Friday, June 29, 2012

BTFD - Pounding Sand Edition


In my former life as a commercial salmon fisherman on the North Coast of British Columbia, when we were not catching fish, my not-so-delicate boss used to say we were "pounding sand up our ass".

You Don't Need a PhD in Biology to Know that Shit Stinks - in fact, you're better off not having one...
That's what these Eurocrats are doing now, pounding sand up their asses and by extension all of ours too.  There have been no less than 18 Euro summits since this crisis started 3 years ago.  Proof enough that the delusional circle jerk is over, yet as always, the "best and brightest" are the last to get it.  If it's one thing we have all learned the hard way these past years it's that to the overeducated, the obvious is never obvious.  There is always one more specious textbook theory to hang their hat on and to win the debate as to why reality is not real.  
Unfortunately reality doesn't care who won the fucking debate...

The chart above says it all:

1) Market volatility is clearly increasing, as one can see by the price volatility in the past two weeks (the one day price swings are amplifying again), whereas options volatility (VIX) is decreasing i.e. traders are growing ever-more complacent in the face of growing risk

2) The High Frequency Bureaucrats (HFBs) are now in overdrive to keep the Ponzi in motion; lately there has been at least one "market-saving" event per week, not counting all of the Central Bank interventions.  And yet, the market is going nowhere.  A lot of buying power is being squandered.

3) The concept of attenuation is clearly evident in the chart above i.e. each up-down sequence is growing shorter in duration.  It's even more evident in the long-term Russell 2000 (small cap) chart below.  The market is converging upon what Elliot Wave technicians call a "3rd of a 3rd" event i.e. 3rd waves down at multiple degrees of trend - similar to what happened during Lehman.  

Corollary: The HFBs have saved this market multiple times, but the noose is growing tighter by the minute.  Soon the market will reach the point where it no longer cares what the HFBs have to offer or what wine they are serving for dinner.

Long-term perspective (updated below) - once again the trend line saves the day,  however the market is now overbought both short-term and intermediate-term.  Stepping back and looking at a market progressively cornered into the upper right, using up copious time and money to go nowhere.  That's not bullish...