You're probably right. Also, spectre's analysis is what I'm seeing all around: everyone is trying to figure out what to buy for the January bounce. Not a good thing to observe at all, from a long POV. I'm pretty sure I'm going into the first week of Jan net short.
Im with gnome. This whole thing runs on relentless credit expansion and its very inflationary. We've been exporting our inflation to the rest of the world and they have used there labor to keep CPI down. This is all begining to chnage.
I've been reading the comments and sounds like bear market conclusions come from news and fundamentals long term cause and effect. In that time frame, I tend to agree. Big financial companies stand alone companies? not any more. Cash infusion from here, cash infusion from there. Didn't China just give Citigroup billions? Cash infusion? hum, a warm fuzzy term for inside takeover job. I opened up an additional browser the other day and one of my home page news brief headlines said "USA for sale." I didn't need to read the article. Keep in mind also that the year immediately following a presidential election regime change is usually a rough one. The politicians do their dirty work soon so that the general public will forget/recover before the next election. If the Dems repeal tax cuts, increase taxes and spending, and negotiate with terrorists, look out. Short and intermediate term, you all get ready to cover your shorts after a brief bull/bear battle in early Jan. Check out even the simplest of market internals, the percentage of NYSE stocks that are above their own 50 day SMA and the percentage of NYSE stocks that are above their own 150 day SMA. Use a point & figure chart with 2 for a box size to filter out the noise. They both double dipped this year, once in Aug. and again in Nov/Dec with the latter low being above the Aug. low. The % 50 day has already given a buy signal and the % 150 day should follow soon. The next stop is the prior top levels above 70. The trend is your friend.