Warning: Bear Market Rally Trap Ahead

Stocks around the globe were pummeled again last week.

This is no surprise to our subscribers as our predictive trend analytics model gave us clear technical evidence that important multi-year highs had completed back in the middle of 2015.

I continue to remain steadfastly bearish in my outlook for stocks.

Last Friday, January 15, 2016, the SPX broke below its Aug. 24, 2015 low, which is equivalent to a major sell signal if price closes the month below that level.

Last week, The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 511 points, or 3.1%, to 15,866, while the S&P 500 slid 64 points, or 3.4%, to 1,856.34, led by the financials, technology and energy sectors. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 190 points, or 4.1%, to 4,424.35.

Subscribers and I managed to catch a 33% quick intra-week bounce trading the SSO ETF and then got out of harm’s way as volatility took hold once again.

European stocks were unable to escape the downward trend from other markets, and the Stoxx Europe 600 index lost 2.8%.The dollar fell to a one-year low vs. the yen.Gold rose $22.40, or 2.1%, to $1,096.20 an ounce.

The SPX is currently testing major support.This is consistent with a “cycle low” that arrived over the weekend.Even though we are in a bear market, we should expect a “Bear Market Rally” sucking every last investor into long positions, before dropping much lower through previous support areas.This will be a very “short term bottom” this week.

We are in a long term downtrend now; it is not a “hiccup” as we experienced back in 2012.

If the stock market is going to stage a rally from here, this is a good time to start, right when everyone is jumping off the ship and the sentiment is so extremely negative. Just to give you a feel for the level of panic selling on Friday, my panic selling indicator which tells us when short term bottoms are likely to happen as everyone is running for the door, this contrarian indicator spiked to 50. Now any reading over 3 is panic in the market, and a reading of 9-18 is typically a multi week low. So you can see how 50 is VERY extreme.