Well the world doesn't know whether it's Arthur or Martha, or to adopt bigdaddy's theme, doesn't know whether it's bum up or not! My fundamental take on things at this stage is that we need to trust some basic instincts fwiw. Japan is going to take decades to recover from this disaster. It's going to cost them many, many fortunes to pay for the reconstruction, and I fail to see how the Nikkei won't keep dropping for a while yet, as people look further than just todays news on how many buckets of water they've thrown at some nuclear rods. Ultimately, the nuclear disaster will be yesterdays news, and the cost of rebuilding will be a factor. At that point, logically, world basic resource stocks should benefit. Steel, copper, iron etc associated industries and necessary fuels to run things, and the XJO you would think would bounce, as that is what Australia does best. Food shortages are possible for the Japanese if they can't grow anything in any contaminated soil, but that's too soon to call.
Then we seem to have forgotten that we have another disaster happening in the Middle East, with political unrest at boiling point in several nations. Bahrain is ugly right now, but people only want to think about Japan. One day soon, the Middle East is likely to become the focus again. Oil prices, logically, should be flying up? The yen and the Nikkei should be in serious trouble, but the yen is skyrocketing UP.
I have just seen possibly the most dramatic chart I think I have ever seen. The Aussie Dollar/Yen cross rate has melted down from 84.00 to 74.00 in just 4 days. and the US Dollar/Yen looks the same. In the last 2 hours, it has rebounded from 74.000 to 77.52. (and my dumb logic thinks it should keep going.)These are HUGE moves. Nikkei is still well above its GFC levels. People are running to the US$ as the strong, SAFE currency? Purlease! Maybe it's because the printing press is so hot that nobody can identify a forgery! A 'bankrupt' nation and the world races for its currency?
My logic tells me that because so many strange things are happening that don't seem to be logical, that the big M is well and truly in place. Manipulation on a grand scale.
Timing? I'll leave that to the chartists and theorists. To me, it's easy to see what's logical, but hard to work out why it's not playing out in a truly logical way. Conclusion: I have no idea! It's just not logical! I'll go pull some weeds out of the garden. I'm being nagged!
(20min delay)