Trader’s Narrative

The following article was adapted from the November 2009 Elliott Wave Financial Forecast and reprinted with permission here. Until Nov. 11, you can read the rest of this brand-new report for free, during Elliott Wave International’s FreeWeek of U.S. forecasts. Learn more about FreeWeek, and download the rest of this report and others for free here.

By Steve Hochberg and Pete Kendall

When Wall Street’s total value of assets rose to a “mind-boggling 36.6 percent of GDP” in late 2006, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast published a chart of U.S. financial assets literally rising off the page.

The Financial Forecast observed that financial engineers had “found a new object of investor affections—themselves” and asserted that “the financial industry’s position so close to the center of the mania can mean only one thing; it is only a matter of time” before a massive reversal grabbed hold. Financial indexes hit their all-time peak within a matter of weeks, in February. The major stock indexes joined the topping process in October 2007 and in December 2007 the economy followed. Subscribers will recall that one of the most important clues to the unfolding disaster was the level of financial exuberance relative to the fundamental economic performance.

This chart of the value of U.S. trading volume (courtesy of Alan Newman at www.cross-currents.net) reveals that the imbalance is far from corrected.

Incredibly, total dollar trading volume is even higher now than it was in 2007 when the economy was humming along. In June 2008, dollar trading volume also defied an initial thrust lower in stocks and the economy, eliciting this comment from the Financial Forecast:

The chart of dollar trading relative to GDP shows how much more willing investors are to trade shares in companies that operate in an economic environment that is anemic compared to that of the mid-1960s. A basic implication of the Wave Principle is that the public will always show up at the end of a rally, just in time to get clobbered. This chart shows that it is happening in a big, big way now because the market is at the precipice of the biggest decline in a long, long time.

Total dollar volume continues to rise despite further fundamental financial deterioration. Yes, GDP experienced a one-quarter, clunker-aided uptick of 3.5 percent in the third quarter. But the economy is in far worse shape than it was when we made the above statement. In fact, its recent performance on top of the decades-long economic underperformance (which is discussed extensively in Chapter 1 and Appendix E of the new edition of Robert Prechter’s Conquer the Crash) means that industrial production just experienced its worst decade since 1930-1939. Total manufacturing employment slipped to 11.7 million people, its lowest level since May 1941 when it was 33 percent of all jobs. According to Bianco Research, manufacturing now accounts for only about 9 percent of the workforce. Finance anchors the economy now, which makes it far more susceptible to non-rational dynamics.

As Prechter and Parker explain in “The Financial/Economic Dichotomy” (May 2007, Journal of Behavioral Finance), a financial system is not bound by the laws of supply and demand in the same way that an industrial economy is. In finance, confidence and fear rule decisions. “In the financial context,” say Prechter and Parker, “knowing what you think is not enough; you have to try to guess what everyone else will think.”

We do know one thing: When everyone is thinking the same, the opposite will happen.

Right now, record high dollar volume of trading shows that confidence, at least on this basis, has reached a new historic extreme.

Read the rest of the 10-page November 2009 Elliott Wave Financial Forecast now, when you signup for Elliott Wave International’s FreeWeek of U.S. forecasts. FreeWeek ends Nov. 11, so please act now to get an enormous wealth of current market analysis and forecasts — for free. Learn more about FreeWeek, and download the rest of this report and others for free here.

Gold has the wind at its back right now. Not only has it cleared the challenging $1000 resistance level, it has support from lax monetary policy as central banks around the world clearly hold the health of their economy in higher priority than the health of their budgets or their currencies.

The recent purchase by the central bank of India is being interpreted widely as a vote of strong support for the precious metal. Although I don’t argue against a secular bull market, it is amusing to me that a decision to buy gold at above $1000 is deemed to be a ’smart’ move when just a year ago they could have made the same purchase for 30% less. The fact that almost any news is interpreted as positive for gold has more to do with the prevalent sentiment than with facts.

In any case, before we get to the short term sentiment for gold, here is the recent commentary from David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff on the monetary backdrop for a secular bull market in gold:

All India did was bring gold to a 6% share of its total FX reserves from 4%. Fifteen years ago, that representation was closer to 20%. China has increased its gold holdings by 76% over the past six years but they are a mere 1.9% of the aggregate 2.2 trillion of reserves and Russia’s gold holdings is just under 5%. This is not the 1990s when Bob Rubin was running a hard U.S. dollar policy, U.S. fiscal deficits were vanishing and gold production was on the rise. Today’s world is exactly the opposite. Policymakers beginning in the 1990s wanted disinflation and got it. Now they want inflation — it will take years, maybe a decade, but it will come. For the near-term, we are still optimistic on Treasury securities but be forewarned that this view has an expiry date that is earlier than the peak we are likely to see in gold.

It is very clear that central banks are behaving in a way that would suggest that gold is now again being considered a currency within the global monetary system. As we said before, it is all about relative scarcity and a well-defined supply curve — fiat currency at this juncture does not share that quality.

Turning to the breadth in the gold stock sector, you can see that we’ve seen a sudden and dramatic jump from a week ago. The chart below compares the percentage of gold stocks trading above their 10 day moving average with the Philadelphia Gold Bugs index (HUI):

If you’re interested in timing the gold market, then you would be concerned that 82% of gold stocks are trading above their short term moving average. But you would also be alarmed that just a few days ago, that number was below 10%. Historically, gold shares have a very tough time continuing to climb when faced with such short term headwinds.

Turning to sentiment in the gold sector, on Monday when we looked at the arguments that Paul Tudor Jones II presented for his case of a secular bull market in gold, we also digressed a little to check the Hulbert Gold Sentiment index. That sentiment measure was showing a majority in the bullish camp; which from a contrarian point of view means that gold probably will have difficulty in advancing in the short term.

In a similar vein, here is a chart, courtesy of Elliott Wave, which shows the price of gold with the Daily Sentiment Index (DSI). The most recent DSI is 91% which is just about where previous short term tops have been formed:

Similar to the breadth measure (shown earlier) the DSI increased to 91% in a sudden jump (an 8% point jump over a day). Accoding to Elliott Wave, which tracks the DSI, this was the single largest increase since March 19th 2009 (11% point jump from 75% to 86%) when gold made a two month high at $960. With Elliott Wave, not only do you get their analysis of various markets but they do a good job of monitoring DSI, which is a proprietary sentiment metric from trade-futures.com and by itself would costs about $2000/year.

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