Sometimes accountants can be funny

The Hindenburg Omen has appeared in the markets today. Doesn't that sound just so doomy? What a spectacular name! Chalk one up for the financial guys!

Hindenburg Omen is a financial situation requiring five specific criteria to be present in one day, and if they are, this predicts a...well, a major Hindenburg-like crash and burn of the market. The Wikipedia write up goes like this:

"The traditional definition of a Hindenburg Omen has five criteria:
--That the daily number of NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week --Lows must both be greater than 2.2 percent of total NYSE issues traded that day.
--That the smaller of these numbers is greater than 75. (this is not a rule but a function of the 2.2% of the total issues)
--That the NYSE 10 Week moving average is rising.
--That the McClellan Oscillator (another great sounding omen thingie!) is negative on that same day.
--That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than double new 52 Week Highs). This condition is absolutely mandatory.

These measures are calculated each evening using Wall Street Journal figures for consistency. The occurrence of all five criteria on one day is often referred to as an unconfirmed Hindenburg Omen. A confirmed Hindenburg Omen occurs if a second (or more) Hindenburg Omen signals occur during a 36-day period from the first signal."

Oh my. Good thing I am not an investor. It sounds bad. The Dow did finish way down today. Anyone spot the dirigible yet?