Is it the beginning of the end of the big rally that started in March 2009? Or, is it the end of the beginning of a pullback that started this week? Perhaps the answer lies in this fairy tale...
Once upon a time a group of traders, whom I'll call "Triple O" (because I like "Triple O" cheese burgers from Whitespot), decided to take a very long-long walk. Their walk began in March 2009 and saw them following a steady course to where they are today.
First, "Triple O" needed to buy some walking tickets from the local bucket shop so that they could pay for their long-long walk. Sometimes they needed to stop in at one of these shops along the way so that they could cash in their tickets and pay for some rest and relaxation at either the "local resort" or go back to one of the others they'd passed along the way that looked more interesting...and sometimes they decided to try an out-of-the way place at a town off the beaten path that the locals said was worth visiting. Once they'd been "fed, watered, and relaxed," they stopped in at the local bucket shop and bought some more walking tickets for the next leg of their long-long walk. Sometimes they took short-long walks, and sometimes they took short-short walks and meandered a bit...how much they meandered may have been caused by how much they'd been "relaxed" and at which "resort."
This past week saw "Triple O" cashing in their tickets on Monday at the last bucket shop they visited after a short-long walk and they went for a short-short walk back to the local watering hole. I'll pause the story here for a moment and illustrate "Triple O's" walk so far on this picture below:
The "Triple O" gang are represented by the squiggly green/red line and the local bucket shops and "local resorts" are located along the broken pink line. The gang's short-long walks and short-short walks to other "resorts" and their "relaxing activities" at each one are illustrated by how far they strayed away from this broken line and on which side of the line they walked.
We'll take a closer peak at "Triple O's" activities this week to see if we can find any clues as to where they may go next week. The picture below shows that they mainly enjoyed staying fairly close to the "local resorts" for the first part of the week while taking a short-short walk. But, by Wednesday, and particularly, Thursday, they took several quick short-short sprints to a couple of really far away out-of-town places. I think that the action there was too hot, so the gang meandered back to the local scene and cashed in their sprinting tickets, but were quite wobbly after their hot visit. So, on Friday, they decided to cool off quickly, bought some running tickets and went for a short-long run to another out-of-town place that they heard was even better, but had to cut their "relaxation" short and return back quickly to the local bucket shop to cash in their running tickets and buy some driving tickets because now they needed to make a quick detour to Mom's for the weekend.
And here the story ends, for now...the "Triple O" gang is resting locally at Mom's where the temperature is just right. They really haven't veered off their long-long path...yet...as we can see from where they stopped on the first picture. We'll see how their journey continues next week...maybe some of them will extend their visit with Mom and join up with the gang later on.
And, in honour of Moms everywhere, I would respectfully direct you to the post below...