As proof not only of God, but a cruel God, I found myself driving behind the following license plate this morning:


That's right. Go Dow. Bring me the head of Ben Bernanke!

I am understandably in no mood to look at charts right now. But at least I can remind everyone that I have been very suspicious of the short-lived breakdown in prices. Doing this blog this long has taught me to put plenty of asterisks next to my ruminations, and as I've said repeatedly, a breakdown hasn't happened. And until it does, the bulls own this market. Every tiny dip in prices during this godawful rally has been just a few quick days of bearishness, only to be whisked away into the land of new highs......


The strength of the Transports only confirms this belief. This is a new lifetime high for the Transports, and even the most bearish bear has to admit that the Dow Industrials and Dow Transports hitting new, never-before-seen highs on the same day is outright bullish for U.S. stocks.

Time for a shameless plug. My book is rolling off the press right now. You can click here to go to Amazon if you'd like to pre-order a copy. I paid my way through college writing computer books, but it's been a very long time since I've had the thrill of seeing something I've written in a book store. I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


I've drawn a channel representing the NASDAQ 100 (which, in spite of a really strong general market today, is relatively weak). As you can see, we remain very much at the high end of this channel.


I've pointed out the huge divergence between the major indexes and their RSI. This holds true for $OEX as well.


Tomorrow is going to be really important. If we fall tomorrow, today may have been nothing more than a retracement. If we push higher, than we're probably looking at the umpteenth time that the bears have had a little hope injected into their system only to have it ripped away. Today's rise can be explained away. Any more rise could not - - we'd have to concede to the bulls yet again.


Capital One (COF) is still a possibility, even though it's holding up far longer than I ever expected.


John Deere (DE) remains at the high end of its channel, and it actually fell a bit today, in spite of a very strong Dow.


HealthNet (HNT) is approaching both its former high as well as the upper range of an upward-sloping trendline.


Interactive Data (IDC) has a rather toppy looking pattern and is worth a look.


Like I said, tomorrow is key. It was a very tough day for the bears today. Let's see if hope gets yanked away or is allowed to linger just a bit more.

Today is my 400th post (huzzah!) May God grant me the strength to see it through to post number 500. And smite anonymous phone callers.

The stock market these days reminds me of a celebrity. With makeup on, they can be very sexy and alluring. Without the gloss and shine, however, it can be a scary sight.


The S&P was somewhat weak today, as was the market as a whole. This was a nice relief, since a springback from Friday's weakness would have heartened the bulls. However, we have to cut beneath 1417 to break the series of higher highs/higher lows. Otherwise, we're just going to continue to waste our lives waiting.


The $VIX is, understandably, pushing higher.


I'm kind of "charted out" for now, so let me share just a few. At long last, some of the commercial realty stocks are falling. Here's sky-high AIV, for example.


Amlyn (AMLN) remains a favorite short.


I've mentioned BP a bunch of times. The head and shoulders formation - and it's a huge one - continues to form nicely.


CNX is also in a topping pattern with a very clear stop-loss price.


And although I have no position in NutriSystem anymore (NTRI), I would be terrified being long this stock. It's in a huge no-man's-land right now, and there is very little in the way of support between its current price and........I won't even say how low.


On to post 401! See you tomorrow.