Today's Market
 by Dr. Invest

Miracles do exist! It is amazing we fell so low and flew so high today. It seems as though we have missed the bullet, but wait! It is still September, the month in which the Stock Market performs the worst. Even more, we are headed toward the dreaded "triple witching day" on the third Friday of September. You know, the day in which brokers get rid of all those losers and re-situate themselves to take advantage of the growth from October to January. So, don't you just want to take all that cash in your investment account and put it into stocks? Probably not.

Listen, even the best of traders are popping anti-acids right now. STAY OUT OF THE MARKET!  I am here to educate you, so here are some chart patterns you need to recognize. (see www.chartpatterns.com)

Look at the DOW chart for the past three months below:

Now compare the pattern marked in red above with the two patterns below.












So you are right! It is a SYMMETRICAL TRIANGLE IN A DOWNTREND. Remember that your chances of success in trading stocks is elevated when the market is going up (Up-Trend). Likewise, your chances of failure in trading stocks is lowered when the market is going down. (Down-Trend). So you want to learn the old trading adage: "The trend is your friend."

In 1992, John Stossel had a monkey throw darts at a board covered with various stocks. Where the dart hit, Stossel placed an investment. Oddly enough, the monkey chosen stocks, out performed the professionally chosen stocks by investment advisors. This was, however, at a time in which the market was in an UP-TREND. This tells you alot about the power of an UP-TREND.

There will be a time to return to the market, but not now. Over the past 5 years, the DOW JONES has returned an average of 4.2%. In 2010, the DOW returned a whopping 13.8%. Learn more at http://observationsandnotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/average-annual-stock-market-return.html

Remember the 13.8% return for the DOW JONES in 2010, included the performance of both the good and bad months. This return would have been even higher had an actively traded portfolio been utilized for the months of the best stock performance.

(note: The above information is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered finanical advice.)