I have to agree with mmerlinn on this one - the only reasonable explanation for the October 24 event was a massive intervention by Bush's PPT (Plunge Protection Team). A glance at the recent intraday Dow levels (
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/qui...freq=7&time=18) shows that 8200 has acted as a price floor for the past couple of weeks. While it's not unusual for the Dow to consistently bounce off the same general level, when all the technical, momentum, and fundamental indicators pointed (way) down like on Oct 24 and 8200 still supported prices, it quickly took on the characteristics of a mandated level below which prices would not be allowed to fall.
Ironically, had the market been allowed to turn down hard on Oct 24, it would have quickly rallied back into the 9000-10,000 range anyway. So it's not all that unusual to be sitting at 9200 at the Thursday close. However, the price to pay for the PPT intervention is going to be (as mmerlinn suggests) an even greater devaluation of the dollar and an even deeper real bottom when the PPT finally allows the market to crash (or loses its ability to intervene further).
There is a good video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5oCPcB3Z-8 which shows the historical "real" value of the Dow (i.e. priced in ounces of gold), which is one way of peeling away the machinations of the Fed in terms of devaluing the dollar in order to make the stock market "appear" to be rising based on higher nominal values of the Dow. According to this analysis (by Robert Prechter -
www.elliottwave.com), we have probably only seen around a third of the bear market that is still unfolding.
One things to look for in Friday's trading is that it appears the market may be tracing out a "head and shoulders" pattern at the 9100-9200 level. According to classical technical analysis, if prices fall below the right shoulder, they should go way, way down. With the PPT still active it's hard to know whether normal market forces will be allowed to prevail. We will see. . .