On February 4, I first warned that Google was running out of steam and about to drop.

Then on February 9 I said this.

Google might go up another week – but not pass its trend line resistance at $400 (if it passed $400, I would bail out of my short). It might try to get above, but should fail and drop to $275 or less by summer – a 31% fall.

A month later Google dropped to $289. You would’ve made a healthy 23% gain.

So I hope you pay attention to what I say next about Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).

What I want to show you is a little timing trick that relies on the 20- and 50-day moving averages.

Every time the 20-day crosses under the 50-day, you sell shares short. And when the 20-day rises above the 50-day, you buy shares outright.

By following this strategy, you would’ve made 43% when the first bearish cross happened in late June of 2008 until the beginning of this year.

Later, when a bullish cross happened (in early January) you would’ve recently sold out of that position roughly flat.

But today, another short-sale signal was triggered by this technique.

Here’s your suggested play: Sell Google short and use a point above the moving averages (like $340) as your stop loss to protect yourself.

If Google takes another leg down (as this very basic system shows it should), we could see Google shares trade for $250 per share.

An ascending triangle is made up of a resistance line (top of the triangle) and then an upwardly sloped trend line (bottom of the triangle) that meets the resistance.

When you see this pattern, you’ll notice that the stock will bounce off of its trend line and hit resistance. Then it will fall at the resistance line and again find support at the trend line.

Eventually, the moves get smaller and smaller as the support and resistance lines meet.

Sooner or later, the stock will break out one way or the other. If it breaks above the resistance, then the bull run is confirmed. If it breaks under support, it usually means the bull run just fizzled out.

Most traders will look at the above setup and trade it like this. They place a buy order for Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) about 2-3% above the resistance line.

That way if the YHOO breaks through resistance, shares are automatically bought.

A good trader may also place a short-sell order 2–3% below the YHOO’s support line. If the stock breaks under support, it should move down further.

Why 2-3% away from those resistance lines?

Because it allows for some fluctuation. Technical analysis isn’t an exact science. So you always should allow for a buffer when trading based off of it.

Never once did I even consider that one day I would be writing to you about how Caterpillar shares are ready to plummet. Here, take a look…

If you’ve been following this section every day, than you’ve heard me mention support lines on numerous occasions. A support point is a price (or trend line, or moving average) point that a stock has a hard time going under.

If you notice, CAT formed a support point in October and November. CAT his $32.50 and rallied both times.

But this time the pattern didn’t hold up, which means CATs support line at $32.50 is now a resistance point. Now, CAT should have a hard time rising past $32.50.

If you like the sheer thrill of losing money in the stock market, then you could definitely short CAT right now and probably make a pretty penny.

If you’re a little more conservative, then you’ll wait a few weeks for CAT to rise back up to around $32.50 per share. If CAT fails to break above that price point, then it signals a confirmation of the resistance line… and CAT shares should fall afterwards.

The Craigslist Misery Measurement emerged in an Associated Press story about people unloading prized possessions online: “At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period.”

A few years ago, numbers like those could be attributed to the sheer growth of the online population. No more. And Cragislist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledges as much, saying the number listings is “moving above the usual trend line.”

Behind the numbers are some genuinely sad stories:

The for-sale listings on the online hub Craigslist come with plaintive notices, like the one from the teenager in Georgia who said her mother lost her job and pleaded, “Please buy anything you can to help out.”

Or the seller in Milwaukee who wrote in one post of needing to pay bills — and put a diamond engagement ring up for bids to do it…

In Daleville, Ala., Ellona Bateman-Lee has turned to eBay and flea markets to empty her three-bedroom mobile home of DVDs, VCRs, stereos and televisions.

She said she needs the cash to help pay for soaring food and utility bills and mounting health care expenses since her husband, Bob, suffered an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver in 2006 and is now disabled.

Among her most painful sales: her grandmother’s teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay.

“My grandmother raised me, so it hurt,” she said. “We’ve had bouts here and there, but we always got by. This time it’s different.”

And all that detritus from an earlier era of consumer excess is subject to the law of supply and demand. Research analyst Brian Riley from The TowerGroup figures secondhand merchandise is going for 25-35% less than it did a year ago.

Inflation in food and gasoline… deflation in housing and used consumer goods. Sad tidings. And worse is likely to come.