This is a new low. And not the kind of low I enjoy.
I can’t remember a time I’ve felt more despairing about the state of the market than right now. From June 16 to August 16 of last year, we had a two month ascent that I thought was the worst period of my trading life.
That was a walk in the park – – a party – – a festivus – – compared to what’s been going on for the past eight months. I say again, EIGHT MONTHS. I could actually argue twelve months, but October 13th was nominally a lower price point in the market, so I’ll just say eight, even though the easy part of the market stopped cold on June 16th, almost an entire year ago. It’s been pretty much a slog ever since.
In any case, feeling so abysmally low, I decided on Tuesday evening to look at my twenty-five index charts with nice, fresh eyes. Having done so, I am ready to mount a flag pole in concrete, tie an enormous white flag to a rope, and hoist that sucker for all to see. There is absolutely nothing about these charts that doesn’t scream “Buy”, although it tears me to pieces to write it, particularly since I’m sure a cadre of sociopathic bulls would love nothing more than seeing one of the better-known permabears throw in the towel.
To make matters worse, as I look at the US financial sector, this could be precisely the thing that compels the other sectors to go from crazy-expensive to super-crazy-expensive. After all, banks got slaughtered in the springtime, but they seem to be hammering out what could be a base similar to those found above.
And just in case I didn’t feel bad enough, I went to Slope’s own Woulda Shoulda Coulda page and, just for the hell of it, was curious what a mere $5,000 in AAPL stock bought in 1998 would be worth today. The answer is nearly $7 million. All for five THOUSAND dollars. Absolutely sickening.
So I’m not sure what to tell ya. I’ve been cutting back, and cutting back, and cutting back some more on my trading, since in spite of all appearances, I am no financial masochist. If this completely forlorn post marks a top, and we can all laugh at my horrible timing for being so light and being so pessimistic, so be it. That would be a very small price to pay to put an end to this agony. This seriously sucks out loud, even though my net worth is higher than it was a year ago. This isn’t the way I wanted to get there.
