S&P500 apparent 18 month cycle

I did this chart after the late 2004 vertical line (cycle low). The vertical lines are all the exact time distance apart (roughly 18 months) and are created by connecting previous market turning points like the 97 and 98 lows and the 99 high. These 3 points are all the exact distance apart and we can use that knowledge looking forward to predict when potential market turning points will be. So basically I use the charting program that overlays equidistance vertical lines with the length of time I decide.

After bringing the chart forward to today's date, incredibly the cycles are still working well and have aligned directionally with the 07, 09, and 2010 lows. All I did to this chart is update the time range and the charting program projects the cycles outward. The next cycle point based on this will be 18 months from June 2010, or December 2011.

The market will let us know if it is likely a high or a low.

Click on the title heading to see an updated chart.

Good luck!

Google Armageddon?

This chart is one I found online and decided it was so good looking I'd recreate it.

With today's bad Google news and subsequent big selloff afterhours, I decided it could be extremely relevant. Not much needs to be said that isnt on the chart...

If this is true though then 2011 should be as crazy or crazier than 2008. The hope is that the pink line of support will hold and keep the uptrend intact.

Good Luck.

Gold versus Silver? Which one?

Gold and Silver are all the rage right now!!! Sell your gold and silver advertisements are in every mall, infomercial, and financial website!

Regardless of my position on gold and silver, an investor still should choose wisely between them. Looking at the chart above, you can see why. Currently Gold is significantly underperforming silver. In fact it hasn't been this undervalued to silver since the early 80s. This can mean a lot of things (for instance what occurred in the early 80s? - hint, they both started to free fall).

However, if you must own one of them right now. Gold looks to be the far better choice. Eventually this ratio will find parity which could mean it rallies back up to at least the midpoint on the chart of around 50x. This means gold should be 50x the price of silver, or silver should be 1/50 the price of Gold. With a current gold price of $1450 silver, based on these historical standards should be around $29.

Either way, a move up or down in the metals, Gold seems to be the better choice right now.

Good Luck

A Lesson in Dow Theory

Attached is a chart of the Dow Transports and then the Dow Industrials in order to show how the 100 year old Dow Theory works. On the chart I have two captions pointing out two different timeframes. The black lettering is the shorter time frame and shows both the Dow Jones Industrials and Transports printing a high, a low, and then a new high. Because both of these resulted in new highs above the previous high (in Novemeber and December 2010), they confirmed a shorter term Dow Theory buy signal.

On the longest time frame, however, neither index has made a new high above the previous high (2007) and thus neither index has confirmed the long term buy signal.

The Transports are getting close to making a new high. If that occurs then we will look toward the Industrials to confirm the hew high by surpassing its 2007 high. Obviously this has a long way to go and will leave a lot on the table, but that's the way a trend following technique works.

If the Industrials fail to confirm the new high, and go on to post a high, a low, a lower high, and then a lower low (all below the 2007 top), that will be a Dow Theory Non-Confirmation and a pending sale signal. If that occurs and then the Transports do the same, that will be a Dow Theory all out sell signal, on the shorter black time frame.

Dow Theory can work at all time frames, but for this analysis I have just used the 2 longest time frames.

For more on Dow Theory and how it helped foreshadow the 2008 bear market in a January 2008 post, click on 'Dow Theory' to the right in the Labels Section.

Good Luck!

Bear case losing ground...again.

The bear scenario laid out in the previous blog post (in blue) is day by day losing it's probability of occuring. After today's move we are at a do or die point (which actually makes for the best trading opportunities). A straddle at today's close would help capture either one of these scenarios which both call for significant moves in the upcoming weeks.

Bottomline is a downturn must occur as soon as possible (tomorrow or Monday). Any significant move up will likely put the bear case to bed and result in new highs. Right now it is up in the air if the market will continue up to new highs in a final 5th wave or if the bear market will finally begin again (yes, I have been waiting for it for awhile).

The other option (not on the chart) is that this move down and now smaller move up is an A,B of an A,B,C which would suggest eventually the market moves lower (but only in a corrective mode before moving on to new highs).

Good Luck

Where I think we are in the grand scheme of things

Well, the rally from the March 2009 lows has certainly been impressive. I think it has taken many "bears" by surprise, including me. The top in April 2010 was definitely a spot the market could have turned south (as it did thruout the summer). However, after the August decline, which could have easily been the start of our next major move down, the market did not continue down further. It decided we needed another elongated move up. This was about the time of QE2, which may or may not have had a positive impact on the stock market and "worked" from that perspective.

I will drive myself crazy if I tried to figure out all the possible reasons for the elongation of our cyclical bull in our secular (11 years now) bear. All we need to know at this point is it happened, so what's the next move? Keep in mind that it took 25 years for the market to make new highs above its 1929 price and Japan is still trying to get there after 21+ years now.

After 9 months of seemingly unabated uptrend, the market is once again at a turning point. The real question now is, are we in a 4th wave correction or was the Egypt and then Libya conflicts the topping point?

The attached chart shows my current expectations in blue with a close alternate in red. The next few days and weeks will let me know. Any break below $1220 on the $SPX really raises the probability of a continued, larger move down. The alternative is that the move up from the July 2010 lows was not impulsive and was an A wave of a larger A,B,C (with the C needing 5 waves for completion - shown in Red).

This is a lot of technical jargon to swallow, so the key takeaways are drawn on the chart. In blue, the market has topped and is just starting its long, hard fall. This expectation assumes most other asset classes will also fall (as the dollar rallies) since markets almost always are interrelated. Also, there are numerous technical factors supporting this including volume, momentum, and the fact that we haven't had a good sized pullback in almost a year.

The alternative which I will look at as viable until disproved is shown in red and assumes at least a new moderate high is made before a decent decline.

The $1220 area remains key. If it is breached then the likelihood of a continued decline raises significantly. If it holds then the red alternative becomes my primary expectation.

Good Luck.

A lesson in International Finance

Attached is a chart of Symrise AG, based out of Germany and traded on the German exchanges. I apologize that the chart isn't near as clean as the stockcharts.com charts I usually use, but stockcharts.com doesn't have access to the European exchanges yet (just US and Canada). However, Tradestation is great for use with foreign currencies as will be shown.

I want to talk briefly about the difference between a US traded stock and a foreign stock trading thru its ADR (American Depository Receipt) on the US markets. The ADR for all intents and purposes is the share ownership of the underlying asset. However, the key difference is that the ADR must adjust for exchange rates between the ADR and the home country's security price. The chart above will show you how big a difference it can make!

The top chart is of the Symrise ADR traded in the States. The second chart is the price of the Euro. The 3rd chart is a nice ratio chart essentially converting the ADR back into its home country's currency. The final graph is that of the 20 trading day correlation (1 month).

The one thing I don't like about the tradestation platform for charting is the text which is a pain to use, but other than that it has some wonderful functionality such as the correlation graph that I don't have at stockcharts.com.

Ignoring the text for now, the ADR looks to have completed a 5 wave move up from its June lows and topped in November. Notice similar tops occurred on the spread chart. What is nice about the June top is that occurred at a time the Euro was weakening, so the move from Nov 2009 to May 2010 was actually stronger than the ADR would leave you to believe (as the spread chart helps show).

However the main thing I wanted to point out with this ADR (and likely many others) is the recent correlation. Notice the 20 day correlation is sitting at .60 and has been steadily climbing over the past year and a half. This means that more and more of the ADR's return is actually coming from changes in the exchange rate rather than changes in the company's performance. That is important to note so that you don't confuse the reasons for the stock's returns.

This blog heading's title above links to the German traded Symrise AG on bigcharts.com. I have also copied it below. This is helpful in seeing a longer time horizon of the company since the American ADR just started in late 2008. Notice that early '09 was the longer term price bottom. It also looks like a pretty good impulsive move up. The November top does indeed look like a completed 5 wave top assuming a May/June '09 2nd wave and May/June 2010 4th wave. If so then support could be found in the $20 ADR ($16 German exchange and spread chart) assuming a breakdown below $25 on the ADR.



One final point on the spread chart. Notice its current price of 20.05Euros. Compare this to the bigcharts.com German traded price of 20.14Euros...pretty close and lets us know that we did the conversion correctly. You can also go to this site to look up the German stocks...

http://deutsche-boerse.com/dbag/dispatch/en/isg/gdb_navigation/home?module=InOverview_Equi&wp=DE000SYM9999&foldertype=_Equi

Long Term Bond Prices

As the previous post highlighted, the long bond looks to be falling in price. The attached chart is a very long term strategy that will help show when the drop in price is more than just a simple pullback.



The chart has a moving average ribbon of 110, 115, and 120 months. Notice this moving average has provided support 3 times in the past in 1994, 2000, and 2007. Bond prices have not dropped below this moving average since the early 80s bottoming process. Also notice that bonds have dropped the last 6 months in a row. This is not unprecedented, but has rarely occurred in the rally of the past 30 years.

If the moving averages do not hold as support over the next few months, then the long term bond market may indeed be set to fall (yields rising).

These moving averages will become important as the year progresses!

The Long Bond

The long bond looks poised to rally once the next pullback ensues.

Looking at the chart, it seems we had a 5-3-5 move up off the ultimate '08 low to the June '09 high (in blue and red). This is not impulsive, but rather is corrective since it is only 3 moves to the upside. However, the move was huge and likely is the beginning of correcting the ~30 year downward move in yields. As the chart lays out, once that 5-3-5 completed in June of '09 a relatively long sideways retracement brought it back to its almost exact 61.8% retrace in August 2010. From there it has started to rally again in a 5 wave move which looks to be close to completion.

This next move should see the 30 yr topping for a short term (red 1) and pulling back in a 2nd wave retrace before a powerful 3rd wave up again (in red on right of chart). This move at least should take yields over the 5.1% at a minimum.

There is a chance that this chart is more bullish than I have labeled (if for instance the 2010 top was really where Black A should be labeled), but that won't matter for a year or so from now and both counts provide similar results.

In the meantime this means that the long bond yield's risk is to the upside and may mean to target shorter duration products and or take some profits on bonds.

Cullen Frost Bankers (CFR)

Above is the technical analysis of Cullen Frost Bankers. It looks pretty good assuming my wave count is correct. If the wave count is not correct it is likely we are closer to a top than a bottom. The trendlines I have placed on the chart should help determine when a sell may be in order. However, the trend is your friend on this one and it has performed pretty well lately. Momentum is confirming the trend up as well. I will watch those indicators for lower highs as price makes higher highs for a divergence sell signal.

The $59 level is also pretty important to the wave count. From a relative perspective and useful to a sector specific fund this company is outperforming the other banks (bottom indicator on chart above). Notice how well it did relatively during the 2008/2009 crisis. If these trendlines are broken, but the relative strength holds, then a manager needing to buy banks for allocation or diversification reasons may want to hold onto this stock even though it is falling in price. For others, a break in the trendline may warrant a sell.

Overall this stock has been performing well and there is no reason yet to sell. Similar to pretty much every stock out there the low volume remains a little concerning. However, most other technical indicators are in favor of this company.

Schlumberger (SLB)

This analysis was requested from a special someone!

Schlumberger is an oil and gas service provider and sits in a strong sector. Its stock has been on fire lately and has made a lot of people happy. The good news is it looks like there is some more upside. The bad news is that it looks to be limited with some significant risk to the downside.

Here is the first chart, a long term look at the stock from its early days to the financial crisis, to now.



The chart is pretty much self explanatory just follow the comments in a counter clockwise fashion from left to right. Bottom line is the stock has been performing well over the last decade but has recently shown some weakness, especially in volume. The key for this stock going forward is to hold above the $73.25 high. The letters and numbers I have on the chart are a technique called elliott wave theory and help to point the direction of the next moves. The $73.25 price holds the key to this technique.

Another technique is to use trendlines to help find buy and sell points. Notice in the late 90's this technique worked pretty well as the midterm sell point around $39.00 would have saved you the entire downturn of the 2001 recession as price didn't reach that level again until 2005. This technique would have given a buy entry in 1999, a sell at the end of 2000 and another buy in 2003 around $23.00. These buy/sell lines aren't on the chart to keep it simpler, but you can imagine them by connecting major price highs and lows.

Currently the mid term green sell line is at $60.00 but rising fast. By June it will be at $68.00 and by the end of the year it will be at $77.00. Combine this with the $73.25 level and we have a pretty good profit taking point.

One final point on this chart is that volume has been declining even though price has risen. Typically this is a negative warning sign. The same thing occured at the 2010 top. Notice the green bars getting lower and lower as 2009 progressed. A similar thing is occurring now.

The next chart is a shorterm term closer look at the last 2 years. This chart helps point to the higher price levels that are expected. Be warned though, this elliott wave pattern looks just about complete and once finished prices should come back to the current $80 levels at a minimum. The blue box area is where very little volume occurred and could be a point the price could fall fast.



Trendlines are also used on this chart and there is a very steep one currently at $82. A break of this trendline would keep profits tight because of its steepness and should be considered if worried about whipsawing price. Another way to help look for a price top is thru divergences which I show on the indicators at the bottom. Similar to the topping that occurred at the 2010 new year, I will look for a lower high on the momentum indicators. If a top occurs in one of these indicators that is lower than the one in early December, then that is a good signal that momentum is waning and a high could be in.

Why the Dollar Matters Most

In the attached chart you will see how the dollar and the stock market are tied at the hip. Except for the late 90's (an anomaly in so many ways), the dollar and the stock market lead each other inversely.

Even more than the stock market, the dollar is tied to the debt market (which also leads stocks). The reason is interest rate parity, or lack thereof.

When a country has a high interest rate, other people in countries with lesser rates will park money in the higher rate country. This raises the price of that currency (demand up) and thus lowers the rate of their home currency (demand down). When the lesser rate country returns the money back home, its fx rate is now weaker and it wins on both accounts (higher int. rate and gain in currency). If you are familiar with the carry trade that was so popular in the 2000s, then that is similar. This market "arbitrage" also goes against the interest rate parity theory that states that countries with higher interest rates must have lower future currency rates to offset that gain.

People flock to currencies with high interest rates and that is why the dollar hit its peak in the early 80s (as interest rates peaked) and is now at an all time low (as interest rates are at an all time low). During the early 80's stocks rallied hard (the 80's bull was actually bigger than the 90's as the dollar fell 30-40%). The chart above explains why, and I will explain in an example as well.

Most items are sold "in US Dollar terms". This means that the price (denominator) is the dollar. The toy you buy your kid for xmas can be translated as toys per dollars to come up with what it will cost you to purchase it. If you could trade a blanket for that toy it would be denominated as toys per blankets to come up with its value. The same is true for the stock market.

If the stock market's earnings in 1985 were $10/year and people were willing to pay 10x for those earnings then it is priced at $100s per 1 S&P500. This can be translated as $100/1 USD (with the "1" meaning 1 US Dollar which happens to be trading at an all time high of $1.65). Assuming earnings and multiples stay the same, if the $USD then weakens to $1.00 (which it did), then the real value of your stocks just jumped 39% (translating $1.65 down to $1.00), and in order to remain whole and offset that change, the S&P500 would go to $139, just by updating the reporting unit!

An easier way to think about this is thru inflation. When the value of the dollar falls, one way to conceptualize this is to think about there being more of them out there representing the same one thing, aka now worth less per dollar. This is basically inflation. If the denominator falls, the numerator is now instantly worth more (going from 10 toys/2 blankets=5 unit cost down to 10 toys for 1 blanket=10 unit cost).

The practical way to think about this is to replace the $USD with something more tangible like milk, or a house, or a gold bar! Why measure wealth in the $USD anyways? The $USD is only as good as its purchasing power, so why not replace it with something of more consistent purchasing power? If you replace the denominator with the more tangible asset like the price of gold (which many people do), you will see that stocks have actually lost a ton of "real" value since the 2000 top. At that top stocks were worth about 5.6x an ounce of gold. Today they are worth less than 1 ounce. Chart attached below. So basically you used to be able to sell your stocks for 5.6 ounces of gold but now it will only buy less than 1 ounce of gold. Assuming an ounce of gold today has the same utility as an ounce of gold in 2000, stocks have fallen in value significantly. You can do the same with oil, commodities, water, shelter, or any other valuable, measurable necessity. Most of them will show a decline in the value of stocks over the last decade. Chart of the S&P priced in Gold, below.



The key takeaway is that stock prices are only one component of their worth (numerator). Don't forget the denominator piece (the US Dollar) as that is just as important in establishing a stock's true value. Thus, if you can get a sense of where the dollar is heading then you are 50% of the way to finding out what your stock's true value is. Another takeaway is that as long as the dollar is falling, then items priced in dollars should be going up in price, stocks included...and viceversa.

Supple this to my previous blog post on the bottoming US Dollar and we might be in for a beating in the stock market depending on the size of the move. There haven't been that many periods since the early 80s where the dollar has risen in value (except the bubble 90's where everything went up - stocks, bonds, dollar), but there are many when the dollar has fallen hard...and most of those times saw stocks rally. We got a glimpse of what a dollar rally can do to stocks in the early 2000s as well as 2008. We also know that the dollar rallied with interest rates in the 70's and early 80's when stocks were flat to down. In 2005 the dollar rallied and stocks stayed relatively flat (compared to surrounding years when the dollar fell hard and stocks rallied hard). The math also works to support this thesis. Right now (previous blog post), the dollar is looking ripe for a rally. It will be interesting to see what effect that has on stocks.

Pay close attention to that dollar!

$USD - Very Interesting Right Now

The US Dollar right now is the center of the world! Bearishness seems to be at an ultimate extreme. Everyone keeps talking about how the dollar is doomed, how the spending in Washington is never ending, how the Fed is determined to monetize the debt (thru inflation) yet there is one glaring piece of evidence that I continue to look at and maintain contrarian and at least a little bullish...

Why is the price of the $USD not at an all time low? You would think with the demise of America as we know it that people would be dumping the dollar more than ever. But, the price today is $77.82 (up 1.61%) which is higher than last year's low after the QE1 announcement of $74 which is higher still than the 2008 low as the stock market started to tank of $71 and before all QE. That is still over 10% away from where we are now. That is a HUGE percent in the largest market in the world (currency).

From a charting perspective we are at a very interesting point. There looks to be a potential triangle forming (which would be longer term bearish) but there are issues with that triangle. There are 5 wave moves within the triangle, which is typically a no no. Plus the extreme bearishness isn't indicative of another move in the same direction. However if this is a triangle the final E move up of the A-B-C-D-E pattern should last at least a few months which will likely ease any bearishness. There also exists a potential that the move down from June is impulsive and that high was the top of a corrective flat pattern except there exists structural issues with that pattern as well (no new low at the end of 09, for one).

The other side of the coin has this baby in a potential bull move. The rising trend from the 08 low is still in tact and if nothing else we should get a bounce here (which looks to be already occurring). The final key to this would be to take out the 09 high of $90. If that happens, jump on the rally.

How we know where to place our bets...
1) If the price exceeds $90 then the triangle is invalid and the wave count I have labeled is the most likely (3rd wave beginning now).
2) If price drops below the triangle and breaks $74 then the likelihood is that the triangle (or flat correction counts) were correct and we should see new lows (potentially a huge move down if the triangle measurement is confirmed -19 points from the breakout point which will put the dollar in the 50's).
3) In the meantime, prices are rallying, this is either the E wave of the triangle, the 2 wave of the new move down (flat correction), or the mega 3rd wave of the new bull market that started in early 2008.

This chart is so important because the dollar is involved in all asset classes. Stocks, Bonds, and Commodities all have dollar denominators. So, if the dollar rallies, expect stocks and commodities to fall (especially commodities) ceterus paribus. The dollar is the daddy and leads all other asset tops and bottoms. It also trumps all the other markets in the world. People need to remember that the dollar is 100% RELATIVE in a fiat currency world. It will go up in price if it is better than the alternative (Europe, England, Japan, other major nations). So it can be easy to justify a dollar rally, especially if Europe continues to have problems and Japan decides the Yen is way too strong (which Im sure they already are saying).

Good Luck. This chart is very important and will be very telling.

Do fundamentals really matter? Convince me after seeing this chart...

The price of oil is the line and the price of the S&P500 are the candlesticks, but it doesn't really matter cuz they are so alike!

This one chart should be all that I need to convince people that technical analysis really does matter. The only explanation I can think of to explain this chart from a fundamental standpoint is that oil prices and the stock market must be driven by about 90% the exact same fundamentals. So somehow stock price earnings, cash flows, and oil prices are driven by the same thing to the tune of 90%? The $USD obviously is the denominator for both of these, so is that the answer? Maybe it's just the discount rate that matters. In that case, macro analysis is all that should be needed. I don't know, but this chart alone convinces me that knowing the P/E or forward earnings or dividend payouts of the S&P right now doesn't mean *!#^!

If so then how does that translate to the price of oil, because they are obviously driven by the same thing. Technical analysis would say that they are driven by emotions and/or something other than fundamentals, or it would at least attempt to capitalize on the correlation regardless of the reasons. Oil and stocks have rallied almost the exact same percent since their March 09 lows. What are the odds of that?

The other answer I will get is that they are driven by fundamentals over the long run, not the short run...well if this is a "bull market" and all is right in the world then shouldn't we be "in the long run" right now? That is to say if things mean revert, then shouldn't we be on the positive side of that reversion since we are in a "bull market"? Even if we aren't and things aren't "right" right now, then obviously fundamentals aren't working right now, nor over the last 1.5 years and that is what we care about...making money right now.

I have a bet with a friend of mine that says oil will reach $40/barrel before it reaches $100. I might as well add that the $SPX will need to make new significant highs for oil to reach $100, at least while they are tied at the hip as they have been the last 1.5.

I love this chart.

5 wave structure turned out to be just a correction - 2, not 3 waves down; The Fed's Open Market Activities in September

And the wait continues...The five wave move I blogged about on the 30th did in fact pan out with another five wave move down 2 days later as expected. Unfortunately, we did not get a 3rd 5 wave down to confirm a more bearish trend has started. Now we must wait for this larger 2nd wave from August to continue to frustrate more bears and do the most damage to the most people.

By looking at the chart above you can see that by Monday's close, things looked ripe for a final fifth wave down. This would have kicked off a much larger correction down and potentially confirm the top. However, the market wasn't ready for some reason, so we march along and I continue to feel the pain.

I read an interesting piece today about the Fed's Open Market Operations not to mention the Bank of Japan's statement that they will start buying etfs and other assets the Fed has yet to purchase. Supposedly the Fed has been buying 5-10 year treasuries about twice/week between $550MM and $5B throughout September. This theory suggests that almost each day the Fed was buying treasuries the market was up and those days it did not, the market was flat or down. Those days that saw $3-$5B of treasury purchases the markets were up significantly (props to Lighthouse Capital). These purchases are now supposedly finished until at least October 13th. So, the next few days will no doubt be interesting.

The Fed so far has not been purchasing stocks, but the theory is that the primary brokers of the Fed then use this knowledge to buy stocks. I am not sure if the treasuries are bought thru the primary dealers or not, but nevertheless someone has seen a correlation between the Fed's purchases and market up days.

I continue to wait for this most painful top!