Permabear though I be, I will nonetheless continue to warn you that, with respect to bull-mania, it ain’t over till it’s over. Take a look at the chart below and you will see a stochastic indicator that has begun to roll up from its most egregiously oversold lows since last summer. While this is no guarantee that the Dow Industrials are about to coming roaring back, neither is it a very compelling reason to get short up the wazoo.

(Click on chart to enlarge)

If the Indoos are indeed destined for new all-time highs, it would be commensurate with a topping pattern destined for infamy on a grand scale. Isn’t that the way a 25-year bull market is supposed to end?  Regardless, we will not shy from shorting some of the more obvious disasters in-the-making – banking giants, entertainment conglomerates, casino operators, homebuilders that have rallied a little too energetically – those kinds of stocks. And if we continue to risk just pocket change on our stop-losses, we really can have it both ways – make a few bucks, that is, even on bets that prove to have been flat-out wrong. 

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Armstrong Misjudged?

I wrote here the other day that economist and forecaster extraordinaire Martin Armstrong was in prison for stock fraud, but I’m going to give someone who worked with people who knew Armstrong well a chance to set the record straight. Here’s our bird-flu correspondent, Erich Simon, with a different view of the man than you are likely to get from the news mainstream's punditry:

(Enlarge this picture? I don't think so...)

“Martin was brilliant. He was the brains behind the whole mess that got him thrown in prison. He never broke the law. It was the other Wall Street firms who actually broke the law (I forget the names now -- all the biggies though), and they all lied in court and let Martin take the fall. And he did. And still kept his mouth shut! The Judge called it Contempt.”

From James Smith, a drinking of Erich's who worked very closely with Armstrong, we learn that Armstrong "could have ratted out half of Wall Street. They were all in on it." Considering that Martha Stewart went to jail but buy-side liar Henry Blodgett did not, we should be ready to believe that Martin Armstrong took the fall for somebody.

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Want to Forecast Like a Pro?

Plans for the first online Hidden Pivot seminar are nearly complete. The two-day event will be held via Webex in late March or early April, most probably on successive weekend mornings. There will also be at least one lengthy Q&A session to follow, just as there has been on Sunday afternoons to conclude the on-site course.

This will be an excellent opportunity for those of you who were unable to attend the classes I gave last year in New York, Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco and Denver. If you’ve visited the chat room and marveled at the forecasting skill of seminar grads, this seminar is designed to quickly bring you up to their level. While I cannot guarantee that the course will turn you into a fabulously rich trader,  I can promise that with a little diligence and practice, your ability to precisely predict price reversals in stocks, indexes, options and commodities will be at least as good as anyone whose forecasts you have ever paid for.

I will be able to offer this course for under  $1,000, since many of the expenses that I've incurred in holding a “live” seminar – including hotel and travel costs, and the rental of a conference facility -- will not be a factor. If you are seriously interested in attending, click here to get on the mailing list.