Last weekend I warned my bears: “DO NOT underestimate how irrational the markets can get.”
I also closed the wrap-up saying: “Keep in mind I am generally bullish – just not this bullish, this soon!” It was “Just Another Manic Monday” and it was indeed a manic-depressive week with 250 points gained on Monday almost entirely erased on Wednesday afternoon ahead of one of the week’s two massive stick saves that, overall, got us even for the week. The markets remain too close to call as we drift into the “TripleTop Testing Zone” I spoke about on Thursday Morning (but these are recoverylevels I’ve been predicting sincethe March lows). So it was yet another week of watching from the sidelines and making few trades – even in our $106,191 Portfolio Update on Tuesday, other than buying more FAZ to protect our gains, and setting stops on some winning positions, there was not much to do as even the mix of stops we set on that portfolio left us in a fairly neutral position going into the weekend.
Rather than do a Wrap-Up this week of a directionless week, let’s see what we can figure out by reading some bullish and bearish articles, hopefully figure out where we’re going in the week(s) ahead. It’s very good to be in cash, over the past two weeks we’ve had both bulls and bears screaming about market manipulation, statistics fraud and both green and brown shoots and having cash lets us laugh at everyone. While our cash out at 8,600 in early May did cause us to miss a 150-point gain in the market over the past month, we also missed a 300-point drop so it’s hard to say I regret my call at the time or my continued cautionon”Double Top Tuesday,”the 19th, where I said: “We continue to remain mainly in cash but playing for a drop unless another index breaks that 40% line at which point we will be forced to add some plays to the bull side despite our concerns.”
So, all we have been doing for the past 3 weeks is PATIENTLY (well, some of us have been patient) waiting mostly on the sidelines for our 40% (off the 2007 highs) levels to be broken. Those levels are: Dow 8,413, Nasdaq 1,717, S&P 946, NYSE 6,232, Russell 514, SOX 329 and Transports 1,868. TheDow is 4% over, Nasday is 7.7% over, S&P is…