Monday, December 2, 2013

A week of asphyxiating tedium has taken the fun out of this vehicle, at least for the time being. However, night owls can still try bottom-fishing a single contract at the 1803.25 midpoint pivot shown, stop 1802.50. If the stop is hit you could try again near the 1798.75 'd' target, but camouflage may be needed to avoid getting shut out by a premature upturn.

Notice that bulls' best shot on Friday failed to punch past the implied resistance of the two labeled peaks, let alone the crucial 'external' peak at 1267.90. If any of this were to occur over the next several days, we'd be the first jump back on the bullish bandwagon, such as it is.  Barring this, however, the bearish targets given here earlier will continue to obtain: 1212.80, 1195.40 and, ultimately, 1125.00. I am making no recommendation for a 'camouflage'-style entry here simply because the lesser charts that we'd be using to do so are conflicted, reflecting a duel between bulls and bears. _______ UPDATE (8:08 p.m.): No change, although camouflageurs can always attempt to bottom-fish any bearish target that I've highlighted in brown. They are Hidden Pivots, which implies that they are high-odds spots for price reversals.

Regarding the ongoing Fukushima disaster, whom do we believe?  One of the scariest news stories we’ve ever read implies that we’re all doomed – not just Japan, but the whole world. It boils down to this: try to move hundreds or perhaps even thousands of nuclear fuel rods, some of which may already be damaged or leaking, to a supposedly safe place, and sooner or later a couple of them will bump up against each other, triggering a chain reaction with enough heat to send a radioactive plume into the upper atmosphere and the ends of the earth.  From some of the same sources, we are given to understand that thyroid cancers are already epidemic in Japan, that radiation levels are starting to rise on the U.S. West Coast, that hundreds of tons of highly radioactive coolant are finding their way into the ocean and groundwater each day, and that every fish in the northern Pacific has already been contaminated to some degree. But if any of this true, why hasn’t it appeared in The New York Times? Well, it’s not quite correct to say the Times hasn’t reported the story. It’s there, all right -- for anyone with the patience and diligence to find it.  On November 18, for instance, buried on an inside page, is a “quick update” on efforts to clean up the tsunami-damaged reactor complex. Doomsday fears are way overblown, implies David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer quoted as an expert by the article’s author, Andrew Revkin. “The truth is that the irradiated fuel in the Unit 4 spent fuel pool does pose some hazard,” notes Lochbaum, “and the prudent management of that risk is to remove it from its present location to a safer, more secure location. In other words, do exactly what it [sic] being