The Stock Market: Should we abandon ship?

This must be on many minds this weekend as we broke through support levels which defined 25 year uptrend lines on the Dow. While we broke below support so gently the past week, nevertheless, we did break through the support levels and that is not a good sign. I took another look at the next level of support and while I can do this on a 25 year chart, I can't do it with the precision you deserve. So check with your professional stock advisor or other certified professional expert. It is my best guess we might go down to 6,300-6,500 on The Dow and 700 on the S&P. That means possibly another 10% drop of the total value of your portfolio of stocks. Ugh.

But there is also the possibility we can still have a strong Bear Market rally and go back up to 9,000 or over. That would be a 28% gain from where we are now. I personally am willing to take the risk of a 10% loss for a nearly 30% gain at this point. I can't speak for you here so you need to watch yourself and your assets. I believe this though, there is pent up demand and an oversold feeling with this market and the move up could happen very quickly. If any indicators aren't as bad as was expected in the coming week and show any possibility of no worse than last month, that could be enough for many to jump into the market.

I ventured in yesterday to buy Citi, symbol C, and so did many others as over 1.7 Billion shares were traded on Citi giving the Dow index a spike in volume for the day.

My recent purchases are underwater for my ETF's as well as the stocks I had purchased. TNA, the 3x Ultra Pro ETF of the Small Caps, closed yesterday at $15.53, after hitting a 52 week low of $15.02/share. I had recommended and purchased this at $23.36/share. SSO, the Ultra Pro shares of the ETF for the S&P 500 closed yesterday at $17.31/share after it hitting a 52 week low of $17.24/share. I had recommended and purchased it at $21.57/share. Ford Motor has pulled back after getting back up to as high as $2.20/share but now closed at $2.00/share. I had recommended and purchased this at $1.90/share. Apple, symbol AAPL closed yesterday down at $89.31/share. I had recommended and purchased the stock at $86.50 and $78/share. So there is the summary of my purchases.

Putting everything into context in a summary here, I think it's a crap shoot for this coming week as to whether we actually test new lows at the 6,300-6,500 level. If the SEC instituted back the Uptick Rule, we might not go lower but there is no certainty they will. It has been only discussed by Bernanke and others in the Administration. And further complicating matters is that Wall Street does not like what President Obama has been proposing on a host of topics like Healthcare reform, Medicaid reform, tax rate changes, stemming foreclosures and the bailout of banks. They speak with their money in the markets and that hurts us all. But change isn't coming, change is here and they had better get used to it. The good old boys network and the good old days, are gone forever or at least during this Administration. So I am not selling here and will hold and possibly add more shares of these investments as long as the cash holds out. So to answer the question asked in the title of this Blog, "Should we abandon ship?", the answer is No!