My gut is telling me that we should short the bejeezus out of every rally that comes our way these days. Stocks feel like they are being held aloft, but only barely, as the smart guys prepare to bolt for the exits. Take the Dow Industrials. They've traced out a teepee in the last month and are now struggling to avoid breaking beneath its floor. Ordinarily, the consolidation pattern this has created in the last few days would be prelude to a short squeeze, or at least to the construction of a right shoulder within a larger H&S pattern. However, to achieve proper symmetry in time, that would imply that the impending collapse is still at least a few weeks away. (Click on chart to enlarge) Can Da Boyz hold up the averages for that long? I seriously doubt it, especially with the bird-flu thingie threatening to touch off a stampede out of any and all stocks that will not somehow benefit from a global pandemic that kills hundreds of millions of people. Bird flu is not the only dark cloud on the horizon, either. There is also an imploding housing boom that threatens to turn our piddling consumer inflation into a catastrophic debt deflation. Dreaming of 5% This is notwithstanding recent assertions from Pimco that the upward trajectory of real estate prices is about to merely slow to a more sustainable 5 percent. In their dreams, maybe. Pimco is not the only formerly reputable bear that has made a 180-degree turn just in time to soft-peddle the housing bust. My friend Jas Jain has been keeping tabs on other high-profile pessimists who, though recently justifiably gloomy, now sport big 'Smiley' buttons on their lapels. Here he is, eager as always to name names: During 1997-98, when the U.S. stock
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