Does anyone recall the last time stocks came unglued on the Wednesday of an option expiration week?  We surely don’t. Usually it’s a pump-and-dump day that you can circle on your calendar. Here’s the way it works:  Monday blahs give way to The Tuesday Turnaround, which in turn sets up stock for a wicked goosing by DaBoyz on Wednesday. The resulting short squeeze is just powerful enough to fatten up expiring out-of-the-money call options so that they become a ripe short sale for all of about three hours on Wednesday afternoon. Then, on Thursday, stocks churn, the pumped-up calls collapse, and DaBoyz pocket the proceeds. On Friday, stocks gyrate wildly but go nowhere, pegged to their nearest strike prices, and the perpetrators head for the Hamptons.   

So what went wrong with yesterday’s would-be heist?  Judging from the way stocks dove late in the session, the scumballs actually lost a round.  They appeared to have their hands full merely holding up shares during the day to distribute same to widows, orphans and pensioners at decidedly less-than-fat-and-juicy prices. But when the strain of keeping a pig airborne evidently proved too great, stocks succumbed, falling more or less steadily during the last two hours. The Dow finished down 167 points – yet another dispiriting day for the bulls.

Now, to a growing list of signs that Papa Bear has finally arrived, we will add yesterday’s unusual expiration-week behavior. One of these days stocks are going to really fall, wiping out the recollection of whatever distress we may have felt when the Industrial Average fell a measly two or three hundred points in a single session.  Is it possible the so-far orderly, 850-point decline that has occurred since last Wednesday will turn out to have been the beginning of such a decline? Of course it’s possible. We’ll know more if and when the Indoos grope their way down to a specific Hidden Pivot support  flagged in today’s edition of Rick’s Picks. If the support is breached by more than 2-3 points on first contact -- or, heaven forbid, breached on a closing basis – you had better look out below!