Flip Floping Friday – Slip Slidin' Away From Our Highs

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away 

You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away - Simon and Garfunkle 

So close but yet so far is another song lyric that would apply to this market.  

Consolidations can be frustrating things but, if you look closely at our Big Chart, you can see that this "consolidation" is tipping a bit more bearish than the one we were determined to ride out in February.  

All is well as long as we hold those lines on our chart as we neatly finished right on our expected levels in each index but the S&P, which is just under the 12.5% line at 1,560 and well above the 10% line at 1,520 – so we'll be watching them closely for clues but I'm not expecting any major sell-off until after the quarter ends.  Next Thursday is our last trading day of the Q as Friday is a big holiday (my Birthday), so the markets will be closed, of course, in observance.  

While I don't agree with Dave Fry's comment on the FDX chart, that FDX is our canary (because volume was fine, customers simply opted for cheaper shipping methods) of the moment, it would still be foolish not to put it at least in the "maybe" pile of bearish signals.  

If you want a REAL bearish signal, check out yesterday's census report on Debt in America, which points out that the median net worth of American households dropped to $69,000 in 2011 from $82,000 in 2000 and $107,000 in 2005, a census report shows. Meanwhile, debt in households headed by older people more than doubled during the decade to a median $26,000 from $12,000, largely because of mortgage loans. The trend increases worries about the financial well-being of older Americans, whose retirement funds have been hit by the recession and rock-bottom interest rates.