the market is below where it was in 1998, 11 years ago below 1998-2001, and 2003-2008 since 1998, 11 years, the current level of the market is only above 2 whole years - 2002 and 2009 (all of 2009 so far) that sound like a bull market to you?
Nodoji you are such a noob, please stop embarrassing yourself. The guy is trying to establish a top of a pullback within a bear market. That pullback is obviously still uptrending as support hasn't been broken. That's what this debate is about - where & when to sell.
selling when very strong resistence has been reached, or when support has been broken, are both valid strategies
That's exactly what I said in my followup post right after my original post. I was only looking 10 years back at first, which technically looks quite different than looking back 15 years or more. BTW, profitable traders learn early on to leave egos at the door, so I don't embarrass easily.
there's evidence of being at the top all over the place have to be a lot of older folks thinking "we'll survive with our money out at this level, but we would be screwed at where we were in march" a lot of people, close to retirment, who still didnt sell, were looking at their retirements being ruined in march - now, if they want a second chance, they've got it you know that there have to be a fair number of people looking at their current brokerage statements that way, even if they really dont look at index charts much or very close a chart is more than just traders trying to out-guess the market - it's a map of many people's (ordinary long term investors) level of wealth - where they were, there they are, and what they've been through, Can anyone doubt, that long term investors near retirment age, have more fear of what they could lose of their retirement than they had 2 years ago? <img src = "http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2601901">
Yes, they are. Attempting to call absolute number tops and bottoms, however, is not. Those tricks are for kids.
many people 10 years from retirement, were feeling pretty good about their retirement in 2000. For many of them, the 90s sealed up their retirement. if they 'held on for the long haul', they went though a nightmare 2000-2002, and went on to be rewarded in 2007 with a new high just baaaaarely above where they were 7 years prior (but they still had less real value than in 2000 becasue the dollar was worth much less) Then they were immediately given the shock of their life, with a trip financially back to 1996 momentarely in march 2009, just 7 months ago, only this time with 13 years of their working/earning/saving lives used up if they rode that out, the market has taken many of them back to a place where they can still have their retirement....for now take a good close look at the horizontal line i drew at the top of this current run <img src = "http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2601936">
That's one way to look at it. Another would be that most of these people have been sufficiently brainwashed by the current politicians and mainstream financial media into believing that the worst is over and that buy and hold is still a valid strategy, because they've now seen the market come back for them twice. So now that fear has subsided, greed once again starts to kick in, and they hold on for additional gains. Add in all the amateurs and general public who have been sitting on the sidelines missing out on this historic rally since March itching to get back in, and you still have the potential for perhaps another 200 points or more on the S&P before it's all over. Not saying that's what will happen. Just pointing out the counter argument can easily be made. For the record, I agree that we're at least due for a sharp correction, but I'm not convinced it will be the end of the bear market rally, just a pause before a final orgiastic run through year end or early next year.