Libya Runs the Market

Well, I guess I might as well cancel my subscription to eSignal now. Charts no longer seem to matter in this market. All anyone seems to care about anymore is the demented rantings of some psychopath on the shores of Tripoli. Bottom line, the market's not going to go up until Kolonel Khadafi Kalls it Kwits.

Technically, we've entered a swing downtrend, since today's further 107 point drop in the Dow provided a bearish signal. Accordingly, I'm putting up the red arrow. I was wrong yesterday about a turn-around today. Call me an eternal optimist, but after today's further rise in the VIX, it would be highly unusual for it to continue higher still tomorrow. The VIX also hit its 200 day moving average today and backed off it. The Dow is also near its very strong support level at 12,000, and the S&P is close it its own 1300 support. All of this is making me leery of going short here. And I note that all three futures are actually up right now (2 AM EST) for a change.

But like I said in the beginning, Wall St., uh I mean Benghazi St. only seems to care about one thing now. Yes, Libya's oil output is in danger. Libya produces all of 2% of the world's oil. A good part of that goes to France and Italy. It's not the end of the world, folks. The real problem now I'm afraid is that the same speculators who brought us $147 oil back in the summer of 2008 are back to the table to stuff their pockets some more, probably with the same eventual results, unfortunately.

In the meantime, we have our Fearless Leader in Washington boldly issuing Stern Warnings to Colonel Klink to the effect that "you ought not do that". Oh gosh, I'm sure he is just shaking in his boots. Mr. President, you are supposedly the leader of this nation. This might be a good time to exhibit some actual leadership, you know what I'm saying?