4 AUG 2009, Tuesday

1. Happy Coast Guard Retired Day!
2. Markets...up 16.2% in 19 days!!? At this pace I guess we'll be at all time highs by late September some time. Tongue in cheek, of course. But moves like this are rare indeed. Statistically speaking...a definite outlier on the tail of the bell curve. Amazing stuff!
3. It can keep going without me. No problem. Seems like an outright buying panic or a rig by "Da Boyz". And, if it is "Da Boyz", they are doing a mighty fine job of painting this tape. Heck, they've even pushed it to the upside of the 60 week moving average these past two days. And I use that as a guide as to the longer term environment. So, new bull market? Not if it fails here at the 60 week moving average.
4. But the problem remains that it is very overbought right now by many measures. For example: the market is currently 8.25% above it's 30 week moving average (stretched). Heck, during the entire bull market 2003-2007 there were only 2 weeks where it got that far above it...they both occured in 2003 (one week was 8.1% and another was 8.7%). Throughout 2004-2007, 6-6.25% was it's maximum distance.
5. Another item for perspective...the low to high spread for the entire year of 2004 was 15.1%...for the entire year of 2005 it was 13.1%. In the past 19 days we've bested entire years during the last bull market. Wild!!!
6. So, I'm willing to watch from the sidelines and just do some day trades. As I've said before...I never, ever, ever chase a move...and this one has just gotten silly.