Quote from hels02:
For the last few months, every time we have an up day, it's the BULL MARKET, and every time we have a down day, it's a BEAR MARKET. It's sort of amusing, because the market has really not chopped in a normal way for years, and to me, this just looks like chop, not a sign of any market trend (for the record, I still think the trend is UP).
In 1999, you could almost predictably see 2% moves every day. The market goes down 2%, the market goes up 4%, the market goes down 4%, the market goes up 3%...
That's why the 2000 crash was so devastating. Because what was a 10% drop? Big deal, it'll go back up, buy buy buy!
This could be a crash warning or simply the shape of things to come, but it chopped like this for years back in the 90s, and that's why it was so profitable.
It was perfectly normal to see a $100 stock move $10 in one day, and the next day fall $3, the day after fall $5, the day after fall $1, the day after go up $8, then up $3, etc. That hasn't happened in years, not to that degree anyway. Right now, to me anyway, it just looks like a return to normal trading.
People get so excited over $1 or $2 moves either way now, and call an entire market trend or top because of it. You don't have a TREND til it's down or up for weeks in a row, and I think it's pretty clear that that hasn't happened in a few weeks? That's chop.