Trader’s Narrative

Last week we took a look at a recent research report from Morgan Stanley on the aftermath of secular bear markets. Although in that article I featured this chart comparing the Nasdaq market from its peak in 2000 to now with the infamous Dow Jones Industrial index top in 1929, it deserves another mention. You can click on the graph to see it in full size:

I’m always fascinated by the fractal nature of the stock market. But I’m not convinced this isn’t just a random coincidence. Here’s another chart from Bloomberg comparing the S&P 500 with the Nikkei:

Again, an uncanny similarity. Again and again, markets seem to follow the same script. Or rather, the individual participants act with synchronous precision to create and unravel manias.

Another interesting comparison I mentioned a while ago is this year’s spring rally in the S&P 500 with that 6 years ago: Comparing Flag Formations: Then & Now. But where we part company from the past is when we look at the magnitude of this most recent rally.

This surge has offered no real opportunities for those who hesitated at its inception and waited for a pull back. In fact, the rally from the March 2009 lows has been the sharpest we’ve had in 40+ years:

If you consider each rally chronologically, something becomes noticeable: with the exception of the 1982 example, each subsequent bull market rally has been slightly sharper than the previous one. Maybe there is a pattern there. But it is hard to statistically defend since the observable sample is so small.

No, really. How high can this market keep going?

That’s the question a lot of people are asking. It isn’t surprising that once the S&P 500’s perfect head and shoulder pattern failed, prices rocketed higher - almost non-stop. We’ve had 12 consecutive trading days closing higher. That kind of streak is not only extremely rare, it is an unmistakable sign of surging momentum.

Now, many are pointing to a head and shoulder bottoming formation (on a larger time frame) and expecting prices to keep rising. Actually, I commented at the beginning of June 2009 that we may see a flag formation and then a break to the upside: Comparing Flag Formations: Then & Now.

Amazingly enough, we seem to be replaying the same price action that we had when we came out of the last bear market. The similarities are uncanny as I’ve mentioned more than once. So what’s next?

Below is a short video that briefly summarizes what the market has done and then finishes by looking ahead to what we may see next week and next month.

Click to watch video:

With the benefit of hindsight, lets take a look at my bullish calls in March 2009. I’m sure that persevering readers will remember a few of them. For example, the suggestion that we were about to witness a ‘bear trap’ - similar to what we launched the super-bull market from August 1982.

I also showed a chart of the rolling 10 year returns for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. So at any point, that chart shows what you would have gained over 10 years (ex-dividend) had you invested at that time.

For me the most interesting, from a technical analysis point of view, was a deceptively simple indicator: how far prices are from their simple 200 day moving average. In Another Reason We’ve Seen the Market Low I suggested that prices deviate from their long term trend, sometimes extremely but that eventually, they revert back and the cycle begins again. Here is the updated chart:

On March 9th 2009, the S&P 500 was stretched to the downside to an extreme degree that we had not seen in a long, long time. Although we can look at the difference between prices and the long term average as points, this isn’t helpful over time. So instead we normalize and express it as a percentage. So in early March, prices were below their long term trend by more than 36%!!

We’ve since recovered and are trading almost 12% above the 200 day moving average. Of course, the spring rally had already begun by the time I wrote about this market dynamic on March 31st 2009. To be exact, by that time, the S&P 500 index had already rallied 18%. But even then it wasn’t too late to jump aboard.

Looking ahead 60 days from the extreme posted in March 9th of -36.53% distance from the 200 day moving average, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rallied a total of 39.65%. So the record since 1960 is:

• 7.95%
• 10.03%
• 12.93%
• 10.72%
• 6.14%
• 9.54%
• 8.3%
• 20.9%
• 39.65%

For an average 60 day return of 14%. The latest recovery is by far the largest in our time period lookup. No doubt due to the fact that we had two dates close together when prices were pushed lower in a panic: November 20th 2008 (-39.79%) and March 9th 2009 (-36.53%). The other precedent of this was in 2002 just as that bear market was breathing its last: July 23rd 2002 (-26.98%) and October 7th, 2002 (-23.84%).

While we were in the thick of the 2008 bear market, I looked ahead and provided a road map for the conditions of a new bull market. Among them was the Coppock Guide.

At the beginning of the year I provided a hypothetical projection to demonstrate that the stock market would have to go on one hell of a bullish rampage to pull the Coppock Curve up from its death spiral. A few months later, a rally that almost no one foresaw took us 40% higher.

Then at the beginning of May, I reiterated that a Coppock buy signal would be arriving by the end of the month, as long as the market held it together and didn’t fall any further.

Well, we are finally here and the Coppock guide has provided a definitive signal by turning up - this is the buy signal that we had been anticipating:

I know, I know, it is impossible to see on the chart but believe me, it is there. To see a zoomed in view of the chart, check out the previous links. The S&P 500 Coppock Curve stopped going deeper into negative and actually increased from -417 at the end of April to -409 at the end of May 2009. All it would have taken was a one point increase but we got 8 points.

Now that we have a signal, what does it mean?

Well, obviously, it means we have the wind at our backs. The Coppock Guide has been a reliable indicator of the long term market trend. But, like everything else, it isn’t full proof - as you can see from the false signals. So with that in mind, here are three major observations:

First: The signal isn’t just for one index or market. We are seeing the Coppock Curves for many different markets around the world turn up at the same time. The Australian All Ordinaries, the Nikkei, the FTSE and all 3 major US market indexes: S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial and the Nasdaq.

While most of the signals are occurring concurrently, some like the (Chinese) Shanghai market and the Nikkei gave signals last month. Check out all the major world markets to see how just how much confirmation we are getting from them.

Second: Valid signals are those that turn up from under the zero line. And historically, the deeper the level at which the signal arrives, the more strength the following bull market has. This most recent signal is coming from a deeply oversold level - the most since 1938 (-417 to -400) and even further, 1932 (-643 to -616).

Of course, that doesn’t mean that from now on the market has only one direction - up! Based on the sentiment and technicals covered before (Wedge Formation), I think it is probable that we will head down, but won’t break the previous low. This will allow for the long term moving average to flatten out and begin to support, rather than hinder prices from going higher.

Third: Although the Coppock Curve has given its share of false signals, we haven’t seen any occur when the metric has curled up from such a deeply negative level. There are very few examples of this, so it is difficult to extrapolate a rule but so far, this has been the case.

Take a look at these two charts. They are both of the S&P 500 Index (SPX), they both span roughly the exact same time period, from the start of the year to mid April. But only one of them shows the current market. Which one is it?

And what time period is the other one showing?

Hey, no cheating!

Take a careful look at both and notice the uncanny similarities. They both top in early January and then trend down until the inflection point in early March. And then there’s a more or less orderly march upwards:

Have you made up your mind? Give up?

The bottom one is showing the current market. That was the easy one. What about the other?

The first chart is from 2003, showing the bear market in its last throes. Of course, as you know, from then on, the S&P 500 continued to climb higher and higher. Similar to today’s market, the technical pattern appeared to be a rising wedge. But this only threw off the bears even more as they waited and waited for the eventual pullback that never really came (well, until after 6 years that is ).

Honestly I have no idea what significance this has, if any, for the market right now but I’ve never seen this much synchronicity between two exact time periods. What do you think?

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