Waiting on the Fed

Hi folks. It was another "watch the paint dry" kind of day on the market. The Fed announces its rate decision tomorrow at 2:15 EST. In the old days (a year ago or more....) this usually caused unbelieveable fireworks. With the market so tepid and boring now, it might be a relatively subdued session. But it's bound to be more interesting than today.

For those of you laying awake at night, agonizing what to get me for Christmas, try to find a rare C3PO tape dispenser. Yes, this was a real licensed product. The reaction I read of one person who saw this product sums it up best: "Sweet Jesus on a snowmobile......."


I made mention the other day of Second Life. A few people scoffed at the entire concept. Believe me, I've been mixed up in microcomputers for 27 years now, and I know a big thing when I see it. Virtual worlds are going to be huge. It might take a few years. But it's off to a great start. Like I said, I'll probably throw a little get-together just to see who shows up.

What didn't show up to the market today was any kind of excitement. Take a look at the $INDU - I've drawn a rectangle around the relatively tight 100-point range of the past couple of weeks. The market dipped below it for one brief shining moment, but generally speaking we've all been in a total rut since Thanksgiving.


The S&P is a similar story.


The $XAU is also in a pretty tight range. A clear move beneath this area would encourage gold bears. I sure wish the market - any market - would make up its mind. We're all just diddling around here.


GOOG seems to be in a quagmire around $485. If their quarterly earnings aren't sensational, that could be the catalyst for a nice move down. There is nothing terribly clean about this chart. The only thing it tells us is that the explosion up to $500 has abated.


Check out the monster divergence in Goldman Sachs (GS). What I like about the puts on these is that they could get some meat on them. Yahoo, for instance, is never going to have 40 or 50 points blown off of it, because it's only a $29 stock (peanut butter, anyone?)


My bullish case for NTRI was off the mark; the line I should have drawn is horizontal, not angled. I've reworked it below. As you can see, the price failed to clear above this line, and it took a pretty bad drubbing today.


See you on the other side of Bernanke. Let me know if you find that tape dispenser.