The Japanese Nikkei stock index ($NIKK) broke important support today. Here's the chart, which shows it better than I can tell it (18 month daily candlestick plot):
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wmz32xeNKtU/THRCovG2lCI/AAAAAAAACcY/BDYnBdN8aZo/s400/NIKK+18+month+daily+chart+thru+8-24-10.png)
And for those who think technical analysis is worthless, I ask how many fundamental analysts have had the same track record as the 200 day moving average for the $NIKK over the past 18 years:
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wmz32xeNKtU/THREZ8fLnfI/AAAAAAAACcg/_4Necytr6FI/s400/NIKK+18+year+daily+chart+thru+8-24-10.png)
The last chart I highlighted with a similar important breakdown was Ireland (see recent post here and older post on Ireland here). Ireland's stock market (using $IEDOW as a proxy) was down over 6% today, so don't think what happened today in Japan's stock market isn't important.
Gold had another great day while Gold stocks had another lousy day. I continue to wait patiently to get my greedy hands on some Gold stock indices at a lower price. In the mean time, I remain long physical Gold and heavily short the stock market. The next few days have the potential to be quite interesting...