I look at the charts and assess the probability of an up market or down market based on what I call "fulcrums" or "lines in the sand" in the charts. Since technical analysis is based on psychology, the most obvious conclusion one would draw from a devastating attack on the financial center of the world, is that the market is going to go down. However, from everything I have seen this week, it would appear that Americans and the World have drawn their own "line in the sand."
I have included some special pages I would like you to review, below this introduction. These pages come from subscribers and folks who have passed emails along this week. While I think I'm pretty good at reading the Dow, you are going to have to be the judge this time. What I am seeing is a very strong attitude on the part of both Americans and our neighbors around the World - an attitude to "fight back" against terrorism by going Long next week. Because of this, I think we could see a very, very strong rally.
Now, I could certainly be wrong on this. And, I have outlined some conservative approaches in my commentary, below. But here's what I'm going to do: No matter what the Open looks like, we are going Long on this page. I don't care if it's down 100, 200, or 500. I will be Long, profesionally AND personally. Why? Because I feel the same as every one else. There is no way I would short a stock on Monday. Now, there is nothing wrong with going Short. It's an important part of trading. But it just doesn't feel right. It's a negative response. I can't do it. And, I don't think most other Americans can either. We're all mad and we want to fight back.
Please read the following articles. We are proud of our customers, proud to be Americans, and proud of our glorious free world markets - and the freedom to trade them. God bless all of you.
Ed Downs
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"Go Long, America."
Dear citizens,
Yesterday's attack was not just an attack on physical buildings - it was an attack on *your* business. It doesn't matter where you live - businesses around the world were attacked yesterday - make no mistake.
Some fear this attack will be "the straw that broke the camel's back" and send us spinning into a new depression.
I have to admit that yesterday, my first reaction was a poor one. Frankly, I was ready for war and even told people to protect themselves for such. Some people mistook my advice to mean, "Take guns to the streets and riot." Yikes. After the fact, I realized that *the* most important thing was to remain calm. I quickly began urging everyone to do so. However, now that we're all calm and collected, should we allow this to lower our spirits?
Demoralizing our people and paralyzing our country is exactly what the terrorists want.
Does it have to be so?
Yesterday evening I realized it was time to get back to business. I gave a friend of mine that advice and it was met with great resistance. My friend said, "Have some respect for the victims of the bombings! This needs to be a time of mourning."
Hmmm... I wonder. Is that really the best thing? I had to respectfully disagree with my friend.
I told him that the worst thing we can do is to do nothing. Yes we need to mourn, we need to grieve, but we also need to move forward. I pray that those who lost their lives, their friends and their families will not take this the wrong way. They truly have my deepest sympathies, and every fiber of my being screams out for justice, resolution, and peace.
We all feel this way, but we need to pick up the pace of commerce and industry again with a renewed sense of resolve. I don't know about you, but I refuse to let this cowardly attack change my way of life or destroy my business - the business I have sacrificed so much for in the last 7 years.
My business will move forward. Next week we will release a new product right on schedule. Do not think for a second that moving forward with your business is disrespectful of the victims of this attack. YOU were a victim of this attack. This was an attack on your freedom, with the aim of paralyzing your way of life and the way you conduct your business. Conducting business as usual is disrespectful of no one - except the cowards who are responsible for these acts.
Here is my plan. If you join me in this, you'll be doing your part to get the economy - and our spirits - roaring back:
1. Market your products today with no sense of shame. Do so with pride. As an act of defiance, engage in your marketing as you normally would... Better - do so with renewed enthusiasm.
2. There is a purchase you've been putting off... Put it off no longer. Make that purchase today.
3. Buy one product from one of your competitors.
4. Buy one thing that you don't need, but have wanted for along time.
5. When the markets open, buy a few shares with "going long" in mind.
I urge you to begin again today with a renewed resolve. Let's show these cowards we will not be stopped. Forward this message to all of your friends. Join with me to stop the virus of terrorism and spread the news of
prosperity and hope.
Let's do this. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. Right now.
All the best,
Mark
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Mark Joyner
CEO, Aesop.com
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You Missed America."
Letter to a terrorist:
"Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America.
You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America.
You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America.
Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!)
Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: "If you can not see my point, then feel my pain."
This concept is alien to Americans.
We live in a country where we don't have to see your point. But you're free to have one.
We don't have to listen to your speech.
But you're free to say one.
Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you. We don't agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride. We're a collection of guys that don't agree, called States. We united
our individual states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when it's your country. If you're free enough.
Yeah, we're easy-going goofs most of the time. That's an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It's unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans, they tend to fight like a cornered badger.
The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the first bully on our shores, just the most recent.
No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole world and we used 'em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project. Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a chain reaction that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a War to win.
Does that tell you something about American Resolve?
So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we're probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they're safe. Just like the
Barbary Pirates did. Better start sleeping with one eye open.
There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it.
You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won't change it.
Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.
Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time.
Sleep tight, if you can.
We're coming.
Charles Brennan
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AMERICA: THE GOOD NEIGHBOR
Widespread, but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator.
What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional record:
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"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the Earth. Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of War by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When the earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were
flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane.
Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC-10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about the Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about the German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about the American technocracy, and you find men on the moon. Not once, but several times and safely home again. You talk about
scandals, and the Americans put theirs in the store window for everybody to look at.
Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of those.
Stand Proud America!"
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Letters from the World to SignalWatch, Sept. 11-13
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Hello Mr. Ed Downs,
i'am sitting here in cologne, Germany, watching tv and i' am crying. You are my only contact to USA, so i wan't to write you, that i feel with the american people. In Germany they are all shocked.
Thank you for listening...
God bless America !
Bye
Wolfgang Kübel
Thank you, Wolfgang. We have heavy hearts today, and we greatly appreciate your email and sympathies expressed from Germany. - Ed Downs
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Dear Ed and Staff,
Please accept my sympathies at this difficult time. I hope none of you have lost loved ones. Innocent civilians should never have to suffer like this. Unfortunately it is all too common that they do, although not on this scale. Let us hope that the future sees an end to such atrocities.
Nic Stoneman, Wales, UK
Thank you, sir, for your kind letter. To my knowledge, no one at Nirvana had any relatives or family in the New York or DC areas. Being in Texas, we are far from the scene of today's events, but I can tell you that everyone here experienced a tremendous sense of pain, sorrow, and loss today. We appreciate you, and thank you for conveying sympathies from the United Kingdom. - Ed Downs
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From: Barry Jordan
Sent Tuesday, September 11, 2001 1:32 PM
To SignalWatch@nirvsys.com
Subject: Condolences
From everybody in England we are very sorry to hear of the terrible event in New York today. Regards and very best wishes.
Barry Jordan
Barry, Thank you for your kind email. We have received several emails from your countrymen, and we greatly appreciate the support. God bless... Ed Downs
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DEAR SignalWatch,
ALL OF US IN ISRAEL ARE DEEPLY SHOCKED AND SHARE YOUR SORROW AND GRIEF.
WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS THE TRAUMA WE ALL EXPERIENCE WHEN EXPOSED TO SUCH BARBARIC ACTS AGAINST HUMANITY.
THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT DECLARED TODAY, WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 12, A NATIONAL MOURNING DAY TO HONOR THE VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES.
THE AMERICAN NATION HAS THE POWER AND THE WILL TO OVERCOME THESE TRAGIC EVENTS, AND I AM CONFIDENT IT WILL CONTINUE TO LEAD THE FREE
WORLD IN IT'S STRUGGLE TO MAKE THIS PLANET A PEACEFUL PLACE TO LIVE, CREATE AND PROSPER.
FROM THE HOLLY LAND WE SEND TO YOU OUR PRAY AND HOPE FOR LOVE AND PEACE.
MOSHE SHALOM
ISRAEL
Moshe: Thank you for writing and sharing the condolences of Israel. As a world nation of humanity, I am confident that together, we can overcome the hatred and enmity of those very few who would seek to destroy all that we hold sacred. We deeply appreciate your nation's support and prayers. - Ed Downs
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Ed & the Team,
I just had to write to offer my sympathy after watching today's incredible and atrocious scenes. My Wife (works for CSAM, her bosses being New Yorkers) was in floods of tears; we just couldn't believe what we were watching, as the events unfolded.
I can't imagine what you and your team are going through right now, but I can assure you, and the whole of the U.S., that we in the U.K have been deeply saddened by the events of today.
Words fail me. Our thoughts are with you,
Steve & Michelle Roberts.
Steve and Michelle: Thank you for your warm letter. Our condolences and prayers extend to those Michelle knew who were in the path of this tragic event. As Texans, we are geographically distanced, but I can relate that we and everyone else in America continue to experience a profound sense of pain, sorrow, and loss at what has happened. We appreciate you, as both customers and friends, and thank you for conveying sympathies from the United Kingdom. - Ed Downs
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Ed
being a subscriber for a long time now, I'm just writing to know if everything is ok with you and your team over there.
compliments,
nuno malaquias
Thank you, Nuno. Yes, we are fine, though everyone here is still recovering from the events of yesterday. The markets will soon return to normal, but I don't think any of us will ever forget September 11, 2001. As I have told my staff, I believe the best way to fight terrorism, on an individual level, is to engage life, trade the markets, and be thankful for each day we have on this planet. Thank you for subscribing to SignalWatch, and for your thoughtfulness. - Ed Downs
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Hi folks, just one aussie trader wishing you all well. Hopefully all your near ones and dear ones are safe and sound, but if not our thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Margaret Macdonald.
Thank you, Margaret. We have received many supportive emails from Australia, which illustrates the strong bond that we share. God Bless you and your family. - Ed Downs |
