More Chinese water torture. It’s easy enough to see where the futures are headed most immediately — in this case lower, to the 2094.75 target. But the trend itself is not tradable because of the wrenching spasms that continue to punctuate moves in either direction. Does this irritable and vexatious change in the stock market’s behavior perhaps portend “something big”? A subscriber raised the possibility Friday in the chat room, and I tend to agree. Yes, I’m already on record with a prediction of a 120-point rally — equivalent to about 1000 Dow points.  But it was based on the broad averages decisively exceeding important target recently achieved — something they have yet to do — as well as a push by Apple shares, a global bellwether, to a $140 target that has grown more distant with the stock’s fall last week to $126.

We’ve learned never to count out this rampaging bull, which is about to enter its seventh year. But that doesn’t mean the good times can last forever — especially with negatives piling up as the weeks and months roll by. Sentiment and breadth are not merely menacing, but appalling, existing-home sales have collapsed, and profits of big U.S. multinationals have gotten clobbered by the strong dollar. America’s economic recovery, such as it is, has narrowed to a boom in auto sales sustained by a gusher of subprime lending. Count the Escalades in run-down neighborhoods, and be grateful for it while it lasts.