Just one piece of article talking about reasonable expectation of QE "tapering" already gave many daytraders heart attack during the trading day. Imagine what would happen if Bennie tell us QE will be terminated at once!

Not that I am complaining – after all, Emini S&P moved exactly as I predicted earlier in the day. Even the part that the gap were not likely to be filled was correct. Sometimes bots are predictable indeed!

The reporter (Mr. Robin Harding from Financial Times) came out later on Twitter that everyone should chill because he has no insider info whatsoever.

Saw this in the news that this year Warren’s charity lunch auction did not go that well.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/warren-buffett-charity-lunch-sold-for-1-million-plus-1.1316848

I remember last year the auction settled above $3 millions and it is confirmed in the piece that it was $3.4 millions.

But this year it is just above $1 million. So what happens to all the fans of Warren Buffett?

When S&P was breaking its previous day low and flushed below 1600. Nikkei had a major stop run that cleared its 12800 downside target I mentioned a few days ago. The break of 12800 unlocked a wave of selling that dropped 400 points quickly and bounced back up with ES.

Right after this flush, a huge wave of buy programs were launched in Emini S&P to take it back up to 1615-1616 area. This sparked a strong short cover rally into the close.

This may mark the end of the selloff in Nikkei for now.

This is, however, not a buy setup for Nikkei as its 20% drop is in place. Nikkei will likely enter a long term bear market from here for at least a few years. It is okay to long on counter-trend basis when the opportunities present themselves but this low established today in Nikkei is not the long term bottom.

As expected, CME increases margins on the Nikkei related products again.

Not 10% or 20%. We are talking about another 33% higher after last increase back in April.

Not even major CFD firms need to do that at all.

What is the agenda behind this move, CME?

Just a chart showing the concept of changes in open interest can be useful.

From New York Times,

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/societal-ills-spike-in-crisis-stricken-greece/?hp

Stop the pay out to the fat cats and solve this global financial problem with humility.

I have written earlier this year about the Chinese lunar / solar cycle in Year of the Snake and the Chinese 19-Year Lunar Cycle. It is interesting to review the chart right now as it has marked the swing turns of this year so far quite remarkably.

As mentioned before, I am not a fan of astrology, it is quite difficult for me to accept that this chart has actual projection value. But given what happened so far, it has done a pretty good job in highlighting the swing tops and bottoms this year.

Going forward, the projection points to:

1. a significant decline should start now and that it should lead to a selloff ending sometime in mid June

2. a rally into August with another all time high

3. major selloff all the way into December

It will be interesting to see how the stock markets unfold going forward.

My monthly update on market internals.

The current snapshot of S&P 500 3-Day Advance Issues, Tick16 Short Term + Long Term as of 2013 May 17 close.

Reading

1. Long Term Tick16 (yellow line) moving back up to right below neutral zone.

2. Short Term Tick16 (red line) moving back up to neutral zone.

3. 3-Day Advance Issues (green line) bounced off zero line once and divergence from new high prints in S&P

Inference

a. #1 is bearish pointing to potential important top in the making

b. #2 points to breakout mode where next move can be very explosive in either direction

c. #3 Very strong bearish divergence points to a quick selloff or consolidation in the making

Last update predicted a potential short term bottom in the making and that was one powerful rally from that bottom.

Current rally has very strong signature of blow-off top thus it is important not to chase this rally.

This pattern, however, has happened once before back in July-Aug 2012. The 3-Day Advance Issues will correct itself as that is the nature of the statistics. If by the time it has moved back down to below neutral zone while S&P going sideway or pullback just a little only as in late Aug to early Sep 2012 , we will get a powerful short squeeze as a consequence.

Daily chart on crude.

I marked the first quarter STOPD Levels.

If there is a 3rd push back up, it will be back up to 107-107.5 where the 1st quarter low is.

It is not a long term bullish play.

Instead, this 3rd push up is a short term counter-trend swing play.

US universities are still hot commodities according to this article.

http://news.yahoo.com/first-time-sat-test-gets-canceled-entire-country-213729411.html

$4.5K+ for the test booklet vs. studying days and nights with no certainty of the results.

I guess it is a cheap price to pay after all.