Earlier Nifty Lows to be Tested Soon

Friday was a bad day for the markets. Markets opened flat and slightly upbeat owing to the excellent results posted by Infosys. Good results were expected to offer a positive kick to the markets. Though, the mood was upbeat, yet there was cautiousness in the markets as the market was waiting for the future guidance. Sure enough, the Infosys management increased the guidance for the next quarter and for the whole year. But what it also did was that it did not increase the guidance in dollar terms. That started a brief sell off. But soon the inflation numbers came in too with inflation increasing to 11.89%. I wonder what caused the markets to go up after these numbers came in. But whatever it was, it didn’t last long because the IIP (Index of Industrial Production) numbers came too and that showed a growth of only 3.8% as compared to over 10% last year. I think that was what caused the massive sell-off which took the Nifty 200 points below its high but closed 113 points below Thursday’s close.

Looking at the daily chart of the Nifty attached above, one can see that the Nifty was rising in a small channel since the last two days. It was clear that we would come in an intermediate term uptrend if, and only if, the Nifty were to cross 4300 levels. That failed to happen, which means that this was just a bear rally which fizzled out and which could take us to levels much lower than the earlier lows of 3850. However, there is a fairly strong support available between 3850 and 3900 which should stop the Nifty from falling below these levels. A move below 4000 will be fairly conclusive proof that earlier lows may be tested, if not broken. But the Relative Strength Index (RSI) shows that it has not gone below 40 in spite of this sharp fall yesterday. If this support at 40 holds, we may recover from the current levels. But, seeing the momentum of the fall on Friday, that seems to be only a remote possibility.

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Crashed Hard Disk

Hi Guys! I am sorry but my machine's hard disk crashed. I have got it reinstalled and reformatted but all the problems that come with the crash are there. I have yet to get my charting software reinstalled and get all the data back. So, today I will not be in a position to do any analysis. Hopefully, I should be up and running by the weekend and will bring you my analysis of the markets on Sunday evening/night.

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Nifty Target of 4300 Visible in Short Term

The Nifty opened with a huge positive bias because of all the positives visible in the Indian political situation and the global markets, as were mentioned in yesterday’s post. The Nifty jumped up about 130 points in the first five minutes of trade and about 160 points up in the first fifteen minutes. Things then cooled down a bit and the Nifty came back within the range discussed in yesterday’s post. It was only in the mid-afternoon when the European markets also opened positive that the Nifty broke through the trading range and went on to make new highs for the day.

Above is the 30 minutes chart of the Nifty and shows that a triple bottom has been made over the period of the last 10 days. This is the first time in the 8 months history of this blog that the Nifty has made a triple bottom. The blog has seen lots of double bottoms and double tops but never a triple bottom. A triple bottom is a reversal pattern, as are the head and shoulders, double tops and bottoms and triple tops. A reversal pattern means those patterns that are generally found towards the end of trends. This triple top being confirmed may well show that the downtrend of the Nifty has now finished, at least in the short term. We are now in a well defined short term uptrend, the target for which is at least 4300. It may find resistance near the trendline marked by the arrow which lies between 4310 and 4320. A move above that trendline may turn out to be good for the markets.

What is the future of the markets? Have the markets made a temporary bottom or a major bottom? Is there any more pain left in the markets? Here is a video which gives both sides of the story. You pick which side you want to believe. I, personally, agree with Surjit Bhalla of O(x)us Invt and fully agree with him that markets do tend to bottom out 6 months before the economy does. And I’m pretty sure that the fundamental situation and economies of the world will be showing a much better picture than what has been painted today.

So, what do we do? I feel there is no point trying to predict whether the markets will go down or go up. We should just follow the trend. We buy now in the short term because the short term trend is now up. We should buy with a medium term time frame when the intermediate term changes to up. No attempt should be made to predict the markets because that brings a bias in our trading decisions. We let the markets decide what it wants to do because markets have a mind of their own, a brain of their own.

On a lighter note, like all of us, the market’s brain is divided into two sides – a left side and a right side. Unfortunately, the left side has nothing right in it while the right side has nothing left in it.

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Left Withdraws Support, Markets Rangebound

With the Nikkie down 225 points down and the Hang Seng down roughly 350 points when our markets opened, our market was bound to open with a downward gap. The Nifty lost about 100 points in the first five minutes itself. The Nifty hovered around those levels for the next couple of hours and then started inching its way up. It had recovered only about 80 points from its lows when the news came out that the Left front had withdrawn support from the government over the nuclear deal issue. That caused the Nifty to come down again but the news was taken rather bravely by the market and by closing the Nifty had lost only 40 odd points.

It is clear now that the Nifty will remain inside a narrow range for sometime. Attached above is the 60 minutes chart of the Nifty which shows that it has now been moving within a narrow range between 4100 and 3850. One can also see that the last two troughs saw a low being made near 3900 which acts as another minor support. Confirming that the Nifty is going to stay within the range is the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which has been consistently finding resistance near 60 and support near 40 as indicated by the green arrows. A stock or, for that matter, an index can remain inside a range for hours, days and even weeks. We don’t know how long this range is going to be but since it is a very narrow range, it should be broken soon. A move outside the range should give a movement of about 200 points, depending on which side it breaks out on. While no positions are advised till the Nifty remains within this range, yet buying a 4100 call and a 3900 put (July expiry) should be a good strategy at the moment. With the Nifty at 4000 today, both should be fairly cheap. At closing, the 4100 call was available for Rs.80/- while the 3900 put was available for Rs.150/-. It amounts to an investment of Rs.230/- for unit of Nifty or Rs.11500/- per lot of Nifty. On breakout, the losing position should be closed while the other should be carried on. Since the target after breakout is only 200 points and the investment is Rs.230/- one should not expect a lot of profit from this but this is fairly safe. And if the breakout comes soon, one may gain more than expected because the time value would still be there in the option prices.

Let us talk some politics now. The Left withdrew support and yet the market went up. Why? Well, mainly because the government has already got the support of the Samajwadi Party and while it still falls a few votes short of the magic number, it may be able to get the support of a few independents and small parties before the vote of confidence. There are a lot of positives from the developments today. Firstly, the government has announced that they will go to the IAEA with the nuclear deal. If the deal goes through it will be a big positive for the markets. The Left withdrawing support may actually turn out to be good for the government. With the Left providing support, the government had not been able to introduce any reforms in the last four years. With the hurdle now out of the way, the government may actually be able to do something good for the country, provided the Samajwadi Party does not act funny. An early election would mean elections in November while according to the normal schedule elections are to be held in April-May 2009. So, a six months early election won’t be very materialistic for the markets. In fact, an early election may be good for the markets because it only reduces the time of uncertainty (except that then it could jeopardize the nuclear deal). The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who is now in Japan attending the G8 summit has sent signals home that the Chinese may not oppose the nuclear deal and if the government continues the deal may go through. The US has already committed that it will help lobby India’s case with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). So, there are a lot of positives today. A lot of small investors understand the Left withdrawal to be a negative but it is more of a positive than a negative.

At the time of writing this post, the European markets are between 1 and 2% down while the Dow is about 50 points in the green. But a big positive is that the crude is slipping. It is already down to $136 a barrel and with such a sharp fall it seems the uptrend may now have ended. A proper analysis of crude would be done in tomorrow’s post.

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Small Range Between 3940 and 4110

The Nifty opened with a big bang today and soon reached near its earlier pivot high of 4105. The Nifty made four attempts during the day to cross that barrier but it proved to be a very tough resistance. Finally, in the late afternoon trade, after news came in that there was a suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, the market started falling. It fell pretty sharply for whatever time was left in the session and let the Nifty close with gains of only 14 points during the day.

Seen above is the 30 minutes chart of the Nifty which shows that the Nifty went through the resistance line with a bang today on opening bell itself but that is where the problems started for Nifty. It reached its previous resistance which happened to be the pivot high formed last week. After trying to go past the resistance for most of the day, the Nifty failed to do so and fell sharply in the afternoon. As shown by the green lines, the Nifty is now in a range between 3940 and 4110. The ADX indicator which is still below 20 will remain at low levels till the Nifty remains within this range. A breakout from this range – either up or down should take the ADX to levels past 30. What is to be noted is that the ADX indicator on the daily charts is still at 51. For the Nifty to change its direction, the ADX should first slow down to levels between 20 and 25 before going up again. A prolonged stay within the range for a few days should do that for the Nifty. For now expect a short term uptrend above 4110 and a short term downtrend below 3940/3850.

I had to go out somewhere and came back late. Since it is now very late in the night, I won’t go into too deep an analysis and just rest my pen here tonight.

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This Rally May Fizzle Out

The Nifty had a good day on Friday too. With a fabulous 200 point increase in Nifty on Wednesday and all its gains being washed away on Thursday, Friday turned out to be a good balm for the wounds of Nifty. A 90 point increase in the Nifty came at a good time but the move up was gradual and interrupted by regular corrections during the day. Inflation was a major worry and with inflation moving up to 11.63%, the market started coming down but not for long. The next move up took it past the earlier highs of the day but then it went into a 40 point range between 3980 and 4020.

Seen above is the 30 minutes chart of the Nifty along with the Directional Movement ADX indicator on top (green colour with red horizontal lines) and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) at the bottom (red colour with blue horizontal lines). The ADX indicator, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, measures the strength of a trend while the RSI measures the strength of a stock/index with respect to its historical prices. As seen from the chart, and as marked by the green arrows, every successive low in the Nifty saw a reduction in the strength of the trend, as measured by the ADX. Now the ADX is at a level of 15 and below 20 it does indicate that there is no trend in the market except sideways. This gives us an indication that the downtrend may have been over.

So, are we in an uptrend now? Not yet. As mentioned in a previous post, a short term uptrend shall be confirmed only if the Nifty were to go above 4105. We would get an early indication that the trend has changed if the Nifty were to go above the downward sloping trendline. The RSI finding support near 40, as marked by the green circle, also gave us positive indications about a forthcoming uptrend. Unfortunately, things change fast where the markets are concerned. With a 90 points increase in the markets, anybody would say that a short term uptrend will come about. However, the charts suggest differently. The move, as already mentioned, was slow and lacked momentum and, though the prices managed to cross the trendline, there was no excitement/large range candle associated with the breakout, which gives me doubts whether the breakout was genuine or not. The RSI finding resistance near 60, as marked by the brown circle, and failing to go above it also makes one wonder whether an uptrend will come now or after another brief correction.

At this moment, I’m afraid, this increase in prices may fizzle out once again. We may see another fallback to the lower trendline to 3920 or upto the previous lows below 3850 (or even lower??) before we make another attempt at a pullback. A move below 3875 will signify that we are back in a downtrend.

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The World Around Us

Today is a weekend and on weekends I, usually, write about general things for which I don’t get time during the week. On previous occasions, I have written about mutual funds, the US Recession, Retirement Planning, Greed and Fear, Renewable Energy, Price to Earnings Ratios, Rules for Analysing Charts, why technical analysis works, Fibonacci Techniques and have done a couple of webinars also. The whole week a question keeps propping up in my mind that what am I going to write about this weekend and sometimes my mind draws a blank and I don’t know what to write about. Today happens to be one such weekend. Maybe you readers can give me some ideas about what I should write about. Just send me a list of topics about which you need some more information and I can keep picking up a topic from the list and every weekend I can write about a different topic. I hope to get a list which could last me 2-3 months. So please send in your lists today.

Though, I didn’t know what I should write about, but then I thought why not write about something which seems to be driving our markets. And in my opinion, there are three things that are driving the Indian markets, namely, inflation, crude prices and the American markets. Inflation, I feel, is more because of the shooting commodity prices the world over rather than being an Indian phenomenon. The government is trying to control inflation by regulating the supply of commodities or by raising interest rates but when the inflation is driven by external factors how can we control it with these measures? Though, I’m not much of an economist but I feel there could have been better ways to reduce inflation than this. I’m shocked at how horribly wrong the Govt. was. According to this news report the Central Government had said on April 19, 2008 (when the inflation was 7.14%) that they would bring down the inflation under 5% in the next two months.

Well, about crude prices the sky seems to be the limit to which the crude prices can go? Will this never end? Will crude go to $200 a barrel? When I don’t understand anything I make use of technical analysis. But I have done the technical analysis of crude in an earlier post too with the help of Elliott Waves and had suggested that crude could make a high near 6300 or $148.50. Things have changed today. Crude, after a $10 jump that day slowed down and is now gradually inching up. This gradual increase has pushed the target upto between 6500 and 6600 (in rupees), which means it could go upto $157 a barrel. But I also saw the short term chart of crude and I found it to have some similarities with the chart of the Nifty. Let us see how.

Seen above is the daily chart of the Nifty showing the period between November 2007 and January 2008. Significant in this chart is the presence of dojis. I’ve mentioned in numerous other posts that a doji is a day when the open and the close of the day is the same or is very close to each other. In this case, the candle that is formed has an upper shadow and a lower shadow but a non-existent or a very small body. All such dojis have been marked in the chart above with green arrows. Dojis are signs of indecision/confusion. Such indecisions and confusions cause a strong trend in the market to slow down and then reverse. This is exactly what happened in late January after a series of dojis were seen in late November, all of December and the initial part of January. Another thing to note in the chart is the presence of the ADX index which measures the strength of a trend. A strongly trending stock/index will show higher values of ADX while a trend slowing down or a stock/index going through a consolidation will show lower values of ADX. This ADX, which was as high as 47 in late October came down between 15 and 20, when the Nifty actually reversed.

Let us look at the crude chart for the period between mid May and now. The similarities seen are obvious. This chart also has seen a number of dojis in the last two months, though, may not be as many as were seen in the chart of the Nifty. Looking at the ADX indicator, we can see that here too it made a high of 47 and then came down to levels between 25 and 30 and is now at 33. The striking resemblance between the two charts shows us that the high for crude oil may not be very far off. What also cannot be ignored is the presence of so many red candles. The chart looks more red than blue even though this chart is of a period when it has been in an uptrend.

And lastly, let us take a look at the American markets too. Seen above is the chart of Dow Jones Industrial Average for a period of last one year. We can clearly see that the trend has been downwards. The chart currently shows no indications of the downtrend finishing or an uptrend building up. But there are a couple of things which I want to share with you. The first is the trendline drawn from June 7, 2007 till date. This trendline shows that there may be support nearby near 11100. And a one year long trendline, which has been tested 4 times in the past should provide a pretty strong support. Secondly, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is currently near 20 and considering that the downtrend has been in place for the last 9 months, a level of 20 is highly oversold which has never been seen in the last year, at least. Both these things show that a support, could only be a short term support, is nearby. And that is what we are expecting with the Indian markets too. More downside possible but a short-term low may have been formed.

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Short Term Uptrend Above 4105

Yesterday the Nifty had gone up almost 200 points but all those gains were washed away today at one point but finally in the mid afternoon session the Nifty did move up a little. In the end it closed 167 points down from yesterday’s close and only 29 points above Tuesday’s close. A total range of 259 points in 3 days but only 29 points up! Yesterday we had suggested that the Nifty, if it were to cross above its resistance line would go up but the Nifty decided to turn around from there rather than to go up.

Before I go into today’s analysis, I would like to take some advice from my readers. Dear readers, I have decided to shift. No, I’m not shifting my office or my home, I’m only shifting my blog. I know I would be losing all the Google juice and my page rank but once you have decided upon something, one should move on. Right now I’m in the process of building up the template and transferring data and widgets and am planning to give it a similar look with similar content. I would like your opinion on the new site as regards the content, presentation, theme or if any additions/subtractions should be done on the new site. It will be easier to incorporate all those things that you want while I am still in the process of building up, than it would be to do later. So, please leave your suggestions in the comments section and let me know. I would be looking forward to your comments.

Attached is the 30 minutes chart of the Nifty which shows the inability of the Nifty to cross its resistance line. According to the dictionary, a trend is defined as the general direction in which something tends to move. With the markets it sometimes becomes difficult to determine whether the prices are moving up or moving down. In the chart attached above one can see that in the last 10 days or so the trend is down since prices are moving down. But what about the last two days? Are we in an uptrend or in a downtrend? Has the trend changed to up? If not, when can we say that the trend has changed? Well, that is why we use trendlines. Trendlines are drawn by connecting two or more successive pivot highs in case of a downtrend and two or more successive pivot lows in case of an uptrend. When the prices breach the trendline, we say that the trend has reversed. But in some cases the trend continues in the same direction but only slows down a bit after crossing the trendline. Which is why we say that a confirmation of a reversal comes only when the price starts making higher highs and higher lows OR lower highs and lower lows, as the case may be.

In the chart above, as far as the trendlines are concerned we will come back into an uptrend if the Nifty were to go above 4040 and in a downtrend if it were to go below 3890. We can see that the Nifty has already made a higher low and as soon as a higher high is made, we will be back in an uptrend. A higher high would be made if the Nifty were to cross 4105, which has changed from 4325 since the most recent pivot high was formed yesterday at 4105. A downtrend would be confirmed if the Nifty were to go below today’s low of 3875, which happens to be the most recent pivot low. As to predicting what will happen, we shall let the market decide what it wants to do. But indications are positive. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) found support at 40 today and reversed from there which is a bullish sign. At the moment the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is trading about 75 points higher, crude is trading at about $144, which is off its highs near $145.80. And if Asian markets remain good in the morning, we can expect a positive opening. The only thing that worries me for tomorrow is the inflation figures which will be made public at noon. I’m expecting inflation to increase to around 11.6%. Anything more than that should be negative for the markets.

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Expect More Bounce in the Short Term

The Nifty opened flat, went up in the first 15-20 minutes after opening but soon started coming down. The support at 3882/3878 was soon broken and it took the Nifty to make a new low at 3848 before it started moving up again. And what a rally it was! A 200 point rally in just 2 hours of trading (between 1PM and 3PM) ensued without any correction whatsoever. On the 5 minutes charts, there were only two candles during that period which had a low lower than the low of the previous candle. In the last 30 minutes the Nifty did display some resistance near 4100.

I have attached the 30 minutes chart of the Nifty today which shows the fantastic rally that took place today. There were no complaints from the rally today, except that it fell just short of confirming the uptrend. As we can see from the charts, the rally stopped exactly at the resistance line. Thankfully, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has given an indication that the rally may go past the resistance line. It has done so by itself going above the line that was providing resistance to it. A confirmation using the trendline technique will come if the Nifty were to cross this resistance line. If we are using the Dow Theory then a short term uptrend would be confirmed only if it were to cross its most recent pivot high which lies at 4325 as shown by the dashed green line. But one should remember that would be confirmation of only a short term uptrend. An intermediate term uptrend would be confirmed only if the Nifty were to cross 4680.

But why did the market bounce back today? Why were we not expecting a bounce back? Well, the answer is that’s what happens in a capitulation. The capitulation day makes the market so negative that everybody is expecting it to go down. All investors are bearish, all analysts are bearish, all charts are bearish and there is a lot of pessimism around. Though, there are signals available that capitulation is coming, yet the market decides when it has capitulated completely. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, capitulation like symptoms were visible, but I personally feel the market hasn’t completely capitulated yet. Of course, that is my personal opinion and I could be wrong too. I support my reasoning with the logic that a capitulation is much sharper and lasts much longer than what was seen in the last 3-4 days.

The main reasons why the markets went up today, in my opinion, were mainly political and also valuation based. It seems certain now that the Samajwadi Party (SP) would provide support to the government on the nuclear deal issue in case of a Left pull-out. It also seems certain that the government would not fall even if the Left pulls out and that the nuclear deal might go through. While this rally is just discounting the positive developments, we should see a big rally when the nuclear deal goes through without the government falling. Looking at the valuations, Nifty, which was trading at a P/E (Price to Earnings Ratio) of over 28 in early January was down to 16.66 yesterday (based on current earnings – Forward P/E would be even lower). The Nifty Midcap 50 Index was even more attractive. The P/E which was close to 25 in January was down to only 10.15 yesterday. And a P/E of 10-15 times is a very good level to pick up stocks. But fundamentally speaking, high crude prices and inflation still remain areas of concern.

So, what do we do? Is it a bear market rally or the beginning of a bull market? We don’t know for sure right now and the best thing to do would be to follow the market and wait for it to tell us what to do. We should go long in the short term if a short term uptrend is confirmed (with proper stop losses, of course). More positions for a longer term can then be added when an intermediate term uptrend is also confirmed. In case the market comes down without confirming an intermediate term uptrend, we would know that it was just a bear market rally.

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Capitulation Like Symptoms Visible

The Nifty yet again opened around the same levels as yesterday’s closing and started moving up. Yet again, at 11AM, it started coming down, and exactly like yesterday found support in the late afternoon session. But today the support was found 160 points below yesterday’s close of 4040 at 3878. The Nifty finally ended the day 144 points down at 3896. Our level of 3882 mentioned in yesterday’s post held very well today.

In the last few days I have been discussing Elliott Wave Counts on the Nifty and so far the counts appeared to be correct and working as per our expectations. To read what we had written in other posts discussing Elliott waves, one can go to the end of this post and under the section “Other Posts That May Interest You” read the posts listed under ‘Elliott Waves’. Or, simply click here to read all posts which have discussed Elliott Waves. Briefly, I had mentioned that we are, probably, in the 5th wave down of major corrective wave C. While writing yesterday’s post I got confused and had mentioned that wave 5 cannot be longer than 797.60 points which was the length of the 3rd wave down in the corrective wave C. As per the Elliott Wave principles, the 3rd wave is usually the longest but NEVER the shortest. And I got confused into thinking that if the length of the 5th wave is more than 797.60 then the 3rd wave would become the shortest. What I forgot was that even if wave 5 was longer than that, wave 1 would still be the shortest which measured only 385.05 points. And Sanjay rightly pointed out in the comments here that even if wave 5 exceeded 797.60 points, wave 3 would still not be the shortest. Thank you, Sanjay. Usually, if the 3rd wave is the longest, wave 5 is almost equal to wave 1. In some cases, it could even be 1.618 times, 2.618 times or 4.236 times of wave 1 (and in some of these cases wave 5 could then become the longest). This seems to be a case where wave 5 will be the longest. 1.618 times of 385.05 would be 623 points and the 5th wave is already longer than that. The next target for the end of wave 5 would be 2.618 times of wave 1 (385.05 points) which is 1008.05 points which works out to a target of 3671.70. God save us if it extends to 4.236 times of the first wave!

I have the daily chart of Nifty uploaded today, as seen above. This chart is the same as yesterday, except being updated with today’s candle. As can be seen from the Bollinger Bands, today’s close was outside the limit of the lower band and this means that the downtrend would continue. Our analysis of the Elliott Wave Counts already suggests that we are looking at a target close to 3672. A quick run through the charts of various large caps and mid caps tells me that almost all stocks, with the exception of those in the pharma and IT sector, seem to have broken through their major supports on the downside. A little bit of capitulation like symptoms were visible today with the prices falling drastically with high volumes. However, there were rumours that an American hedge fund was selling and that the retail investors were not capitulating.

Udayan Mukherjee, the senior stocks analyst for CNBC TV18 said today, that the holdings of the retail segment are mostly in the mid cap and small cap segment and only a small quantity of the retail investors would be invested in the large caps. So, if at all a capitulation by the retail investors were to be seen, it would be mostly in the mid cap and small cap segment and very little in the large cap segment. I, somehow, tend to agree with him. I took a look at the chart of the CNX Midcap 200 Index also today and the picture looks grim, to say the least.

Attached above is the chart of the CNX Midcap 200 Index. The Midcap Index fell by 426 points today, or 7.8% to close at 4992. A look at the chart above tells us that the Midcap Index has confirmed a bearish head and shoulders pattern below 5850, which was formed over a period of 12-14 months. The target for this pattern is close to 1700. If this Index does fall to 1700, it would have fallen 82.6% from its all time high. Incidentally, a smaller bearish head and shoulders pattern is visible on the Relative Strength Index (RSI) chart too. A fall of 82% would really be called capitulation. Please do not interpret my words to say that the midcap Index will fall to 1700. What I said was that it has a target of 1700. The market/this index may capitulate much before it reaches that level.

One very important thing to be noticed and kept in mind is the sentiment indicator. All analysts on TV, Radio and the newspapers are now extremely bearish about the markets. More and more analysts have started giving targets below 10000 on the Sensex. The media (both visual and print), besides business newspapers and business news channels, have started reporting about the massive fall in the markets and the amount of money that the investors have lost. Even knowledgeable people like mutual fund managers and FIIs have turned negative and have started selling. There is pessimism all around. All these factors indicate that we are somewhere very close to a bottom. Long term investments could now be made in small quantities (I’m not saying this as a technical analyst but only as a contrarion investor). Maybe this should cheer some of you out there in all this pessimism.

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