The stock market is pretty oversold by some measures. Technical analysis, the art of prophesy using charts, therefore expects a rally to come anytime as early shorts are tempted to take profits and late shorts are forced to cover or face losses as the market turns. It seems that both bulls and bears want this rally. Bulls because it is the natural order of things and the market should resume its upward trajectory, and bears because they don’t want to be the late shorts, needing a rally to sell into strength. So far, the need for the rally has been so universal that it has failed to come. It probably will, but it will doubtless disappoint the expectant masses.

The unfortunate tendency of speculation is to transfer wealth from the majority to a minority.