Wow, a mighty dump in the U.S. markets and for that matter everywhere else as near as we can see.

Why?

Probably because of the Chinese new year at the end of January. China is in a cash crunch because the new economic plan is to try and get China's runaway capitalism in check and the year end is the time to catch up with your bills.

Americans think capitalism is great, of course, but there are different types and China is quite close in many ways to anarcho-capitalism. Basically, that means few rules are adhered to.

This leads to all kinds of crime and graft and in the end becomes a self-destruction dynamic, where cheaters win and cheating gets ever more egregious until it all comes tumbling down. We all saw that in 2008 in the West.

Two minutes googling Chinese business scandals and it's hard to argue that this is not a huge problem long term for China. China wants to get past this so it is clamping down rather than risk a monumental meltdown a few years down the line.

Right now, this China credit crunch means a lot of people need to pull money out of the global markets to bring home to traditionally settle their year-end books. This is the sucking sound you are hearing in the markets.

Of course, safe havens like the euro and the yen are rising, so is gold, because this could be a bumpy ride for a few days and this is what you do to lower your risk.

Lowering risk is probably what some want to do as there is plenty of economic snow up the mountain that might get sent down in an avalanche, if the current Chinese scandals and credit crunch are big enough to start contagion.

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Heaven knows the market is high, and even if I'm sure over the coming years they will go very much higher, it doesn't mean for a few weeks we aren't going to take a beating.

So here is a chart to watch. Three bear correction what ifs. This is what technical traders will be watching.

Baby bear has us in a couple of days swoon up to the year end. Nothing to bother with really. You have to be very confident to go with this:

I like "mummy bear," better. This is a classic looking intra-year correction:

"Daddy bear" is a full 10% correction and quite likely to happen this year anyway, so why not now?

In any event it looks like a period of bumps ahead with a grim few weeks.

Yet wait. Buy the dip. If you have a bit of dry powder there will be a chance to grab bargains.

Remember, however, to buy the bounce not the fall. Most corrections don't come roaring back. They base, then they rally. That is my best guess of the next few weeks.

So brace yourself, it's going to get busy!

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Clem Chambers is the CEO of leading private investors Web site ADVFN.com and author of Letters to my Broker, out now in paperback and on the Kindle.