Search Results for: palo alto

OK, it's comment-cleaner time. Here are seven fascinating facts (OK, maybe not) about your host, since I'm not going to get around to any market analysis until later this weekend.

•  I can vibrate my eyeballs. No, I'm serious. I can make both eyeballs vibrate at a really high speed. By definition, I have never seen myself do this, and judging from how people react, I don't want to videotape it to see for myself. What possessed me to try this in the first place years ago is beyond me.
• When I moved to California out the age of 13, just about the first girl my age I saw in my new home state was the future Mrs. Bear. Divine providence wins again!
• Numbers are a huge hang-up of mine. Some would call it superstitious. Others would call it OCD. Most would simply roll (or vibrate) their eyes and move on.
• I have rock-solid circadian rhythm. I never need an alarm clock. I can get up at any precise time I decide to get up, even if I go to bed late. Plus if you ask me what time it is, I'll probably know within a few minutes (no, smarty, I don't wear a wristwatch).
• I managed to attend the entirety of middle school, high school, and college without attending a single athletic event. Rock on!
• I took four years of Latin, and my school was one of the very few on the entire west coast that even offered the language. This was, in its own way, a cry for help on my part.
• In a final stab at a mid-life crisis, I bought myself a brand new BMW Z-8 after I sold Prophet. It occurred to me that I haven't had a commute in 13 years, and driving from Stop sign to Stop sign in Palo Alto doesn't demand a high-end sports car, so I sold it for the exact same price I paid one week later.

OK, that's enough for now.

A few days ago, I was in downtown Palo Alto and saw one of those double-length buses pass by (the ones that are two bus-lengths and are connected by that rubbery-looking joint).

As is normally the case these days, there was a large advertisement on the side of each bus. The front bus had a billboard seen very frequently around here, showing a somewhat sad looking child and a headline that starkly reads, "There is a child diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes."

The back bus also had a billboard which was, my hand to God, the following:

Good morning, everyone, and greetings from pitch-black Palo Alto. Another two-thirds of a million Americans were reported as having lost their jobs, and in a desperate move for good news, MarketWatch headlines this as being "not as bad as feared," much like the poor student whose mother breathes a sigh of relief when he brings home a C- on his report card.

The /ES briefly popped higher on the news (what with it being not as bad as feared and all) and then lost those gains, only to sink lower. So I guess the risk of some amazing jobs reporting sending the market 700 points higher today is behind us. Instead, I offer this rather tall chart.

I used to be as obsessed with the Russell as I am with the /ES now, but my interest in the Russell has rekindled recently. Anyway, the point to make on this chart is much the same as I am making on other major index charts – – there's a lot of muck above current price levels bulls are going to have to conquer. This overhead supply is, presently, the bear's best friend.

One interesting thing I noted is this: the measured target from the head and shoulders pattern (the rounded rectangle, encompassing a pattern so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes) was about 450 which, err, it achieved nicely. It fell well past that, and now it has recovered to the same level. So the target for this pattern has morphed itself into a resistance level now.

I don't relish us beating around these levels for months on end. I'd rather jump in the time machine and find us much higher so I can buy puts like a Banshee (wait a second, they were the screamers, weren't they? Perhaps they bought puts too.) But we work with what we have. Good luck out there.

OK, I'm back in my beloved Palo Alto after a mercifully uneventful drive back home. Thirty cubic feet of cargo awaiting my unloading. I'll be back tonight with whatever musings I can muster up. Until then, I thought I'd give the multi-hundred comment thread a fresh start. See ya later!

Just as a reminder, I'm going to be completely occupied by an all-morning meeting here in Palo Alto, so there won't be any new posts until after the close. Be prepared for the possibility of a very long set of comments.

Tomorrow morning's jobs report is the Big Kahuna, but for now, the market has seen enough to tip lower as I'm typing this. I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and the report was on the possibility of General Motors being unable to continue as a going concern. As much as we've all been through, it seems so odd to hear that on the radio. It would have been utterly unthinkable until recently.

As I've mentioned, my portfolio is no longer "pure bear", so that's definitely going to tamp down what would normally be a really good opening for me. In fact, as I was going through all my charts last night – – and I really want to emphasize this – – almost all the new opportunities were on the long side.

So, weak /ES notwithstanding, the kinds of trades I'm starting to line up are buys instead of shorts. And that, as with the GM story, probably seems really weird to you as well, considering who is typing this.

Good luck, and I'll see you after the close.