Monday, March 26, 2012
1937 Stock Market Action: A Model for Today?
In March 1937, the Benny Goodman dance craze was in full force. The mood was upbeat.
That same psychology was also at work in a rising market. Most investors did not anticipate the serious tumble stock prices were about to take.
But tumble they did.
Here's what Robert Prechter wrote in the August 2011 Elliott Wave Theorist:
I’ve...been using 1937 as a model...the market made its true high in 1999-2000, just like the market made its true high in 1929, after which it had a terrific drop and then a partial recovery into March 1937. And the market has been doing something analogous during the past 12 years.
Here's a look at the 1937-1938 downtrend:
As you can see on the chart, prices rebounded after the first leg down, reclaiming 83 percent of the decline. In other words, just when it seemed the worst was over, the bottom really fell out.
In March 2012, stock prices are within a stone's throw of the 2007 all-time high. The rally has gone on so long that even some of the most entrenched bears have embraced stocks.
Moreover, the total assets in the Rydex money market funds have been at a new low. As you know, investors decrease their cash holdings when they believe the stock market is heading up.
The only fear in the market has been the fear of missing out on gains.
Even so, are we heading for a more literal understanding of "market fear," when investors can't find the exit fast enough?
Here's what we do know:
- even during the recent rally, the market has lacked strong momentum
- critical technical divergences indicate a fractured market
- the market's Elliott wave pattern has become increasingly clear, including the near-term
Elliott Wave
Locator RFID Chips Keep Track Of Students In Brazil
Twenty thousand students in 25 of Vitoria da Conquista’s 213 public schools started using T-shirts with chips earlier this week, secretary Coriolano Moraes said by telephone.
By 2013, all of the city’s 43,000 public school students, aged 4 to 14, will be using the chip-embedded T-shirts, he added.
“I believe we may be setting a trend because we have received many requests from all over Brazil for information on how our system works,” he said.
Radio frequency chips in “intelligent uniforms” let a computer know when children enter school and it sends a text message to their cell phones. Parents are also alerted if kids don’t show up 20 minutes after classes begin with the following message: “Your child has still not arrived at school.”
“We noticed that many parents would bring their children to school but would not see if they actually entered the building because they always left in a hurry to get to work on time,” Moraes said in a telephone interview. “They would always be surprised when told of the number times their children skipped class.
After a student skips classes three times parents will be asked to explain the absences. If they fail to do so, the school may notify authorities, Moares said. The city government invested $670,000 to design, test and make the microchipped T-shirts, he said.
The chips, similar to those used to track pets in many countries, are placed underneath each school’s coat-of-arms or on one of the sleeves below a phrase that says: “Education does not transform the world. Education changes people and people transform the world.”
The T-shirts, can be washed and ironed without damaging the chips, Moraes said adding that the chips have a “security system that makes tampering virtually impossible.”
Moraes said that Vitoria da Conquista is the first city in Brazil “and maybe in the world” to use this system.
“I believe we may be setting a trend because we have received many requests from all over Brazil for information on how our system works,” he said.
Yahoo News
Hippies head for Noah’s Ark: Queue here for rescue aboard alien spaceship
A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah's Ark when doomsday arrives – supposedly less than nine months from now.
A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age.
As the cataclysmic date – which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar – nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic.
For decades, there has been a belief that Pic de Bugarach, which, at 1,230 metres, is the highest in the Corbi̬res mountain range, possesses an eery power. Often called the "upside-down mountain" Рgeologists think that it exploded after its formation and the top landed the wrong way up Рit is thought to have inspired Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Since the 1960s, it has attracted New Agers, who insist that it emits special magnetic waves.
Further, rumours persist that the country's late president François Mitterrand was transported by helicopter on to the peak, while the Nazis, and, later, Israel's Mossad, performed mysterious digs there. Now the nearby village is awash with New Agers, who have boosted the local economy, though their naked group climbs up to the peak have raised concerns as well as eyebrows. Among other oddities, some hikers have been spotted scaling the mountain carrying a ball with a golden ring, strung together by a single thread.
A grizzled man wearing a white linen smock, who calls himself Jean, set up a yurt in the forest a couple of years ago to prepare for the earth's demise. "The apocalypse we believe in is the end of a certain world and the beginning of another," he offers. "A new spiritual world. The year 2012 is the end of a cycle of suffering. Bugarach is one of the major chakras of the earth, a place devoted to welcoming the energies of tomorrow."
Upwards of 100,000 people are thought to be planning a trip to the mountain, 30 miles west of Perpignan, in time for 21 December, and opportunistic entrepreneurs are shamelessly cashing in on the phenomenon. While American travel agents have been offering special, one-way deals to witness the end of the world, a neighbouring village, Saint-Paul de Fenouillet, has produced a wine to celebrate the occasion.
Jean-Pierre Delord, the perplexed mayor of Bugarach, has flagged up the situation to the French authorities, requesting they scramble the army to the tiny village for fear of a mass suicide. It has also caught the attention of France's sect watchdog, Miviludes.
A genial sexagenarian, Mr Delord says: "We've seen a huge rise in visitors. Already this year more than 20,000 people have climbed right to the top, and last year we had 10,000 hikers, which was a significant rise on the previous 12 months. They think Pic de Bugarach is 'un garage à ovnis' [an alien garage]. The villagers are exasperated: the exaggerated importance of something which they see as completely removed from reality is bewildering. After 21 December, this will surely return to normal."
Masking his fears of what might happen on 21 December, Mr Delord jokes that he will throw a party and supply vin chaud and cheese. "I'm sure we'll have a little fete to celebrate that we're still alive," he smiles. "I suppose it's up to each of us to find our own way."
The Independent
Putin says U.S. Behind his opposition
WASHINGTON – Vladimir Putin, slated to become the next president of Russia as a result of recent elections, believes that the Obama administration is behind the opposition that seeks to remove him, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
That prospect has made Putin more assertive in reversing the perception of a weakened Russia in the face of what he envisions as a direct Western challenge to the foundation of his country.
Consequently, Putin’s perception could mean a greater prospect for confrontation with the U.S. and the end of the Obama administration’s “reset concept,” according to informed sources.
Putin and others in Russian leadership never were great fans of the reset concept, since it implied restoring the relationship to a period during the George W. Bush administration.
To many Russians, that period was marked by weakness and humiliation and a strong challenge to Russia’s nuclear capabilities, making analysts conclude that it may be very difficult to implement future security agreements with Washington.
Major differences between Moscow and Washington also could make future cooperation in using Russian territory to get supplies to U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan very difficult.
As it now stands, the U.S. is using the Northern Distribution Network, or NDN, to provide supplies after Pakistan cut off supply routes through the Khyber Pass in Pakistan following an attack by U.S. forces that killed some 26 Pakistani soldiers on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In addition to making the flow of supplies through Russia increasingly difficult, the Kremlin also could make it difficult for the supplies to continue through the NDN by applying pressure on former Soviet republics on the route, such as Uzbekistan.
WND
Australia hit by biggest quake in 15 years
Australia has been hit by its biggest earthquake in 15 years,seismologists said, rattling a remote part of the desert with local Aboriginals reporting strong shaking but no major damage.
The 6.1-magnitude earthquake had its epicentre near Ernabella, in the middle of Australia, at a shallow depth of three kilometres (1.8 miles), Geoscience Australia said on Saturday.
Ernabella is an indigenous arts hub home to about 500 Aboriginal people, some 317 kilometres southwest of the popular Alice Springs.
Seismologist David Jepsen said: "An event like this, there are a number of Aboriginal communities around there and they have experienced strong shaking.
"We've heard from them, people have felt strong shaking, but we haven't heard of any damage yet, but there is that possibility."
It was Australia's biggest quake since a 6.3-magnitude one was recorded in West Australia in 1997.
Resident Ria Nicholls told ABC radio houses shook and windows rattled for about 30 seconds with elderly people on her street terrified by late Friday's quake.
"My husband and I just reassured them that it would be fine and it would pass, but they were frightened," she said.
Yahoo News
'Iran plotted terror attack on Israeli ship in Suez'
'Al Ahram' reports Iranian agents offered 2 Egyptian men 50m. Egyptian pounds
Iran plotted to carry out a terror attack on an Israeli ship as it passed through Egypt’s Suez Canal, a report in the EgyptianAl-Ahram weekly claimed on Friday.
According to the report, the Egyptian terror operatives received instructions and funds from Iranian handlers ahead of the planned attack.
Egyptian authorities made no official comment on the report by Saturday night.
The suspects allegedly planned to recruit a third member to their cell, and were supposed to receive 50 million Egyptian pounds to carry out the plan.
If confirmed, the plot could strain ties between Iran and Egypt, which is in the midst of a political transformation.
Islamist parties control the lower parliament in Cairo, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s party, which is the largest in parliament, said it may field a candidate for the presidential elections.
Nevertheless, the ruling military council is determined to retain some power.
Some members of the new Egyptian parliament have indicated that they will seek closer ties to Iran. Under former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Cairo viewed Tehran as a hostile, radical force in the region, and ties between the two country were frozen for years.
The report on the alleged ship bomb plot comes after a series of failed attacks on Israeli targets in India, Thailand and Georgia last month, all of which have been linked to Iran.
On Friday, India’s NDTV news site said New Delhi requested that Interpol issue Red Corner warrants against four Iranians, one of whom was arrested by Malaysian police at Kuala Lampa airport.
The New Delhi police chief said earlier this month that a fifth suspect, an Indian-Muslim journalist with ties to Iran, helped carry out reconnaissance ahead of the February attack, which seriously injured Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of the Israeli defense attache to India.
Speaking soon after the attacks, senior security analyst Dr. Ely Karmon said that had the terrorists succeeded, they could have provoked a strong Israeli response.
“What amazes me about all of these attempts is the fact that one successful attack, one Israeli embassy blown up, is a casus belli,” a Latin phrase meaning a justification for war, said Karmon, of the Interdisciplinary Center’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
Jerusalem Post
7.1-magnitude quake hits central Chile
SANTIAGO — A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile Sunday night, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since a huge quake devastated the area two years ago. There were no immediate reports of deaths or major damage.
The quake struck at 7:30 p.m. about 16 miles (27 kilometres) north-northwest of Talca, a city of more than 200,000 people where residents said the shaking lasted about a minute.
Buildings swayed in Chile's capital 136 miles (219 kilometres) to the north, and people living along a 480-mile (770-kilometre) stretch of Chile's central coast were briefly warned to head for higher ground.
Residents were particularly alarmed in Constitucion, where much of the coastal downtown at the mouth of a river was obliterated by the tsunami caused by the 8.8-magnitude quake in 2010.
Panic also struck in Santiago and other cities, with people running out of skyscrapers, and many neighbourhoods were left partly or totally without electrical power. Phone service was disrupted by heavy use.
"There are some injuries but nothing serious," said Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, who was serving as acting president while Sebastian Pinera is on tour in Asia.
Hinzpeter said authorities were conducting a thorough survey of the affected regions to look for damage.
The Chilean navy's hydrographic and oceanographic service and the national emergency office called off the tsunami warning shortly after an analysis showed the quake wasn't the type to provoke a tsunami.
But hundreds of coastal residents were staying away from the shore, remembering how the government said there would be no tsunami just before huge waves struck after the 2010 quake, killing 156 of the 524 victims of that disaster. As aftershocks rattled the region, many people living inland didn't want to go back inside their homes, either.
State television reported that parts of the ceiling fell from a church in Maipu, west of Santiago, slightly injuring some parishioners. Similar problems were reported with the roof of a shopping mall in La Florida, south of the capital.
State copper giant Codelco said its mines were functioning normally.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred 19 miles (30 kilometres) deep.
It was the second significant quake in as many days for central Chile, where people were shaken awake Saturday morning by a 5.1-magnitude temblor that caused no major damage or injuries even though its epicenter was in metropolitan Santiago.
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120325/chile-earthquake-120325/#ixzz1qE3ARg8L
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