Yet another punk Friday suggests that the longest bull market in history is running out of gas. Considering that the war with Iran is a mop-up operation at this point, and that global jihad has suffered an extraordinary setback, the stock market should be celebrating. Instead, the S&P mini-futures couldn’t even muster the last dozen or so points to reach a 6911.50 rally target I’d considered a lock-up.  The futures could have returned to the green line (x=6766.94) for a running start and another try; instead, they kept falling, canceling an ostensibly bullish pattern with a dip beneath its point ‘c’ low at 6718.75, just ahead of the opening bell. To complete this picture of feebleness, buyers went nowhere on Friday, even unburdened of bulls who were stopped out with the gratuitous dip beneath 6718.75. Now all DaBoyz can do is wait for “news” conducive to a short squeeze, which, as I never tire of reminding you, is where nearly all of the serious buying power comes from in bull markets.

But if a decisive victory against the chief agent of evil in this world is not enough to spark such a rally, then what is? Instead, the focus of the hacks who invent the news is on the disruption of oil markets. It has been years since Wall Street much cared about events in the real world, much less a mostly imagined problem with oil shipments in the Persian Gulf (as evidenced by Israel’s resumption of commercial air flights.) The Masters of the Universe should be looking past this, toward the resumption of business as usual. And yet, their dim lackeys in the news media seem crestfallen over Iran’s impending defeat. (Tune to CNN for 30 minutes if you don’t believe this.) Something is wrong with this picture, and it is looking increasingly unlikely that another big, underserved leap in stocks will remedy it. Meanwhile, since I never like to leave you without a price target, I’ll suggest using 6612.00 as a minimum downside objective for the near term. The reverse pattern yielding that Hidden Pivot support is not hard to find on the daily chart, so it’ll be a do-it-yourselfer. _______ UPDATE (Feb 9, 3:29 a.m. EDT): The futures somewhat exceeded my target, presumably because traders had nothing on their tiny brains besides the 6583.00 low recorded on November 21. The overshoot is not especially bearish for that reason, but if the low gets taken out, look for more slippage to 6536.50, a voodoo number that can be bottom-fished if you know how to hold risk down to under $200 per contract.