General Market Index (GMI) table

Jon Stewart: media pundits failed us–but I wrote last June that banks and markets looked sick

@ 11:33 pm
GMI0/6
GMI-R2/10
T210822%

It’s is great that Jon Stewart informed the world last week that the media pundits at CNBC   failed to provide accurate information about the impending financial crisis.   But by using technical analysis, I warned my readers last June what the charts were telling me and transferred my pension money   out of mutual funds to money market funds:

“Look at this weekly chart of   Bank of America (red line= 30week average; click on chart to enlarge). Other bank stocks with similar charts include : WB, UBS, STI, and DB.   When major bank stocks are in a free-fall, can the rest of the market be far behind?” (Posted on June 8, 2008)

The media pundits and the financial advisers are self-serving when they try to convince us that we need their wise counsel.   I say that one can rely on the market itself to alert us to danger. I use the TC2007 charting program to analyze the market trend and post my conclusions on this blog.   I know a lot of you have used my blog to protect yourselves….

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No bottom in sight for this bear market–it’s just the beginning?

@ 4:03 pm
GMI0/6
GMI-R0/10
T210813%

I have written a number of times that one can ignore the fundamentals and all of the media pundits and just let the market tell us what it is likely to do.   When you are crossing the street and a truck comes bearing down on you at high speed, you should not argue with the fact that it is there.   You should not wait in the street for the truck to stop and/or exclaim incredulously that it should not be there.   One needs to move quickly and get out of the way or jump on board the truck,   if that is the goal.

I have been in cash for all of the major declines since 1995.   (I also avoided the 1987 debacle.) I have never been caught married to my long positions,   arguing with the market or hoping that a decline will end.   No one can detect a bottom until sometime after it has occurred.   Why do people look to experts to predict the market when none of them predicted the current decline!   Experts are really great at explaining to us after the fact, all of the reasons why the market declined.   When someone can tell me the reasons before the decline occurs, then I will listen.

So, what can the market tell us about how bear markets have ended?   I showed you several posts ago that the current market is tracking somewhere between the 1929-1932 and 1974 bear markets.   How did these huge declines end?   It turns out that they showed amazingly similar characteristics.  

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Comparison of Current Bear to Bear Markets of 1929, 1973-74, 1987 suggests Dow 3,500 possible

@ 12:01 am
GMI0/6
GMI-R0/10
T210813%

I am getting tired of listening to all of the pundits saying that the current decline resembles the 1974 bear or the 1987 bear markets.   How about looking at some data!   So, I used my TC2007 market price history database to compute how much the Dow Jones Industrial average declined in prior bear markets after the market’s peak.

The results, presented in the table below, are quite revealing and unsettling if one is looking for a near term bottom.   I would be interested to learn if you agree with my analysis.

Twenty days after the Dow had peaked, the Dow   was down 7-10% in each of these beginning bear markets. By 40 days post Dow peak, the 1987 decline had already bottomed out (-41% by day 39) and rebounded to -26%.   The ferocity of the 1929 bear was evident early on, showing a 40% decline by day 40.   In comparison, the 1973 and 2007 bears appear puny, registering only 4% to 8% declines by day 40.   The 1973 and 2007 bears tracked each other quite closely until 260 days post the Dow peak.   By day 260, the 2007 bear was actually showing a greater than the decline that started in 1929 (-40% vs. -38%) and was more than twice the decline shown in the 1973 bear market (-17%). Since day 260,   the current bear market has resembled the 1929 bear market closely, with declines being about 14 percentage points smaller.   I would conclude then, that the current bear market is tracking much closer to the one that began in 1929 than to the 1973 and 1987 bears.

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