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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: At_The_Ask who wrote (195941)	10/7/2002 6:03:09 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

Bob, the Color Commentator waxes historically on about the centrifuge-like swings in the market (from Mark-to-Market on capitalstool.com): Bob, the Color Commentator, was observing the hysteria from the futures pits: “For now, intraday there is a dedicated, knee jerk, Jim Jonestown style program buying coming in on every -1,000 TICK in Dow. I think it’s robotic and automatic. Note the ballistics in the index when we 'double bottomed' off the 5 minute. Literally every possibility of a double b is being bought and then chased in a scatter gun approach. It’s like Lee at Gettysburg. Keep throwing everything at the right flank, then the left flank, then the center with the vague hope that at some point it breaks and you can roll it back up and finally end the war. But the war lasted longer than anyone expected.” Once again, the short sellers were blasted out of their positions. Then we drifted down sideways, and the “bullish flag” speculators over at TC2000 started “buying on weakness”. But the next leg up never materialized, and we drove down to new lows by the close, with a brief spurt near the end. Still no severe negative TICK readings to report, other than the –1000 TICK Bob reported during the initial selloff. Maybe we will get a tradeable low soon. But not until the “bottom” catchers are chased out. Go to any stock trading message board, and you see ridiculous knife catching posts like “going long tech trash now” or “buying in for the bounce” and then later in the day you see the “stopped out” post. These same guys keep reloading and reloading as we go lower, and I think that eventually we’ll hear something like this: “No way I’m going long until the ILWU crisis is resolved.” “I’m not buying anything. Just in case a banking crisis is developing.” “Going long stocks when a war is starting is suicide.” “Lets stay on the sidelines and make sure Brazil or Japan don’t blow up first” That kind of short term sentiment, combined with some 90% down days and some –1300 TICK readings may be closer to a tradeable low. But still no sign of it yet. It is amazing how anxious people are to buy stocks at these levels. One real time example of what a genuine low or “pullback” looks like is the gold stock market. The gold bulls are scared to death, are disgusted with the price action of these stocks, and have all but given up on the prospect of taking out the old highs. Fear is increasing exponentially as these stocks move lower. Yet excitement is building on those eyeballing the QQQ to ride the next mania. I will be closing out some of my short funds in my IRA accounts soon in order to take advantage of the gold and silver stock weakness. In the meantime, the hopers are still buying the old mania favorites. The Color Commentator sums up the scene the best: “The markets just in slow, systematic sell mode. Most melodramatists are disappointed since they are not getting fantastical waterfall crash with Tom Costello out walking the wall like the good ole days. When I look at this thing I think of the last scene in Spartacus. Kirk Douglas up there on the cross, he maybe has a few more hours left in the hot Roman sun and Jean Simmons stops by to show him the value of his retirement portfolio. "Spartacus, oh Spartacus... look at your CSCO... isn't he beautiful?"