The Art of Leveraging Feeble Buying

DaBoyz more than held their own Wednesday, keeping the Dow airborne for six hours even though buying interest was practically nil. This is an achievement of sorts, and it suggests that although upside potential will be limited to whatever the stock market's masters can milk from daily mood swings, there would appear to be little enthusiasm for a hard selloff at the moment. In such circumstances, the blue chip average, currently trading for around 24,600, could waft above 25,000 with little ado.

That number is psychologically important because it is where investors would start to believe that a rally to new all-time highs is actually possible. From a purely technical standpoint, the chart suggests that a decisive push past the 24,736 'midpoint pivot' would put the Indoos on track for a move to as high as 25,229 over the next 3-5 days. The Dow is already trading above the 24,332 midpoint of the steep correction from early October's all-time high, but it won't run into serious supply until around 25,200, where tons of stock changed hands between bulls and bears in the sine wave of late October/November.

Housing Slump Deepens

It seems incredible to me that stocks could make any headway at all, given the darkening economic picture. It grew still more ominous Thursday with this headline atop the front page of the Wall Street Journal: "Slump in Housing Market Deepens". What could cause this situation to change so suddenly as to make possible a run-up in the Dow to new highs? My imagination fails me on this question. Barring some epiphany, I'll continue to see every new inch of the uptrend that has unfolded since Christmas as an increasingly juicy opportunity to get short.

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