I was able to gather some historical charts from Yahoo Finance and Bigcharts.com. The S&P 500 just bounced off the 26 year trend line and what's interesting is the trend does not include the tech bubble lows of 2002. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe the recession wasn't fully realized because it was artificially propped up by monetary policy. Like what Peter Schiff's been saying on cnbc for years. But it's interesting that we're hitting the long term trend today. At the same time the S&P is also testing the tech bubble lows which could also act as support. So if, I said if, the S&P shows sustained strength above these levels it could technically prove a bottom. Again I wouldn't be surprised if we retested the Nov 21 lows of 741 in the near term so monitor the S&P for up moves on strong volume and higher lows. It's interesting that the market charged higher today on horrible news (videos). Hopefully the Obama administration can renew confidense in our economy and be a positive catalyst for the market.
I also wanted to show S&P charts (logarithmic and linear) going back to 1950. The linear chart looks similar to the charts above but if you look at the log chart it looks like the trend hits today at around 500, which is around the 1994 lows and another 40% drop from here! "In a logarithmic scale, the distance between each unit of distance reflects an equal percentage change. Logarithmic scales usually allow for more meaningful comparisons over longer periods of time, whereas linear charts are preferable for shorter time frames." (Yahoo Finance). The log chart might come in handy if we're in a "greater depression". So we're at a critical moment now because we're in a recession. A half a million jobs were lost in November plus GM is on life support. Watch the videos below and click on the charts to enlarge.
S&P Linear Chart - Since 1950 (Source: Yahoo Finance)
