[Author’s Note: This information is meant to be entertaining and educational and does not represent a recommendation to make or change investments of any kind.] The Standard & Poor’s 500 index (a.k.a ‘The Market’) may be on the verge of a precipitous decline of 10% or more – that according to technical analysis which in layman’s terms means  “looking at the chart.” In the most recent chart from big charts.com, you can see the support level at just under 2600. If it should break down through that level the implication is that it would drop at least 10% from here. – this is because the line acts as a fulcrum and the first stop would be a level below the line equal to the distance from

I had to go into the movie with some expectations because Steven Spielberg does not make bad movies, and the cast had Tom Hanks and Merrill Streep for starters. It’s always hard to know whether the times make the movie or the movie makes the times; culture and Art seem to take turns leading the way. In any case, I was just young enough to not understand what the Pentagon papers were in the early 70s. I distinctly remember that phrase as having been constantly in the news while I was in high school. What I didn’t know was that the events covered so well in this film blazed a trail that made it more possible for the press to act in the role of

I was a financial professional during two prior stock-market bubbles, the ones that ended in 2000 and 2008 respectively. This market acts and looks (on a chart) very much like those bubbles.  The key is the exponential curve common to each of them. As you can see with the example below, the slope gets steeper until it appears to be in “vertical climb,” going almost straight up. That’s the phase we are in now–the vertical climb phase.   In the vertical climb phase–EVERONE is buying: the last retail investors joined in, foreigners are strong marginal buyers, and short-sellers are buying to cover their shorts.   But  as stocks go higher in price, it takes more money to accelerate prices higher. Gravity always wins. The way it

When I hear the Star Wars theme and see the text scrolling up and away from me into the stars, it arouses the wonder in me. And because for over three decades I have been rewarded for accepting the reality projected in these stories, I suspend whatever disbelief I encounter. This episode (VIII) has its share of potential distractions in the form of questionable plot points, but if you can silence those interruptions of reason, the film and the story take you –as all worthy stories do–full circle: from your own human experience to an imagined one and back again. The point, of course, is to see what changed in the process. I hope that enough of the other hundreds of millions of viewers changed as