Bear Mountain Bull

It’s time again for a little BMB R&R, especially with the market behaving as bizarrely as it’s been. Maybe if we stop watching it start to behave a little better…

Posting will be very light and variable over the course of this week, but we’ll put up an open thread each market day for our readers to comment on the day’s market activity or to post any interesting links they might run across.

Check the space below for whatever the latest might be during this ‘off’ time, and please visit the various sites in the ‘Links’ and ‘Regular Stops’ for up-to-date market news and analysis.

BMB will be back in full swing by next weekend.

I hadn’t heard this one: according to Bill Fleckenstein’s column this week, Papa John’s (yes, the pizza place - PZZA) and Research In Motion (RIMM) have hooked up for a promotion. Buy a pizza, get a BlackBerry. Are you sure it’s not the other way around?? What’ll they bake up next?

This is a pretty bizarre one. Fleck agrees:

So, let me see if I get this: If you buy a couple of Cokes and some chicken strips or bread sticks, that is considered to be fair trade for a BlackBerry. You don’t have to be too close to the technology business to understand that this is an act of desperation. There are too many BlackBerrys out there, and Research in Motion needs to move them.

Go figure. I wonder if they’ll start putting BlackBerrys in cereal boxes too. Naaaaahhh. But that might be where we’ll find the iPod Shuffles someday…

The author of this article on MSN money isn’t real impressed by the latest round of “employee discount” promotions by the American car makers. For one, he doesn’t think it was such a great idea for Ford and Chrysler to dive over the cliff after GM. Secondly, he wonders what the auto makers can possibly do for an encore.

The latest edition of the ChartWatchers newsletter from StockCharts.com is available.

This week:

• John Murphy says the Dow Industrials and Transports are making a comeback. It will be interesting to see if they can come back far enough to confirm the recent highs in the S&P 500. I have my doubts.
• Richard Rhodes calls the latest rally in housing stocks a “blowoff rally.” Yet another blowoff rally - there’s been a number of them in housing, hasn’t there? When will the real blowoff top finally show up…?
• Carl Swenlin raises the flag on bullish sentiment. Sounds a lot like the sentiment warnings we’ve been giving here at BMB.
• Arther Hill says the gold and silver index ($XAU) may be headed lower.

Items of note on the latest industry moves:

• More rotation underway, as tech stocks move up and energy stocks take a rest.
• The best groups in health care, HMOs and hospitals, showing some weakness.
• In financials, broker/dealers still doing well, but the banks haven’t joined in.