The 1846.75 target we used to pinpoint the S&P’s all-time high on New Year’s Eve has held up pretty well, having survived 15 days worth of pooch-screwing, two head-butts and a five-day rally that sputtered out just shy of the pivot. Although we shouldn’t depend too heavily on it to stop the bull market in its tracks, it has been pleasurable to think that it might. We hold a short position via some DIA puts, but I’d encourage you to ‘camo-trade’ your way aboard from these levels if a low-risk opportunity should present itself. On the 5-minute chart (see inset) there is one significant downtrending abc pattern that has already tripped a sell signal, and one very minor pattern going the other way that has yet to reach its target. I’ve labeled both to help you get your bearings, but the bottom line is any downtrending a-b impulse leg on the ‘5’ would be reason to get short. _______ UPDATE (7:32 p.m. EST): Two seconds after I published the above, DaBoyz, evidently sniffing bear meat, lifted this erstwhile cinder block four points in the blink of an eye. My hunch is that they’ve overplayed their hand, but because the move is strongly impulsive on the lesser charts, we’ll need to be back off the idea of putting out a mellow short.
