Buyers yielded ground stubbornly for the second straight day, digging themselves a deepening trap from which extrication will become more difficult as the week draws to a close. The danger became manifest on Wednesday's opening bar, which slightly exceeded a dramatic and important low made a week ago. From a Hidden Pivot perspective the overshoot was sufficient to create a bearish, 460-point impulse leg (see chart below) that has yet to play out and which has the potential to drive the Dow Industrials well below 12000 this morning. (Click on chart to enlarge) The stock market's most recent troubles began last Wednesday, when investors evidently had second thoughts about the Fed's latest desperate giveaway. They initially drove stocks sharply higher on news of the 50-basis-point easing, but the apex of their high spirits proved to be pure Wile E. Coyote, and down she went. The selling quickly became just as overdone, setting the stage for a 500-point short-squeeze the following day. The broad averages have been detumescing ever since, and even though the elections have distracted from all of the usual bad news, no bullish story has crossed the tape with the wattage to kick off another short-squeeze. WSJ 'Howler' We've lost our capacity to imagine what that story might be, unless one of the leading candidates has a better plan than Helicopter Ben for preventing the recession that began at least several months ago. Let's hope at any rate that none of them is reading the Wall Street Journal for inspiration, since he or she might have come across this recent howler and mistaken it for serious thought: 'Many on Wall Street believe a slowing economy will help rein in prices and that the Fed can focus on reviving growth by lowering interest rates.' In fact, the Fed has
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