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SCFjan 11 PDF
SCFjan 11 PDF
Michael S. Jenkins
Pushing On A String
Historical precedent shows that secular bear markets have rally phases that last only two years at most
before an intervening nine month, to two year decline sets in. In the last issue I showed a few of the two years
up, two years down patterns and below is another way to look at it counting the calendar days from the last bull
market high which as of the date of this letter is approximately 1184 days from October 11, 2007.
The 'red' horizontal lines above show these 1184 day periods and what happened just after that.
Stock Cycles Forecast January 7, 2011 Page - 1 -
Because humans are destined to repeat their history, they are also destined to rationalize why 'this time it's
different.' They will tell you the economy is finally recovering so nothing bad will come for years, or earnings
are finally improving and P.E.'s low, cash flow good, the Euro panic over etc., etc., etc. Of course it could be
just as easily said, 'sell on news', Christmas sales were a onetime aberration, mortgage losses will bankrupt the
banks again, California, Illinois, NY and the rest will go under by March, the rising rates will choke off the
economy, etc., etc., etc.
Cycles do exist and they repeat and all the rational thinking about why stocks should be bought or sold are
always the same argument at both the bottoms as well as the tops. What was the reason people bought for the
past two years? The only way to really gauge a popular mood of a cycle is look to the 'themes' in morality,
religion, art and theater, politics, and perhaps count the number of Wars active or heating up or cooling off. In
every one of these long term categories we are in a deteriorating decline. We must use technical analysis in light
of these big themes that move thru time and create the real economic conditions. I would be more optimistic if I
could see a mathematical possibility of any of the State governments being able to pay their obligations without
firing 20% of their work forces, or not have the Republicans cut spending 10% across the board, or not have the
Democrats raise taxes at every chance they get. In the secular bull markets where all these conditions are being
solved you get the classic bull market like 1949 to 1966. During this time technical analysis disappeared
because it was just a 'buy and hold' environment and everyone just learned to buy the dip and it always worked.
This chart below shows that early beginning phase but even in this very bullish alternative we find ourselves at
the 1184 day count to be near a short term decline to be followed by one last rally for a couple of months
before declining for many months (1184 calendar days = 169 natural square WEEKS).
In the 'modern' era, technicians are trying everything possible to get an advantage, and over the years I have
discussed circular arcs, square roots, JTTL's, and of course the oldest profession-Astrological forecasting. The
Eclipses occur at least twice a year and this year I believe we have four sets- always a sun and moon two weeks
apart. The recent solar eclipse on January 4th got a lot of press and did turn the market and exactly picked the
tops in gold and silver and many commodities. Those of you who get my daily email service saw the eclipse
square of nine calculation of 1424 for gold tying in that date with the eclipse and gold's terminal high- or at least
a very nice short term trade. I don't want to get into a philosophical discussion of planets or eclipses here but it
does stand to reason that the sun and the moon do affect human behavior in many ways and you can use
In the last issue I talked about scaling and angles of 1 x 1 and 2 x 1 as dividing time and price into
harmonic proportions. These work all the time but the key to the universe is growth, and the Fibonacci growth
ratio of 'adding each number to its neighbor' usually works as in: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, etc.
Each of these numbers divided by their 'neighbor' yield either .618 or 1.618 as a limit as they grow towards
infinity. All cells which spit or double often exhibit these ratios and the Elliott Wave guys have made a science
out of it although I don't use that method as there are much easier ways to find harmonics. The big 'problem'
with the Elliott .618 ratio approach is that MOST of the time the early sequences are additive and will
eventually converge to a .618 ratio but the early sequence ratios are nowhere near that. For example adding
these numbers (30, 47, 112) to their neighbors gives : 77, 159 and this ratio of 159 / 77 is 2.06, a long ways
from 1.618. After the trend is evident for a good time the ratios will start to show up but it's usually a better
approach to use simple additive trendlines on charts. The chart below is a snapshot from my Secret Science
book and shows a simple way to take highs to lows or highs to highs distances and add them together to find the
actual Fibonacci ratios growing within each chart. These distances get more and more accurate as time passes
just like the .618 ratio but it's usually easier to keep track of them this way as a warning flag. If you were an
Elliott Wave practitioner you might make a mistake by multiplying 1.618 times the first distance of a top to top
and expect another one, but that would rarely work but the additive approach will give closer hits. One way
around all this is to combine the growth ratios into a growth angle or instead of using 45 degree 1 x 1 angle, use
Above is an example of slopes at the rates of .618 and .382 points per calendar day ( i.e. .618 x 365 days
plus starting low @788 = 1013 March 12, 2004- one year later). Note how these angles served as support and
resistance and gave time cycle turns when they intersected prior highs or low points in the chart. Also note how
when the .382 lower angles finally broke in October 2007, the bull market was OVER. Curiously, the 'last'
touch of the angle was 1618 days (1.618) from the origin. As with ALL angle methods you should run these
BACKWARDS to see if a Fib relationship from the past is due in the current week.
The following stocks have cyclic turns during the next three weeks.