Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Someone in the chat room mentioned seeing something unusual in the daily chart, but I can find nothing of interest myself.  Although I am hard-pressed to come up with reasons why the dollar should remain more or less stable for an indefinite period, 'dueling impulse legs' on the daily, weekly and monthly charts suggest that the picture could remain boring for weeks or even months.  While a breakdown below 70 seems unlikely any time soon, it would take an upthrust exceeding 92.63 to end the bear market begun nine years ago.

Shortly before 3 a.m. EST, the futures had recouped about half of the shallow pullback that followed Tuesday's sharp upthrust. They seemed a little timid, but in any event, a push today exceeding a 30.885 peak recorded on January 3 is needed to revitalize buyers for a challenge of a more important peak at 31.275. Once above it, the March contract would have clear sailing to 32.520, a Hidden Pivot that comes from the daily chart (where A=25.050 on November 16).

Shortly after 3 a.m. EST, tedium reined in bullion and the index futures.  Gold and Silver were both off slightly in what appeared to be a mellow consolidation of Tuesday's gains;  and the E-Mini S&Ps were also off a few points, presumably to shake stock loose from anxious widows, pensioners and orphans.

Shorts held after Monday's close could have been closed out for a very small gain above 126, although getting long on the same cue would have required the patience to wait several hours for the first camouflage opportunity. From here the futures look bound for at least 12261, a Hidden Pivot that can be shorted with a stop-loss as tight as five ticks.  If it's blown away, look for the rally to continue to 12308.  (Both of these targets are easily found on the 15-minute chart.) Night owls looking to board for the expected ride north will find camouflage difficult to find, since the futures are at new highs for this Mother of All Bear Rallies.

AOL’s $315 million buyout of the Huffington Post has to rank as one of the most recklessly extravagant dot-com deals in history, rivaling the Time-Warner/AOL merger in stupidity if not in dollar value. Not that that would stop a few hard-core fans from blogging the deal as though it were the Second Coming.  Here’s what one of them, Jason Pollack, had to say, taking the prize for retch-inducing obsequiousness:  “The Huffington Post has been dramatically ahead of the curve in modifying their site to fit with the latest social trends. Last night they were rewarded handsomely for their brilliance.”  Yeah, sure.  Handsomely. Three-hundred-and-fifteen-million bucks! Hell, give us a measly one million and in three years we’ll build you an online presence with an audience that will rival Huffington’s in size. And unlike Huffington, which only recently began to make any money at all, we could ramp up advertising revenues relatively quickly to pay for expansion, avoiding their mistakes and stealing their best clients. The talent to do this has never been cheaper.  Having come from the newspaper business ourselves, we can attest that Pulitzer-winning reporters, some of them close personal friends, are a glut on the market. News editors we know have been looking for work for as long as seven years. And a few former managing editors have thrown in the towel. Need some celebrity-types to contribute regular think-pieces and commentary?  No problem.  Many will do it for nothing simply because, like TV actors who work for scale on Broadway, they are egomaniacs who crave the exposure.  What does it take to attract Huffington-size audience?  In a word, sleaze.  If you haven’t visited the site recently or used Google news to find the top stories of the hour, you might still think of Huffington as the premier outlet for news, tidbits