SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Another Pop n' Flop Below Key Resistance

“Unless you expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is hidden and uncharted.”

Heraclitus, as quoted by Euripides

Once again we had a pop rally in equities based on some vain hope, in this case it was the dovish words of Chairman Yellen in her Fed testimony to the Congress.

And once again stocks faded and closed below key overhead resistance.

Bully will get one or two more tries at this sort of thing, and then I'm afraid that it is likely for stocks to roll over and take a trip downtown.

Have a pleasant evening.

For The Times They Are A-Changin'

'Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence.

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.'

John F. Kennedy


'Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything.

Cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things.'

Stephen Colbert


'All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.'

John Kenneth Galbraith


'This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.'

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

For good or ill, after a long period of abuse and a testing of the extremities of power and the people's willingness to accept them, the only inevitability is change.  Always.

History is not a given, it is not given to us. It is what we are, what we have been given, and what we make of it.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Twenty Lords a-Twerking

The Lords of the Markets were determined to see stocks back up today, and the metals pushed much lower.

Alas, they tried their best, but rude reality intervened, with stocks finishing weakly with a heroic effort to take them off the lows, once again in the afternoon, and the metals resisted numerous attempts to fall on the selling of their cousins, the many synthetic derivatives spewed forth from the bowels of the bullion banks.

There was intraday commentary here in which I take you through what the current chart formation, the rounded bottom or cup and handle, and what they may imply.   And I hope you appreciate the effort I am making at seriousness, eschewing the many, many bad puns that the term 'rounded bottom' suggests to creative, but all too worldly, mind.

Although I do not address it, silver is following a similar pattern, on a much longer time frame since I track it on a weekly chart.  No matter who leads, they will likely go together hand in hand to whatever outcomes the markets may hold in the shorter term.

The US Dollar moved lower again today.  The Lady Yellen will be appearing before that raucous and rowdy group of ne'er-do-wells, idlers, and sharpers in the Congress tomorrow.  She has all my sympathy, as I would have for all patsies for the more ruthless criminal class.

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Funny Markets, Ugly Insiders

"The world's humor, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilization. Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of today that fade into nothingness tomorrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed, we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood.

And here, in its larger aspect, humor is blended with pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth."

Stephen Leacock

Stocks continued to wobble today, swooning lower on the poor economic both at home and abroad.  Although the happy talk about The Recovery™ that resonates particularly from the Democratic establishment is a bit disorienting to those with a firmer grip on reality outside the Beltway.

Tomorrow Janet Yellen will face the Congress, and tonight the nation will face some of the grimmer possibilities in the Presidential race with the much awaited first real primary election in New Hampshire.  I don't think they will be choosing delegates with 'coin flips.'

As Jean Racine put it so aptly, “Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”

Or perhaps much more succinctly as my fellow engineer Glenn put it so many years ago, 'Life imitates high school.'

Have a pleasant evening.