DISQUS

It is hard to make technical analysis work in the middle of a coup. The market is simply going down zig zag or see saw, but down. The economy is not going to recover for any extended period until the coup is countered and overcome. That may be years away. This country is going socialist. Look at this article, it says it all succinctly:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946...
The megalomaniac incompetent Democrats running the country will push their agenda to the death, of all of us.
You can make money in short bursts in the market but long term is too far off.

No single company on the face of the earth has been able to maintain within its culture the highest level of arrogance and conceit for so long against so many with such adversity.

I've seen it before and I'll see it again....its just a little bit of history repeating--Propellerheads. Great to listen to, tough to experience. AAPL buyers are the most optimistic investors on the planet. My gut tells me that stocks have a long way to go down and they will, and fast. The stocks I follow are generally too high with the Dow at 7800's meaning they haven't fallen quite enough. AAPL is like base jumping. The stock is climbing up the cliff for a long free fall. I would rather it happens now than later.

Zach your post is the bull. Frankly the long and dark road is heading towards a washout. This market has to test the lows again, big time.

Right, so then AAPL will be going up...or down.

If you tell me that today AAPL going up on such light volume is the same impact on charts as heavy volume, then I have problems with your analysis. To me, its a set up. Apple can drop like a free fall off El Capitan in a day with medium selling, not even heavy selling. So what is the guru forecasting?

I get it that you take what you see but for weeks and weeks you were very very strong about AAPL going down as well as the market. I don't know if volumes figure in your charting but it seems that AAPL rises sharply on light volume and then a cumulative catch up day of selling makes it plunge. I am stuck and "I can't do no mo". I would rather have read that AAPL is poised for a near-term poop.

You slay me Zach. It was down down down. ok. it made sense. Now its 'poised for a pop and run'. Makes no sense at all and erodes my confidence in you. This is my problem with chartists. What happened to down? And by the way, the up movement in the Dow and S&P in the face of the reality of doom for this economy is extremely perplexing. Does anyone really think that a government stimulus package will help 2009 particularly when the Dems are now admitting that maybe no more than $250B will be spent in this year?

You are absolutely right. You did a good job thinking it through. I just wish it were all that simple. There will be challenges. Two traders were arguing about a trend in the market and they couldn't get to a resolution so their friend agreed to have all 3 go to their Rabbi and ask him. The first one said his comment and the Rabbi said, "You are absolutely right". The second spoke and the Rabbi turned to him and said, " You are absolutely right." So the third man who brought them in said to the Rabbi, "They both can't be right", and the Rabbi turned to him and said, "You are absolutely right."

When I was a kid about 16 doing manual labor in a lumberyard almost 50 years ago, I used my lunch money to bet the horses with the other laborers. I learned then you can beat a race but you can't beat the races. Well, it applies today to AAPL. AAPL can beat the analysts, but it can't beat the market. AAPL is going down with a frown. The other day a fund manager stated that equities were too high and as long as inflation wasn't knocking at the door, they had to go down further to match P-E ratios of the 1980's and earlier. I think he's right. AAPL is too high P-E ratio given the uncertainty in today's bad bad economy. I haven't heard CFO's cite 'macroeconomic' influences affecting earnings and future earnings for a long time. That's a word now dusted off and being used everywhere. Why? because its true. The world is a sick place to do business. AAPL got its boost this past quarter mostly from overseas business. It can't count on it for the coming few quarters.

Don't worry about being loved. You get that from your family and your dog. For any man, that's sufficient to go through life. I too have a long history with AAPL and let my 'inside insight' ruin my pocketbook last year, big time. I could never catch it right after that and consider myself one of the worlds biggest smucks for not being detached from emotion and over confidence. I coulda, woulda, shoulda won't help me or any of the other world's biggest fools after last year's disaster. You have my deepest appreciation for your daily work. It comforts me to know I have an alternative to scope and weigh my trading besides my own crushed feelings of confidence. Thank you for your website, blog and emails. Thank you. I'd like to speak to you sometime.
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For every buyer this is a seller. The sellers have it right. Options going off for January may have something to do about aapl strength as well as the earnings announcements next week. But normally, doesn't aapl tank after January announcements? Why should it be different this year?

In this case the fundamentals of the market in general will grease the skids for the technicals. The earnings season will be grim. The only question is how much a lift will the market get from the inauguration? I suspect none.

btw, Jobs' health is probably bad going to worse but the decline to appear at MacWorld is simply the reason given not Jobs' health.

Commodities are too volatile a play. I think today's AAPL run up is a bear fake. No volume lets it run but, as you said, once the big boys get back in their seats, they're going to move it south, big time.

Its the subscriptions, not the device. Its the halo effect, not the device. Its making people mac owners, now instead of later. That's the most significant thing of it all.

You are making me rethink my $78/$80 prediction to something much lower. I appreciate your comment about exhaustion. The market bears should soon be exhausted, too. Its not the normal frame of mind for most investors to be bearish. Did we ever get close to 'capitulation' from bulls? well not yet. But we might be getting close to 'capitulation' from bears as a false sense of euphoria and hope begins to take over the market with the inauguration of our newest soon-to-be-worst president .

Thanks for the benefit of your technical insight. Even without the ability to fully understand the details, I go on my gut feeling and that hasn't changed. Reading the lines (not between them) there is so much really bad news on employment globally, and one in ten homes either in default or foreclosure, that its hard to imagine any other scenario than 'depression'. Sadly, we are in it already. The CMBS devastation has yet to befall the market, and that will portend trillions of dollars of losses to banks, insurance companies, investment bankers and individual investors. There are no bailout moneys left for any of us. Its going to get much much worse. AAPL at low 70's sooner than later.

Missed your guidance a whole lot. Short AAPL with Jan 100 puts but being kicked around now but think I'm in the right place, just in too early. Then, like we all wrote two months ago, going positive on AAPL when its mid to low 80's, now possibly high 70's. The market certainly has ignored the real news but its coming. The CMBS loans are in the trillions of dollars. Who is going to 'bail out' the holders of that debt once it starts to waterfall into failures?

Here are the headlines that make sense: Every job cut headline this past 10 days, retail sales dropping like a rock, Tribune failure, Credit card limits cut by $2 trillion, Extended Stay could transfer chain to lenders, SEC charges NY lawyer with securities fraud and the Wall St. journal article JP Morgan seizes Fund's Collateral. These say it all folks.

Zach, you were right several weeks ago when you and others including myself said to day trade the hourly trend lightly and hold cash for the eventual drop in AAPL down to 85 or 80 or lower. I said I was all in at 75. I think we will get down there. Meantime, ride rallies up, a bit then bail. Its the 'bail out' time that eludes us because of paranoia, fear and government meddling. Because we are an optimistic people we want to believe its going up at every turn, but it won't stay up for long. The market hasn't given up the ghost yet. It will, count on it so long as idiots like Bernanke and Paulson are still in positions of authority. Look at the Dow at 7500. That's when the capitulation occurs and we start to move in another direction. By the way, Obama will be worse as he surrounds himself with worn out Clinton era losers.

OOOH, it hurts.

You present a very reasonable assessment of the prospects. I appreciate your work product and writing style. The AAPL investors have been clobbered by more than Wall Street, however. They have been clobbered by Apple, repeatedly with their foolish and arrogantly transparent unreasonably low guidance. Furthermore, the rumors about Jobs' health have never yet been dispelled, and he could have helped investors immensely by doing so. Lastly, Apple executive management can turn the downside upside down to upside if they would take a few bucks and buy their own stock. Jobs could buy a million shares, Cook and Oppenheimer several hundred thousand and the company itself could buy, say $5 billion of its own stock, announce it all and show their support for investors. Will they do it? Nooooo. They will hoard cash for something fatefully untold in a light year's time away.

You are right and its terrific but your column won't be seen buy the AAPL shorts who are busy dragging up scare FUD articles about options and Jobs' health.

ZB I like reading your columns but am baffled by the intense negativity requiring more intensive negativity in order to enjoy some relaxed negativity. It seems that AAPL will be sucked into the vortex no matter if 500 million Chinese go out and buy iPhones next Friday. Where is the rationality in the market anyway? Is it all just technical readings--after the fact?

Teresa Poletti from Marketwatch and the entire Marketwatch editorial staff get a rush from creation and dissemination of lies, half truths, and rumors as if they were facts. This is an ongoing game for them with, I supose personal profit by what would be disclosed as under-the-table compensation if their activities were investigated.