"Hindenburg Omen" spooks speculators

Forget about Friday the 13th. Many on Wall Street took to whispering about an even scarier phenomenon -- the "Hindenburg Omen."

According to the story by Steven Russolillo and Tomi Kilgore, Wall Street has been abuzz about whether the Hindenburg Omen will come to bear, with some traders cautioning clients about the indicator and blogs pondering all the doom and gloom. But Andrew Brenner, managing director at Guggenheim Securities, told his clients: "Personally, it sounds like [people] are starting their weekend drinking early."

Technical indicators, with names like "The Death Cross" and "The Bearish Abandoned Baby" have been attracting mainstream attention in recent months. Amid an increasingly volatile market, investors have been searching for any clues about stocks' direction, especially this past week where major indexes fell more than 3%.

The Omen was behind every market crash since 1987, but also has occurred many other times without an ensuing significant downturn. Market analysts said only about 25% of Omen appearances have led to stock-market declines that can be considered crashes.

"The Hindenburg Omen does show some deteriorating internals, which signals some major concerns," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "But it isn't a reason to move to 100% in cash. We're taking a wait-and-see approach, but considering its recent history, we're considering it more than other indicators."

To read more about the inventor of the technical indicator and readers' reactions to these developments, go to:

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110355/hindenburg-omen-flashes

BiomedReports is not paid or compensated to report news and developments about publicly traded companies. Full disclosure can be read in the About Us Section

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