Friday, June 28, 2013

Radar Reads Sub-1000 S&P 500 By Early 2014

We ought rather agree a contractionary—deflationary—shift is in the making with last week's concerted attacks on Confetti immediately being followed by this week's tarnishing of the ECB's Draghi. Call it a central banker double header at BIS park. Gold warns this presently ascending, trans-Atlantic Caesar rebellion is shaping up to be a traumatic shift in fact. Once again in front of the curve, just like from 2002 onward, the yellow fellow appears to be.

This shift is occurring because, as the arrangement stands right now, central banks are at the precipice over which confidence is fatally lost in the rockets' red glare lifting bond yields. The "hyperinflation" no one has seen yet to date, despite much anticipation? We are at the threshold. Thus, the retreat from QE. Still, bigger picture, "controlled disintegration" is BIS policy going back to the destruction of Bretton Woods. Yet this echo of European fascism appears only the more pathetic now, even in the shadow of Hamilton's withered skeleton, with its resentment more widely pronounced (and felt).

Be that as it may, storied bodies holding sway are tempting deflation of the capital structure, risking the core's further contraction into still fewer hands. Institutional objects in this play appear mere messengers of the gods who reside outside and above any reports we hear. That's my casual observation of this scene heaping scorn upon central bank profligacy. Yet even bi-partisan agreement over this stunning shift in focus nonetheless leaves on the table a tasty political bait demanding the Fed's nationalization. The only effective austerity antidote is clear. Likewise, there is no saving the social safety net without physical economy worthy the 21st century, measured by an increase in energy throughput capacity, this in keeping with an established trend of many centuries whose most recent, indeed, have seen this trend accelerate. There is no turning back. Necessity surely is the mother of invention.



A shift of significant magnitude—indeed, unprecedented since 2008—more persuasively begs the above view, returning to prospect considered here early June. The negative MACD signal line crossover we were anticipating a few weeks back has occurred.

Considering growing resistance to endless QE, support at 2010 and 2011 bottoms seems more likely to give out. Systemic challenges, post-2008, saw QE ratchet higher. Yet by all recent appearances expressed in a contrary intention very high up in the order of things, still greater QE is not in the works, at least not immediately speaking. Lest we forget, still greater QE evidently has been quite "needed" up to this point (assuming addition of still more leverage—there's been no de-leveraging—has been "needed" to restore confidence, or ever could).

So, a sub-1000 S&P 500 by early 2014 appears on the radar.

Certainly nothing "new" in the above Elliott wave count. All wave components labeled have been detailed in the context of previous prospects, sometimes differing, other times more or less in keeping with the view above (particularly per wave B off March '09 bottom forming over a prolonged period of time, a possibility whose likelihood has been increasing as the save from 2008 has become further entrenched within institutions of the highest order).

Very near-term, threatening technical circumstance presented here this week remains precarious. This week's bounce has barely dented a decidedly pronounced technical retreat. Another downside reversal sinking major indexes further below May's peak appears a reasonable possibility still, in fact more reasonable now than mid-June. Indeed, we could ask at the conclusion of this week's bounce whether 2013 in the U.S. is on the verge of going negative, joining many other global equity markets?


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, June 27, 2013

Transparency In the "New Normal"

Just to be clear, yesterday's return to a most optimistic scenario continuing the market's levitation in counter-trend rally off March '09 bottom is not a vote assigning higher probability to its likelihood. Yet if the hopelessly bankrupt albatrosses of London and New York can somehow continue their global capital suck into an otherwise insolvent banking system's core without precipitating panic, then that scenario at least is a reasonable possibility. Much depends on whether bankrupt Anglo-American imperial parasites can keep their political intrigues seeking to maximize capital flight below the threshold where game changing pushback becomes more likely, if not impossible to stop.

No small concern to marionettes in the "regulatory" community must be the drain on central bank gold reserves presently necessary to prop up currencies otherwise being massively debased. The chorus chiming "the market is misreading the Fed's intention to taper" and "the 10-year T-note is a screaming buy at 2.5%" no doubt is scripted to contain the bleeding. Likewise the attack on the EMU centering on Italy, first with Berlusconi's removal from political influence followed by some new, very old news scandalizing Draghi. The real scum becoming transparent is not the news itself, rather it is the very necessity of its airing.

More recent old news possibly testing the winds of change in the political realm is revelation of how the Irish government was hoodwinked to bail out its stable of imperial bloodsuckers a few years back. Coinciding with the EU's ongoing effort to codify "bail in," this confirmation of what everyone already knows, or should know, in all probability is meant to hasten consensus necessary to bless the intended, imminent theft "bail in" represents. Yet another demonstration of transparency in the "new normal."



Three straight days working a broken price discovery mechanism, first through Chicago, then onto New York, might have run its course today, leaving Friday to decide whether last week's negative, "outside" reversal will be itself reversed, at least to the effect of momentarily stabilizing downward pressure whose technical basis still finds evidence indicating this garbage is by no means out of the woods.

Three straight days working a broken price discovery mechanism have yet to produce advancing NYSE issues exceeding the mark of a couple weeks back, whose prospective indication of heightened possibility the market's decline to that point might be reversed instead failed to deliver the goods. Nor has the CBOE Put/Call ratio yet registered an "all clear." It still remains above its 200-day moving average. Ditto the Volatility Index.

For now let's assume an a-b-c wave up from Monday's low is in the midst of forming, with its "a" wave largely completed, if not entirely so.


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, June 26, 2013

Volatility Breakout

Has anyone noticed the Volatility Index is precariously levitating above its 200-day moving average, and so prospectively indicating a heightened risk the market not only could face additional pressure, but, indeed, significantly come unglued over coming weeks and months?



May 2013 peak could prove a lot like May 2011 peak, at least to the relevant degree the way to an upcoming, significant market decline appears to be similarly paved. Near-term (looking to the July-August period), presently heightened volatility more or less could persist, only to culminate in the market's worst decline since March '09 bottom, this tentatively developing in the September-October time frame.

This appears a good time, then, to again consider a view put forward here a couple weeks ago...



That line connecting the S&P 500's lows of 2010 and 2011 represents a critical point of analysis. Present technical circumstance substantiating risk of further, upcoming weakness first raises the very prospect this line very well could be approached over coming months.

Sufficient for the moment this heightened likelihood is on the radar. May's peak might just mark 2013's high, while prospect of a relatively range-bound trade over the next month or two subsequently followed by the biggest scare since '09 bottom presents a general backdrop whose consequence could make the above Elliott wave view fairly more compelling.

Necessary transition to a credit-based global banking system anchored by sovereign national banks is open to occur under a framework making last weekend's BIS twist no less another stepping stone toward this end than the very bombshell whose detonation hastens its inevitable fruition. In other words, dynamics invariably advising concerted movement toward a major reform of the global banking system more effectively securing it do not preclude circumstance whose unfolding could coincide with the market progressing in a manner more or less like that indicated above.

We might suppose, however, the introduction of new elements indicative of movement in the necessary direction toward facilitating the means of securing both existing and newly created financial claims likely will coincide with the expression of functional mechanics underlying today's framework in a manner generating significant volatility in both directions at certain discrete moments over coming months and years. This is also to suggest a hyperinflationary blowout of what amounts to unproductive credit need not be the driver precipitating wave (c) of B higher. The institutional framework facilitating sovereign credit systems by and large could be established over the interim wave (c) of B unfolds, while subsequent formation of wave C down could coincide with an imperative to deploy this new system with abandon, as leverage dynamics transition from today's trap driven toward increasing scarcity to tomorrow's better promise securing wealth employing proven means—credit—for tapping into nature's abundance.


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, June 25, 2013

Two Old Curmudgeon Friends

Bounce time? There's probably still more "work" to be done. Today's effort to stop the bleeding did not surpass that of a week ago Thursday when NYSE advances were greater, and still more blood subsequently flowed. Likewise, the CBOE Put/Call ratio remains above its 200-day moving average, so the free money, now 'til eternity trade still has a problem, no matter how much China might be perceived back on board.



Our old friend the NYSE Bullish Percent Index is indicating "red alert." Its RSI < 30 and MACD sinking into the negative confirms there's considerable underlying weakness threatening to drag stocks lower.

Now, if we assume 5 waves up from early-June 2012 bottom currently find the 4th of these 5 waves forming, we can anticipate typical 4th wave versus 2nd wave technical deterioration sinking the Bullish Percent Index below its mid-November 2012 low. As you can see, there's still some way to go. So, any bounce upcoming, likely to be short squeeze driven (as they all generally have been), in all probability will be reversed.

One unknown per these assumed 5 waves up from June 2012 is the dynamism we might anticipate as the 5th wave higher unfolds. Will there be a melt up of sorts, like that accompanying the market's advance from mid-April to May peak (forming the 5th wave of wave 3), or will we see a 5th wave failure, leaving May's peak intact? Maybe a clue is revealed by the Bullish Percent Index during formation of the 3rd wave higher from mid-November 2012 bottom to May 2013 peak. We see that, typical technical deterioration, 4th wave versus 2nd wave, did not register per this measure as the 5 waves forming the 3rd wave higher unfolded. So, let's keep an eye on this as the 4th wave of 5 waves up from June 2012 continues forming over weeks ahead. Should typical technical deterioration register and sink the Bullish Percent Index below its mid-November 2012 low, then we might anticipate a "failure" as the 5th wave higher unfolds.

Venturing a reasonable guess here we're probably looking at the late-August time frame when it becomes impossible to levitate this garbage any further. Given recent developments surrounding the self-imposed bankruptcy of global central banks, we might rather side with the prospect that, May's peak likely will not be exceeded.

I missed this last night, but our old friend David Goldman is seeing things our way, too. There's a shake up brewing a general [deflationary—duh!] liquidation of financial assets and its consequence first will be better for bonds before stocks see any lasting love. More from Dave here (interesting remarks from Steve Stanley, too) and here.


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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Monday, June 24, 2013

The BIS Twist: Hamilton or Die

Poor Confetti. He's being hung out to dry. It wasn't bad enough both ends of the Washington political spectrum plunged their knives into the Fed Caesar last week. This weekend the BIS gave the knives a twist with their annual report clearly signaling it is time to precipitate asset grabs capitalized not by further swelling central bank balance sheets, but rather quite possibly by way of "bail in."

No word on how the BIS' European fascist austerity approach will crush already swollen balance sheets its member banks have amassed. For now, commonly accepted doctrine claiming central banks operate above markets and are impervious to loss might be thought a T.F. freezing mechanism keeping central banks from the obvious next step: the Hamiltonian leap. Yes, the alternative conveniently ignored by gold worshiping Austrians and budget busting Keynesians alike.

Hey Austrian, defend your "store of value." Get behind the only scheme that, by itself, will protect sovereign currencies fortifying a framework allowing their values to increase. That's Hamilton. Certainly Buffett understands this. That's why he's no gold bug. He simply perceives better stores of value in physical economy. Nothing un-American about that.

So, as things stand right now, we might suppose central banks likely are being forced to sell gold and buy short-dated sovereign securities. Trouble is there isn't enough gold in the world to indefinitely support currencies this way. To be sure, short-dated sovereign securities are no gold mine either. Rather a symptom of a fatal disease. Debt, oh Keynesian, is a blessing when its extinguishing comes at the luxury of incredible career opportunities increasing the productive power of labor, this being "effect" paying back debts many times over and creating that healthy capital base necessary to productively growing credit further still. Today's debt, instead, is propping up a Ponzi scheme, and worse, institutionalizing the skim. Dodd-Frank's "bail in" directive a prominent provocation. Let's be honest here.

Just you wait the bad feelings "bail in" engenders. This outcome is better avoided to be sure. Hamilton is the proven way to flank any unnecessary calamity the BIS on down seem hell-bent on sparking. Nationalize the Fed. Stack Congress with yeah votes. A calamity's successful avoidance, more critically having lasting effect, is the plan. That's Hamilton's great contribution to the United States. It is high time the American republic asserted Hamilton's principle throughout the English-speaking world at the very least. Should Venetians be afforded any further avenue to destroy this language culture? Big picture, this is a very real risk.



Speaking of risk, this is not good. There is an increasing rush to the exits, and this is deepening pain's breadth, possibly confirming Hoenig's "horribly undercapitalized" thesis, one well-informed and intimately understood at that.



We're still waiting for a spike in NYSE advancing issues signaling a solid bounce likely upcoming. Straight away, $NYA support at its 200-day moving average could be thought likely, near-term, by positive technical divergences noted above.

The CBOE Put/Call ratio, too, presents a well-defined view. Its continuing assent and proximity above its 200-day moving average effectively confirms the market's weakness more or less since its May peak. A lean on the call side sinking the ratio below its 200-day moving average likewise should accompany any solid bounce upcoming, containing the initial sting of Caesar's knifing.

Is this Snowden another JFK allusion? Shall we wish him well in his search for a Russian bride named Marina? It is possible he's being sheep dipped, like Oswald. Increasing tension with China and Russia ... a gift meant to give, and certainly in Syria. Tony, Tony, Tony (link to Friday's post pending)...


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, June 21, 2013

The Hunt for Bottom

Former British Prime Minister and imperial fertility pill salesman in training, Tony Blair, recently had this to say at the annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem:

"Undoubtedly the predominant emotion in the West today is to stay out of Syria; indeed to stay out of the region's politics. But as every day that passes shows, the cost of staying out may be paid in a higher price later.

"But we should understand: the window of opportunity will be open for only a short period of time. We must go through it together. If not, the window will close and could close forever. Time is not our friend. This is urgent. This is now."
The same could be said for moving the United States' nuclear armed submarine fleet into the English Channel and beginning the national debate over which European capital the U.S. should turn into a parking lot, London, Paris or both. Venetian front men, like Blair, rather than the likes of Bashar al-Assad, are the main political menaces provoking any sense of heightened urgency inside the United States. Young Americans are positively not on board any prospect of active U.S. engagement in the insurrection (slash NATO subversion) in Syria. Nevertheless, these seem fairly amenable to waging war against a Venetian oligarchy whose endless scams and permanent war policy have bankrupted the nation and shattered respectable opportunity.

Thus are U.S. political allies in the charge for war in Syria to be commended for incredible courage displayed in the act of treason they condone. Countless military veterans of imperial adventures over the past decade plus, having intimate experience with the fruits of sequester and a general degradation of the institutions of the U.S. federal government imposed by impeccably groomed subversives who otherwise talk a great game of patriotism while their hands are in the till, stealing the nation's wealth, now more than ever could be driven to desperate acts on behalf of their brothers in arms whose fortunes in battle are not likely to be any different than their own. Lord knows...9/11...Venetians themselves might be compelled to pull the trigger...9/11...if only for achieving the very end the supra-national, imperial empire champions...9/11: destruction of the ultimate authority of the sovereign nation state.

As for Tony Blair, well, it's thank you for resurrecting the spirit of the American Revolution whose continued strength in principal (not to mention in nuclear arsenal) now provokes a rising U.S. political current compel the United Kingdom become a constitutional republic like the better half of the English-speaking world, promoting this with the same intensity of intention as today is deviously directed toward Syria, while insisting it is either this course, or a parking lot named "London." What's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?

In the meantime an oh so penetrating media's coverage of the Capo Confetti Chronicles has perception evidently remaining dense—so thick bunker busting bombs would prove impervious—assuming Fed "independence" is the subsuming principle driving analysis supposing the horse leading the tapering cart is Bernanke, rather than some other, more influential Team Fraud element who, through political mouthpieces, came out of the shadows this week plunging knives into the Fed Caesar's back. Positively stunning was this development, while only the more disconcerting is the larger implication of this turn. Yet no mask laying hold of irrelevant, outdated fantasies can long conceal fast approaching imperial theft by way of "bail in." Little wonder this likelihood is not being spoken, though, as panic it would precipitate rather goes without saying. Still, it is clear something nasty is afoot, no matter the "nothing to see here" posture taken by weak members of Team Fraud's psychological operations unit.



Bottoms have not been typically accompanied by volume spikes, but rather by its diminishing. Nothing unusual about this. So, a diminishing of selling intensity occurring over upcoming days and weeks we can fairly anticipate.

Likewise a further sinking of both RSI (top panel) and MACD (bottom) before any significant bottom is in place. Assuming 5 waves up from early-June 2012 bottom presently find the 4th wave of these forming off May peak, increasing weakness such technical measures typically display relative to their corresponding readings registered during formation of the preceding 2nd wave leave us to suppose this 4th wave has time and space in which to further develop.

This week's decline has had the effect, though, of sinking the S&P 500 to now being within the range of its "4th wave of one lesser degree," namely wave iv of 3. Still, even per this Elliott Wave Principle guideline setting expectations toward formation of 4th waves, there remains further downside possible here. Just how soon this materializes, though, is another matter. Three waves down from May peak appear near completing. These three waves might be seen forming but wave a of 4, leaving a 3-wave bounce forming wave b of 4 pending over coming days. Subsequent formation of wave c of 4 should see technical deterioration and diminishing selling pressure materialize in a manner we have sound basis to reasonably expect.


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, June 20, 2013

The Kill Confetti Consensus Weighs Heavy

The London-New York Axis of Fraud either has made a huge tactical blunder with its recent outing of NSA surveillance programs, or is accelerating its push for economic destruction, material sacrifice and police state. What else could explain the now bi-partisan, public attack on Capo Confetti? The relative silence this attack is receiving in today's oh so penetrating media more or less begs the conclusion that, some kind of conflict—possibly war—has broken out. At the very least something terribly upsetting appears in the offing. It is a safe bet Confetti's "Siamese twin" Yellen hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of being nominated the next Fed chair.

Now, it very well could be Confetti has outlived his usefulness even among dyed in the wool imperial monetarist marionettes in leadership positions in the U.S. federal government. Time will tell. The person nominated to become new Fed capo likely will decide the matter (still, that it now appears a virtual certainty a new Fed chair will be seated in January 2014 is astonishing, no matter how the media is continuing to downplay this). If an austerity ghoul gets the bid, then we should have little doubt a financial crisis gravely threatening the trans-Atlantic banking system, first and foremost, is likely to explode onto the scene. As was suggested yesterday, a turn onto the road to "bail in"—broad daylight theft of bank deposits—could be the objective of this week's stunning attack threatening the fantasy-filled fortunes of bailout junkies. We probably can expect Europe to bear the brunt of any "bail in" heist, as banks there are "horribly undercapitalized" according to FDIC Vice Chair Thomas Hoenig, with Asia being antagonized by an unprecedented exodus of hot money migrating to the insolvent [dollar/pound] core of an über leveraged global casino. Both today's throttling of euro-zone periphery bond markets and a growing liquidity crisis in China rather decidedly substantiate this outlook.

Elevating the relevance of this analysis is the fact that, a lot of garbage was thrown out today...



There likely was a significant surge in margin calls hitting leveraged speculators today, as longer dated U.S. Treasury securities offered no refuge to revulsion at the bottom of the capital structure, where the number of NYSE-listed issues hitting new 52-week highs versus lows fell notably deeper into the negative. So, "everywhere" was selling likely raising needed margin capital. Still, the U.S. dollar caught a bid as a result of a Pavlovian rush into short-dated U.S. Treasuries, and this, bottom line, is critical. "Currency" facilitating asset grabs from the carnage of a fire sale will be critical at the appointed hour when the trans-Atlantic banking system is in the vice grips of its anticipated "bail in."

Still, it is not difficult to imagine a leverage unwind whose consequence absolutely throttles the U.S. dollar. The challenge upcoming will be containing the fire so that just enough carnage is produced to stabilize a shrinking pie of economic and financial enterprises. This is no different than in 2008, and yet the "action" is likely to prove considerably more violent.



Well, we got what we were looking for in terms of declining issue participation. Yet a positive technical divergence registered by $NYAD's MACD (see bottom panel) raises prospect a respectable bounce soon could materialize. We need see the NYSE advance-decline differential spike higher, like last Thursday, before confidence in this likelihood can be raised.

Now, also today the NYSE advance-decline differential fell below its mid-November 2012 low. Going with the assumption that, a 4th wave of 5 waves up from early June 2012 bottom is forming off May 2013 peak, technical deterioration, 4th wave versus 2nd wave, is to be expected. So, already established underlying weakness displayed by the NYSE McClellan Oscillator in this same context, 4th wave versus 2nd wave, is effectively confirmed by today's setback.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely the corrective wave forming off May 2013 peak is completed. Even given the likelihood of an upcoming bounce, some additional weeks spent churning in a more or less sideways trending market could materialize as other technical measures join the NYSE advance-decline differential and the NYSE new 52-week high-low differential in confirming the market's increasing underlying weakness.



Two cases in point are the NYSE Composite index's RSI (top panel) and MACD (bottom).

Particularly given the NYSE Composite's long-noted performance disparity vis-a-vis the NYSE's cumulative advance-decline line, as well as in relation to other major indexes since March '09 bottom, we probably should expect the above noted technical measures to confirm increasing underlying weakness accompanying the markets advance since June 2012, much as the $NYHL and $NYAD already have. Thus is current anticipation that, the corrective wave forming off May 2013 peak likely will be some weeks further developing.


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, June 19, 2013

Pimco's Gross on Board: Liz Warren, Fed Chair, Saves World

Confetti's "Siamese twin" Yellen does not fit Bill's idea of Main Street growth...




Real growth is badly lagging? There's a structural problem? The Fed is driving in the fog?

What is going on?

Uh, a big move is brewing. The President is on board. We must wonder, then, has time come for "bail in?"

Bill Gross rather might be easily persuaded Elizabeth Warren run the Fed. Credit is the means to growth the bond king seeks and Liz "gets it" vis-a-vis S.897.

Bloomberg? More or less tongue tied—stunned over how quickly Confetti's fortunes have turned.

If nothing else today, on display was a Fed Chairman being ruled from without. Truth is there is no better way. Likewise, it is better to be among the ruling.



A currently precarious technical state accompanies revelation it is Helicopter Ben being tapered. Fair warning, and a curiously "thick" media to boot. Oh, the humanity!

That's right. How soon we forget that recent cluster of Hindenburg omens.

Safe for now, it is safe to assume, is the gap higher on the first trading day of 2013. Its approach, though, might very well come tomorrow...


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, June 18, 2013

Ignore the Yellen; Let Liz Lead the Fed!

Art Cashin's Fed speak, which for some mysterious reason was ignored today, adds weight to the market's still evidently vulnerable technical state...



Most foreboding presently appears the bottom panel showing the McClellan 5% and 10% indexes. These reveal a great measure of underlying weakness here, relatively speaking. What's more, there's a summit yet to be overcome, like was done last November.

So, if Bernanke is toast, as Cashin concludes, then why not tighten the screws and pave the way for an austerity ghoul. That's how the thinking really goes. Yellen will not do. Meanwhile the market's deteriorated technical state appears poised to accommodate a climate of increasing worry—fear.

Wait! This just occurred to me: why not instead push Elizabeth Warren for the job of Fed chairwoman? Forget Yellen. She hasn't anything American to offer. Nor our Shadow Greek Prime Minister. The man earns his title. Chilling.

Big news today was the FBI foiling a terrorist bombing of the NYSE, this with the help of NSA surveillance that, (rightly) has everyone in a tizzy. No indication the FBI will be anywhere near Wall Street when the NYSE, all on its own, blows up yet again, meting an unprecedented—widespread—damaging effect as a result. Today's still extraordinarily vulnerable circumstance at every level of analysis amidst a fairly frozen complacency rather stands to tarnish the FBI's "save," making it more a curse than a blessing for the nation. No matter. Something blowing up spectacularly is always a great new conversation starter. At this point, it's not like serious FBI intervention could prolong a broken system's illusion of stability and repair. Better prepare for a bureau protecting investments financed through a reconstituted national bank, the likes we might find Elizabeth Warren most qualified to lead.


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, June 17, 2013

Horribly Undercapitalized: A Ponzi Finance Deathknell

Friday's Credit Bubble Bulletin, "The King of EM" assures us quite real is risk of capital controls being imposed by foreign nationals. This likelihood was raised here last week following the 6% throttling of Japan's Nikkei.

Yet the bigger story is exposed early in Doug Noland's missive when he reports:
"[Rest of World] gross holdings of U.S. assets declined $70bn during Q1 to $20.091 TN. But with U.S. ROW liabilities (foreign borrowing in U.S. markets) down $267bn, net asset holdings jumped nominal $197bn during the quarter to a record $10.034 TN."
This is the face of U.S. dollar support, and exposes physical reality likely to precipitate capital controls. More telling, though, is the fact financial aggregates are contracting in the face of a liquidity deluge facilitated by global central banks. This represents a critical inflection point where the collapse of the global physical economy is likely to accelerate in tandem with contracting financial aggregates.

Thus are central banks beyond hopelessly trapped and well on the road to being widely recognized technically insolvent. Thus, too, is talk of Fed QE tapering quite possibly much more than merely idle chatter. Imminent could be the order precipitating a massive migration of capital to the core of today's bankrupt imperial monetarist system anchored by a moribund U.S. dollar, which in fact is at increasing risk of collapsing. Furthermore, any hint of QE tapering is likely to have detrimental effect on a euro-zone whose premier banks were exposed last week by FDIC Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig as "horribly undercapitalized." A calamity of historic dimensions fast could be moving front and center.


Word on the Street
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© 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, June 14, 2013

Civil Sightseeing Near a Volatile Summit

Civil liberties breaches will not soon fade from view unless the smokescreen these produce—distracting from a nation's economic decimation—is cleared with profound physical recovery whose financing employs new, sovereign currencies, these being loosely pegged to today's, as well as well-regulated. This is backdoor Glass-Steagall. First create sovereign national banks capitalized with new currencies. Keep the old. No need to trash anything. We would be simply recreating the "implicit guarantee" private finance once enjoyed with the U.S. federal government's imprimatur. And we're giving it teeth in new wealth creating possibilities upgrading the global physical economy to a 21st century, state-of-the-art standard. By necessity, a Glass-Steagall reform need regulate the firewall between the old currency and new.

As the build out of the physical economy will require material, new revenue streams of commerce necessarily stimulated will fortify much needed capital with "currency"—purchasing power—and so make a sovereign's "implicit guarantee" rock solid. Sovereign wealth's increase promoting greater physical command over abundant resources, applying at the cutting edge of our present mastery energy at densities and economic efficiencies never before achieved is a necessary feat and alone could make an "implicit guarantee" iron clad. Thus would an implicit guarantee lend "value" to all existing claims, old and new.

Policy driven to increase the national wealth through operations of a new sovereign currency offers the financial system a means to orderly transform today's business with a view forward to worthy opportunities of the highest order: those most bountifully blessing both mankind, as well as the bottom line. That's the irony of any resistance to this. We see imperialism naked.

So, it's arm the terrorists in Syria, eh? Sequester-licious. No. Wrong move. We want proof of chemical weapons use! And who will fall if this "proof" proves false? Surely, this piece of Venetian mafia exposes the depth of this system's bankruptcy. Accelerating is imperative to gain control over physical assets via war. Who really owns Washington once again confirmed.

Looking on the bright side, while SAMs in the hands of a Venetian Foreign Legion puts a gun to the head of the commercial airline industry, mag-lev ground transportation channeled in a vacuum can reach speeds exceeding jet aircraft by upward of 40%, so you see the possibilities of creating new revenue streams on a physical platform worthy the 21st century, including the likelihood the jet engine will become obsolete by a technology putting air flight back in the speed lead, as well as make today's SAMs impotent and obsolete.

So, I believe civil rights are secured in policy promoting a broad, increasing prosperity—notably energy intensive—while certain the supreme law of the United States empowers its people, through its Congress, to issue credit fostering this end in fact. The outstanding history of this sovereign power, unleashed during the nation's most critical hours, will not likely be overturned permanently. Bottom line, the American System of Political Economy is the only face-saving way out for those today wearing Venetian stripes (whether they know it or not). All things remaining as they are, there simply is no middle ground. This viewpoint hasn't changed. Not coincidentally, volatility has been game for nearly twenty years now. Likewise has this been abundantly necessary, and profitable to a shrinking few. Out of necessity must this game turn increasingly violent we might, indeed, rather reasonably conclude.



One technical matter worth noting again is the S&P 500's presently elevated momentum (see MACD). This, judging by a fair chunk of history, more or less suggests good luck pushing the market higher. So, we're rather anticipating a negative turn than an imminent melt up (although a 5th wave higher, possibly forthcoming some weeks from now, might give a "melt up" a run for the hot money). Remaining to be seen is whether momentum's currently positive state in fact assures the period immediately ahead will see the S&P 500 topping while its weekly momentum fades, this in a manner like 1999-2000. What per Elliott wave considerations might make this time different? We might add to this question elevated weekly MACD—will this time see the market rocket higher?—yet already, a short- and intermediate-term  relative strength fade suggests there could be little time remaining, so better look out below.

Another immediate problem is persistent chatter of the Fed tapering its QE. We might consider the possibility this is telegraphing an intention to pull the bailout plug and precipitate a new banking system crisis, which, like the growing tendency to expand war, would be venturing to violently marshal control over physical and financial assets, waging chaos on the cheap while gaining a corrupt political class' backing. Act II, we might suppose, will showcase "bail-ins" in a big way. Certainly, larger wars will be more easily started subsequently. Grand.

The above Elliott wave count might prove too optimistic per near-term possibilities, then. Technically speaking, there is a reasonable possibility wave B off March '09 bottom peaked in May, leaving the market, near-term, poised to unravel. The line of support drawn above connecting the S&P 500's 2010 and 2011 bottoms could prove telltale even over coming weeks and months. We might call it the "no exit" line and find, should Confetti be ordered to taper, its proven support evaporating even quicker than book value of many a too big to fail fee junkie. To be sure, the sooner these feast on an American System harvest the better for all concerned. All sane anyway.


Word on the Street
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© 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, June 13, 2013

Turbulent Sea of Liquidity Swells Bottom Mirage

Well, the money lifted from Japan and Europe had to go somewhere, huh? The poor U.S. dollar remains moribund nevertheless. Now the even bigger problem. Central banks are desperately trapped and in fact already hopelessly insolvent. I don't know what Yves Smith is talking about. Central banks either hyperinflate or they die. Either way, rates are going up and the contraction of the global physical economy will continue unabated until some political contingent subdues Team Fraud demanding nationalization of central banks aiming to effectively create Hamiltonian-modeled, sovereign-driven, credit creating machines financing the build out of a physical economic platform worthy the 21st century. Save that, contraction of the physical and, most emphatically, the financial economy is the name of the game (it's the only game imperialists know) and "value" assigned to financial claims is doomed to adjust [downward] accordingly, all in due time, of course—fast approaching.

Prior to an inescapable wave of central bank nationalizations breaking, though, Team Fraud is likely to be cursed by an increasing sovereign tendency to impose currency controls, quite possibly beginning with Japan, but more likely the euro-zone. Countdown to these rumors hitting the tape in 3, 2, 1...

Here and now, the S&P 500's 50-day moving average still looks very, very vulnerable. Its imminent downside break is foretold by a market trying to bottom, but likely doing so prematurely.



First, we have yet to see the full measure of garbage dumping that has become a well-established trend over the duration of the market's advance this year. There's more to come. Below, you will see why this is likely.

Above, I have noted today's advance in contrast to mid-April. We have previously observed here that, over the duration of the market's counter-trend advance off March '09 bottom reversals higher following periods the market was under pressure have been signaled by days like today, and mid-April prior. It's the "God save our sinking ship" in a sea of liquidity trade (a sea of liquidity that, evidently is becoming much more turbulent, as Larry McDonald noted during tonight's "Fast Money").

Now, as you will see below, there is a good chance one final flush will materialize before a run up toward May's peak subsequently develops (this likely continuing formation of an Elliott corrective wave off that peak).



Oh boy, look at the NYSE Composite index's negative RSI (top panel) and momentum (bottom). No less fearsome today than yesterday in fact. We see how mid-April's notable spike in the NYSE's advance-decline differential was followed by the market's further decline into April bottom. Thus, the NYSE's present, decidedly negative RSI and MACD strongly suggest the same outcome likely is pending, following today's A-D differential spike.

$VIX and $CPC momentum (see bottom panel of both charts) likewise concur more weakness very well could be in store here. Yet though we might assume a near-term bottom was signaled today, we could find index 200-day moving averages challenged before bottom to the market's decline from May peak in fact is in.


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, June 12, 2013

Someone Wants Out Overwhelms Everyone All In

TO READERS WITH DEPOSITS IN ANY U.S. BANK: What task must the U.S. Treasury Secretary lead, that he prove himself a leading American beyond reproach accused a Venetian mole? Simple! Guarantee not one dime of deposits are lost in any future bank recapitalization. The U.S. Treasury Secretary's sovereign power effectively can assure this guarantee likewise is easy to honor. It's backdoor Glass-Steagall a la Elizabeth Warren's S.987 gone 21st century American System, national bank and all rising to the present day's challenge to accomplish more physical work than we can shake a stick at going places no man has ever gone. El-Erian is wrong on one account. The Fed hasn't tried everything. Thus a mere foot in the door is Elizabeth Warren's bill seeking credit through the Fed's discount window to finance just one year of the Department of Education's Stafford loans. Yet that bill's passage represents one small step toward a critical leap, indeed, abundantly needed if the Fed and every other central bank on the planet are assuredly to be kept from insolvency. Warren's bill deserves unequivocal support, because if you can't put a foot in the door, you ain't goin' in. Yet go in we must if the devil is to be subdued. The European periphery's misery must be reversed lest it becomes ours, as well. (This is our fate, too, if today's hyperinflationary breakdown is left unchecked.) So, the credit creating power of the Fed must be applied to constructing an anchor in a physical economy producing a greater density of power operating at efficiencies like never before. We have the technology (and the guns to secure it). We need only apply its leap with an eye toward revolutionizing assured growth of the economy's revenue base, both the private and public sectors. The Fed's power to create credit must be ever increasingly applied toward this end: increasing the productive capacity of an evermore well-endowed—energy rich—labor force. Only then will today's financial claims have any hope of being honored someday to the effect of possessing something of real purchasing power. Without this measure—a purposeful act made uniquely possible by the American Revolution and its culminating U.S. Constitution—today otherwise remains as it was in 2008: a Ponzi scheme doomed to collapse under the weight of an unmanageable, unsustainable—illegitimate—debt.

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Today brought evidence we should expect weakness of the impending kind. Before we get to that, though, let's look a little further ahead...



If mid-November 2012 RSI and MACD lows are taken out over coming weeks, then there's a greater chance last month's S&P 500 peak will not be exceeded again in 2013. (See green line drawn in upper and lower panels)

Yet if the market decidedly turns higher prior to RSI and MACD falling below respective November 2012 lows, we more likely will see the S&P 500 rocket higher in a way similar to (and likely harmonious with) its advances during the first half of September 2012, and then again from mid-April to May peak. Indeed, technical tendencies accompanying the S&P 500's advance since early-June 2012 bottom leave us to conclude this alternative no slight probability in fact (see red lines drawn in upper and lower panels).

Either way the wind blows over the coming course of the current, unfinished pullback, the market from an Elliott perspective is seen topping here, and quite possibly ending its advance off March '09 bottom, as well. For all we know May's peak could mark top. Indeed, were the S&P to fall below its mid-September 2012 peak, then "May 2013 top" might become as commonly referenced here as March 2009 bottom has been.

Here and now, momentum's strong fade (see bottom panel) is made only the more fearsome by the fact its same fade vis-a-vis the NYSE Composite index has taken that index's momentum negative, while the more speculative NASDAQ finds its momentum rather more blissfully aloft. This sets up for heartbreak. Unjustified is greater faith in a NASDAQ still lagging the S&P 500's relative performance. The NYSE's momentum dive decidedly to the negative raises odds, then, the market's current pullback will be more pronounced than any so far this year.

In fact technicals at intra-day levels suggest the S&P 500's 50-day moving average is imminently in peril of being breached to the negative...



Come late-day Monday it was clear the market likely was poising to strongly move in either direction, this by way of technical conditions at various intra-day intervals. (I was leaning positive.)

Yesterday proved a disaster. The strong push out of the gate revealed an urgency objectively measured above by MACD (momentum) for its relatively heightened intensity. "Someone" wanted o-u-t and took it to the close.

No strength was displayed today, either. What might appear positive technical divergences as the S&P sank lower throughout the day are twice belied: with no positive indication of developing long interest the S&P 500's relative strength and momentum remained decidedly to the negative. We see this very clearly at 5-minute intervals...



"It takes buying to put [prices] up." We saw none today following an opening attempt at a CME goose. Today brought only more weakness. "Someone" still wants o-u-t. There is a good chance the S&P 500's 50-day moving average is about to succumb.


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, June 11, 2013

Friday Fail: Melt-Up Odds Trampled in Rush for Exits

TO READERS WITH DEPOSITS IN HSBC: You better start wondering whether the U.S. Justice Department, through its surveillance of Verizon and its PRISM program, has evidence of HSBC conduiting [laundered] funds to British- and French-backed, al Qaeda death squads in Syria. This warning is only the more heightened in its relevance to financial and political reality by news today Citigroup will suffer mightily as a result of a fast developing U.S. vs. Japan, "beggar my neighbor" currency war whose certain outcome will bring the precise opposite result Citigroup is betting. In case you have been sleeping these past five years contraction is the certain outcome of a hyperinflationary monetary policy attempting to sustain a gigantic mountain of illegitimate debt. Citigroup, contrarily, is betting on global expansion and growth. Bottom line: it should be as plain as the nose on your face that, we are at the threshold of unbridled trade war whose consequence is certain to disproportionately impact banks in an era of globalized finance. Citigroup being the bank from which the U.S. Treasury Secretary hales might only raise odds of an orchestrated panic venturing to expand the bank's deposit base at the expense of what are otherwise vulnerable banking institutions across the globe, which possibility ultimately culminates from intrigues initiated by Venice on the Thames attempting to weaken the institution of the U.S. presidency.

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The market's weak, weak technical underpinnings were on full display today...



Mind boggling is the fact that, the NYSE Composite Index is a mere few percent below its best since March 2009, yet finds the differential between listed issues reaching new 52-week highs versus lows solidly in the negative. All the more perplexing is reality finding the NYSE Composite Index today printing about 18% higher than mid-November 2012. In a word? Garbage. Above is proof.

Behold one of the key measures behind the cluster of Hindenburg Omens registering over the past few weeks. This is not the kind of "signal" we might expect prior to a market melt up. So, cancel Friday's prospective outlook. If in the cards were only more accelerated QE from central banks across the globe, then the wares on the New York Stock Exchange would not look so thoroughly undesired as long-term holdings. It would seem this fact represents the essence of this morning's consternation over failure of the Bank of Japan to indicate a willingness toward ratcheting up its hyperinflation, a disappointment plainly hastening a more vigorous move toward the exits.

The open question right now might be whether major indexes reached a secondary peak in May, five years from likewise reaching a secondary peak in May 2008, and are now poised to crater in a big way. Of course in the mainstream there is no shortage of sentiment seeing the market's near-term prospect from the vantage point of perspective presented here Friday. This, itself, bodes ill for new index highs. Still, imminently, a period seeing index momentum simply turn over probably is the most certain likelihood here. What follows in the way of challenges to index highs reached in May is a bridge better crossed once we have clear sight of the breach selling pressure still to materialize appears due to create over coming days and weeks.


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!