Forty days and forty nights?

It seems like it's rained every day for the past five weeks or so.  It's crazy.  The insect population has exploded, particularly the mosquitoes.  It's like a swamp.

Finally, though, there's a string of sunny days ahead.  Hot days, too.  If that forecast pans out, then the plant life is going to absolutely go insane.  The whole Deep South will look like a jungle practically overnight.

But it's still better than drought.  I remember the drought of 1998-2000.  Back then, it seemed like everything was going to turn to dust.  Even full-grown oak trees were stressed.  They started dropping their leaves in July of 2000; that's how bad it was.  In August, though, the drought broke, and we had two weeks of non-stop rain, and then the yard was full of mushrooms.  We haven't a drought like that since, thankfully.

Such a time will eventually come again, of course.  Weather and climate are cyclical things.  Right now, though, it's just afternoon showers every single day, and I'm looking forward to a few sunny days.

Almost time for the Olympics

My favorite part of the Olympic Games is the Opening Ceremony.  I'm a sucker for that stuff, and I'm excited to see what the Japanese do.  The people have a rich and beautiful culture, and I really hope they put that on full display.

The ceremony can be watched live starting at 6:55 EST on Friday morning, or you can catch it on the replay later that night.

Prices

I just got done browsing through the "Buy it again" page in my Amazon account.  I was curious to see what current prices were like for products I'd purchased in the past.

To my surprise, they were pretty much unchanged.  I expected otherwise.  After all, the lockdowns created disruptions in the supply chain to the extent that we're now seeing shortages of all sorts of things.  Prices outside of Amazon have certainly risen, so why hasn't Amazon followed suit?

I don't know the answer to that.  But whatever the reason, I'm glad Amazon's prices haven't risen.

Happy Independence Day

It sounds like the Battle of the Somme here at the moment.  My neighbors are putting on a fireworks display that is at least the equal of any of the televised displays.

I hope everyone who celebrates this holiday does so in a safe and enjoyable manner.  Happy Fourth, y'all!

It just keeps going...

Well, all those warning signs I pointed out in the previous post haven't amounted to much.  The stock market continues to push higher.

Did I mention that I suck at market timing?  Yes... yes, I did.  And I'll keep saying it, because it's true.

On an unrelated note, Kindle Vella is scheduled to go live in mid-to-late July.  So at least three weeks away, I guess.

Warning signs

Things are finally starting to look toppy in the stock market.  The Dow Transports has historically been something of a canary in the coal mine for the broader market, and it's been in decline for a few weeks.

The NASDAQ, meanwhile, has gone basically nowhere since February.  Also, it looks to have made a triple top recently, a bearish signal.  There's serious resistance at about 14,200, and it just can't punch through.

I estimate support to be somewhere in the 13,300-13,500 range.  If it drops below that, well, it'll probably be a long way to the bottom.

The S&P has been in a bullish pattern all year.  The past four sessions, though, have all been in the red, with the last one closing below the 50-DMA, so this may be the beginning of the end of the uptrend.  Then again, it broke the 50-DMA back in March, too, and nothing became of it, so who knows...

Now, I should state for the record that I'm terrible at market timing.  I've only successfully timed the market once in my life.  So I'm probably wrong here, too, about the market having topped out.  There might be weeks, months, or years of a bull market left to go.

But you might want to keep a close eye on your stops just the same.

Kindle Vella

I have no idea how Kindle Vella is going to play out.  Maybe it'll be a huge success. Maybe it'll crash and burn.  Maybe something in between.

But I'm intrigued with the idea.  I'm toying around with a fantasy story right now.  If I can write twenty episodes without writing myself into a corner or otherwise failing, then I'm going to give Vella a go.