This promises to be the longest holiday ever celebrated in the U.S., eclipsing even the eight-day festival holidays that frequently pop up on the Jewish calendar. By the time you read this, the Independence Day celebration will be in its unofficial fourth day, having begun in spirit with a pronounced slowdown in the stock market last Thursday. Because the Fourth of July falls on a Tuesday this year, the usual three-day holiday weekend will get stretched by an extra day. Fireworks, barbecues and unsolemn speechifying will remind us that we are celebrating the passage of the Declaration of Independence 247 years ago.

A growing number of editorialists will note that 41 of the 56 men who signed the Declaration were white slaveholders, and it is probably only a matter of time before some town in Oregon bans fireworks and other boisterous displays of patriotism, replacing pyrotechnics with a grim minute of silence for the Declaration’s failure to deliver freedom to all. Is Independence Day fated to become an anti-holiday, like Columbus Day?  Probably not, and certainly not before gunpowder has been outlawed for 20 or 30 years.  It is unfortunately true, however, that no national holiday can be celebrated these days with the innocence that made them so much fun in the good old days. If you have a neighbor who objects to Blue Angels flyovers and 21-gun salutes, don’t let the holiday pass without lighting up a string of Black Cats on her doorstep.

Melt-Up Will Continue

Concerning the chart displayed above, it is intended as a placeholder to keep my holiday comments from growing stale before The Morning Line changes again next Sunday. It offers a clear picture of the power driving the bull market in one of several key stocks. There are a half-dozen other world-beaters with similarly impressive trajectories, and that is why The Mother of All Melt-Ups is likely to continue at least until year-end. Notice, however, that there is potentially climactic price, in this case a Hidden Pivot target at $430 that lies nearly 30% above. According to my technical runes, two things seem likely to occur: 1) the target will be precisely reached; and, 2) MSFT will not get past it without correcting by at least 20%, and possibly more.