I’ve become more bluntly opinionated in these pages lately because following the markets from a purely technical perspective has become almost too boring to care about. Gurus by nature are wont to predict that ‘something’ is about to happen. However, long stretches of tedium, including such innumerable, senseless rallies to nowhere as we’ve seen in recent weeks, mock my efforts. But I cannot tell you to expect anything like a collapse, if for no other reason than that it is simply not in Amazon’s chart.  The stock is the best proxy we have for the FAANG-obsessed mindset of portfolio-managing chimpanzees who show no sign whatsoever of being ready to pull the plug.

For more-entertaining insights, consider a free trial subscription that will allow you to access the Rick’s Picks chat room.  Today, for instance, you would read about Ben Rosovsky, a PSE market maker from the good old days who failed so badly at trading that he tried to rob a bank on Alameda Island.  What Ben failed to consider, and what got him a stretch in a federal prison, was that there were only four bridges available for escape. Another depressed market maker took a very different escape route: suicide with a .44-magnum handgun. And a third, enjoying rare success, disintegrated in his aerobatic jet when it dove at subsonic speed into Richardson Bay near Sausalito.  Read all about it — and more! — in the chat room.