http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=AAPL&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p98751150763&a=296650072

The apparent trendline break of Apple was apparently a bull trap.  One can avoid these things by being patient — and by especially, hanging around for confirmation.  Also by being extremely skeptical of Wall Street Journal articles.  At any rate if long we would not stick around for a close of 2% or more below the previous bottom (419).  Apple now is defying gravity  — or at least its own gravity.  Given its cash, its inventiveness, its claque of supporters it should float (or surge) upwards.  Not.  We thought of buying calls.  Neither.  What we’re thinking now is we’re not going to try to catch the bottom — or catch the falling apple –.  We’re going to wait for the chart to tell us definitively it’s buy time.

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=TLT&p=D&yr=0&mn=7&dy=0&id=p27749404071&a=261274354

The chart told us to close our short in TLT land so we did.  A profit of about 10%.    We will be quick to put it back on if the chart signals.

The twittersphere and the punditsphere are hopping with outrage over David Stockman’s rant about the state of the state-wreck in Sunday’s Times.  Frankly we liked a lot of it — and cranky?  who says cranky?  Sometimes we get called cranky.  Old finance professors and especially old economists are cranky by definition.  And deservedly so.

If you missed it it’s at nytimes.com/opinion.  Worth  a laugh and a read.  Bring back the gold standard.  Make the bankers walk the plank, matey. Crucify Ronald Reagan — and all those other budget scoundrels.

Not an April Fool’s joke.