Trader’s Narrative

The market correction that we’d been waiting for has finally started in earnest so let’s take a look at the sentiment data for this week:

AAII Survey
This week’s survey of US retail sentiment by the Association of American Individual Investors came in at 34% bullish (a drop of 7% points from last week) and an increase of bears to 42% (a 6% point increase). While the increased fear is normal after the kind of week we had, the ratio of the two remains neutral. Had the response been either muted or exaggerated, it would have been more interesting. At this point, it doesn’t really offer any edge.

Investors Intelligence
The latest Investors Intelligence poll from ChartCraft showed the bull share fall a smidgen to at 48.3%; the bear share also fell a hair to 22.5%. Only 29.2% believe a correction is due. The ratio of the bulls to bears is 2.15 - higher than it has been for months. It must be noted, though, that the survey was compiled on Tuesday before the losses later in the week. Next week’s survey will reflect the full decline.

Daily Sentiment Index
The Daily Sentiment Index remains in rarefied territory. The high levels we find the current DSI is extremely rare. In the 22 year history of this metric the DSI has been 87% or higher, only five times:

Continue reading ‘Sentiment Overview: Week Of October 30th, 2009′

Let’s check in with the latest Lowry Research proprietary indicators. As persevering readers will recall, Lowry arrived late to the (bullish) party with their intermediate buy signal in August. Since then, they’ve continued to monitor their indicators and diagnose the uptrend as healthy: Rally Continues Strong. No indicator, whether proprietary or otherwise is perfect and no one has a crystal ball.

HAving said that, personally, I respect the oldest technical analysis firm on Wall Street not just for their heritage but also because they refuse to be swayed by emotion and always root their approach in a methodical study of the market.

Here are some notes from the latest interview with Tracy Knudson of Lowry Research (you can listen to the whole podcast at the bottom):

• S&P 500 bouncing off its 50 day moving average
• near term, we could get a move down to that MA
• around 1045-1050 which is a converging support area
• the trendline from March and July lows also meets in that area
• this area will act like magnet to draw market lower
• volume is sending a clear message: weakness on upside and more strength on downside
• S&P 500 tried several times to clear the 1100 level
• it has approached that level on contracting volume
• but volume expands on downside days
• this telling us demand weakening and selling more intense
• so the market is gearing up for a correction
• last short term pullback occurred in late Sept to early October
• that began with a downside reversal day
• this is when the market made new high then wasn’t able to sustain it and made a new low

Continue reading ‘Lowry Research: Turbulence Ahead, Uptrend Intact’

Apologies for the late posting so far this week. I was away at a family wedding and missed the regular scheduled posts.

Brace yourself because we are about to enter the best months of the year for the stock market. This seasonality pattern is most commonly called the “Halloween indicator” and lasts from November to April - where most of the returns have tended to originate historically.

But this year was atypical in that we had a spectacular rally early in the year. In fact, this was arguably the most hated rally since very few purportedly believed in it or predicted it. And yet it happened. In any case, seasonality patterns should not be confused with blueprints. They are merely loose fitting guides to be draped over price action. The stock market certainly does not heed them every cycle.

According to Mary Ann Bartels, a technical analyst ranked second by Institutional Investor magazine, the weakness we should have seen may simply be delayed, rather than skipped outright. Here is a chart comparing the S&P 500 so far this year, compared with the other instances where seasonality was turned upside down:

Source: Bloomberg

While Bartels is looking forward to a correction to end the year, she does expect that to set up a base for further gains next year. She expects the S&P 500 to reach 1325, a further 22% rise from here.

Diligent readers will recall a historical study provided by guest writer, Wayne Whaley where 7 consecutive months of positive return have a surprisingly bullish bias going forward. October isn’t over obviously but with a 3.21% return (so far) we are set for a continuation of the short term strength that defies the intuitive expectation of ‘mean reversion’ after so many positive months.

The stock market’s resilience was in good form today as it inched ahead, managing to recover from the shallow pull back of 3 weeks ago. The Dow Jones even managed to put in a new high for the year while the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq were not far behind. I’m not sure if this shallow pullback is what Lowry had in mind when they cautioned against jumping with both feed into their intermediate buy signal.

The tongue in cheek title of this post is inspired by the classic Kubric film, “Dr. Strangelove“. I thought of it when I looked at today’s chart of the day showing the subsequent returns for the worst yearly returns of the Dow Jones:

Source: Chart of the Day

The 15 largest annual declines in the history of the Dow usually lead to a reversion to the mean. But not always. The 1930’s were as you’d expect, a wild card where bad simply got worse. Of course, back then you didn’t have the Fed opening the liquidity spigots like today. The only other outlier is 1978 which was slightly down during the brutal 1970’s bear market. Not surprisingly, when we step back and get some real perspective, cycles are obvious and we tend to go from bad to better. This is basically what I argued that Why Long Term Investors Should Consider Buying:

Can things get worse? Of course. But at this point, if you have a long term time horizon, a cast iron stomach for risk, the data suggests you should be taking small positions and slowly adding to them cautiously, even if the market continues to tank. That may sound crazy, but where we are right now in market history, only comes about very rarely.

Boy did things get worse. And if you were foolhardy (or smart?) enough to have an unemotional take on the market and a long term view, stepping into the abyss wouldn’t have been all that horrible. You would have been buying into a decline but in 4 short months, it would be all over.

In fact, we’re starting to see signs of real strength in the market. For example, the number of new 52 week highs in the US markets has recovered to pre-crisis levels:

Source: Bloomberg

Usually any measure reaching bear market tops sends shivers down one’s spine but keep in mind that this metric has not reached an extreme level. For example, consider that it was much, much higher towards the end of 2003 or early 2000 (not shown on the above chart). Both extremely unfortunate times to be long the equity markets. Right now however, we’re just seeing some resilience not speculative mania.

Yes, yes, I know the market is pricing in some insane numbers, including ginormous positive GDP growth and totally ignoring unemployment and a half-a-dozen other factors. What you have to remember is that the market does this all the time. In a bear market, it ignores bullish arguments repeatedly - until it doesn’t. And vice versa. So why argue?

Here is a terrifying interview with Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom Doom & Boom Report. I find it unsettling how calm and polite he is as he lays out the case for an inevitable collapse of the US dollar hegemony and the destruction of our economic system.

And in case you think he is some sort of doomsayer who just now happens to be correct, keep in mind that throughout his lengthy career, he has made some unbelievable calls - both long and short. So he clearly is not a perma-bear of the Howard Ruff variety. The last time Ruff was on CNBC hoarsely growling his ever pessimistic prognosis, I wondered if this was a contrarian signal from the trading gods. With hindsight’s approval we know that it most certainly was.

In contrast, Marc Faber was bullish at almost the exact bottom of the market earlier this year. So while he is a long term bear, he is the rare breed that is actually able to bob and weave, catching shorter term rallies. Listen to the full interview (in three parts) to find out his case for the utter collapse of capitalism as we know it:

Marc Faber Bloomberg Interview: Part 1

Continue reading ‘Marc Faber: Total Collapse Of Our Economic System’