The In Your Face Move

This is from Tuesday's Quick Takes Pro newsletter in the "Today's Lesson" section. Enjoy!

The chart of Qualcomm really illustrates what has been becoming a bit too common in this market. False moves, fake-outs and a "whichever way the wind blows" culture is driving old school chartists crazy. Exceptions are now the rule and we wonder if technical analysis would have even gotten off the ground it if were invented today.

For those wondering about the captions, we try to keep the swearing to a minimum. Look what happened this month - a trend break that lasted more than just a day, a strong rally to prove it was false, and then a total collapse to be sure everyone lost money.

What we have is a broken trend and now a broken support. We have observed that the market does finally give proper signals after this sort of shake-and-bake, for lack of a better term.

As for the CeeLo Green reference, that is the cleaned up radio version of the f-bomb.

Sign of a Top

We all know that despite educators' and hand holders' best efforts, the little guy is always the last to the party. When the public starts to bite on Wall Street hype you know it is getting very close to time to sell everything and hide in a bunker (or spider hole of you are a deposed Middle Eastern dictator).

This is why the magazine cover indicator works. When editors believe the public is sufficiently hungry for a certain type of information they put it on their covers to spark sales. You don't see covers touting stocks at the end of bear market because nobody wants to touch them with a 39 1/2 foot pole. Of course, that is exactly the time to cozy up to Mr. Grinch.

Here is the transcript, accurate to my own stenographic abilities, of a John Hancock Financial Services commercial I saw on a financial news show this morning.It showed several couples in different JH offices talking to their respective advisors.

Couple 1 - "We felt better holding on to our money"
Couple 2 - "But waiting? We shouldn't wait any more."
Couple 3- "So here we are. We need to invest again."
Couple 1 again - "We just need to find the right thing to do."

Break out the pic-i-nic baskets, the bears are comin' to town.