Market comments for the week ahead and beyond

Let there be no doubt, the Dow will go as low as 11,600 shortly. From there we may have a bounce up but the odds are we will continue to see this and the other stock market indexes drop lower because much concern still lies with the issue of raising the debt ceiling. We have less than 3 weeks for this issue to get resolved before the markets start to get very nervous and volatile, even though we have until Aug. 2nd before the government defaults on its debt obligation and the government shuts down. The sides are still miles apart and it seems to be playing along in a similar game of chicken as to when Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House during the Clinton Administration. The Republicans miscalculated then and appear to be again now. Only this time the consequences our governments credit will face is much worse as the United States has never defaulted on its debt obligation. So you see this is very serious indeed.

I have added a 6 month chart of the Dow this morning as is seen below. Notice that on Friday, which is often a low volume day, the Dow was down 172 points at the close. Notice also that the Volume was indeed higher than the entire rest of the week.

Also noteworthy was the fact that the Put to Call ratio continues to be greater than 1.00 now for 8 consecutive market days, not seen since Sept. 9, 2008. All the signs are warning investors this is serious. Don't say you didn't know it would get so bad. You have been warned!

How far down is the market going to go is subject of many guesses. My guess is that we will be first going all the way down to the 10,000 level after testing 11,600. A look at the 2 year chart below shows just how easy the Dow and other Indexes can unwind. I have identified 3 levels to test in what could be a drop as far down ultimately to test the Dow at 6,400. Yes, that's right, Dow 6,400. You read that correctly. Much depends on when and what the Fed is allowed to do. If the Fed stops its quantitative easing (QE2) and not do more, we could get there sooner rather than later. If the Fed decides it needs QE3, this drop and crash will be postponed for a while, but it will be inevitable, we will crash to test 6,400 eventually. A defense will be better than any offensive market move going forward as the odds are against a Bull market now. Fair Warning! We are in a Bear market now.