Stock Market Predicts Trump Victory
In what seems like the longest election season in the history of the world, the end is hopefully near on Tuesday although after 2000 and the endless surprises this year, that’s certainly not set in stone. Let me begin by stating that almost none of what I write in this report reflects my own political views. They are 100% irrelevant. I will do my best to keep that sort of editorial for another time. As I have often mentioned over […]
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Date: November 4, 2016
Fed Model Says Rally. A November Surprise from Yellen?
Before I dive into the meat of the article, our market model for today is a plus or minus .50% move until 2 pm and then a rally into the close. Two of our Fed Statement Day (today) models are live and are very bullish with a success rate of 80%. We’ll see how that works out before long. With the election just around the corner, it would be almost impossible to believe that the Federal Reserve would raise interest […]
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Date: November 2, 2016
Key Sectors Holding Up Otherwise Weak Market
Last week, I voiced a little more concern about the stock market as the S&P 400 and Russell 2000 broke to the downside from their trading ranges. So far, they haven’t been able to regain previous levels. Now, we have the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 trading at the lower end of their ranges and it looks like stocks have further to go on thew downside before finding more solid footing. As I have said for months, based on market […]
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Date: November 1, 2016
A Little More Concern Creeps In
At least we had one day where stocks closed firmly! As has been the case for more than a week, but really over the past month, sellers continue to snuff rallies that begin the morning. The bears say that this is a market on the verge of collapsing under its own weight. The bulls counter that with all the selling into rallies, stocks remain just a few percent off their recent highs. What I am seeing is my pullback theme […]
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Date: October 27, 2016
Canaries in the Coal Mine Part III – My Two Favorites
Updating the two, and perhaps, most important charts from last week, we can first see the New York Stock Exchange Advance/Decline Line which measures participation in rallies and declines. Before a bear market hits, you will almost always see this line peak well before price does. In other words, the troops were dying in a battle but the officers survived until the bitter end. In today’s case, this indicator still very powerfully supports the bulls. Finally, high yield bonds are […]
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Date: October 26, 2016
The Streak Has Been Broken – Gold Teetering
After four straight afternoon fades in the stock market and one neutral day, the bulls FINALLY were able to overcome a gap down open and closed near the highs for the day on Friday. However, one day doesn’t change the pullback theme of the last six weeks. Today, stocks are going to open higher with help from several deals announced along with Europe on firmer footing. AT&T buying Time Warner for $85 billion certainly is an eye opener, so much […]
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Date: October 24, 2016
Canaries in the Coal Mine Part II – The Key Sectors
Moving to the four key stock market sectors from the indices I don’t see as strong a sign, but it’s definitely not a weak one yet. The bellwether for technology, semiconductors, is first and you can clearly see a sector that is “large and in charge” or “long and strong” to use some trading desk rhymes. This is very bullish long-term. Banks are next and contrary to popular belief, rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. Quite simply, the […]
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Date: October 21, 2016
Make It Four Straight
For the fourth day in a row, stocks lost steam later in the day. While the internals continue to improve, price is always the final arbiter and the 6 week pullback continues for now. At the same time, gold is popping a little and crude oil just scored a one year high, both against a strong dollar which is unusual. Both semis and software are bouncing from their first bout of weakness off the high while banks exploded higher on […]
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Date: October 20, 2016
Another Gap. Trade & Fade?
After Thursday’s reversal, Friday’s early action looked promising as I left the office before lunch to celebrate my 15th wedding anniversary playing golf with some friends at Foxwoods before the wives met us for dinner and gambling. At least the dinner went well! However, as has been the case lately, opening gaps have often been the high or low point for the day as was seen on Friday as well as on Monday. This is certainly not a sign of […]
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Date: October 18, 2016
Is Pullback Mode Finally Over???
With yesterday downside break of the very obvious trading range in the Dow, S&P 500 and S&P 400, the pundits were all over this in the media. Just like I did yesterday, I often warn to be careful of a trap. Very apparent breaks of trading range will many times result in a quick and sharp snap back as I offered. In the short-term, that is exactly what occurred on Thursday as the bears got trapped in the first hour […]
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Date: October 14, 2016
Stocks & Treasuries Looking to Diverge
With indications of morning weakness, the Dow, S&P 500 and S&P 400 will be breaking down from their six-week digestion patterns. Amazingly, for the past six weeks these indices have basically traded from high to low inside the range they saw on September 9 & 12. This action does not change my thinking about a continuing pullback and not some large scale collapse. The first thing I want to see is whether this potential breakdown is held for more than […]
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Date: October 13, 2016
Pullback Mode Remains the Short-Term Theme
My general theme of pullback mode for stocks continues in all of the major indices except for the NASDAQ 100. Gold and silver have been a more exciting story, but they, too, have paused since I wrote about them last week. Sector leadership remains very strong with semis, banks, transports and energy near their highs at the same time the defensive group has been weak. I wrote about consumer staples looking especially troubled a few weeks ago and nothing has […]
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Date: October 11, 2016
Canaries in the Coal Mine Part I – The Major Indices
For the past month, four of the five major indices have been in pullback mode after three of the five spent the previous month digesting gains from the huge post-BREXIT rally. While that theme continues today, I think the market is getting closer to resuming its uptrend with the Dow heading to 19,000. Turning to the purpose of this article, I am going to first go through the major indices in the context of canaries in the coal mine to […]
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Date: October 10, 2016
Gold & Silver Stocks Take a Pounding
Just a very quick post as I am in catch up mode from being out on Mon and Tues with the Jewish holiday as well as working on month and quarter end reconciliation and reporting for the next week. The story of Tuesday was the collapse in gold and silver and the stocks. It was an ugly rout, but not unexpected given the somewhat bearish chart pattern below. I wanted to point out that this 28% decline may be close […]
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Date: October 5, 2016
Sell Signal Closed Out. New Leadership Emerged
Today is the last day of the month as well as the last day of the quarter. The S&P 500 closed down -0.12% in August and is on track to close down in September unless the bulls can mount a major offensive, which I am not ruling out, and close above 2071. That means a down August and September for the S&P in a presidential election year, something not seen since 1956. You can put that in the category of […]
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Date: September 30, 2016
Clinton or Trump? Who the Markets Want
The happiest moment of my Monday evening was when Lester Holt said, “that concludes the first of three presidential debates”. Talk about painful. I was SO thankful that I had picture in picture so I could also watch an incredibly entertaining football game between the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints. High scoring and lots of action. I thought Trump started off so well and I actually naively thought that it was going to be a real debate about policy. […]
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Date: September 28, 2016
Post-FOMC Sell Continues as Does Pullback Mode
Our post-FOMC sell signal from Thursday’s close remains in place. That short-term trade will end this week. Stocks begin the week on the defensive as Europe and Asia are showing red. The media will likely blame it on pre-debate jitters, but that’s just nonsense. Pullback mode remains in place as it has been for the past few weeks. As I keep mentioning, it should not be a big deal. The Dow and S&P 500 continue to be the weak sister […]
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Date: September 26, 2016
Fed Trend Says Sell but Fedex Gives Thumbs Up
After Thursday’s strength, one of our post-FOMC trading systems gave a sell signal and that calls for weakness over the next 3-5 days. This has a high degree of accuracy, greater than 75%. If stocks rally further on Friday, it will trigger another trend calling for lower prices with a hit rate above 85%. If correct, this should just be a quick and relatively mild bout of weakness that can be bought for another move to new highs on the […]
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Date: September 22, 2016
I Screwed Up
Yesterday, I said that all of our Fed related trends were muted to less than 60% accuracy. That was wrong. One of our best Fed systems said there was a 78% likelihood that stocks rallied. I didn’t realize this until well after 2pm when it was too late to email and take advantage. What a powerful response to the Fed not raising rates and issuing a more hawkish statement, exactly what I and most others predicted. I did find it […]
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Date: September 22, 2016
Yellen Set to Raise Rates, But…
As the Fed’s Open Market Committee meeting heads into day two, our own trends and systems for the trading day are surprisingly mute. Today typically sees stocks trade in a +.50% to -.50% band until 2 pm before the market gets a shot of volatility. Usually, we see a strong upside bias into the close, but the odds of that are under 60% from the usual 75%+. In other words, the edge just isn’t there today. Tomorrow, Friday and early […]
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Date: September 21, 2016
