Val Kilmer has passed away

Dead from pneumonia at the age of 65.  :(

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/val-kilmer-star-batman-forever-040433506.html

I'm a Gen Xer, so Val's movie performances were a big part of my childhood.  I thought he was the coolest guy I'd ever seen in Real Genius.  I wanted to be Chris Knight.

I'm glad he got to do the Top Gun sequel before he passed.  Major kudos to Tom Cruise for bringing him on for that.

And he should have won an Oscar for his performance in Tombstone.  I think most people would agree about that.

But yeah, this really sucks, man.  Call me delusionally optimistic, but I still held out hope that he'd recover from his throat cancer and make a heroic comeback to acting.  Instead, like Bill Paxton, a part of my cinematic childhood has been taken away too soon.  :(

R.I.P., Mr. Kilmer, and thanks for the movies.

 

Sinus infection

I was doing so well.  For the past couple of weeks, I had been steadily increasing my exercise routine and starting to get back into some semblance of decent shape.  Not dramatic progress, but measurable.  Baby steps.

And then I got sick, and now everything is on pause, because my body needs its limited resources to fight the germs.

Why have sinus infections always hit me the hardest?  I don't know.  Covid wasn't as bad as the average sinus infection.  Neither was the walking pneumonia I had back in my teen years.

I've got a wedding to attend in early April, and I really hope I'm not sick anymore by then.

Come on, body.  Win this fight, and do it fast.

Next leg down?

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only.  It is not intended to be personal financial advice.  If you want financial advice, hire a financial advisor.  I'm just some guy on the internet, so please don't make any financial decisions based on this or any other blog post.

 * * *

After a sharp decline in the stock market, the last two trading sessions showed a nice rebound.  Will the rebound continue, or are we on the precipice of the next leg down?

Let's examine the charts.

Here's the S&P 500:

At the top, we see the RSI is below 50.  This suggests that the rebound hasn't yet played itself out.  At the bottom, the MACD is about to see the signal line cross over to the upside, so that's another bullish indicator for this week.  As for the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, there's lots of space between the two, so there won't be a crossover any time soon.  The 50 is above the 200, and that's a long-term bullish indicator.  The index, though, is trading below the 200-day average, so that curve acts as resistance.  We could see modest increases or mostly sideways action this week, but they might not break the 200-day moving average.

Moving on to the VIX...

 

The recent drop-off in stocks only sent the VIX to just under 30.  That's not a lot of volatility for a true correction or crash.  That tells me there might be more volatility on the way.  On the other hand, the MACD just crossed over to the downside, and that's a bearish signal (bullish for stocks).

What about small caps?  Here's the Russell 2000:

As you can see, small caps peaked in November and have been in decline since.  The recently low levels of the RSI are bullish--or at least, temporary rebound--indicators, and we're also about to get a MACD signal line crossover to the bullish side.  On the other hand, the bearish trend has been in place for nearly four months now, so it's firmly in control until we see evidence to the contrary.  Also, the 50-day moving average will soon cross over the 200 to the bearish side, and the index is trading well below the 200.  This index might tread water this week, and possibly next week, too, but then I expect it to resume its fall.

Now we get to the creme de la creme, the Dow Transports.  This index represents the movement of goods and services, and it has long been used as a leading indicator of the broader stock market.  When the market is going one way but the transports are going the opposite way, that's a good indicator that a change in the broader market is about to occur.

 

This chart looks similar to the small-cap chart.  The only significant difference I see is that the 50/200 crossover will happen sooner, probably after Tuesday's trading session.  My conclusions for the transport index is basically the same as for the Russell.

So that's my thinking right now.  Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.  We'll see.  But I'm not backing up the truck just yet.  Maybe in April or May.

Not as bad as I thought it would be

A powerful storm system blew through here Tuesday night.  I was watching it on the Doppler, and it looked like it might get violent.  Strange thing, though; when it moved into Georgia from Alabama, it started to fizzle out.  We got some rain and wind, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I though it was going to be.  A lucky break.

The wind is still a little blustery here right now, but there's no real risk of damage or anything, so it's just an annoyance.

I checked the long-term forecast out of curiosity.  High temps next Tuesday are predicted to be 75.  The following days eventually get a little cooler, but not winter-time cooler.  More like spring.  Is March 11th going to be the de facto first day of spring?  Do we only have five days of winter left?  Man, I hope so.  I can deal with the cold, but only if it's a humid cold, and that's not we get around here.  We get a dry cold, and that just destroys me.  My DNA is optimized for northwestern Europe's wetter winter climates, and my body reminds me of that every January.

I've gotten most of my winter-time outdoor chores done, which mostly consists of getting rid of dead stuff to allow room for new spring growth.  Hopefully we'll have a nice spring flowering season.

First sunburn of the year

It's still just February, but that didn't stop me from getting sunburned today.  I was burning some sticks in the yard, and I stood by the fire for about three hours.  The right-facing sides of my face, neck, and right arm got sunburned.

I can't recall ever getting a sunburn this early in the year before.  Normally, I never burn in winter.  But today was unseasonably warm, so I guess that was the difference. 

At least I got a chore done.  Many more to go.

Venus looms large

Venus looked enormous in the night sky on Monday night.  Bigger than I can ever recall seeing it.

If you've got a clear night in your area this week, try to take a moment to look west after sunset.  The planet is pretty magnificent.

The AI arms race

It really does sort of feel like that, doesn't it?  It feels like the AI sector has become an arms race.  You've got all the Silicon Valley versions of AI, and now you've also got the Chinese DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen.  Now that AI competition is international and multi-polar, it's only a matter of time before it's militarized.

I'm not even trying to keep up with all the latest news in this industry, by the way, because it's all just moving way too fast for me.  Which supports my theory of it being a new arms race.

The good news is that competition drives down prices for consumers.  Also, the open-source nature of DeepSeek allows enterprising folks to play around with it and see what they can invent, so the human spirit actually has a chance to flourish here in ways it couldn't before.

The bad news is that there's the possibility of some real nightmare scenarios resulting from AI.  I don't mean movie-type stuff like Skynet or HAL-9000.  I mean like some vengeful person using AI to invent a virus that specifically targets an ethnic group.  I did something similar to this in Auxiliary's Revenge, and I'm frankly getting tired of seeing some of the things I write about come to fruition here in the real world.  And when I say "tired," I actually mean horrified.

I don't think AI will destroy us all, but it will probably destroy a lot of us before it's all said and done.