Last night, the Japanese Central Bank did its thing, which as the chart plainly shows means pounding the country’s currency into 1-ply toilet paper. Japan was a thriving, prosperous, growing economy until the late 1980s, after which time it has been an increasingly desperate simulacrum of the real thing.
![](https://slopeofhope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/jpyd-640x942.png)
But this is central bank paper games, not reality, so the Nikkei is gobbling it up, blasting higher in a matter of hours.
![](https://slopeofhope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/nkdd-640x728.png)
Here in our own shaky republic, earnings continue to tumble out, with a highlight this morning being Caterpillar (CAT) which did the increasingly common “pop on press release/drop on conference call” schtick. Looks like the intermediate-term trendline is going to get snapped.
![](https://slopeofhope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/cat-628x1024.png)
I am increasingly uneasy about the bullish base which has formed in recent days. Between the Wednesday FOMC, Thursday afternoon’s Apple report, and Friday morning’s jobs report, there is a lot of dry tinder waiting to be list. The /ES is presently on the bullish side of its Fibonacci, which is one reason I have built up my cash position to 30% to play things a bit safer.
![](https://slopeofhope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/esye-640x414.png)
The /NQ is well below its own Fibonacci (the higher of the two lines below), but it, too, is trying to complete a bullish base below that dashed line that you see. It may well take until Friday’s normal session until the smoke clears on all this!
![](https://slopeofhope.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/NQNQNQN-640x308.png)