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With the current small daily changes there is little to bite into as far as forecasts go but we moved to a partial long position. Small changes generally lead to a slow climbing market. The unemployment numbers came out worse than expected which on one hand encouraged investors looking for a stimulus package. This anticipation of stimulus has been pushing the markets higher for nearly two weeks in the case of the NDX. A look at the % unemployed is about as high as in 2014 when the recovery was already five years in rebuilding so that does not really look so bad. Historically unemployment in the 6% to 7% range was quite normal. It is difficult to really judge with the internet economy probably keeping people off the books and eating. The last Democratic president was very much tied up by the Republican controlled congress so there was little headline progress aside from Obama care and pollution controls. I expect the sludge will form again. The enthusiasm shown in the last few minutes of trading pushed to DOW and  RUT to close on their highs, this is not good as it indicates blow off activity, what could save it was the daily change was not excessive.  

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A stronger than expected move in the NDX sent our SuperAlgo program back up to well over +50% for the year-to-date.  We are holding our partial long position another day. The market appears to be responding in a normal manner. 

My comments regarding the Iranian assassination a few days ago were pretty much on the mark. According to today's Financial Times when Trump abandoned the nuclear accord in 2018 and installed sanctions on Iran, Iran ramped up its nuclear activities to twelve times the level permitted under the accord. This assassination was meant to send a clear  message to Biden that he could not return to the nuclear accord with Iran. 

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With the S&P, Dow and Rut all lower the NDX was still able to slows a nudge above Friday's lose. We reversed our position again and are now partially aligned with the up-side.  The market continues to act normal and that is very good. Volatility is now on the low side and that should help the market move slowly higher although from a fundamental perspective It seems overvalued.  

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Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Our markets seem back to normal. Businesses will have to struggle a while longer. Mnuchin's called on the FED to return $415 Billion in unused  funds meant for crisis prevention by supporting emergency lending will most likely lead to a dispute between the Senate and the new Administration if those funds are deemed needed. The Financial Times believes that was the intent of Mnuchin's play.  I don't see the two sides playing nice for a long time.  

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*please note we had an error in our comments regarding the %exposure for each program, it has been corrected. 

We reversed our positions for Wednesday and are fully long.  Some of the market strength came on the Republicans finally going forward to transition to the Democratic party, which was announced after the bell on Tuesday.  The market does seem to be trading in a normal fashion again.

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We are holding our partial long position into Monday. Trump continues to prolong the transition to Biden as his legal team continues to spew members. The market seems to be waiting before it moves fully in one direction. 

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The NDX closed higher and remained in a smaller range than its volatility suggests. We cut back our exposure but remained fully exposed relative to the individual signals. The pandemic and politics are controlling the flow. 

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The NDX once again fell near the close. We moved fully long. The recent market action appears normal.  The dollar hit a two year low mostly due to the political turmoil which causes concern about the stability of our government, trust in our government and the ability of our government to pay our debts. This means prices are going up. Buy a Honda? It will cost more. Buy some coffee? It will cost more. If the dollar keeps falling inflation will be soon behind. 

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The NDX slipped above and below the zero line a number of times on Tuesday closing lower. We trimmed some positions but remain long. 

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We moved "long" at the close and increased our exposure from 60% to 80%. China, Japan and South Korea linked up with a free trade agreement.  This is a result of Trumps tariffs causing China to find new trading partners and South Korea and Japan's need to protect themselves from the unreliable actions of the US under former president Trump. There will be a lot of rebuilding of relationships needed as Biden moves forward. Our signal turned long and the position is supported by TSLA's jump after the close as it gains listing on the S&P 500 on December 21. TSLA is much more than an electric car company as long as Elon Musk is in charge.  

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I was pleased to see that the NDX climbed today and we moved to the short side for Thursday. I am looking hopefully on increasing our exposure very soon we are now at 60% of normal.

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I am holding our position into Wednesday.  I was expecting a little better but glad that the market did not retouch the lows from earlier in the day. 

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This was a very significant market day. Over the weekend the networks called the presidency (including Fox) for President Elect Joe Biden. On Monday the news was Pfizer's vaccine was 90% effective and was undergoing late stage trials.  Somehow a vaccine from a mainstream company together with mainstream president was the combination the market was looking for. Oil went up, the NYSE Oil and Gas index jumped  +17.24%, Interest rates went up tumbling the Philadelphia housing sector index -4.6%. Most stocks went up, the Russel 2000 index of smaller companies closed up +3.7%, the New York Stock Exchange composite index of 1900 stocks gained +2.97% showing a broad sense of optimism for a broad recovery under the new government leadership.  In addition money flew out of the pandemic stocks, Amazon (-5%) and Netflix (-8.6%)  dropped on expectations that more people would be on the street shopping form multiple sources instead of one company and that they would have more to do than watch films. Zoom fell (-17.4%) on the same type of thinking. Money that probably found a home with the smaller stocks.  As the day wore on the enthusiasm lessened and the NDX turned sharply negative ( that was good for our position) and the NDX closed down -2.17%. Beyond Meat had a bad earnings announcement after the bell and slipped -27% in the first hour of after hours trading. 

The sell off was probably connected to the realization late in the day that the virus is still with us for now and rapidly spreading and Biden will be active in stopping it, which will mean implementing  some closures where necessary.  But hey, it is Monday and Tuesday does not have a great history for following Monday's lead. We reversed our position and as I mentioned in the last post we started to move our position back to normal exposure in steps. We moved to about 60% of normal, up from about 30% that we held last week. 

Higher oil prices and interest rates will act as a damper in the recovery, but overall the news and the mood of the population is good. The VIX will fall on the optimism and earnings may lag expectations but there should be a return to normal later in 2021.   

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The NDX was up and down a number of time during the day and closed a little higher. We have moved "long" for Tuesday, Election Day. We remain at 30% of our normal market exposure as the election plays out, and investors figure out, what they are going to do. We could see large swings this week.  Market manipulation?  Maybe, maybe not, but times like this makes it easier to drive investors in either direction. 

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We cut our exposure in four of our six programs in accordance with our partial long signal for Friday.   We are now getting the main NDX100 earnings reports and that should set the tone for Friday. Good partial recovery in the market on Thursday but the aftermarket turned lower. If there is a clear winner in the election most of the market disturbance should be over by the end of next week.

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We moved some more money into the money market at the morning fix and are now running at less than 30% of our normal market exposures. The market hit our oversold indicator on Wednesday indicating with good reliability that there will be a bounce on Thursday.  Swing state Wisconsin's latest poll put Biden ahead by 17 points, Trump won that state by 1% in 2006.  The pandemic is not behaving, over 75,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths on Tuesday. Another thing roiling the market could be the new Supreme court justice and the high probability that Trump will contest the election if he looses regardless of the margin. That would lessen the likelihood of an early economic recovery.  

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We remain long for Wednesday.  We noticed that the NDX was stronger and moved further than the S&P on Tuesday, which is more in line with normal movements for those indices. There are a number of factors that are influencing the NDX in recent weeks they are the Pandemic, the switching of stocks from a pro Trump to a pro Biden portfolio and the fear of some "out of the blue" action to rile the election.  This has caused the market volatility to drop as fear of random actions has slowed the markets.  Without definitive knowledge market participants are reluctant to jump head on into either direction for very long. But normal patterns remain disrupted.

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We continue to hold our position. Good recovery off the low of the day with a close that indicates some upside for Tuesday. Most likely there will be another down leg soon, but Tuesday should go higher. The virus numbers are climbing and that probably more than anything is driving this market during the past two weeks. It looks like investors are concerned but maybe not so much among the general population. I still see enough people outside clustering together without masks to indicate that there will be more to come. As just about everything fell there was some life in the tech sector, even if it was just AMZN and AAPL holding gains barely above zero. 

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Once again we are holding our position. The NDX crept up near the close and gained 0.25% on the day.  I continue to keep our exposure low going into this election. The VIX remains elevated showing uncertainty while the actual market volatility has fallen. The smaller daily changes in this case I believe indicate a lack of conviction rather than a lack of fear in the markets. Interest rates remain very low, perhaps these rates hide a potential fall out in the real estate industry as any gain in rates will be magnified in the costs to purchase a home and that could very well stop any recovery. There are two different types of inflation. One is labor cost inflation (internal) which can be controlled by raising interest rates and causing business to stumble and reduce the need for labor. The other type is inflation coming in from outside our country (external) inflation. This can not be controlled by raising rates. We may see this type of inflation in the future once China dominates trade. The low cost of China's goods we "talk" of as hurting business here in the US we really become a problem as those prices increase as China starts to suffer from their own labor inflation and pushes the cost on to US consumers. (Much like a tariff.)  This problem appears to be a few years down the line. 

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The market closed flat and we are holding our position.  I do not expect very much out of the debates.  My guess is Trump will try to make the debate about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden will try to make the debate about the Virus.  Lets watch and find out.  

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We have moved back fully long with our ~40% exposure level.  Our last two trades were correct, but the market movements were small.   It feels like we are letting the time run out on this election. The market volatility has slipped back to a normal range.  There is only the tiniest of chances that there will be a Covid 19 vaccine announcement by a reputable company prior to the election and I do not believe that there are very many unaligned voters only two weeks out.  I remain committed to a reduced market exposure in this time frame.

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We moved back to a major long position but kept our ~40% exposure level.  There is a good chance of at least a one day move higher.  Biden's steadfast hold onto a significant lead in the polls has led to a repositioning in the securities markets into stocks that should benefit from Biden's presidency and out of the Trump based portfolios. This could be one reason for the seemingly odd price movements over the past week and a half and it makes good sense. If Trump does win we can expect a second wave of buys and sells transitioning back.  

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Our trades suffered all week but benefited from the reduced exposure we have during this especially wacko pre election market.  For Monday we remain long but with only partial conviction. I believe that there will be some gains as there should be some stimulus approved but once it actually is there may be another sell off soon after the news.. 

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The NDX closed down for a third day on Thursday.  We moved back fully long but at only a 40% of normal exposure.  I have a number of studies back logged that I will soon be able to address in our quest to make our programs as perfect as possible. I do hope that any new stimulus will insure the survival of small restaurants and diners across America who will most certainly be forced to close their doors forever. More research needs to be done to find ways to keep businesses functioning during a pandemic without making the pandemic worse. Non medical solutions need to be found.

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We have a partial long for Thursday and have cut our exposure to out Primary, Hot Money and Long programs. In addition we moved our Conservative program fully into the money market. I plan to continue to make our market trades at a lower than normal exposure level until after the elections. An interesting bit of Covid  information. The virus "on surfaces" dies faster during warmer weather which is most likely the cause for the resurgence of the virus during the fall and winter. In the winter it is more important to have surfaces cleaned more often. The virus will last longer on money during the cold months so using credit cards and checks during this season may be better for you. In the winter you will need both masks and gloves.  Stay alive and vote. 

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A very indecisive close to the NDX market on Tuesday. I expect traders are waiting to jump either way once the music starts. Most NDX earnings will come in later this month. We are currently at about 37% of our normal exposure, but monitoring the markets closely.

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Unfortunately for America the potential vice presidential candidates can't or, more appropriately, won't answer straight questions. Especially our current vice president. The stock  market did not expect any more than what we got, and went a small amount higher. There is a stock rotation going on, with expectations of the economy moving past the pandemic and that money is moving into the Russell 2000 "RUT" stocks. A group that had been beaten down the most this year. The index is up +6.7% since last Thursday, but remains down -2.4% ytd. We took a partial long position and held our 50% exposure level.

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Trump did a reversal on his off-the-cuff stimulus tweet of Tuesday afternoon and the markets responded with a rally. The markets are now moving about two percent a day changing direction each day for the past four days.  Most likely we will see some settling down but with a few "out of the blue" shocks over the next month. I have increased our exposure to 50% of normal from Wednesdays 40%. I am monitoring this carefully, during the next few weeks I believe the chance of sudden random market events will be greater than average. This must be balanced with our program's better than normal ability to read the market due to increased volatility. 

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Jerome Powell spoke to congress Tuesday and said the economy is in urgent need of more stimulus and stressed that people should do everything they can including "following medical experts' guidance, including using masks and social-distancing measures" Trump responded with calling "off" the stimulus talks and said that if he won the election he would pass a big stimulus package. Tanking the stock market. Do you think some republicans will not like being forced to vote for Trump and turn around and vote out the running  republican senators?  

After three days of the market's ricochet responses starting with Trump's contracting Covid 19, and our two days on the sidelines we have re-entered the market with a low 40% exposure to the upside. The market usually takes a few days to get back into normal mode but there are some other surprise possibilities.  Watch Mr. Trumps behavior closely, he may be about to leave office.  

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There could be other staff members that may test positive and we do not know the extent of Trump's incapacitation, or the significance of this new complication to the markets. With that in mind I dug into our closing signal in great detail and made a risk judgment to give ourselves the weekend to make a clearer decision.  Our program reads the predisposed market's direction for the next day with reasonably good accuracy but we can't forecast "news". There is a big difference, one is numbers and probability, the other is mostly random. The "news" will generally either add or subtract from the predisposed direction, it comes as a surprise and I can not evaluate it for risk or probability. Under major uncertainty the best trade is to the money market, leaving normal trading to more normal markets.  It is not just about making money, it is also about limiting risk.

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Market volatility, though still above the long term average, has pulled back in recent days. In response we moved our accounts to full exposure in line with our various program's values. We are now fully long.   With the debate behind us there could be a bit of quiet in the markets allowing the volatility to slip further and giving a small boost to stocks.  

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We are holding our "Long" position into Thursday. Most of yesterday's technical conditions hold for Thursday and Biden did not lean very far to the left which I said should be good for the markets. My question today is: Has Donald Trump moved too far to the right for many Republicans?  In how many minds does "closely watch the voting" translate to "voter intimidation".?  In how many minds does not denouncing  "white supremacist" mean he is a "white supremacist" ?  And does rushing a Supreme court replacement prior to the elections mean he is looking to contest the election and is stacking the court?  Somehow, unlike Mr Biden, Mr Trump seems to have forgotten that at this point in the election cycle he should be going after the folks in the middle not his solid base.  

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Tuesdays small market loss was our small gain and at the close we reversed our position and went long for Wednesday with ~85% normal exposure.  From what I am seeing major investors have taken Trump out of the picture and the market is now only concerned with how much they can depend on Biden to support the economy and how far to the left (or right) of center his policies will travel. That is not to say the investors think Trump has no chance of winning but Biden has the bigger chance and the biggest concern is how well big business will do under Biden. If Biden does not scare investors in tonight's debate the markets should move higher on Wednesday. What makes Biden's position even more important to the stock market's direction is that Trump can not be counted on to do the right thing for major corporations. The disruption of trade with China and the disruption of relationships with our long term allies was a major problem for those companies looking to continue overseas expansion. Major corporations need long term commitments when undergoing large expansion projects and the president's erratic, and unpredictable behavior is now a liability. Add to that his Covid 19 response has hurt our local economy. Additionally high tariffs on wood may have helped our forest products industry but if continued will hurt our homebuilding industry, which so far has had the benefit of low interest rates to offset the higher cost of wood in new homes.  So the what the market wants to see is a "centered" Biden who will keep the far left and far right from doing unfixable long term damage. 

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We have increased our market exposure level from 75% to 80% as the volatility has decreased but remains elevated. We have a partial long position for Friday. From our overall viewpoint the general look of the market is negative over the near term but the market is bouncing off of an oversold condition so that may give it some reason to go higher very near term.  Covid 19 and BLM protests in the US remain concerns  

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The NDX had a wild ride dropping more than  -2.35% then turning around to close higher on the day.  For Tuesday we are looking for a little more follow through on the upside but we have also adjusted our market exposure lower in four of our six programs. This will be a terrible election year, expect large exaggerations and outright lies coming from both sides. Perhaps even voter intimidation,  international interference and voter fraud as things heat up.  This could be hard on the stock market but possibly the market may now be ready to take it all in stride. 

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The down turn continued on Friday and the markets closed in an oversold condition. Our Signal remained long for Monday.  Our programs are doing very well with 5 of our 6 programs out-performing the NDX100 and our most conservative program doing 4 times as well as the S&P500 . As a group, our programs have completed their fifth consecutive week of gains, while the NDX100 has lost 2% over the same time period.  Our SuperAlgo program is up 46.0% ytd.  If you are looking for some diversification contact me.

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The market ended moderately lower, and our clients are enjoying a string of strong gains due in part to the higher than normal volatility. Higher volatility makes the market easier to read.  We have reversed our position for Friday and are now "long" in all accounts. The NDX reached an oversold condition during the day (according to our proprietary bottom indicator) but it closed neutral. During declining markets Fridays can be difficult as  traders tend to lighten their positions in anticipation of bad news over the weekend. However our signal is positive so for the next day or two I believe we can expect to see a partial recovery in prices of a few percent, but I don't believe that the selling is over. 

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We managed to have a very good week even as we reduced our exposure to account for a higher level of volatility.  SuperAlgo is currently ahead 39.1% ytd while our most conservative program is up 10%. 

Two days ago I said trading could get more difficult and it did, it looks like we are about to move into a phase where there is more downside, but it has not fully formed. Today we had our Market Structure level turn negative and our signal moved to a  less positive condition for Monday.  We reduced our exposure in those programs that normally operate on two exposure levels.  It is very possible that some sharp drops will occur next week and although our signal for Monday remains positive we are operating under a much lower than normal exposure level.  If you are holding stocks outside of our program  be very cautious about acting on "information" you will be reading and hearing on the news or FaceBook over the next two months as the elections near.  There will be a great deal of misinformation on many subjects from many groups attempting to manipulate politics and the markets. 

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We reduced our exposure to 65% of normal for Friday. As I see it there is a wave of selling building up, it hit Thursday taking the NDX down over -3.5% from its high of the day. That wave will continue but is countered by a strong "long" signal and an upward short pulse on Friday. Our Market Structure Level has fallen to neutral and is expected to turn negative in the next few days this along with the selling wave should turn the markets lower next week. All in all I do not think we have seen the bottom. 

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Another very good day for us. From here the trading could get a bit more difficult. On the positive side the volatility has become elevated, making the market easier to read. So even thought there will probably be a higher percentage of correct trades there most likely will be some large losing trades. In the news more bank crime.  Too big to fail is now too big and too rich to criminally prosecute.  JP Morgan is getting out in-front of another "ethical" investigation. This time it is whether their "staff", which arranged $29 billion in forgivable loans by the end of June (from the administration's Paycheck Protection Program) made some loans to illegal recipients. (Certainly the bank itself had nothing to do with it.)  It would be a very good bet that that the bank will pay a fine "without admitting any guilt" as they have done in the past. And maybe some low level employees will take some heat. It appears that JP Morgan has already paid government fines of about $44 billion dollars as of early 2018 on a variety of offenses. This is the cost of doing business for large banks. In the same article by Market Watch, Bank of America was the biggest loser paying out $76 billion since the market crisis in 2008.  The "get out of jail free" technique is called "nolo contendere".  This "no contest" plea is the same as "guilty", but allows the lawyers and judges to work out a deal away from the cameras, which has in the past (for large banks) had an amazing record of only fines, no prison time. Please correct me if I am in error.

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48%

We had a substantial gain on Tuesday even with our reduced exposure to 75% of our normal trade.  For Wednesday we increased our exposure to 80% and reversed our direction to  long.  There are a number of factors influencing the market that make this one different from previous disruptive markets. This time with high unemployment it is primarily the lesser skilled jobs that have been cut, leaving the higher paid families mostly unharmed and free to purchase real estate and stocks. That is why real estate has not collapsed like it did in 2008, but has edged higher. The disruption is seen in the Russel 2000 index which is down -9.8% year-to-date, while the not disrupted NDX is still up 26.7% ytd. An article in the Financial Times points to the problems the US will have in trying to uncouple from China and make its own way verses the easier path China will have with the mechanisms for production in place. This is just another reason to have trained educated experts running the country, the same as you would have trained, educated experts running any complex company.  Both probabilities and expected average returns are very one sided focused higher but in the markets there is always a chance for loss and we remain somewhat reserved in our market exposure under these recent more volatile conditions.  

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50%

Although the large drop in the NDX seemed to appear from nowhere there were warning signs and we thankfully we were able to read them. The first sign was the drop in strength of our signal for Wednesday and the lack of stability in our signal for Thursday.  Today, right or wrong we do have a solid "partial up" signal. Because of the large, greater than -5% drop in Thursday's market I capped our exposure for our SuperAlgo program to 1.5X and limited our Anticipatory trend to 1x.  This was done to limit our risk exposure in the event of another large move, but I do not believe there will be one on Friday and have actually moved long 20% 1x in our conservative program.  Going into the weekend could be a different story and it is more likely that there could be some follow up on the down side next week once investors take some time to think about it. 

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Good enough up-move in the NDX Monday, but not as clear a path for Tuesday.  Our probabilities are somewhat positive, today's jump was not too large and  Tuesday is the first of the month so it would appear that there could be more up-side. And although I would not be looking at a new all time high, a closing high is expected but as always, never guaranteed. 

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Small pull-back in the NDX can help clear the way for more upside. We continue in a deflationary mode and there is little the FED can do to help with interest rates so low, but it can hurt.  Large corporations want a weak dollar since most of their sales are over seas, but a weak dollar sends up prices of raw materials a "material or goods" type of inflation that is only made worse by raising interest rates. The same way, tariffs will send up prices of materials and goods. A good current case in point is the price of lumber.  Its price has never been higher and pushed higher still by the Trump Canadian tariffs of about 18%. This adds to the price of homes, cost of rentals and overall inflation. It also causes a drop in US employment, as home sales are diminished due to higher costs. Higher housing costs add to the number of people below the poverty line and puts pressure on the minimum wage.  All bad.  Inflation from "material or goods"  comes from scarcity, tariffs or rising production costs all of which are almost always bad  The other type of inflation is wage inflation that comes from a strong economy it is good as long as it is not the leading cause of inflation and pushes up prices of goods and materials. 

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The NDX had a large, over +2% move on Wednesday.  This adds the fear factor that can cause the market rally to stumble, probably not on Thursday, but maybe on Friday.  The rally could be part enthusiasm from the Trump convention. If you look at how the indices moved today you would see the NDX up 2.13% and the RUT (Russell 2000) down -0.7%.The Russell is comprised of 2000 of the smallest listed companies they are smaller mostly domestically focused businesses. The RUT is down 6.5% year to date and better reflects the economy of the United States as a whole.

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The NDX moved about as much as I would like to see in a stealth rally like this, where the daily changes are small. This small change type of rally  promotes confidence in  the traders as it generally takes larger moves, up or down to bring in fear which is needed to turn the market direction. We moved back in with a partial long position. Even with the small changes one has to wonder how long this tech focused rally can continue. The Dow will be hurt by the Apple split if Apple continues to do well as its weight in that index is greatly affected by its price, which will drop by 75%. The affect on the S&P and NDX will not be very much as they rely mostly on market capitalization which will not change. 

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Good move in the NDX on Thursday. Hoping for more on Friday.  The market, particularly, the NDX continues to make new highs. 

Consider Steve Bannon. Why would someone with a high profile, and already worth tens of millions of dollars, commit fraud?  You could ask basically the same question about Michael Avenatti. Both men highly intelligent,  both men in serious trouble, both say they are innocent, both offended Donald Trump. These are just two in a much longer list, still could be only a coincidence.  And education and money could have nothing to do with criminal intent. Like in the stock market it is not easy or straight forward to determine the path of the market not everything is what it seems, cause and effect may depend on things that you don't see or know about. Markets and people are more complex than they first appear. 

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In New York City in the late 1960s pollution from home and business incinerators had gotten so bad that people put filters in their window when they opened them, in order to keep the soot out.  Those people that owned the buildings complained that they would have to pay more for garbage collection. They did have to pay more, but about 16 million people were able to open their windows without filters and breath fresher air. In the mid 60's seatbelts were required for new cars and it took until the mid 90's for all states except for New Hampshire to have click or ticket laws. And by 1998 air bags were required in new cars in the US. The people the most hurt by these seatbelt and airbag laws were plastic surgeons and undertakers. From 1996 to 2014 deaths dropped from 21.06 per thousand to 15.29 per thousand.  During that time cell phone use increased tremendously distracting drivers and causing more accidents, working against the safety improvements. The EPA shows that new vehicle mpg has gone from under 13 mpg in 1975 to over 25 mpg in 2018 while decreasing pollutants significantly. Over 200 million drivers in the US benefited by the lowered cost per mile and cleaner air. Yet there are those who will complain.  These laws created many jobs, saved lives and the resulting costs of automobiles has not gone up relative to many other purchases. Housing costs for example jumped 534% from 1975 while cars gained only 289%.  Today we had a rollback of the 2016 law to requiring the monitoring and limiting of methane leaks from oil wells despite the objections from big oil it was an unfortunate decision.  We are an ingenious population and will devise ways of making lives better but we must remain diligent as there are those who would like to return to a simpler time when men worked in coal mines and drove 4500 pound cars with bullet shaped bumpers.  

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