Support & Probability

Article Excerpt

On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the S&P 500 index fell below its low in the 2000-2002 bear market. That left it 52% below its peak, and at its lowest level since 1997. Some chart enthusiasts took this to mean that a much bigger drop lies ahead. My view is that if you pay any attention to chart analysis, you need to put it in context. Doing that takes a lot of the sting out of today’s situation. For one thing, after hitting a low that scares chartists, the market may abruptly reverse course, as it did following the October, 1987 market crash. Instead of continuing to plunge as some feared, the market turned upward and returned to its old highs and beyond. Then too, chart signals may only work 50% to 60% of the time. But good and bad signals are not evenly distributed. They occur in unpredictable clumps, much like plunges and spurts in individual stocks. In any event, the market has rebounded…