Masquerade Bull

You won't recognize me today because I've stuck these bull horns on top of my furry head. I want to make an earnest attempt to make a bullish argument for the market, since I think taking an opposing view is probably healthy. I'm still a bear at heart (albeit less passionately so, given the market's frustrating behavior), but let's take a look at some charts which point up instead of down.

First, there's the Major Market Index ($XMI) from the Amex. This index is pretty unusual in that instead of ascending, pushing up against a resisting trendline, it's formed a nice inverted head & shoulders formation. It just barely sneaked above the neckline recently, but should it clearly break above this neckline, it could mean a clean run up to about 1,180 (its all-time high) based on traditional measurement methods.


Argument number two is the fact that the market isn't seeming to "break", even in the face of a lot of bad news. We've got a war going badly. We've got what was formerly the mightiest corporation of the planet (GM) teetering on bankruptcy. We've got personal bankruptcies at an all-time high. And we have interest rates which have blasted higher and have taken the steam out of the housing market.

So where's the collapse in the stock market? Nowhere (yet). Here, for instance, is a chart comparing interest rates (black graph) to the S&P 500 (blue graph). Notice that the stock market not only doesn't seem to care about the higher rates, it actually seems to defy them!


Argument number three is the recent breakout of the Dow 30. For many months it was pushing up against resistance. It has broken above this resistance, and it has not gone beneath it. So the upward line that was resistance is now support. I'd mention the same thing happened to the Russell 2000 on Friday.


Lastly, a similar argument for the NASDAQ Composite. Besides the breakout, it's even got a cute tiny inverted H&S pattern above the breakout, which also suggests an upward push.


My bearish hope is that all of these charts represent the "last gasp" in the bull market we've seen over the past three+ years. But until and unless the prices clearly exhausted themselves and change direction, it's going to remain a frustrating, day-by-day wait.