Has the stockmarket finally reached its “ah-ha” moment?

People have suddenly realised that the downtrend is here to stay and bearish forces have taken over, says John C Burford.

Is this is a rare time when extreme bearish sentiment accompanies a major decline rather than indicating a major reversal immediately ahead?

Last Friday, I was looking for a counter-trend rally in stocks based on my headline indicator (HI) which was flashing a possible bounce up ahead. As I wrote, the bounce that materialised was small. So to catch a possible bigger bounce, I needed to see a move above my short-term tramline and that never came.

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John is is a British-born lapsed PhD physicist, who previously worked for Nasa on the Mars exploration team. He is a former commodity trading advisor with the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and worked in a boutique futures house in California in the 1980s.

 

He was a partner in one of the first futures newsletter advisory services, based in Washington DC, specialising in pork bellies and currencies. John is primarily a chart-reading trader, having cut his trading teeth in the days before PCs.

 

As well as his work in the financial world, he has launched, run and sold several 'real' businesses producing 'real' products.