We've come this far and tested the 2000 reaction high, I have to think we're probably going to go all the way and test the all-time highs on the NASDAQ before this bull market comes to an end.
A similar percentage advance would place the S&P 500 at roughly 2200 points which when completed would represent a massive parabolic structure that when it collapses will tip the globe over into the next recession/depression.
So when do we buy stocks you ask? Should we buy today? The answer is, no I don't think the intermediate decline is done just yet. We first need to break the intermediate trend line to confirm this as an intermediate degree correction.
At the very least I think the S&P needs to retrace 50% of its recent intermediate rally. That comes in at roughly 1700-1705.
On a cyclical basis the current daily cycle is on day 31. The average duration from trough to trough for a daily stock market cycle is 35-40 days. So it's still just a little bit early for this cycle to bottom.
There are two events coming over the next week and a half and I'm pretty sure one of them is going to serve as the trigger for this daily and intermediate cycle to bottom, and the melt up phase of this bull market to begin.
The first is the employment report Friday morning. The second is Janet Yellen's Humphrey Hawkins address next Tuesday. Before or during one of these two events I think stocks will make a final plunge to test that 50% retracement/200 day moving average. That's the point where retail investors will panic and professional traders will be loading up the boat for the final run of this bull market.
The one caveat is, if the stock market were to crash 150-200 points over the next 5-6 days then it would signal the parabolic structure is already in collapse and the top of this bull market occurred earlier this month.
I don't really think this is going to be the case as the current intermediate rally lasted 30 weeks. That's not how a final intermediate degree move should behave.
When we do get a final top I expect it will come around week 10-12 of the then current intermediate cycle. An intermediate cycle that tops on week 30 just doesn't have enough time to complete an initial bear market move. So what I'm looking for once we complete this bottom sometime in the next 4-6 days will be a 2-3 month rally that will top sometime in late March to mid-April. That would give us a final intermediate top somewhere around that 10-12 week period. At that point we should get an 8-10 week crash as the parabolic structure collapses. The initial target would be the 2000/2007 all-time highs followed by a final bear market bottom in early to mid-2016.
Over the next week and a half I will be watching for certain timing signals to try and determine whether the bottom is going to come on Friday's employment report, or on the Humphrey Hawkins address next Tuesday. Either way, we should be on the verge of entering another bubble phase very similar to 1999, with the caveat that we not see a 150-200 point crash over the next 4-6 days.