Thursday, January 31, 2013

Key Threat to Utter Collapse

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had some interesting things to say at last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. There probably isn't a chaos-loving imperialist on the planet who isn't relishing Medvedev's admission that, danger of a global slump in raw material markets remains a key threat to the Russian economy.

Yet given smokescreens behind which political proclamations typically are couched, one wonders if the Bank of al Qaeda (Saudi Arabia) might be perceiving a different message. Enraged imperialists and al Qaeda's logistical enablers, evidently unable to hide their shame for having graduated at the bottom of their class at the Adolf Hitler School of Military Intrigue, could not help but sick their wild attack dog on Syria, blowing smoke right back in Russia's face.

Does our president ready for an "al Qaeda" strike on the homeland? Could his "team" of imperial lap dogs even discern this risk? Would an already enraged citizenry demand "sequestration" gut the nation's seditious, out-of-control, child murdering national security state should the Ivy League fail yet again? 



Where in God's name is Capo Confetti's grease going?!! Yet another volume betrayal of market "strength."

Medvedev's message, all the more substantiated with his revelation of a concerted effort to keep Russian energy supplies off the market and highlighting Russia's "[concern] over stagnation and the banking crisis in Europe, debt problems in the US and China’s structural risks," finds its rationale in a crude oil market whose demand evidently is becoming increasingly challenged. This being the case in the physical realm, and belying claims of economic recovery, what of a financial realm, itself, increasingly demand challenged, as well?

When you're venturing chaos whose intention over the next decade is consolidation of a global empire corralling marginalized, expendable slaves, economic collapse followed by hyperinflationary blowout might best be seen an effective means to reaching this objective. No better place to make this happen than a vital commodity whose imperial marshaling in a technologically restrained world (purposely imposed over the past forty years and only furthered with windmills) represents a key threat to all humanity, let alone Russia. Phase I, already well advanced, appears nearing its crescendo in utter collapse...


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

The market's levitation this month is entirely belied by the breadth of participation underlying it. Make no mistake. This spells trouble. Likewise, when it hits, the pain could be double...



Really, on only the first trading day of the new year was revealed the kind of backing we might cite as positively confirming the market's strength, such as has persisted ever since and with scarcely a pause at that. Indeed, other than 2013's first trading day, the breadth of advancing NYSE issues underpinning the market's undisturbed march higher has been starkly muted.

In fact going back to its mid-November 2012 bottom we see the same suspicious quality about the market's advance off that bottom. Duly observe, too, this generally diminishing underlying participation of advancing NYSE issues contrasted to what accompanied the market's advance off its early-June 2012 bottom. Other than a few instances of relatively better-than-average advancing issue participation coinciding with the market's move higher, the state of its underlying condition since mid-November 2012 is only the more suspect than was the case during its advance into mid-September 2012 peak. Truly, the technical foundation underlying the market's continued levitation is incredibly weak.

I'll have more to say about this shortly. Suffice it for now that, desperately weak hands might be having their way for the moment, yet circumstance weakening their position still further—Europe—and requiring their concerted effort to prop up, is positively certain to relegate their battle a hopeless cause. Recently proclaimed British intentions of a most upsetting sort will see to it that, today's status quo will be impossible to defend indefinitely. Judging by decidedly suspect technical underpinnings presently accompanying the market's advance, it's not like weak hands don't see what's coming. Biding time might afford an infrequent goose paving the way for distribution targeting the clueless (Birinyi), but by no means is the foundation for a lasting advance being laid.


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Euro-Doom: Divide and Conquer the Euro-Tomb

Who would have guessed the two Marios—Monti and Draghi—had been sheep dipped? You know, the Oswald Treatment. Oh, those tricky Brits!

Might this be but part of a larger European intrigue threatening the continent's Balkanization? Already in store are referendums seeking Catalan and Scottish independence scheduled for a vote next year. An intention to destroy nations resulting in creation of countless micro-states, indeed, finds credible cause serving the usual criminal suspects. Likewise, this venture's objective is being openly proclaimed. Cutting through political smokescreens we can plainly see at work a modern day manifestation of "divide and conquer" ultimately aiming to consolidate global empire.

British prime minister David Cameron's long-anticipated speech last week seeking a treaty revision to the European Union and proposing a referendum querying whether the U.K. should remain a member in fact appears a detonator minimally venturing activation of similar initiatives whose end additionally could threaten dissolution of the European Monetary Union. As Cameron's speech has been many months in the making—apparently delayed four times since June 2012—its timing might be thought significant. Following on U.K. parliamentary blessing given to Scotland's independence bid, a purposeful intention to stir up rancor and division, no doubt, is accelerating.

This unfolding drama is a momentous turn—one certainly threatening a vulnerable status quo—and is not without supporting contributions from relevant U.S. officials. On January 9, 2013 U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Philip H. Gordon, told a media briefing in London that Washington believed a British exit from the EU would run counter to U.S. interests. Gordon's "intervention" into what is being called "an emotive U.K. domestic debate" in fact made front-page news in Britain. Yet as this EU issue is largely a political affair otherwise not high on the minds of people outside government, exposed is an operation to stir a pot cooking something nasty. If you read the transcript of Gordon's media briefing, there's really nothing of front page value for a U.K. audience. That distinction rather belongs to U.S. media evidently preferring to turn a blind eye to a gold mine of Nazi-like tactics supported by a State Department official on board with NATO's al Qaeda deployment in Syria reeking havoc there these past two years.

Ever the British monarchy's loyal lap dog, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland slyly confirmed the nefarious nature of Gordon's deployment when she said, "We generally don't have assistant secretaries of state going out and giving press conferences and freelancing," adding "Assistant Secretary Gordon very much spoke for the administration." If only he had said something requiring affirmation of U.S. - U.K. relations! Then the fuss pretending some row had developed might seem real.

Truth is, however, no split exists between bankrupt pillars of profligacy posted on either side of the Atlantic. Likewise, just as the thinnest of veils masks a murderous mayhem otherwise necessary to support the authority of those imposing the imperial game of bailout-make-believe—insanely and to no good end pretending the trans-Atlantic banking system is anything but hopelessly insolvent—so too exposed is a transparent hoax in suggestions some kind of rift is developing between the Axis of Fraud's captive government bodies. Indeed, so-called U.S. "concern" that the U.K. remain a member of the European Union rather evidently ventures instead a joint proclamation of terms of surrender both bankrupt states seek to impose on the rest of the world, starting with E.U. member states. Nowhere has the U.S. raised objection to those principals the U.K. is insisting a renegotiated E.U. treaty embrace. So much for U.S. "dismay" over the clearly disruptive E.U. machinations of its British "partner."

A more real threat otherwise exposing U.S. endorsement of this British venture is found in reference to security concerns supposedly shared by the U.S. and the E.U. Suddenly, the proliferation of instability throughout North Africa and deployment of al Qaedo assets against western interests begins to appear a piece of the puzzle, all denial of any impending European terror threat notwithstanding. Clearly, there is an intention to unleash an expanding wave of terrorism on continental Europe, this acting as a battering ram against sovereign resistance to imperial objectives venturing global empire.

Again, the timing of British Prime Minister Cameron's challenge to the European Union probably is more than merely coincidental. Today's centers of power derived from institutions gravely threatened by a thoroughly bankrupt banking system surely have arrived at a grave moment of life-or-death desperation. This reality lies at the core of an imperial cause whose only means of survival requires the expanding enslavement of a world today captive to its rotten architecture. Truly, destruction of a status quo whose usefulness has been outlived is no dilemma to those whose larger objective is extinguishing all things representative of classical humanist progress (which, of course, includes the United States). In Cameron's "vision for a new European Union, fit for the 21st century," only the more transparent is an intention to ratchet up an extreme climate of survival of the fittest. An E.U. built on "principles" representing nothing but a colonial manifesto worthy the 18th and 19th centuries, and certainly not the 21st, ultimately harmonious with what are, and always have been, Britain's imperial goals, signal an intention to pull the plug powering hopeless illusions whose usefulness, indeed, have expired. Truth is, too, any honest assessment of the policy direction major western powers have taken largely at the direction of imperial Britain in the post-Bretton Woods era by necessity must conclude a momentous transition of historic dimension always was on the agenda. Evidently, the hour now is come.

Acrimony is seen a means to achieving an objective aiming to divide and conquer, first a weakened European continent, and then the world at large. Although entirely impossible is any prospect Britain's initiative to alter the European Union could prove beneficial to any current member state, its ultimate goal of establishing a virtual colonial playground, this playing off competing parties vying for a piece of an otherwise shrinking pie, quite likely stands to be furthered in the midst of circumstance rife with vulnerability. These make for easy pickings likely materializing in break-away states effectively redrawing today's map in the not-too-distant future.

Like everything else in the land of make believe, where institutional change ever is slated to occur at some far off date, Britain's E.U. referendum proposed for the end of 2017 in all probability will never come to a vote. Yet if it ever does see the light of day, the result probably will bring a resounding "out." No matter, the objective of this, Britain's imperial intrigue, all too likely is being hastened with the mere threat of the E.U.'s dissolution. A bankrupt financial system can only the more quicken chaos necessary to transform vulnerable dupes into witting slaves. Little wonder, then, German response to Cameron's initiative was a good bit more accommodating than was France's, this if only to keep an enemy close.

As for the business community's perspective, theirs truly is a classic case of be careful what you wish for. The E.U. Britain seeks effectively is slavery nirvana the likes of which many businesses today claim their ideal climate in which to profit. Pity many of these will be ruined over the course of getting there.

This present development plays well into credible prospect a Weimar-like hyperinflation could visit the U.S. over the coming decade. To wit, a contractionary consolidation thought likely to precede a hyperinflationary blowout impossible to hide in any way like the past forty years, and the recent 5-10 years particularly, appears on the doorstep with imperial Britain signaling its intention to effectively pull the plug on the European Union. How is this specific outcome made more likely now? Through Britain's proclaimed intention that, the E.U. manifest the fullness of counterproductive imperial policies imposed over the past forty years, such as have led to the present day's profound vulnerability, with the alternative being either severe chaos in a terror-ridden climate or even greater weakness born of irreconcilable division. No matter which route sovereign nations of Europe choose, bottom line chaos looms. Sovereign authority stands to be crushed, and so capacity to sustain the burden of today's status quo will be irreversibly ruined. Many debts are at risk of grave compromise to be sure. So, credit market convulsion necessarily will be visiting the trans-Atlantic sometime in the not-too-distant future. Yet illegitimate debt being well-established more sacrosanct than God, a subsequent trip down Weimar Lane seems likely to follow.

Nowhere in his speech did Cameron recognize the plight of European nations gravely compromised already at the alter of misguided imperial policy. Nowhere from within the U.S. State Department was there a wit of admonishment for this oversight. Indeed, taking into account Hillary Clinton's performance before the Brookings Institute late last year—a presentation Gordon directed his British audience to weigh as supporting evidence proving the U.S. on board with British imperial objectives—not only is the subversive nature of the so-called "special relationship" between the U.S. and the U.K. demonstrated, but the abandonment of principles the United States was formed to uphold is exposed through U.S. representatives acting like pathetic lap dogs to those British imperial marionettes of a still-thriving monarchy with whom they interact. Now, if we can imagine the measure of internal dissent this misguided "special relationship" engenders, then we can likewise fathom external disdain likely cultivated by an economic policy demand only the more cold, vicious, and threatening, such as Britain is forcefully projecting with its E.U. ultimatum. Having the likes of U.K. Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, but fanning the flames of euro-xenophobia, this serving to sugarcoat Britain's imperial exhortation, division its threatened exit from the E.U. otherwise plainly ventures should be only the more surely hastened.

What economically pressured European nation has any motivation to continue playing by today's rules, and instead might not sooner seek a revision of terms whose onerous impact is cultivating severe social upheaval? None. Yet none, too, likely will be exempted from the wrath of NATO's al Qaeda death squads to be sure. Thus, in combination is division likely to be fostered. Either Europe submit to Britain's imperial designs or face many Newtowns. And if some should pursue independence from a weakened sovereign, then all the better for Britain's imperial cause. As ever, united they stand, divided they fall, and if the former should pragmatism bring to prevail, then the terms of peace Britain, with U.S. backing, rather transparently has delivered.


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

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Monday, January 28, 2013

CRB Screams Calamity Ho, Laszlo!

Last Thursday I alluded to the danger of over-exciting animal spirits whose undesirable effect could drive capital aggressively into "things." Let's take a look at the Commodities Research Bureau Index and develop some better sense of this risk...



There are a couple interlocking dynamics we need consider in order to assess the message spoken by capital movements into both stocks and "things" (i.e. commodities). The first, and foremost, surrounds what today is a thoroughly marginalized economy. Political circles wailing about regulatory uncertainty really should give some thought to the negative effect wildly fluctuating commodities prices are having on economic activity. Truth is ensuring a robust business climate in an environment beset by unstable input costs is a virtual impossibility. Why even today yet another oil refinery bit the dust.

The problem lies in an inability to reasonably maintain adequate profit margins, this on account of a cutthroat business climate's extreme fostering over the past several decades resulting in an increasingly marginalized physical capacity unsuitable for profitably conducting business. In the imperial age of globalization business capacity has been so thoroughly compromised as to restrict general ability to expand productivity, and so both counteract rising input costs, as well as manage natural, competitive pressures. Likewise restricting cultivation of such conditions as are necessary to secure adequate profit margins prerequisite to ensuring growth are onerous debt burdens, the bulk of which are proving illegitimate, and the likes of which only the more impinge on the business world's practical ability to expand its productivity. Indeed, increasing indebtedness has gone a considerable distance toward marginalizing physical capacity, as well, with capacity being sold off, and often times dismantled in order to service debt, thus rounding out an effective, negative feedback loop.

Such is the essence of a hyperinflationary dynamic played out over the past several decades whose negative impact on the physical economy—indeed, marginalizing it—has ushered in a present state of affairs placing the entire global economy at the precipice where its accelerated shutdown is virtually assured, this particularly if all things policy-wise remain more or less unchanged, as seems likely. For the sake of historical context policy leading to today's compromised economic state can be traced back to the years leading up to the August 15, 1971 termination of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. Wild fluctuations in commodities prices represent a symptom of having abandoned policy serving to foster a stable economic environment wherein increasing productivity insuring both profit margins promoting growth, as well as unquestioned capacity to extinguish debt (even were this growing in nominal terms, as in fact it has been) is effectively assured. Policy in the age of imperial globalization contrarily has fostered marginalization of productive capacities of every sort, both physical and financial, negatively affecting every permutation of activity within both of these respective sectors. Ongoing, evolving consequence of this policy's pursuit spells but one word: ruin. Increasingly wild fluctuations in commodities prices rather only indicate where there's smoke, surely there's fire. Sadly, nowhere is anyone rushing to extinguish this. Instead, Ivy League geniuses are adding the most dangerous fuel of all, this taken from the lender of last resort wood pile, while equally insane Austrian fascists fantasize they could somehow survive a smoke-choked climate should their policy of pissing on the fire be allowed.

Now on to the not unrelated tulip trade whose flourishing over the interim has evolved to the present day's manifestation requiring reckless central banks, insane stewards of national treasuries, and clueless dupes who evidently wouldn't know a sound investment from a stinking cesspool. Notwithstanding demand challenged contraction of physical economic activity following the collapse of Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme in 2008—this formerly having provided the means of masking the physical economy's marginalization behind a ruse claiming to represent a "capitalism" success story (when in fact capitalism was nowhere in the neighborhood of what in fact was going on)—we see commodities fairly remaining still a beneficiary of the ruse everyone who is anyone has been groomed to uphold as if theirs represented the very calling of Jesus Christ himself. Again, though, buoyant commodities prices in the face of a demand-challenged backdrop (and this subsumed beneath a massive mountain of illegitimate debt) can only serve to but further marginalize the physical economy. Certainly judging by the CRB's more muted relative performance in relation to the S&P 500 (see bottom panel), trapped weak hands evidently are fully aware of the wall against which they have been backed.

There being a dearth of AAA-rated trinkets which to bid up following the collapse of Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme in 2008 thus leaves a constricted supply of so-called "assets" toward which credit gushing forth from lenders of last resort can be assigned. Thus does fantasy seeking a trade in carbon credits still survive, as urgently needed are widely treasured financial instruments capable of magically absorbing an ever increasing supply of credit required to forestall the trans-Atlantic banking system's collapse. Indeed, anything allowing leverage of something deriving its value by arbitrary decree will do—synthesized assets only minimally impinging upon a physical economy otherwise to be sustained in a state of relative calm amidst what is, and what must by necessity continue to be, the economy's increasing marginalization. How ever arbitrary and ultimately misguided are policies venturing to somehow revive Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme, so long as we can go on living in the land of make believe, where never a bad credit is to be acknowledged and, God forbid, subsequently written off, the "S" in USA must out of necessity stand for "Swindle," much as in fact ultimately has been true over the entire duration of the post-Bretton Woods era, all illusory, unsustainable, debt-fed "wealth" created over the interim aside.

Now, we cannot claim to know whether bankrupt imperial powers of the trans-Atlantic soon will succeed turning still more of the resource-rich, lesser developed regions of the world into virtual slave labor concentration camps serving to provide an increasing store of physical backing to today's still growing mountain of ultimately illegitimate financial claims on the world's material wealth. Yet if the banking system in its present, disease-wracked state is to linger on, imperial intrigues both at home and abroad in all probability will be materializing with increasing frequency over coming months and years. Not that any of it could forever forestall the banking system's collapse. Yet in what might likely be ventured—we have a couple decades now of geopolitical intrigue which to cite in support of our worst fears—a greater measure of credibility, foremost, might be assigned to those whose cause is given to exposing enterprises promoting global empire.

More immediately, though, concern over commodity supply constraints prospectively imposed by an expanding presence of commodity-based ETFs trading in today's global financial arena might be alleviated with such imperial intrigues, were these to continue with increasing frequency. Thus, too, a momentary means of absorbing ever-increasing supplies of credit needed to support the banking system might be forthcoming as a result, this without causing a wildly disruptive hyperinflationary blowout in a mad scramble for control over physical commodities supplies, this at any price, whose effect likewise would precipitate untold misery and an unprecedented explosion of social outrage.

Yet, really, could any such imperial scheme adequately compensate for those former, more seamless means employed for absorbing capital in synthesized, AAA-rated trinkets now proven no more suitable for investment than were tulip bulbs some centuries ago? I hardly think so. Indeed, were such utility in fact available leveraging financial control over commodities, then more than likely it would have been employed and milked to the fullest long before Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme blew up in 2008. Rather, the imperative to securitize commodities vital to the physical economy probably is better thought a transitional operation facilitating a modern means for supra-national fascists of the globalization set to further consolidate top-down control over worldly affairs, economic and otherwise. Thus might one imagine this an effective avenue lending Substance to Swindle, even to the effect of providing power to pick winners and losers in prospective, upcoming battles intending to further secure specific objectives on the road to consolidating global empire.

Let's get something straight. There is absolutely no possibility of resuscitating Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme. That game is finished. Since its collapse in 2008 we might better assume commitment to some larger, underlying objective is being cemented. In other words, all appearances of so-called "public servants" being committed to preventing a second Great Depression strictly are for the consumption of naive dupes. Truth of the matter is the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have been woefully trapped into serving some nefarious purpose whose consequence surely will defy their claimed, joint resolve to prevent a second Great Depression. The question of real substance per these two institutions is whether their unified opposition to the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall is an overt act of subversion? Mark these words: at some assigned future moment (and this might not be far off) both these federal institutions likely will play an instrumental role in the hyperinflationary blowout of the global economy, all things more or less remaining equal. Thus does resistance to Glass-Steagall, indeed, appear a willful commitment to fulfill an assigned, future role in not only destroying life as we know it, but assuring a living hell rises in its place. If today's leaders assigned to both the Treasury and Fed prove no less naive dupes than those who insist these institutions are serving a useful, stabilizing purpose, then exposed will be truth of the total subversion of the Ivy League and what a colossal waste of money an education there has been and probably still is.

So, then, if resuscitation of Adam Smith's Leveraged Ponzi Scheme is an impossibility, how much longer can we suppose financial claims at the very bottom of the capital structure will continue outperforming physical commodities? And if further inflation of commodities prices threatening an accelerating shutdown of the physical economy will continue being avoided like the plague, and this no matter the extent of turmoil that necessarily will have to be endured by heavily indebted commodities exporters, then what future likely lies in store for both financial claims at the very bottom of the capital structure, as well as commodities? Likewise, how might core, U.S. Treasury debt securities be supported at this late hour desperately seeking the means of remaining in limbo where both deflationary collapse and hyperinflationary blowout might be held at bay? To wit, how might further consolidation of physical and financial assets be facilitated, such that core, dollar-denominated debt securities are made relatively more secure (i.e. the most attractive leper at the party)?

For decades now the larger part of the game employed by modern finance has involved robbing Peter to pay Paul. The extent to which this act by necessity in fact has required increasingly convulsive crises is the stuff destined to make 2008 neither a beginning, nor an end, but rather a link in a chain leading to a modern era reenactment of circumstance whose conclusion stands to precipitate something like the 14th century's Black Death. No, I certainly do not delight in perceiving this threat. Yet I likewise cannot ignore it. Not one thing has been done since 2008 to ensure that, a similar crisis or, indeed, something worse could not be suffered. Not one thing. Look at the euro-tomb's periphery: nothing but a cauldron stirred with evil intent! As things stand today, this outcome is only slated to spread far and wide throughout the globe. Then what? A hyperinflationary blowout for the ages if we continue tolerating what are woefully incompetent, soulless subhumans masquerading as well-educated authorities. As much as I truly lament and fear this outlook, its odds of occurring are well better than slim to none.

Now take a quick look at the CRB's momentum oscillator in the above chart's top panel. We should be very concerned about the oscillator's diminishing trend, as well as its proximity below its 0-line. Keep an eye on this, as it certainly appears on the verge of confirming the general viewpoint I have expressed here, not to mention the profoundly bearish case I have been making for months on end. If collapse should come suddenly and spectacularly, then by all means give my best to Laz...



Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Life Imitating Art?

Quite the lovers' spat on CNBC today! In case you missed the verbal joust here it is...



Let's see Dr. Frankenstein hold that VIX down now! This heated exchange inspires all the confidence of a mushroom cloud. We certainly can better imagine, too, the intensity of institutional pressures stirred up by systemic problems that are vastly more perplexing than issues driving this Ackman-Icahn tiff.

Evidently, there's a personal vendetta underlying differences of opinion these two have on Herbalife. You almost wonder if Ackman is goading Icahn, playing the public part in something larger that's venturing to hang Icahn out to dry. Judging by Icahn's disposition, he appears ripe for the raping. Could be, too, this particular dispute is just greasing the works for something bigger. Maybe a diversion?



Yee ha, lots of volatility here. This stock is not out of the woods, either. Yet desperation has been shown to breed the unexpected, hasn't it? Be that as it may, it's getting rather late in the game of Ponzi finance to suppose a company being called a Ponzi scheme will find buyers usefully assisting those who this month lifted Herbalife's shares off the mat. These certainly have put up quite a sum, relatively speaking, to shock this stock back to life. Which is not to say some of it could not have been Ackman's doing, this even assuming Icahn might step in and unknowingly take the bait.


Funny thing, too, is everywhere you turn these days there's Oliver Stone talking about his new project called "The Untold History of the United States." Was today's colorful display possibly but karma in life imitating art?





Word on the Street


* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

Get Real-Time Trade Notification!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Snow Blind to Frankenstein

Let's take yesterday's perspective detailing the market's weakening underlying technical state coinciding with its advance off its mid-November 2012 bottom, and place this in the context of a longer-dated view presented here some weeks ago, while likewise pondering the outlook expressed in Davos today by hedge fund manager Ray Dalio suggesting investors are ready to put cash into the market this year.



An added take on the NYSE Composite's relative strength (top panel)—currently registering a negative divergence versus its mid-September 2012 peak, as noted yesterday—is its harmony with the technical character typically accompanying formation of an Elliott third wave (in this case wave (c) off mid-November 2012 bottom). Indeed, from the get-go following the market's lift off its mid-November 2012 bottom $NYA's RSI has been persistently pinned to the positive side of its range (i.e. above 50). This reveals that "dynamic" quality an Elliott third wave typically displays.

The question now is how much more dynamism can be squeezed from a demand-challenged asset class? Being positively convinced there simply is no significant contingent of strong hands persuaded by logic claiming motivation to secure returns superior to those had holding cash will drive capital into equities in 2013, nevertheless remaining a possibility is continued exploitation of a broken price discovery mechanism occurring simply because it can.Yet the danger in this lies in the over-excitement of animal spirits whose consequence in all probability likewise will drive capital into "things" (particularly energy), thus impinging on expenses. This, then, would have the effect of further squeezing margins and all the more hastening contraction of overall economic activity.

Truth is for trapped weak hands time is of the essence. To wit, specifically, buying time in a Japan-like limbo is key to many a hopelessly insolvent enterprise remaining a going concern. Likewise, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Thus, marginalization of any critical element joining a highly correlated banking system is to be avoided at all costs, and this for as far as the eye can see.

In other words, forget about return on capital. We are nowhere near a "transition," as Dalio claims. Not to argue with his theoretical premise supposing capital held in cash defies the better promise of capitalism. Yet the fact of the matter is capitalism is dead. Greenspan killed it. Likewise, if Capo Confetti were not such a fitting moniker, I would be calling Bernanke Dr. Frankenstein. Truth is this madman is trying to reanimate a corpse.

Bottom line, don't be surprised if a "rising wedge" unfolds off mid-November 2012 bottom to form wave (c), thus buying time in limbo until, say, May. As such, an a-b-c wave higher forming wave 1 of (c) currently could be nearing its completion here. Although this is not how I labeled the wave count above, seeing how a preponderance of technical measures are indicating the market "overbought," it thus seems reasonable strictly on the technical front, as well, to think the market is not about to run away to the upside.




Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Tag Team Fraud: Whoomp, There It Is

The question now is whether positive market follow-through anticipated here around mid-December has about reached its upper limit...



Relative strength negatively diverging (top panel) and momentum (bottom) both weakening and fading certainly raises the probability trapped weak hands working a broken price discovery mechanism greased with an infinite supply of confetti have but succeeded pushing their zirconium treasure only further into nose bleed territory, and so are all the more poised for a punch in the gut.

Now, although 2015 seems a long time to wait for U.K. dinosaurs to tear up the red carpet their taxed heart simply could not bear to walk, what are the odds sovereign resistance to being eaten alive whose faint whimper in a financial transaction tax was heard yesterday will not much sooner be crushed by runs on banks nearer the heart of the euro-tomb? Wait a minute, what's this? Whoomp, there it is...




Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Thessalonian VIX

Destabilizing circumstance recently developing both to the right and left of respective U.S. coasts surely makes only the more desperate a hopelessly insolvent Fed under Capo Confetti's leadership. There's really no other way to explain a collapsing Volatility Index in the face of growing threats of currency war...


$VIX

Oh please, oh please insure your razor thin slice of grossly mis-priced equity at the capital structure's bottom rung, particularly now with trouble off the right coast becoming fairly acute. A financial transaction sales tax rally involving nearly a dozen countries on the European continent? A Glass-Steagall simulation in Germany? Good lord, it's Armageddon!

Having gone this far, now, how much longer before European political circles throw in a bank CEO perp walk exercise for good measure? Then again, such a prospect probably is best saved for a moment when there is more urgent need to coerce Team Fraud into driving long bond rates in Italy and Spain down toward zero. For the time being the Count is succeeding doing "whatever it takes" to prevent any such necessity. An all talk, no action miracle! Too bad Capo Confetti does not quite enjoy the same luxury in his use of rhetoric. Such is life heading an institution directly responsible for the European banking system's insolvency, this being perpetrated during the zero due diligence reign of King Ponzi, Sir Greenspan.

Have no doubt. There are no shortage of monetarist dupes who believe the Fed is serving a useful purpose propping up a criminally reckless banking system in fact far beyond any hope of its financial integrity being restored. It is useful here to note on this account a certain, relevant wisdom of the Christian variety:
"Whenever it is that they are saying: 'Peace and security!' then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman; and they will by no means escape."
1 Thessalonians 5:3

So, here we find at the bottom rung of the capital structure risk priced as near to non-existent as can possibly be. Let's just say back in 1987 underlying fundamental conditions across the globe were far less potentially disruptive than presently is the case and yet the biggest crash in U.S. stock market history occurred that year. In the financial background that year, too, was upward pressure on interest rates and a falling dollar. Both these in fact are not insignificant risks today, particularly with currency market instability on the increase.

Now we might also wonder whether the criminal element propping up the hopelessly insolvent trans-Atlantic banking system is worrying about an ascending trend put on display again this weekend in Algeria. Sovereign resistance to imperial intrigue born of an out-of-control national security state is its name. Could such growing resistance precipitate financial warfare intending to destabilize sovereign states generally? There certainly is no shortage of evidence indicating this broad objective is a functional reality of the highest order, and whose pursuit over recent years, indeed, has been accelerating. No one might be talking about this facet of the contemporary landscape, yet the entrapment of national treasuries in the decades-running march toward a hopelessly insolvent banking system is difficult to ignore in this light. Any counter-reaction asserting sovereign prerogatives represents a threat to bankrupt thugs pushing a nefarious agenda to be sure. Such is how objection to Glass-Steagall among top tier operatives in the imperialist system of globalization should be understood in fact. Having everything to lose were sovereign resistance perceived near a boiling point, we would be wise to expect an attack venturing to cool threatening sovereign imperatives using those tried-and-true means employing outright swindle, such as were vividly brought to bear back in 2008.


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Friday, January 18, 2013

Chaotic Equilibrium Threshold

Whether warnings of currency wars coming from both Russia and Germany are but idle threats issued at the periphery of the trans-Atlantic banking system by representative dinosaurs choking on a morass in part of their own making, or signal an intention to unleash the full force of hyperinflationary destruction present policy invariably portends, we simply would be naive to think growing calls coming from high places for the breakup of hopelessly insolvent money center banks somehow is unrelated. Rather what appears to be the case is that, everyone is on the same page now. Thus from both sides of the equation do we see indications of imminent chaos.

Continuing capacity to occupy the middle ground on which Japan has taken to over the past 20+ years in all probability has reached its limit. Collapsed confidence in a massively hyperinflated, securities-based financial system is at its inevitable destination at the doorstep of doom. Years gone by suffering an impinged supply of those AAA-rated trinkets (discredited objects of the "magic of the market") the trans-Atlantic banking system for decades has pretended are representative assets worthy infinite leverage places us at the brink of disaster. A devastating tsunami, a great earthquake, an explosive volcanic eruption all have their precursors. We're experiencing these presently in warnings of currency war.


$XJY weekly

One day soon we could awaken to a terrified collective of financial lepers who find gravely under siege their increasingly demand-challenged claims on commerce. No rigged market, reckless central bank, nor insane national treasury will be capable of forestalling collapse of a colossal mountain of worthless, unpayable debt whose principal purpose at present only but the most committed subversive could deny is serving to marginalize the very means by which lasting wealth, indeed, is created. Simmering disdain for a criminal network at last seen perpetuating the complete destabilization of global commerce. let alone social tranquility, thus will be set to explode in recriminations the likes of which no whining fee junkie otherwise destroying the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury, let alone a murderous cult feeding an out-of-control national security state, will possess sufficient resources to withstand should a vicious, general revolt indeed develop.

All fairly discredited, yet still inexorably tumbling into the abyss, a binding, tragic deception presently is sustained behind a thin veil whose substance is formed in pure fantasy, the likes barely masking the mass grave into which the globe otherwise is being led. Resistance thus naturally can be expected to strengthen defenses against those possessing the means to spread unimaginable fear and terror at home and abroad. The challenge, as ever, will be withstanding further intrigue leading to slaughter, financial and in the flesh, of a magnitude greater than anything yet seen. Thus, too, the urgent imperative to reinstate Glass-Steagall, reconstitute the Bank of the United States and initiate challenging national missions worthy the 21st century.


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Thursday, January 17, 2013

A Barbaric Relic No More

Excellent Fast Money conversation today per Germany's announced intention to repatriate by 2020 half its physical gold holdings stored in foreign vaults, some significant portion currently located in New York City. Adami's fear of a developing "run on the bank," so to speak, seems a worthy concern, while Seymour contrarily suggests nothing systemically threatening is to be inferred because gold bears no correlation to the banking system's myriad assets.

Yet there is one, no? $GLD. So, could it be the German Bundesbank fears gold's physical shortfall due to regulatory mismanagement of the $GLD ETF? Or might this move simply be intending to insure against any such disparity from developing? In other words, the Bundesbank could be issuing a shot across the bow in a crazy world of modern finance beset by razor thin confidence. Likewise, recognizing an arrangement at whose core is a voracious appetite for capital whose impact on the German economy will inexorably marginalize it, the Bundesbank might be seen moving in a direction increasing Germany's leverage to determine its own fate.

So far, this development has not negatively impacted the euro. Nevertheless, the euro bears watching in light of it...




One thing notable about developments in the evolution of the dismantling of the euro-zone are "bumps in the road" circled above. These coincide with bouts of stock market weakness throughout the trans-Atlantic. All the more problematic appears financial support necessary to sustain the euro-zone—this leading to a rising euro—when the 20-day EMA of $XEU:$SPX relative strength flattens. Apparently, any indication the euro-zone's dismantling might be threatened, a "risk off" inclination at the bottom rung of the capital structure precipitates.

Germany's move to repatriate physical gold certainly could be a troubling development gumming up the post-2008 crisis dynamic. It's difficult to imagine this decision being taken lightly in those most vulnerable financial circles within the trans-Atlantic. At any rate uncertainty it no doubt breeds finds $XEU:$SPX relative strength ominously poised here. According to Mark Hulbert, too, there are other reasons to be concerned about the market. Moreover, as fate would have it, AAPL is not out of the woods either...


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Guns and Fed Dissent

Stepping back into mainstream reality, today's "Reducing Gun Violence" event held by the House Democratic Steering & Policy Committee offers useful sense of dialog originating with persons directly connected to the Newtown, CT massacre. Far be it for me to suggest incredulous perspective presented here over the past couple days in any way could drive the national agenda. Yet for the sake of contributing to the need for addressing all relevant issues, mine seems fair exercise of honorably intended free speech.

Thirty thousand annual gun related deaths in the U.S. is another matter entirely. Massacre in Newtown its own unique beast—an intrigue ladened point of special interest beyond the greater preponderance of gun related deaths whose incidence points to a different facet of the social breakdown we face

How does one not suspect economic marginalization is leading to increases in gun violence? Intuitively this seems credible cause-and-effect. Where of any value could we possibly go sweeping under the rug criminal financial acts likely at the root of circumstance causing increasing economic marginalization (most recently making LIBOR a household name, bolstered by Matt Taibbi's "Secrets and Lies of Bailout")? No "common sense reform" of laws regulating guns will mean a hill of beans absent righting wrongs directly responsible for crushing the aspirations of millions. And that's just in Greece.

So, I will respectfully disagree with Tarpley's take on the budding gun control debate...
"All financier #oligarchy factions agree-use gun wedge issue hysteria pro & con to cover massive demolition of #NewDeal economic rights #UFAA"
Webster Tarpley, 10 Jan 2013

I am not doubting the truth of his view. Rather recognizing opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, a new Pecora Commission investigating the causes of economic marginalization leading to a rise in gun violence seems a worthy point of attack on a weak flank. Constitutionally grounded justification in the federal government's imperative to "insure domestic Tranquility" and "promote the general Welfare," let alone "establish Justice," offers most legitimate, relevant basis.

Now, if I might say so, the conspiratorial slant presented here over the past couple days could be seen harmoniously with Matt Taibbi's narrowly focused disclosure in his "Secrets and Lies of Bailout." He in fact exposes a conspiracy much the same. To think elements promoting fraud in bailout are clean in matters more nefarious seems a leap of faith. The question is to what extent can we reasonably expect socially useful inquiry? A Pecora Commission being an already established precedent, there's reason to be optimistic some measure of justice one day will be done.

Truth is if U.S. capital markets ever again are to function normally in a climate of unquestioned confidence, then it is likely prosecution of criminal activity lenders of last resort since the 2008 crisis have been co-opted to defer inevitably must be pursued, and this notwithstanding restraints presented by statutes of limitation. Assuming central banks at the core of the trans-Atlantic are on their last leg, the moment of truth could be at hand.

Indeed, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher tonight spoke of breaking up the twelve mega U.S. money center banks. Can this be accomplished without precipitating a crisis whose consequence shatters the veneer shadowing rampant fraud? This question did not come up following Fisher's speech.

More immediately, though, could Fisher's view, itself, precipitate "unintended consequences" serving the status quo since August 15, 1971 leading to consolidation of physical and financial assets? After all, Fisher is only the Dallas Fed President. Were he heading up the New York Fed, then his call might be regarded an imminent, game changing threat. Furthermore, might a major crisis sooner be manufactured whose effect would put the kibosh on Fisher's idea to break up "too big to fail," money center banks?


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Technical Analysis of Pig Entrails

I'm happy to report my rage tonight will be a hair less palpable than last night. Yet if I might confirm the hardest sentiment, a growing threat of violence directed at high profile media personalities is a most reasonable forecast. Plenty of bad actors out there to whom the push for gun control is a blood pressure raising provocation. The wisdom of gun control as first and foremost legislative imperative in response to growing incidents of mass murder is questionable. Are there any media eunuchs whose conduct today is fearfully guided by "go along to get along" who likewise have considered that, no matter if a gun's clip holds thirty shells or seven, all it takes is one? Our problem is much more severe than a lack of gun control. Likewise the last thing we need right now is divisive provocation.

Speaking for my generation, it's not well enough I can consider myself lucky to be blessed with memories from earliest elementary school years of a United States sending men into space, while those today that same age must fear being gunned down by robots of a subversive national security state. And if not that, then watching their mom or dad perish in buildings doomed to collapse, and this but for some nefariously intended effect. Pardon me for jumping to conclusions, but choking on intrigue for more years than any decent human being ought be subjected to, the gag reflex just comes naturally. Such is consequence of a lifetime burdened by feckless political leadership.

One thing Peter Kuznick mentioned about JFK really raises my ire toward President Obama. It was Kennedy's willingness to stand his ground against his Joint Chiefs of Staff, which at that time evidently was a renegade element inclined to sabotage established institutions of political organization in ventures effectively hijacking constitutional order. Both Benghazi and Newtown amply appear the same, and yet but an extension of foul harvests of hatred against the United States deviously sewn by a subversive cabal running wild ever since Kennedy was assassinated, with this latest incident only fostering internal hatred at that. Clearly the president has been thrown off balance by it. There's only one way back. If leadership fails decisive pursuit of a unifying, face-saving way out, then unimaginable chaos looms. Already this is at the door. Nothing inside the box containing Ivy League rejects is going to prevent further chaos from crashing down on us. An abrupt reversal of policy objectives either will find willing leadership, or failing this, make fodder of mankind. Our choices are abrupt reversal or die.

I have said this before and I will say it again. There is more work to be done than you can shake a stick at. Windmills and solar panels ain't cuttin' it. Nor are "jobs." Anyone can sell a hamburger (or pig entrails in lower Manhattan for that matter). Leadership recognizes money is not the issue. The issue is will to accomplish difficult tasks leaving humanity in a better position to prosper. Difficult tasks would meet the drive of those more adventurous souls whose satisfaction today in the arena of feckless leadership is offered principally in war. Plainly, we are miles from the best we can do organizing a citizenry imbued with freedom to secure life's abundance.

You simply cannot convince me Syria and Iran are roadblocks. Yet an abrupt reversal here will require an appeal to that larger element in the military who recognizes the true enemy of the United States is the very same that once motivated a Declaration of Independence: that very precious document missing from the so-called Syrian opposition's arsenal, which absent matter of principle unwise friends of the British Foreign Office today endorse. We've got a name for this. It's treason, McCain. Yes, treason, Kerry. The "responsibility to protect" applies only to moral battles already won, one of these being sovereign self-determination, a principle made all the more legitimate with formal statement seeking a "decent respect for the opinions of man," oh feckless ones.

Would any of these Ivy League rejects imagine taking Eisenhower's lead and propose joining Russia in a Strategic Defense of the Earth—a policy in fact bringing Reagan's call for a Strategic Defense Initiative to its moment of opportunity? They'd better, or chaos at the initiation of the true enemy of the United States is at hand.

It's time Venetian masters of make-work and money grab be sent packing. Do we really need garbage men competing for business? What of those whose idea of creativity is forming marketing schemes working actuarial tables? This is innovation? Truly, we should rejoice finding this moment with more work than you can shake a stick at coincidentally joined by much wasted talent. Likewise that a most widely subscribed bastion of credibility now is fading in the shadow of a rickety shack no cover of green paint could create the illusion of being a mansion...


$NYA

Look what it takes to go exactly nowhere! Masters of technical analysis take note. Once fortunes fail as badly as is forecast, then reverse, strong hands accumulating shares will do so while the majority of listed issues remain in persistent decline.

From the NYSE Composite's top in 2007 to now—a level about 15% lower—a still rising NYSE cumulative advance-decline line today far, far in excess of where it stood at its 2007 peak verily is required to sustain even the index's compromised level at present. In layman terms, pathetic. In market terms, monetarism fail. In political terms, Lincoln challenged. Apparently it is possible to fool everyone all the time. Then again, tomorrow is another day.

Just as the majority of NYSE-listed issues today persistently are growing dearer in price while, overall, the effect on the Composite Index is muted, looking ahead once bottom finally is reached—this still slated to occur within the range major indexes traded in the 1987-1994 period—the majority of issues likely will grow cheaper, this while the index stabilizes and solidifies its bottom.

Tuck that one away. It may be a while. Then again, it might be tomorrow. Who knows what mass murderers have up their sleeve? Today it was university students in Aleppo. Tomorrow maybe Berkeley.

Fortunately for students there, bankrupt connoisseurs of pig entrails once again are well-hedged. Doubly fortunate, as insurance costs suffered by yield-starved behemoths are a screaming bargain. Yet diminishing assurance of continued price appreciation revolves around this one question "when everyone is in, who will continue buying?"

I will give Tom DeMark this on his AAPL call. The stock's improving momentum since mid-November 2012 (see MACD) supports his forecast bounce. Then again, another negative signal line crossover occurring while admittedly improving momentum still is negative could prove a red flag. This week's AAPL gap lower to a post-peak low is a headwind raising odds that flag will wave.


Word on the Street
* * * * *
© The Risk Averse Alert — Advocating a patient, disciplined approach to stock market investing. Overriding objective is limiting financial risk. Minimizing investment capital loss is a priority.

Analysis centers on the stock market's path of least resistance. Long-term, this drives a simple strategy for safely investing a 401(k) for maximum profit. Intermediate-term, investing with stock index tracking-ETFs (both their long and short varieties) is advanced. Short-term, stock index options occasionally offer extraordinary profit opportunities when the stock market is moving along its projected path.

Nothing is set in stone. Nor is the stock market's path of least resistance always known. More often than not, there are no stock index option positions recommended.


There's an easy way to boost your investment discipline...

Get Real-Time Trade Notification!