This week the S&P 500 got to the 1840 level I was looking for last weekend, but there were no sellers once it got there, and the large number (around 100) of new 52 week lows that had been helping to create the 5 Hindenburg Omens from December 6 through 19 reduced to around 40 new lows. If a top was being put in on the market last week similar to July 2007 there should have been some late week selling, as there was on the July 19/20, 2007 comparison. Friday there were large buy orders in the futures mid day to late afternoon, perhaps from those coming to the conclusion that it wasn't going to happen yet. When I say large buy orders, large buy orders like I've never seen. Not that I see everything, but there was a bid in to buy 7200 lots of the e-mini S&P at one level and I can't recall an order that large just sitting there at mid day. Typically, on a slow day like Friday there might be 900 orders at any given level mid day. Since the market has blown through all the historical cycles, I don't post those anymore, but this is a shorter term one to consider:
Jan 19, 2010 (high) to Apr 26, 2010 (high) to May 6, 2010 (flash downcrash)
Sep 19, 2013 (high) to Dec 26, 2013 (no high) to Jan 6, 2014 (flash upcrash?)
The market has had approximately the same pattern through both of these time periods.
I think Bernanke is giving a speech next Friday and that might push the market up to a top, as typically the market is quite euphoric going into any event that involves Bernanke. Jan 6 is Monday, so maybe euphoria from the speech late Friday can carry over to Monday. I don't suppose (and doubt anyone else does) that he will want to go out as being the one who goes down in history as spoiling his own party.
"January 3 Speech - Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
The Changing Federal Reserve: Past, Present, Future
At the American Economic Association Meeting, Chicago, Illinois
2:30 p.m. ET"
https://federalreserve.gov/whatsnext.htm
"His second term as Chairman ends January 31, 2014..."
http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthef ... rnanke.htm
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.