What is Bearish Bar Reversal?
What it is trying to describe is the psychology around the current price of the stock.  In candlestick charts for example, if you get what is called a Bearish Engulfing Candle (where the open is higher than the previous day's close and the close is lower than the previous day's open) at the top of an uptrend, this could mean that the top may have been reached and the bears are taking over the bulls. A Bearish Engulfing candle is seen as a bearish reversal pattern, as the bulls start the day by opening the stock at a higher price than yesterday's close, but by the end of the day the bears have taken over as the price drops below yesterday's open. This reversal pattern can be even more pronounced and effective if it coincides with other chart indicators, such as an overbought momentum indicator. If you want to learn more look up about the Psychology of the market and Candlestick Charting.
The technical term of a recession is 2 successive quarters of negative GDP growth. As is the natural cycle, the curve will invert at some point in the future; maybe it's tomorrow or 5 years from now - but nobody knows for certain. One also shouldn't take any single indicator as the end all be all of indicators. For example, there are other spreads that indicate the health of credit in the global economy such as the TED spread and the LIBOR-OIS spread. If you take a peek at the TED spread (http://www.macrotrends.net/1447/ted-spread-historical-chart), it tells a much different story. The TED spread measures the health of the global banking system by tracking the rate at which banks lend to each other. A lower TED rate equals more trust and perceived creditworthiness of the borrower, which would be another bank.  Lastly, you really can't rely on a single article or single indicator to come to the conclusion that the sky is falling. Even if we are on the precipice of a recession here in the US, nobody can tell predetermine the impact and depth of the recession. In my opinion, we are nearing the top of the credit cycle and should be expecting a bit of a cooling off in the near term 1-3 years. Outside of that, your guess is as good as mine. The values of 12, 26 and 9 are the typical industry standard setting used with the MACD, however other values can be substituted depending on your trading style and goals. The 26d EMA is considered the long moving average when in this case it is compared to the shorter 12d EMA. If you used a 5d EMA and a 10d EMA then the 10d EMA would be considered the long MA. It is based on what you are comparing it with. Apart from providing signals for a reversal in trend, MACD can also be used as an early indication to a possible end to a trend. What you look out for is divergence between the price and the MACD. See chart below of an example:  Here I have used 10d & 3d EMAs and 1 for the signal (as I did not want the signal to show up). I am simply using the MACD as a momentum indicator - which work by providing higher highs in the MACD with higher highs in price. This shows that the momentum in the trend is good so the trend should continue. However the last high in price is not met with a higher high in the MACD. The green lines demonstrate bearish divergence between price and the MACD, which is an indication that the momentum of the trend is slowing down. This could provide forewarning that the trend may be about to end and to take caution - i.e. not a good time to be buying this stock or if you already own it you may want to tighten up your stop loss. Someone already mentioned that this is a risk-reversal, but as an aside, in the vol market (delta-hedged options) this is a fundamental skew trade. (buying calls, selling puts or vice versa). Initially vega neutral, the greek that this trade largely isolates is vanna (dvega/dspot or ddelta/dvol). Well, there are many reasons that Lehman and Bear were allowed to go under. Lehman had much more exposure to real estate than Goldman and JP, and they were also the very first domino to fall, back when people didn't think the crisis was a full-blown crisis yet.  As for Bear? I think the Fed harbored some hard feelings after the LTCM thing. Up until your strategy's money losing leg is stopped out, you have zero PnL, while a straddle has lost time value but may gain from price movements - all the PnL at that time you cannot capture with your strategy. Also stop loss cannot guarantee your price. Trading Speeches can be difficult, 1 comment can be bullish then next phrase bearish. However language algorithms can process the tone of the entire message before you can read the first word or have even finished downloading the text of the statement.  The biggest news is the 1st Friday of the month, the non-farm payrolls out of the USA.  You used to be able to get the news before the price moved, but high-frequency algos changed all that, essentially the exchanges get quote stuffed, so good luck unless you are using a bucketshop. Better to wait for a pull back from the initial reaction if the numbers are good, otherwise you will get a fill at the peak. If the numbers are a big deviation from expectations then you can just jump in.  Back in 2006 the Bank of England raised interest rates when it wasn't expected and the GBPUSD flew 500 pips.   This Forex calendar has charts of every news release, so you can see what to expected based on what has happened in the past with a certain bit of economic news. http://www.fasteconomicnews.com/fx_calendar.aspx The market moves faster than ratings agencies.  Everyday the market is trying to figure out the true value of Assets - Liabilities and thus its overall equity value.  The financial crisis illustrated this perfectly when Bear Sterns got stuck in a liquidity trap.  It's MBS(CDO) was still highly rated, likewise its overall credit rating was sound, however in reality the value of assets were much higher due to coming default, credit providers realized assets Bear had posted as collateral were falling in value quickly.  This started the death spiral, or feedback loop in which it isn't clear if the tail wagged the dog or the dog wagged the tail, but as equity value fell Bear could no longer get access to credit markets to fund daily operations, once it got margin called and couldn't pay, it was all over.  When it was sold to JPM, they basically stole the entire company at a fire sale price, everyone knew they were getting a deal, as reflected in the post buyout price jump of JPM stock.    So in a technical sense you are right, they have nothing to do with each other.  But in a practical sense as we see equity value collapse we are approaching bankruptcy, and thus default, and credit ratings should represent likelihood of default so the two should have a positive correlation to one another, assuming equity value is the 'true value'. Oh ok I see what you are getting at with the misdirection angle. I was wondering if there was a deeper meaning. Like making it more expensive for other nation to borrow money would help in some way for the US to unload it’s garbage? You are correct, a possible Dead Cat Bounce is forming on the stock markets. If it does form it will mean that prices have not reached their bottom, as this pattern is a bearish continuation pattern. For a Dead Cat Bounce to form prices will need to break through support formed by the lows last week. If prices bounce off the support and go back up it could become a double bottom pattern, which is a reversal pattern. The double bottom would be confirmed if prices break above the recent high a couple of days ago. Regarding the psychology of the dead cat bounce pattern, is that after a distinct and quick reversal of prices from recent highs you have 2 groups of market participants who create demand in the market. Firstly you have those who were short covering their short positions to take profits, and secondly you have those who are looking for a bargain buying at what they think is the low. So for a few days you have the bulls taking over the bears.  Then as more less positive news comes in, the bears hit the market again. These are more participants opening short positions, but more so those who missed out in selling previously because prices fell too quickly, seeing another opportunity to sell at a better price. So the bears take over again.  Unless there is very good news around the corner it is likely that the bears will stay in control and prices will fall further. How to trade a dead cat bounce (assuming you have been stopped out of your long possistions already)? If you are aggressive you can go short as prices start reversing from the top of the bounce (with your stop loss just above the top of the bounce). If you are more conservative you would place your entry for a short position just below the support at the start of the bounce (with your stop above the top of the bounce). You could also place an order for a long position above the top of the bounce if a double bottom eventuated. A One Cancels the Other (OCO) would be an appropriate order for such a situation. Swiss Central bank has a floor of 1.20, the reason why I have this pair is that my downside is limited.  The actual differential is about 20 bps but im leveraged 50:1, which gives me a fun 10% annualized. I bought in at 1.2002, meaning my max downside on an investment of 20K (gives 1mn of exposure), is 200$ and my potential profit is 2000. Creating a risk to return of 10:1. These statements aren't necessarily contradictory. In the first case, investors are bearish because they anticipate selling in the future (because all the interested buyers have bought, so all that remains in the short run are people willing to sell and therefore drive down the price).  In the second case, the trend is strengthened because the increase in volume indicates that the price movement interested a lot of traders. The trend could be bullish or bearish.  The statements aren't contradictory because the second case could very well lead to the first case. For example, if an increase in price is coupled with an increase in volume, this could indicate that the positive trend is strengthening (second case). Traders are becoming more interested in the price move, so they buy.  However, once all of the traders who are willing to enter the market long do so, we're in the first case. Investors realize that all of the traders who were interested in buying have bought, so they become bearish because they expect selling to start soon. the strategy is tested all the way to 97. how is the continuous series backadjusted? the emini is rolledover and Ratio back adjusted to the 2nd nearest contract, 9 days prior to expiration. since it is an intraday trade, the discrepancy to the real thing should be next to irrelevant. but comparing it to the spx could make it interesting.  what would be a good format to present the results ? jpeg? pdf ? I've read some great posts on here and either small business or entrepreneur subs re bars and I've heard the complaints from friends of friends. Apparently theft/wastage is rampant so good cash and alcohol controls are crucial. Even if you don't have outright cash theft, letting bartenders get away with free or big pours for bigger tips ultimately gets you the same result. Your manager should know how many pours he's getting from kegs and bottles. If that adds up (it won't) then it could be a lack of business and you need some marketing. But apparently tracking your pours is the key. There are plenty of books and trade publications out there, so if you don't have a bar background, I'd suggest doing some reading or even talk to/hire someone to help you figure it out. It sounds like you have some systemic issues. A little birdy says, the Octupus miracle is little more than smoke and mirrors . . .by the time the dust settles, its going to make Bears and Sterns look like a good deal.  Leverage is a double edged sword  . . .hell a chop stick is a sword against a squishy old octopus with cooked books Imaging driving a bicycle turned backwards, steering it with the steering wheel in the back, while trying to keep to the center of the road. Just keeping going down the road requires a huge degree of control, and constant small adjustments... If you get it trouble, and turn the wheel in the wrong direction, the trouble increases exponentially, ending in a huge crash.  Now the swirling road is futures market, the bicycle is your account, turning the steering wheel left and right is going long or short futures, with steering wheel angle being your position size.