The Trannies and The Dow

One of my goals is to stay ahead of the curve by discerning trends as early as possible. On December 20th I noted the issue of the break down in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (see: http://buttonwood1792.blogspot.com/2006/12/tranny-breakdown-in-making.html). Indeed, last week the Trannies swooned by over 4% while the Dow-30 slipped 1%. The $64 question is how long can the Dow-30 hold up before it turns and breaks through the lower area of its bullish channel as illustrated in my December 20th post.

Other folks are starting to talk about this problem that the Dow Transports are having, including this write up on Marketwatch.com (Click Here).

Earlier today, technical market guru John Murphy emailed me on the subject, as part of a subscription service and noted:

"In two recent tops (2000 and 1990), the transports peaked at least half a year before the industrials. At two other tops (1994 and 1987), the two peaked together. In all cases, however, a drop in the transports either coincided with -- or preceded -- a top in the industrials. That being the case, the recent downturn in the transports should be enough to raise some concerns about the continuing uptrend in the industrials."

Later in the week, I'll talk more about other stocks that are showing signs of wear and tear - big names like: Apple, QQQQ, Gilead, Starbucks, Ebay, Intel, Google, Sears and others.

For the benefit of anyone who might be fully invested in stocks, the picture below is something known as CASH. "Cash" is defined as, "money in the form of coins or banknotes, esp. that issued by a government." Fully invested bulls might want to examine the stuff pictured below to get re-aquainted. While I'm not saying that Tuesday is the day to jump into it, there may come a time when allocating at least some portion of portfolio into so-called "cash" might not be a bad idea in 2007... just a thought, or just sayin' as the young crowd says these days here on the net.