Forbes:

September ended last Friday, and for the fifth month in a row, markets were lower. This is the 15th time since 1900 that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell five months in a row. Below is a table showing each instance.

We’re down nearly 15% during the current losing streak. Unfortunately, these streaks do not typically stop at five months. Only six out of 14 times, and only once in the last five occurrences, was the sixth month positive.

The longest monthly losing streak ended in 1942, when the Dow was down nine months in a row (December 1941 was the fifth negative month, for the record).

These are 3 charts I look at almost daily and they even tell you what the patterns mean.  Right now they are all bear market readings.  

The DJIA chart says “traditional 3 box reversal” with a bearish price objective of 9600, the Nasdaq chart says “traditional 3 box reversal” with a bearish price objective of 2210, and the S&P500 chart says “double bottom breakdown” with a bearish price objective of 1010.  Now, you can’t take these literally in my opinion because they seldom reach their objectives and often reverse after a few days of the market reversing.  The best thing to do is to use these as guidelines only.

The reason why banks do this is to manipulate numbers and show they are profitable. They cut their biggest expense which is human resources. It fixes the book short term but hurts the company in the long run since they will not be able to grow. This is not a true profit but just a smoke and mirrors trick.

Now that our same government has decided to crack down on their fraudulent practices, one of the major banks announce they will cut more jobs.  This is after they suckered in Warren Buffett into a $5 billion private investment.  Seriously, if the bank is simply insolvent, the FDIC needs to step in and liquidate this bank.  The odd part is the bank executives are all still getting paid million of dollar compensations even though the company is laying off troops of employees.  Yes, people who are invested in BofA deserve a haircut and should be forced to take losses.

RTTNews:

Financial giant Bank of America Corp. (BAC: News ), which is struggling with souring mortgage losses, is in talks to cut roughly 40,000 positions over a period of years as part of its initiatives for cost cutting, known as Project New BAC, reports said Friday, citing people familiar with the plans.

Job cuts may total about 10 percent of the bank’s total employee count of 288,000 in the next two to three years. Chief Executive Brian Moynihan reportedly said that the bank will cut assets as well, to make it easier to manage. He is expected to discuss the details of restructuring on Monday at a conference held by Barclays Capital in New York or during the bank’s next earnings conference call in October.

Moynihan recently had said that its time to simplify and streamline the organization, and make sure business processes are relevant with a smaller, more focused company.

It was reported earlier that the officials had set a preliminary goal of cutting expenses by 20 percent in consumer banking.

On September 6, Bank of America announced reshuffling and restructuring its operations management, and appointed David Darnell and Tom Montag to the newly-created positions of co-chief operating officers. The Bank said the first phase of change is nearing conclusion and expects significant expense reductions as a result. The reorganization is expected to align the bank’s operating units with its three core customer groups: individuals, companies, and institutional investors.

The bank’s Project New BAC was started in April 2011 with the primary objective of alignment of leaders with customer groups and simplifying the organization.

BAC closed Thursday’s regular trading session at $7.20, down $0.28 or 3.74 percent. In pre-market activity, shares are currently trading at $7.27, up $0.07 or 0.97 percent.

Now that our same government has decided to crack down on their fraudulent practices, one of the major banks announce they will cut more jobs.  This is after they suckered in Warren Buffett into a $5 billion private investment.  Seriously, if the bank is simply insolvent, the FDIC needs to step in and liquidate this bank.  The odd part is the bank executives are all still getting paid million of dollar compensations even though the company is laying off troops of employees.

MarketWatch:
If it is true, it would be another sign of desperation. The Charlotte Observer reports that Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) could lay-off 30,000 people over several years.

The bank has come under new pressure as the government announced a suit against 17 financial firms which it claims misrepresented the risk of mortgage-back securities they sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The total losses from these was $200 billion. The possibility that the government can recoup of all that is unknown.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has been rumored to need over $100 billion in new capital. There have also been rumors that the firm could be taken over by JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) or another large American bank. B of A has attacked these as false, but its share price has done little to allay fears. The stock fell to $6.01 three weeks ago. Warren Buffett invested $5 billion in the bank which cause share to rally. Subsequent bad news pushed shares, which had recovered to $8.39, back to $7.25. The stock’s 52-week high is $15.31.

Bank of America can continue to deny it will need to raise large sums of money, an act which would nearly wipe out common shareholders. The firm’s stock says many investors have bet otherwise

Will the markets go up or down on Monday? Nobody knows and all we can do is wait and see, right? Yes, but you can also try to look at the data to figure out which is the likely scenario to play out. What I personally like to look at is the historical data which can be easily found for free on stock charts. The site even puts in the technicals so you don’t have to do it yourself or learn how to. Instead, now you can look at the charts and make your decision accordingly.

I posted the charts for 8/19/2011 below for the 3 major indexes. Hope it helps you. Cheers!

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) —

U.S. stock indexes on Friday stretched losses into a fourth week, as apprehensive investors remained on alert for any sign of trouble or resolution from the European Union and its banks.

“Given we have a high level of anxiety and we’re coming into a weekend, people would rather be flat than long,” said Randy Frederick, director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab Center for Financial Research.

“The only thing that would make it cascade below levels we put in last week was if we found the EU really turning into a banking crisis,” said Michael Gibbs, a managing director and director of equity strategy at Morgan Keegan.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -1.57% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index SPX -1.50% both closed out the week at levels above their closing lows of the prior week, when a volatile market had the Dow making triple-digit moves each day.

After climbing as much as 120 points during Friday’s session, the Dow industrials lost 172.93 points, or 1.6%, to end at 10,817.65, down 4% from the week-ago close.

Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ +0.08% weighed most heavily among the blue chips, off 20% a day after the personal-computer maker reduced its outlook and said it might spin off its PC unit. Read what analysts are saying about Hewlett-Packard.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 17.12 points, or 1.5%, to 1,123.53, down 4.7% for the week but above the prior week’s closing low of 1,119.46, hit on Aug. 8.

The market is “following a normal path of figuring out if the lows of last week are indeed the bottom for this correction, which is EU driven, and EU focused,” said Gibbs, a managing director and director of equity strategy at Morgan Keegan.

Should the index close below that level, “it stacks the odds the lows are not in,” said Gibbs. “You can’t draw a line in the sand, you have to eyeball that now expecting the market is going to bounce around it or even under.”

The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP -1.62% fell 38.59 points, or 1.6%, to 2,341.84, off 6.6% from the week-ago close.

For every stock rising three fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where 1.5 billion shares traded. Composite volume neared 5.4 billion shares.

The market trend is pointing down, but I expect it to bounce up Monday unless we have some unexpected bad news. I will post some charts later to show you why I think the technicals point down.

No one knows, but I think looking at the charts technical analysts use can give you an idea of which way they are going. There are many free tools on the stock market on the internet. I personally like to use the free charts from stockcharts.

Look at these 3 charts on the main indexes. It is spelled out what these are expected to do.  The trend is down and all have bearish objectives.  No one knows whether they will hit these bottom number goals, but that is where these charts are indicating they are headed based on the historical numbers.