Greece Economy Saved by Oil

Pumping the Greek reclaimed oil from boat to refinery. Just a bit fishy.


Still debating whether or not to financially exclude Greece from the European monetary standard, Western European countries were pleased to hear that Greece had found a way to answer its financial troubles with newly found oil resources.

Proposed by Nikola Papalodinbutt, newly named minister of Energy, the new oil resource is expected to answer a huge part of the Greek debt issue, eliminating the need to buy future oil and providing a surplus that could be sold on the open market.

The plan calls for the enlistment of every able-bodied man with a boat or sailing vessel to join the new Energy Commission. "With modified fishing nets and strong backs, we will harvest the oil from the surface of the sea". Papalodinbutt says, "We simply harvest the free bounty that the sea gives us, in this case from a failed drilling platform near Louisiana".

The new Greek Energy Commission armada is currently under sail to the Atlantic, while Greek refineries near southwestern port cities remain at the ready. "Nobody fishes like a Greek", says Papalodinbutt, "We invented fishing, and the boat, and Baklava. We will rescue our own economy!"

Early testing of the refined Greek oil shows promising results, though insiders say that is smells a bit fishy, much like this story.

All the drivel that's unfit to print-
Blutarsky the word Thief

Hindenburg Omen: Is a Stock Market Crash Imminent?

Eric Rosenbaum
08/13/10 - 02:28 PM EDT
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It may just be the summer doldrums, or the ominous occurrence of a Friday the 13 in mid-August, but the Hindenburg Omen -- a technical indicator of an impending stock market crash -- is suddenly as important a market mover as testimony from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

The blog Zero Hedge, writing in a vein that seems made for professional boxing or WWE pay-per-view event hype, describes the Hindenburg Omen as "Easily the most feared technical pattern in all of chartism (for the bullishly inclined). Those who know what it is, tend to have an atavistic reaction to its mere mention."



In case you hadn't heard, Thursday's action on the New York Stock Exchange registered a technical anomaly known as the Hindenburg Omen. Read: just like the doomed German airship, the markets are fated to crash and burn. Still worse, Wednesday's trading action almost sparked Hindenburg Omen conditions. It takes two Hindenburg Omen trading days within a 36 day window to trigger the end of life in the markets as we know it.
Writing on RealMoney.com, Rev Shark notes of the market voodoo that "the logic behind this ominous-sounding indicator is this: When there are internal inconsistencies in the market that are causing a simultaneously high level of new highs and new lows, a greater risk exists that the resulting confusion and uncertainty will cause market players to exit... When the herd is confused and moving in two different directions, internally that is going to cause some problems."

But first the facts. There was a correction in the markets this week, and the sell-off triggered the Hindenburg conditions. The Hindenburg Omen occurs when an unusually high number of companies in the New York Stock Exchange reach 52-week highs and lows at the same time. The proportion of NYSE stock highs and lows must both exceed 2.2% of the total listed on the exchange. The Hindenburg Omen last occurred in October 2008, according to UBS data.



What is your response to the Hindenberg Omen?

Sell everything before the zeppelin crashes.
Buy, buy, buy; I smell fear and paranoia.
Ignore it; it's meaningless pseudo-science.


Additionally, the Hindenburg Omen is only valid in a rising market -- as measured by the NYSE composite rolling average over the past 10 weeks; the number of stocks at a 52-week high must not be more than twice those stocks at a 52-week low, and the Hindenburg set of apocalyptic conditions must occur twice in a 36 day period.

And that's not all. The Hindenburg Omen perfect storm must also include a negative measure in the NYSE McClellan Oscillator, a measure of market momentum. If it sounds like the flux capacitor of Back to the Future, you just don't know how to trade the charts.



Which of the following psychic scenarios do you most believe in?

The Hindenberg Omen
The World Cup Octopus
The 2012 Apocalypse


The Hindenberg Omen does have a decent track record. A UBS strategist told Bloomberg that the Hindenburg Omen signaled itself seven times in 2008, before the S&P posted its biggest annual drop since the Great Depression. A confirmed Hindenburg Omen has occurred prior to every major stock market crash since 1985, according to various market sources with their finger on the panic button.

Jason Goepfert at Sentimentrader.com told RealMoney's Rev Shark that the Hindenburg Omen does have a fairly good track record of predicting weakness, especially when there are a cluster of such Omen days in a short time frame. The average return of the S&P 500 three months after the Omen is triggered is a loss of 2.6%, and the market was positive only 29% of the time.

In the mood for some more Hindenburg Omen doomsday numbers? The probability of a move greater than 5% to the downside after a confirmed Hindenburg Omen was 77%, according to historical data quoted on Benzinga. It usually takes place within 40 days of the first Hindenburg event. The probability of a panic sellout was 41% and the probability of a major stock market crash was 24%.

That said, there are plenty of Hindenburg false alarms, too -- and, for that reason, some analysts claim that it requires not just two, but between three and five Hindenburg events within a 14-day window to really send the signal to take the chips off the market table.

Anyone ready for a game of craps or roulette? Maybe we should just put all the money under the mattress at this rate and hope the Hindenburg doesn't crash over our houses.

Some fear that the Hindenburg Omen is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Convince enough investors that the Omen exists and they will start selling en masse, causing a market crash.

One can argue that regardless of the Hindenburg Omen or not, more accepted technical indicators are not looking particularly good, so any equity investor out there who isn't already cautious probably will watch their portfolio crash and burn.

Putting market voodoo aside for the moment, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index decline between Tuesday and Thursday was its largest since July 1. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke recently described the economic outlook as "unusually uncertain," and this week when the Fed decided to directly stimulate the economy for the first time in a year, it gave as a reason that growth "is likely to be more modest" than previously forecast.

These aren't exactly the type of comments that one would describe as fanning the flames of market paranoia, but they could add a little hot air to the zeppelin's ride.

-- Written by Eric Rosenbaum from New York.

Wall Street Wonders If 'Hindenburg Omen' Just A Lot Of Hot Air


By Steven Russolillo and Tomi Kilgore Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Forget about Friday the 13th. Many on Wall Street took to whispering about an even scarier phenomenon: the "Hindenburg Omen."

The Omen, named after the famous German airship that crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937, is a technical indicator that is said to foreshadow not just a bear market but a stock-market crash. Its creator, a blind mathematician named James Miekka, said his indicator is now predicting a market meltdown in September.

Wall Street has been abuzz about whether the Hindenburg Omen will come to bear, with some traders cautioning clients about the indicator and blogs pondering all the doom and gloom. But Andrew Brenner, managing director at Guggenheim Securities, told his clients: "Personally, it sounds like [people] are starting their weekend drinking early."

Technical indicators, with names like "The Death Cross" and "The Bearish Abandoned Baby" have been attracting mainstream attention in recent months. Amid an increasingly volatile market, investors have been searching for any sort of clues about stocks' direction, especially this past week where major indexes gave up more than 3%.

"We always love good conspiracy theories," said Joseph Battipaglia, chief market strategist of the private client group at Stifel Nicolaus. But he that noted market watchers sometimes make too much of what could be mere coincidences. "I for one dismiss all these things because they usually erupt most numerously during bear markets."

Miekka came up with the Omen in 1995 as a way to predict big market downturns, creating a formula that parses over data like 52-week stock levels and the moving averages of the New York Stock Exchange. He said the Hindenburg Omen's name was coined by a fellow market technician, Kennedy Gammage, when they found out the name "Titanic" had already been taken.

The confluence of data used by the Omen was officially tripped this week. There were 92 companies that hit 52-week highs on Thursday, or 2.9% of all the companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. There were also 81 new lows, or 2.6% of the total. Each number must exceed 2.5% for the Omen to occur, according to Miekka.

Other criteria include a rising 10-week moving average for NYSE and a negative McClellan Oscillator, a technical indicator that measures market fluctuations. Miekka said the appearance of one signal is usually an indication of a market top, but the Omen becomes more accurate when there are two or more close together.

The Omen was present at every market crash since 1987, but has also occurred many other times without an ensuing significant downturn. Market analysts said only about 25% of Omen appearances have led to stock-market declines that can be considered crashes.

"The Hindenburg Omen does show some deteriorating internals, which signals some major concerns," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "But it isn't a reason to move to 100% in cash. We're taking a wait-and-see approach, but considering its recent history, we're considering it more than other indicators."

Miekka, who writes a Wall Street newsletter called Sudbury Bull & Bear Report out of his homes in Maine and Florida, wasn't even aware that his own Hindenburg Omen indicator was activated. The 50-year-old former physics teacher, who is an avid target shooter, said he was "taken by surprise" after he plugged all the data into his model.

He didn't say whether it is a good time to bail out of the market, but he isn't exactly in a bullish mood when it comes to stocks. "I'll be dancing close to the door," he said.


-By Steven Russolillo, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2180; steven.russolillo@dowjones.com

(Donna Kardos Yesalavich contributed to this report.)

Hindenburg Omen' foreshadows imminent FTSE crisis, warns BGC's David Buik
Will the stock market crash or will it soar to new highs?

By Harry Wilson

Opinion was as polarised as ever on Friday, as one market commentator said shares could be riding for an imminent fall, only days after a respected investor predicted the FTSE 100 would hit 6,000 before the end of the year.
In his daily morning note, David Buik at BGC Partners drew attention to the Hindenburg Omen, which he described somewhat theatrically as "easily the most feared technical pattern in all of chartism". Those of a wary disposition also noted the date - Friday 13th.
The Hindenburg Omen is said to be a statistical sign that equity markets are heading for a fall and measures factors such as the proportion of shares registering 52-week highs and lows, as well as a somewhat complex ratio known as the McClellan Oscillator.
Despite several days of falls the London market closed up 9.38 points on Friday at 5,275.44 - 725 points below what it needs to rise to meet the prediction of Standard Life Investments chief executive Keith Skeoch who predicted on Thursday that the FTSE 100 would hit 6,000 before the end of 2010.
"The FTSE 100 is not just linked to the state of the UK economy as almost 70pc of profits are generated abroad by companies who have good exposure to emerging markets, which will support share prices," said Mr Skeoch in a bullish presentation.
A plague on both their houses, says SwissInvest strategist Anthony Peters, who dismisses Mr Buik's dire warnings and Mr Skeoch's unrestrained optimism.
Asked for his view on Mr Skeoch's prediction, Mr Peters said: "The economy simply doesn't justify that rise - there's no top-line growth at the moment.
"It's simply not feasible that developing world consumption can make up for the fall in demand in the developed - the global economy is going to have to shrink," he said.
Mr Peters points out that whatever anyone's views on the UK market, any discussion in the middle of August is meaningless given that most institutions will not make significant asset allocation decisions until at least the second half of September.
The divergence in views on the market is seen in the latest UBS market figures, tracking fund manager buying and selling.
The figures published on Friday, show that long-only investors began selling the stock market last month, having been buyers of equities since April, while hedge funds from reducing their exposure to shares became buyers around the same time.
Of particular interest is the types of shares investors have been buying, with funds piling into those of companies with cyclical businesses that are likely to do better in the event of a recovery.
By contrast, defensive businesses that would be expected to do better in the event of a worsening outlook have been sold off by investors, indicating that fund managers for now remain optimistic

Beware