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Blue chip stocks (SPY) for the fifth day are trading within a range, roughly 110.47 down to 107.91. More or less.

ESTRAGON: Charming spot. (He turns, advances to front, halts facing auditorium.) Inspiring prospects. (He turns to Vladimir.) Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for Godot

"Godot" -- it is a little known fact -- is French for "volatility".

The VIX, which measures volatility of the blue chips, is also trading in a range, at 24.73 or so, down 15 percent from the recent high, 41 percent above the recent low, and going nowhere. ESTRAGON: (despairingly). Ah! (Pause.) You're sure it was here? VLADIMIR: What? ESTRAGON: That we were to wait. It makes one so nostalgic for the days of yore -- October 2008 -- when the VIX peaked at 96.4. That was volatility we could believe in. Treasury long bonds (TLT) covered 1.2 percent today in a price rise from low to high and remain in a range for the eighth day. Higher bond prices means lower interest rates.

Other indicators were range-bound. The dollar became more valuable in terms of the euro and yen. The Person's Proprietary bull signal that appeared on the USD/JPY chart this morning has disappeared.

And my poor covered call holding, PALM, continued to decline. My intent is to hold, let the February option expire unexercised, and then sell another covered call when the shares rebound. If they don't rebound, then I made a bad decision.

No signals among the among high-volume exchange-traded funds.

Among high-volume corporate shares:

• MSFT tunbled 7.25 percent on earnings. A pps bear signal showed on the seventh trading day prior, 7.7 percent above the present price. Missed Opportunities Dept.
• QCOM, CSCO, AAPL  also fell sharply on poor earnings days after a pps bear signal.
• AMZN, on the other hand, moved up after good earnings, and the pps bull signal came on the day of the move. The shares were in bear mode and falling at the time of the earnings release.
• So, looking forward, HPQ, bear mode since Jan. 22, earnings on Feb. 17, falling.
• MRK, bear mode since Jan. 22, earnings on Feb. 16, falling.
• BRCM, bear mode since Jan. 16, earnings on Feb. 3, falling.
• Very few new signals.

I think it's time to do a study of Person's Proprietary Signal and its uses, if any. At times it seems to be a work of pure genius. At others, a tool to batter down the human soul. I'll ponder today and into the weekend.


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Topics:
S&P 500, SPDR, Spiders, Treasury bonds, high-yield corporate junk bonds, gold, precious metals, oil, petroleum, CVS, pharmacies, drugs, Electronic Arts games, Moodys bond rating, Palm smartphone Pixi Pri, Microsoft Windows, Qalcomm telecommunications, Cisco Systems neetworking, Apple computers Macintosh iPod iPhone iPad, Amazon books Kindle, Merck pharmaceuticals, Broadcom semiconductors, Hewlett-Packard.