1 Dec 2023 close S&P 500: 4,594.63
It’s a new 99 day high. It’s been racing up almost comically fast in recent weeks. A blow-off top before another belly flop just around the corner? Or more hay for the race horse?
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That’s always the conundrum, isn’t it?
In 09 it took 6 weeks from the absolute bottom for the market to hit a new 99D hi. I remember that feeling like about the 4th bull trap head fake. It was not that at all.
In '22 it took until late May for it to go bearish - after most of the damage had been done. And then 6 1/2 months to flip back to bullish after a lot of the index had already recovered a lot of gains from that bear.
Point being, it’s not great as a single source of “truth”, it’s got significant lag and it’s designed to keep people IN until the last sign of any buying demand pressure has disappeared. It is what it is.
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Oh yes. Definitely. I was just trying to be impish/lighthearted/see what other people might be feeling. The 99 day High/Low is like checking the weather and concluding “Yes, it might rain.” Or it might not. And it doesn’t characterize the rain. Downpour? All-day downpour? Brief shower this evening? Incessant 12 hour drizzle?
“Used as directed” I’d say the 99 day h/l should have kept everybody “in” through the…2 month bear cub. Nearly every well-known, prudent timing indicator did not give a “sell” signal. Some got snookered with a quick whip saw but all are in “buy” mode now. So, things should be at least good enough to hold any positions you have for a while.
I got hinky and got out but I am making 5% on a mere money market fund at the moment. Not sure I want to rock that boat right now. What to do? What to do?
Guess right! 
After decades in the market I finally came to the conclusion that investing is really hard. Over the past decade and a half I’ve been developing a covered call strategy that is giving better results for me than investing in stocks. The option market is more “rule based” than the stock market, more like the house in casino gambling. Not that it’s risk free but there are better ways to control the risk. So, that’s what I’m doing. 
In October I got a big scare but November made up for it.
Denny Schlesinger
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I think it is important to remember that things don’t have to be binary, all in or all out. Just start feeding money from money market funds/interest bearing positions into the equity side, X thousand per week. At the very least use the earned interest from money market funds, preferred stock et cetera.
DB2
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@captainccs please share the links to the charts you posted. I got a new computer and lost all my links to the BMW site.
Thanks,
Wendy
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Mike Klein’s website. He automated Jim’s manual charts. The “Cross Reference” link takes you to all the charts, updated weekly on Sundays.
https://invest.kleinnet.com/bmw1/
I download the CSV files and use the data for the buy and sell screens
The Big Charts link
Enjoy!
Denny Schlesinger
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Has there been any discussion on backtesting the BMW method, or using the method as a timing method (e.g. % of stocks below or above 1 RMS)?
Craig
The only one I recall is Mike Klein saying that Return Factor was the most powerful indicator.
It worked well while it worked. What I have learned is that one should only buy stocks that will bounce back, what Warren Buffett calls ‘good businesses.’ As I commented earlier, the BMW Method died when Jim started to buy banks on the strength of the numbers ignoring their inherent risk.
Denny Schlesinger
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