As a full-time fashion model, homemaker, and blogger, I sometimes also feel a bit like a preacher (most likely a Methodist one) who has to struggle for a new topic each Sunday. Although my Sunday happens several times a day, since I blog pretty frequently.

Fortunately the markets usually give me something to talk about, but I pondered a bit this morning what thought I could share. I was going to use my toe as a launching-off point for a discussion about being careful in life, but I think if I talk about my little injury any more, someone is going to show up at my office and give me a more serious injury.

So instead I'd like to direct your attention to this cute little chart I just put together. I like it a lot:

Here are the four elements:

• The tinted blue area is the S&P 500 from October through early January; as you can see, it was bouncing around a while, fell hard, and then quickly moved higher
• The tinted green area is also the S&P 500, but from early January through the present; it bounced around a while, fell hard, and then quickly moved higher (hmmmm!)
• The red rounded rectangles both represent points where the index seems like it should have launched off the basing action and moved much higher; in each case, it didn't
• The blue rounded rectangles represent the areas where the basing pattern initially but, having failed it later, marked the starting point of a serious decline (I can only say that of the left blue rectangle, as the right one hasn't been violated to the downside yet).

You probably see what I'm driving at here: if we can snap below 878, we could be in for some serious downside. And that would do wonders to brighten my disposition. Let us pray.