Fibonacci

Each and every day, we are witnessing the ongoing global selloff inflict more and more damage to the post-2009 cyclical bull market. And while that bull may not be declared dead for some time, it is now being wounded enough daily to warrant very seriously considering that possibility.

For investors, the markets have been sending a fairly clear warning signal. Market topping processes take time to develop fully and, unfortunately, are only fully recognized in hindsight. The problem in waiting for "recognition" is that the destruction of capital is already far larger than previously expected. This leads to a series of "psychological" responses that exacerbate the problem such as "hoping to get back to even." The last point is critically important. In the world of investing, "hope" has never been an investment strategy that one could profit by. It likely won't be successful this time either.

A failure of the current key support area would signify a deepening of these problematic trends that have unfolded over the past month. And as bad as things have been this past month, a further acceleration could be devastating.

While investors (or more likely, traders) often agonize over each and every tick of a market, there are undoubtedly some junctures that are more critical than others. European equities appear to be at such a juncture presently.

From a financial market psychology standpoint it is however very important that central bankers don’t appear clueless. A majority of market participants needs to be able to suspend disbelief to an sufficient extent, i.e., they must be able to share in the collective hallucination that central bankers actually do know what they are doing. When it is no longer possible to maintain this facade, many things are likely to be suddenly questioned – and among these is the question whether it makes sense to remain exposed to yet another gargantuan asset bubble.

This key barometer of global equities dropped to a level that it could ill-afford to lose. And while a bounce should transpire from here, the fact that the index has been traversing this level for the past 8 days reminds us that significant potential risk awaits should it fall off the precipice.

There's a debate in professional circles as to whether the stock market is in a correction or a bear market. It makes a difference...

Wax on Wax off,risk on today risk off tomorrow.....things could spiral out of control rather quickly

"The market closed above last Monday's high, which was a gap downside. And it also closed above the prior Friday's close. And that led to exhaustion. We should see the market drift lower for the next month or so. And we could probably make a new low, the low of last week's low, before the market finally bottoms."

Perhaps the most important price point in the entire equity market was broken today... The odds of the post-2009 bull market continuing unimpeded are now significantly reduced.

Anyone tempted to gamble on buying the proverbial dip in Chinese equities after Monday’s dramatic 8.5% sell-off probably shouldn’t, says Tom DeMark, who called a top and shortly thereafter, a bottom, in the SHCOMP back in 2013. "The die has been cast. You just cannot manipulate the market." 

It all started in China, where as we noted previously, the Shanghai Composite plunged by 8.5% in closing hour, suffering its biggest one day drop since February 2007 and the second biggest in history. The Hang Seng, while spared the worst of the drubbing, was also down 3.1%. There were numerous theories about the risk off catalyst, including fears the PPT was gradually being withdrawn, a decline in industrial profits, as well as an influx in IPOs which drained liquidity from the market. At the same time, Nikkei 225 (-0.95%) and ASX 200 (-0.16%) traded in negative territory underpinned by softness in commodity prices.

Speculative bubbles that burst are often followed by an echo bubble, as many participants continue to believe that the crash was only a temporary setback. But, echo bubbles aren't followed by a third bubble.

Here's what the chart looks like, and as you can see, it has thrust down to an interesting point not seen for about a decade: