Aug 15, 2011 - Issue #280

Rick Perry is IN!

Another big loser: Public employee unions and, by extension, the Democratic party. The winners? Perhaps, the union members whose paychecks now belong to themselves. With civil service, who needs unions?

Options: Ron Ianieri will be teaching a course soon on 'The Greeks'. I promise you that unless you know the 'greeks' upside down, frontwards, backwards and insideout, you are at a serious disadvantage. See my page, IONOPTIONS for more info.

CNBC: Option Action panel members would benefit from the course. Everything they're doing is wrong and quite dangerous.

Countdown till 2012 elections: 64 weeks.

Heads Up

W. D. Gann, a keen market observer, although not an astronomer, nevertheless, was fascinated by the apparent coincidence of important market 'pivot points' and astronomical dates. Theories exist for estimating time and price of important market turning points but astronomical occurrences are computed with mathematical certainty.

There is no logical reason why these occurrences should coincide yet, empirically, they have.

The 'Full Moon' and 'New Moon', among others, have been cited. Therefore, one might be well advised to be aware of their occurrence. Note: The first 5 business days of 2008 concluded on a 'New Moon' and we all know how that worked out. Coincidence?

7/30 Saturday - New Moon (Blue Moon) Observe market action 7/29 & 8/1. Wow! What a week that followed!

8/13 Saturday - Full Moon (Observe market action 8/12 & 8/15.

8/28 Sunday - New Moon (Observe market action 8/26 & 8/29).

During the next two weeks, the following DJ-30 components report earnings. Keep a sharp eye out for possible price swings leading up to 'earnings day' (Subject to revision):

8/16 HD, WMT.

8/18 HPQ (2Q2011 'earnings season' comes to an end).

Dow score card for the week ending 8/12/11.

DJ-30: 11269.02 -175.59 -1.53%. The Real World (arithmetical) DJ-30: 49.63 -0.78 -1.53%.

UP: 7, Down: 23.

Trends (weekly charts): This is the subjective part.

Rising (Generally Higher Highs/Higher Lows) 0 (N/C) 0%:

None.

Consolidating (Generally Lower Highs/Higher Lows) 24 (+23) 80%:

+*CSCO, +*DD, +*DIS, +*GE, +*HD, +*HPQ, +*IBM, +*INTC, +*JNJ, +*JPM, KFT, +*KO, +*MCD, +*MMM, +*MRK, +*MSFT, +*PFE, +*PG, +*T, +*TRV, +*UTX, +*VZ, +*WMT, +*XOM. Note the number of large bottom wicks.

Declining (Generally Lower Highs/Lower Lows) 6 (-23) 20%:

AA, AXP, BA, BAC, CAT, CVX.

+/- denotes change of direction.

* denotes change of category.