Is this the big one? and Roundaphobia

Last few days I have been biting my nails. I'm almost up to my wrists.It wouldn't be so bad if I had not been tempted in - yet again. I know, I know. I keep saying it and I still I go for it.

This time it has not been so bad and I'll tell you why.

Lets start with some market graphs.Here's the DOW. This is the nasty one. The S&P is no better but the NASDAQ does not look nearly so ugly. (Don't worry about the blue/green line I am playing with the 60 day moving average.) Focus on the fact that three days ago the market broke a support line that has been there since January. Bad enough in itself and even worse when you see that the next level of support is around 16300 almost 450 points below where we are now and 850 points from the high.

There are various explanations - fear of the end of QE and higher interest rates stand out. A big surge in US$ value underlines this view. Flight to safety and all that.

Roundaphobia

Then there's the possibility that the market struggled when it hit 17000 - a big round number often creates a

market barrier for psychological reasons. This is another theme from Crowd Money. Treacy calls it Roundophobia. 12000 and 14000 were major barriers for the DOW on the way up. 12000 precipitated a 36% fall and once it hit 14000 the market tumbled over 50%. Spooky!

FTSE

The FTSE is struggling too. But it has not been pushing ahead as strongly as the DOW so today's movement is well within the bounds of a normal retracement.

China 

What I did was look at this graph and wondered whether I was onto a good thing because of the spectacular breakout.

The shares I bought were Chinese ones with strong fundamentals, quoted on the US market. They have been hurt, I was a late to the party, but they are still doing better than US shares. Question is will they be dragged down by a general pull back or is China on a different trajectory. It does not seem to have been linked to the US for some time. Let's hope that the decoupling still holds.

More nail biting in the next few days. I have bought VXX as a hedge. Time will tell and I can always run for cover.