A potential Head and Shoulders top has formed. It will be a valid formation but the objective will not be activated until and unless the neckline is broken.
Volumes remain light, with lots of technical gamesmanship that contributes to quite a bit of volatility in the short term, aka a 'daytrader's market.'
There is quite a bit of 'tension' in the market ahead of the GDP report tomorrow. The consensus is for growth of 1.5%. We are still a couple of weeks short of the timeframe we have projected for a top and the beginning of a leg down in markets, but some data or exogenous surprise could accelerate this.
There is a de facto partnership between the government and the banks with regard to the financial system and the economy which is spilling over to the equity markets. This is a similar arrangement that brought us the housing bubble and the credit crisis after the tech bubble and crash of 2001, which itself was a reaction to the Asian and Russian currency crisis of the late 1990's.
The financial engineers will likely not abandon their efforts until they either succeed, or finally shake the real economy apart and destroy the US financial system and currency. How they define 'success' is likely to be stability at the price of freedom, a classic oligarchy with 'enlightened despots.' Their financial engineering will require ever greater control over policy and priorities to maintain its artificial equilibrium.
The banks must be restrained, the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into balance before there can be a sustained recovery.
