The rebound in the S&P 500 from 665 is a bullish sign to traders who base predictions on so-called Fibonacci patterns in price charts. The index has risen 9 percent since sinking to 666.79 on March 6. The low was within 0.3 percent of 665, a level at which the benchmark index would give up 61.8 percent of the 25-year rally beginning in 1982. [1]

I grabbed the above quote just before BL evaporated it (but you will still be able to see traces for a while if you google the text — and now that text has shown up again; definitely a work-in-progress!).  Almost nothing is making sense this month, but if some technical S&P 500 stat visits that level a third time, at least we’ll have confirming evidence that Tim LaHaye is now working for the Plunge Prevention Team. (I really have to check in with the Perry F. Rockwood crew down on Green Street :( )

MISH called BS [2] on the infamous Citigroup "leak" yesterday, but still thinks that a strong Bear Rally (or better) is in the cards.

So Citigroup has a profit, excluding what?

Who knows? Pandit did not say.

In other news, I am announcing I have $10 billion in my bank account except for the portion of the $10 billion I do not have.

Bear in mind the market is not rallying because of this nonsense. The market is rallying because at a minimum, it was technically very oversold and was ready to rally. Furthermore, this rally has the potential to be much stronger than most think.

Still, all this turbulence must be making it awfully hard for companies to raise equity capital to do neat stuff.  The NYSE has been an entertaining casino the last while, but when all is said and done isn’t the purpose of a bourse to let investors back people who are working to build real value?  The debt markets have been really toxic, even evil recently,[3] and a return to sense and stability in equities is long overdue.  If it takes a big bad Bear to burn off the fluff, perhaps it’s all for the best.

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[1]: "US Stocks Gain as Geithner’s Injection Plan Drives Bank Rally", by Rita Nazareth and Lynn Thomasson, Bloomberg, March 11, 2009.

[2]: "Another Bear Market Rally or Something More?", by Mike Shedlock, Global Economic Trend Analysis, March 10, 2009.

[3]: " ‘Sinful’ model of lending brought world’s economies to their knees" (letter), by Professor Fenton F. Robb, Scotsman, March 10, 2009.