Two Great Bounces!

The following charts provide a simple comparison between the big stock bounce that occurred in the wake of the DOW crash of 1929 and the bounce we are seeing today in the S&P 500 index.

The method of alignment was simple… take the first definitive up trading day off the bottom of the preceding bear market low and set that as the start of the series… then simply re-base both series to a value of 100 so that they can be compared side-by-side.

The lower bar chart plots the cumulative percentage change since the start of each bounce.

The S&P 500 is up over 42% in a little over 120 trading days… an historically aggressive run with an obvious note of mania to it… and wholly comparable to… yet notably stronger than… the price movement seen in the 1930s-era DOW rally.

At this point for the 30s-era DOW, the bull-run was over as the bear trend resumed in earnest… today though the Bull is seriously on the move… how long will this boom last?

Only time will tell… But for now, let’s continue to keep a watchful eye…

Like Sands Through the Hourglass

Folks, the DOW financials are quickly running out of time…

Here are another couple of great posts from expert analyst Ira Artman.

Ira points out that not only have the DOW financials (AMEX, BofA, Citigroup and JPMorgan) been on course for an April 10th touchdown of ZERO (essentially a complete wipeout of common stock value) they have, as of last Friday as an aggregate average, dropped below $10 for the first time.

Further, two of the DOWs four financials (I think you can guess them by now) have common stock prices that are well below $10 threshold which should trigger them to be de-listed based on the DJIAs “unwritten” rule for the price weighted average.

These are truly the days of our lives… Look out below!