You asked about my impressions of the US economy - below is the post I made on Friday last week:
Hi Treggs, Farsight, Volt, Jaolsa and all. Hello and welcome also to Cyclichigh.
Just dropped bye from Nashville TN to see what you are all up to and had to respond to Treggs' post about possible market manipulation by Greenspan and the large end of town.
I'm surprised at how 'shot' the sentiment is here in the yoonighted states. It surprises me not one iota that the US market cannot sustain a rally, as everyone appears to be worried about their asset values - particularly their house values. Few appear to be pondering whether the country is in a recession - most take it for granted that they are. I make these observations after spending a little more than two weeks talking all day and half the night with small and exceptionally large (think Woolworths) supermarket owners and their bankers, property developers, suppliers of food product and manufacturers and wholesalers of plant and equipment. Also have had many conversations with supermarket staff and customers.
I know my sample size is small and not that representative but I think I'm correct in stating the mood in the US is very different to when my wife and I were last here in August/September last year.
So Treggs, I have no idea about whether the market is being manipulated but I am not surprised in the least that it is struggling and I am pessimistic about the US economies' prospects in the short to medium-term. I put Thursday's and Friday's DJIA and SPX behaviour down to the general sentiment of this market - good news is met with little enthusiasm and the merest hint of bad news gets enormous air-time and further damages confidence.
Significantly, the charts for DJIA, SPX, XJO etc etc all still point to us being in the relatively early stages of a bear market (refer to my and Tregg's charts over December and January - all are pretty much still valid, including the support/resistance levels and declining trend-lines.)
So... I am very short SPI200 and modestly short SPX and expect to remain so for a good period of time - weeks or months, not days.
Hope you are all well and increasingly prosperous! I'm off now to take in a hot new blues band at a club around the corner (it's 8:15 pm Friday night here.)
And Joalsa, I wish you were here with us - have had a wonderful trip so far. Just returned slightly pissed from BB King's Blues Club in Beale St Memphis. Gotta pack now - off to Miami and Key West tomorrow!
(20min delay)