There is an ebb and flow to all markets. While the primary trend is in place these intraday fluctuations are of most concern to speculators and traders with a very short term focus. That is natural.
But there are also those hedge funds and trading desks that seek to spread either panic or euphoria, to promote short term trend changes and churn the market for easy but too often illicit gains through price and information manipulation. This is what I euphemistically call the 'technical trade.' And unfortunately sometimes these trade manipulators are very large and influential with the exchanges, the regulators, and even the politicians. Corruption is corrosive of society and must be contained.
Transparency, position limits, leverage constraints, and trading rules such as the uptick and curbs on frequency and tape painting help to maintain legitimate price discovery and efficient capital allocation. Secrecy, back room insider deals, and self regulation are the allies of corruption.
As was shown in the Congressional investigations following the Crash of 1929, quite a few of the analysts and financial news people covering the Street were implicated by the cancelled checks in the suitcase of a Mr. A. Newton Plummer, who delivered payments from the pools and large trading syndicates to manage perceptions as it were among the thought leaders and purveyors of information to the public. Nowadays checks are out of favor and information, sinecures, and grants are the currency among the white collar criminals.
There are few such investigations today, perhaps because that net is likely to catch quite a few fish larger than red faced analysts, economists, and news people, and some even who may have had a held a long and auspicious tenure in important positions of trust, public and private. Mr. Madoff is not a lone outlier unfortunately. And too often the 'CEO defense' of benign non-involvement or an admission of simple error, plausible deniability as it were, and a self-effacing apology are enough to cover and excuse heinous acts of false stewardship and even betrayal.
After all, we sophisticates no longer believe in the capacity for evil among 'people like us,' but rather in the natural goodness of ourselves and of course others. And so we can suspend common sense and even rational skepticism can be turned against the truth while things are falling down all around us. There is historical precendent for the big lie and a self-destructive loyalty to its bitter end.
For those with the intermediate view one sells strength and buys weakness as indicated on the trend charts. And so this is what I do in one of my accounts with a more intermediate to short term focus.
Those portfolios with the long view do nothing but ride the trend and reap the reward, selling when the fundamental conditions that provoked the bull market no longer remain in place.
To clarify some questions I received, I do not forecast 1455 as a 'top.' It is the minimum measuring objective for the cup and handle formation that will likely be met as long as the financial markets do not undergo a liquidity panic selloff. I would like to reiterate my view that gold and silver will continue to rally while the fundamentals remain unchanged. I do not think 2800 is unlikely but there are too many exogenous variables and no active chart formation to justify a forecast higher than 1455 at this time. But the top trend line on the chart below certainly points the way.
