Yesterday morning, we told readers that less than two weeks after Dennis Gartman urged "sell into strength" as "this is now a bear market", Gartman did another trademark flip just as the S&P was trading within 2% of all time highs, and was now urging his "clients" to buy stocks on the expectation of a 30,000 print in the Dow Jones in the near future:

If these past 6 ½ months are indeed going to prove to have been a consolidation phase, then huge gains, perhaps sufficient to carry the Dow to 30,000+… as exaggerated and as stunning as that may sound… is technically possible. In other words, this is a global event that is taking place: a possible global consolidation that is now breaking out to the upside. Certainly, it is possible.

The news quickly spread, and shortly after Bloomberg reported that "The Dow Jones Industrial Average has struggled for five months to hold onto gains past 25,000. Economist Dennis Gartman says 30,000 is the real milestone to watch." It also added, tongue-in-cheek that "the latest thought train goes against Gartman’s more recent calls for a market peak. In mid-March, he made a “watershed” call that stocks were at a “major multi-year top” and said it was time to hold cash. In October, when the S&P 500 was trading in the mid-2,500s, he said markets were overpriced; the index is up almost 10 percent since then."

Which of course, is Gartman's charm: the daily, sometimes hourly, flip-flopping which guarantees that nobody who follows the "advice" will ever make money, it does guarantee, however, compounded losses which to those who trade with "real money" would be displeasing. And yet, the world-renowned commodity guru was angered this morning, and decided to take it out on... well, read on:

It is interesting to us to find how widely spread had become our suggestion here yesterday that given the notion that stocks here in the States, in Europe and perhaps also in Japan appear to us to have forged a massive multi-month consolidation that prices appear to be headed higher… and perhaps materially higher… once again. Our suggestion that 30,000 on the Dow is a possibility was taken up by Bloomberg.com and others as a clear-cut statement of fact on our part with the “fine people” at Zero Hedge taking us to task once again for having erred bearishly of equities for the past several months and suddenly having changed our mind. Apparently, if we are to believe the “nice people” at Zero Hedge one is to have a singular perspective on equities and to maintain that singular perspective forever, regardless of what the market has “said” or has done. This makes little sense. We are reminded of what Lord Keynes said once when he was taken to task for having been bearish of a stock for quite some long while and having changed his mind and becoming bullish of it. Taken to task by a member of an investment audience for his change of mind, Lord Keynes responded, "Sir, the facts have changed and when the facts change, I change. What do you do, Sir?" The technical facts of the global market appear to us to have changed, for the markets here in the US, in Europe and in Japan, do appear to be breaking out to the upside, through the tops of the consolidation patterns that had been forged over the past six months or so, and thus more likely to head higher than lower… and perhaps materially so.

In other words, the "major multi-year top" Gartman identified in February is no longer that, but instead the base of a blast off in stocks to new all time high, with the top really just a base. Why? Because of price action, or in other words, trend-following. But then why would one pay for a Gartman letter subscription when one can just take a ruler and extend the recent trendline in the market to "predict" what happens next? We are confident Gartman Letter subscribers are asking themselves this very question.

As for Lord Keynes, while we too are big fans of his quotes, if not his macroeconomic theory, we wonder: did he happen to have any quotes about being right at least once?