Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Updates on the Brexit, energy and SPX trades

Mid-week market update: Rather than the usual mid-week market technical comment, I thought that I would present updates on a number of trades that I had suggested in the past:
In addition, Tadas Viskanta at Abnormal Returns made a compilation of blogger wisdom about smart beta, which includes my contribution (see The dirty little secret behind smart beta investing). There's lots of good stuff there. The consensus seems to be that while smart beta funds and ETFs have their uses, they are no magic bullets and investors have to understand exactly what they're getting into when they buy.

The full post can be found at our new site here.




Site Notice
The new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:



We would love to see new members in our community. Come over and take a look.

Monday, March 28, 2016

The GAAP gap as Rorschbach test

I've been meaning to write on this topic but I hadn't gotten around to it. For several weeks, I have seen warnings about deteriorating earnings quality. The gap between corporate earnings as defined by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and operating earnings (earnings without the special bad stuff) has been widening to levels not seen since the last market crash.

Here is a chart from Zero Hedge which showed that the gap between GAAP and Non-GAAP earnings is at its worst since 2008.


The level of write-offs are absolutely horrendous.


On the other hand, this chart from Goldman Sachs is suggestive that these earnings "gaps" occur at the height of bear markets. If we are already through the worst of these writeoffs, could such a development be actually equity bullish?


Urban Carmel also pointed out that outside of recessions, the "GAAP gap" actually isn't that bad on a historical basis.


Interpreting the GAAP earnings quality gap is like the Rorschach inkblot test. Bullish or bearish? What`s the real story?

The full post is at our new site here.




Site Notice
The new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:



We would love to see new members in our community. Come over and take a look.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Watching the USD for stock market direction

Explaining our market timing models
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on research outlined in our post Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Model is an asset allocation model which applies trend following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity price. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. In essence, it seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend in the global economy expansion (bullish) or contraction (bearish)?"

My inner trader uses the trading component of the Trend Model seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend getting better (bullish) or worse (bearish)?" The history of actual out-of-sample (not backtested) signals of the trading model are shown by the arrows in the chart below. Past trading of this model has shown turnover rates of about 200% per month.


The signals of each model are as follows:
  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities*
  • Trend Model signal: Risk-on (upgrade)*
  • Trading model: Bullish*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends and tweet any changes during the week at @humblestudent. Subscribers will also receive email notices of any changes in my trading portfolio.


How the USD tells us about the stock market
I have been asked in the past to describe my brand of market analysis, which can be characterized in a number of ways. Technicians would call my approach inter-market analysis. Fundamentally driven investors may regard me as a global macro or cross-asset analyst. That`s because all markets are inter-connected and to simply focus at any single stock, sector or market in isolation misses the big picture. Analyzing different components of the big picture also allows me to write about topics as diverse as the US equity market, the term structure of the VIX Index (see Sell Rosh Hashanah?), Europe (see The costs of Spain's astounding recovery: Bug or feature?) and China (see Big Trouble with 5-year China).

To illustrate my point, I would like to show why I believe that the US Dollar holds the key to the medium term outlook (6-12 months) for US equities. As the chart below shows, the Trade Weighted Dollar has seen a clear breach of an uptrend line, which has bullish implications for equity bulls.



The full post is at our new site here.



Site Notice
The new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

We would love to see new members in our community. Come over and take a look.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

A shallow pullback?

Mid-week technical update: I wrote on the weekend that I expect that the stock market would continue to rise on an intermediate term basis, but some short-term weakness was likely (see A repeat of the failed Oct/Nov rally of 2015?). What I did not expect was to see a short-term buy signal after the brief weakness that we saw today (Wednesday).

In retrospect, it was easy to see that a pullback was coming. This hourly chart of the SPX shows negative divergences on RSI-5 and RSI-14, which set up the conditions for the fall in prices.



The full post is available at our new site here.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Big Trouble with 5-Year China?

China's latest five-year plan seems to be a big hit. What's more, the most recent growth slowdown is abating, the stock market is recovering, but my indicators are suggesting that, despite all of the glowing rhetoric, the economy is taking a step back in its path towards re-balancing growth towards the household sector.

The full post is available at our new site here.



Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.


We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

A repeat of the failed Oct/Nov rally of 2015?

Explaining our market timing models
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on research outlined in our post Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Model is an asset allocation model which applies trend following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity price. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. In essence, it seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend in the global economy expansion (bullish) or contraction (bearish)?"

My inner trader uses the trading component of the Trend Model seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend getting better (bullish) or worse (bearish)?" The history of actual out-of-sample (not backtested) signals of the trading model are shown by the arrows in the chart below. Past trading of this model has shown turnover rates of about 200% per month.



The signals of each model are as follows:
  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities*
  • Trend Model signal: Neutral*
  • Trading model: Bullish*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends and tweet any changes during the week at @humblestudent. Subscribers will also receive email notices of any changes in my trading portfolio.


The bulls are back in town
In the last few weeks, I had been writing about a transition to a late-cycle market. The latest results from the BoAML Fund Manager Survey show that 59% of institutional managers believed that we are in the late-cycle phase of the expansion cycle. The 59% figure is the highest reading since August 2008.


A late-cycle expansion is characterized by tightening capacity, falling unemployment, rising wage and other inflationary pressures, which are ultimately followed by tight monetary policy.

The current macro environment is indeed seeing signs of tighter employment and modest inflationary pressures. A couple of months ago, the markets had been wrongly focused on the risks of impending recession. We are now seeing a reversal and a FOMO (fear of missing out) reflationary rally in stock and commodity prices.

The full post can be found at our new site here.



Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

A post-FOMC market blastoff, but in which direction?

Mid-week update: I thought that I would write my mid-week update a day early, because of the binary outcome of the FOMC meeting. This meeting could turn out to be a critical turning point for the short and medium term tone of the markets.

It`s becoming fairly clear that the Fed is unlikely to raise rates at its March meeting. Marketwatch highlighted analysis from BoAML indicating that the Yellen Fed has not historically surprised the market with rate hikes.
On Friday, a team of currency and interest-rate strategists at Bank of America Merill Lynch suggested that it might be time for a new approach.

After studying Fed-funds futures data, the strategists discerned that the Fed has typically provided investors with plenty of warning before raising rates.

As the following chart shows, the Fed hasn’t raised interest rates unless the market assigned it at least a 60% probability of doing so. This seems to contradict the Fed’s desire that every meeting be viewed by investors as potentially “live,” meaning the central bank could make a rate move at any one of its confabs.

If the Fed were to raise rates either at its April or June meeting, now is the time to start telegraphing that move. Here is what`s at stake as we await the FOMC announcement.

The full post is available at our new site here.




Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

The real story behind the Apple-FBI fight

I normally confine my comments to top-down analysis and I normally don`t make my personal opinions on legal and political issues like the current case of Apple vs. the FBI, but a comment by John Oliver makes many of the issues much less black and white (via Barry Ritholz).




I know that Apple (AAPL) has made various legal arguments about why they shouldn't be compelled to help the FBI crack the code on that iPhone in question, but the commercial stakes for AAPL are much higher than that. Cooperating with the FBI would breach the Apple's competitive moat and has the potential to spell the downfall of the company.

The full post is available at our new site here.




Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.


We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Monday, March 14, 2016

The dirty little secret behind "smart beta" investing

Some minor buzz has arisen among finance academics and professionals as a result of a paper by Ronald Kahn and Michael Lemmon, both of whom are employed by Blackrock, entitled The Asset Manager’s Dilemma: How Smart Beta Is Disrupting the Investment Management Industry. Here is the abstract:
Smart beta products are a disruptive financial innovation with the potential to significantly affect the business of traditional active management. They provide an important component of active management via simple, transparent, rules-based portfolios delivered at lower fees. They clarify that what investors need from their active managers is pure alpha—returns beyond those from static exposures to smart beta factors. To effectively position themselves for this evolution in active management, asset managers need to understand the mix of smart beta and pure alpha in their products, as well as their comparative advantages relative to competitors in delivering these important components.
As Blackrock is a supplier of "smart beta" fund products, are these authors talking their own book or is this truly a new form of financial disruption?

The full post is available at our new site here.



Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

All aboard the reflation train, but beware of derailments

Explaining our market timing models
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on research outlined in our post Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Model is an asset allocation model which applies trend following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity price. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. In essence, it seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend in the global economy expansion (bullish) or contraction (bearish)?"

My inner trader uses the trading component of the Trend Model seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend getting better (bullish) or worse (bearish)?" The history of actual out-of-sample (not backtested) signals of the trading model are shown by the arrows in the chart below. Past trading of this model has shown turnover rates of about 200% per month.


The signals of each model are as follows:
  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities*
  • Trend Model signal: Neutral*
  • Trading model: Bullish*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends and tweet any changes during the week at @humblestudent. Subscribers will also receive email notices of any changes in my trading portfolio.


The late cycle/inflation bandwagon
Just as I started to write about the late cycle and reflation trade theme last week (see RIP Correction. Reflationary resurrection next?), it seemed that the whole world was rushing to jump on this bandwagon.These conditions suggest that my thesis of late cycle sector leadership of capital goods and resource extraction industries should have some legs as the Street's stampede is just starting. Before rushing to hop a ride on the Reflation Express, though, I would caution that a couple of risks lie ahead. In the short run, the advance appears extended and vulnerable to a pullback. As well, the FOMC meeting next week could be a source of significant market volatility.

The full post can be found at our new site here.



Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Teaching my readers how to fish

In the past week, I had discussions with several different people about the operating philosophy of Humble Student of the Markets, The objective of the website can be summarized by a variation of an old adage:

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
Teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.

I don`t want to just give my readers a fish for the day, I would rather help them build their own boat.


Why my boat is different from yours
Think of a building a boat as like building a portfolio. The portfolio management process consists of the following steps:
  1. Deciding on what to buy and sell;
  2. Deciding on how much to buy and sell; and
  3. Deciding on how to execute the trade.
While we discuss step 1 endlessly in these pages and elsewhere, the other steps are equally important. Step 2 is also a reason why what I write in these pages is not investment advice, namely I know nothing about you:
  • I know nothing about your cash flow, or spending needs;
  • I know nothing about your return objectives;
  • I know nothing about how much risk you are willing to take, or your pain threshold;
  • I know nothing about your tax situation, or even what tax jurisdictions you live in; 
  • And so on...
If I know nothing about any of those things, how could I possibly know if anything I write is appropriate for you? I was asked recently why I don't post my portfolios and their performance. While posting my trades represent a disclosure of any possible conflicts in my writing, my own portfolios are a function of my own cash flow needs, my return objectives, my own pain thresholds, etc. How could any portfolio that I post be appropriate to anyone else? Your mileage will vary.


Don't look for a fish
Here is an example of what I am talking about. I had been recently bullish on stocks and both my investment account (inner investor) and trading account (inner trader) got long. My trading account sold and got stopped out of its long position as a result of my risk control discipline, which is a function my risk profile and pain threshold. Subsequent market action indicates that my inner trader got faked out and the market rallied. In that case, it appears that my inner trader was wrong by getting stopped out of his position, while my inner investor was right.

This incident also illustrates the point of the do's and don'ts of reading the content on this website. Anyone blindly following my trades is in effect looking for a fish. But there is no fish. The markets are not easy. You have to build a boat that's right for you.

I have two boats (used by my inner investor and inner trader). Taking a ride on either of mine by blindly following my trades means adopting my investment objectives and risk profile, which you know nothing about.


My two boats
The chart below shows an example of how my inner trader thinks about the stock market. He isn't always right, but he has been more right than wrong. His portfolio turnover averages 200% per month, which is not appropriate for everyone.

By contrast, here is an example of how my inner investor thinks about the market. The time horizon is longer. Turnover is much lower, but drawdown risk and pain threshold is higher.


For full details, see:
Neither of those boats may be right for you. The purpose of Humble Student of the Markets is not to give anyone detailed trading advice, including the specific timing of trades. I can only make suggestions, but you have to decide if those suggestions are right for you.

I am not here to give you a fish. I am here to teach you how to fish and help you build your own boat. That way, you can eat for a lifetime.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

The bulls are winning, but they shouldn't relax

Mid-week market update: On the weekend, I wrote that the stock market was experiencing a bullish breadth thrust and the market is likely to see a series of "good"overbought readings where stock prices either continue to grind up or consolidate sideways as they get overbought (see RIP Correction. Reflationary resurrection next?). So far, so good. The market seems to be behaving according to the script I laid out so far.

As the hourly chart of the SPX shows. The market weakness on Monday and Tuesday were relatively minor. The index saw a minor positive RSI divergence and the 50 hour moving average has so far acted as support.


As well, this chart from IndexIndicators show that the net 20-day highs-lows, which has been a good intermediate term (1-2 week) trading indicator, seems to have found support at a high level. If this continues, it would lend support to the "good"overbought bull case.


While I remain optimistic about the technical underpinnings of the bullish scenario, that`s only half the story.

The full post is at our new site here.




Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Where I am finding value in today`s market

I was playing around with Relative Rotation Graphs (RRG) on the weekend with a focus on changes in sector leadership (see my previous post RIP Recession. Reflationary resurrection next?). RRG charts measure how a stock or sector is performing relative to a benchmark on a short and long term basis as a way of better understanding the evolution of market leadership. An idealized rotation cycle would see a stock or sector rotate in a clockwise fashion starting at the lower right quadrant (weakening) to the lower left (lagging) to upper left (improving) and to the top right (leading).

When I turned the lens from sector leadership to market styles, or factors, I got a big surprise.



The full post is at our new site here.




Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

RIP Correction. Reflationary resurrection next?

Explaining our market timing models
We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on research outlined in our post Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade.

The Trend Model is an asset allocation model which applies trend following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity price. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. In essence, it seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend in the global economy expansion (bullish) or contraction (bearish)?"

My inner trader uses the trading component of the Trend Model seeks to answer the question, "Is the trend getting better (bullish) or worse (bearish)?" The history of actual out-of-sample (not backtested) signals of the trading model are shown by the arrows in the chart below. Past trading of this model has shown turnover rates of about 200% per month.


The signals of each model are as follows:
  • Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities*
  • Trend Model signal: Neutral*
  • Trading model: Bullish*
* The performance chart and model readings have been delayed by a week out of respect to our paying subscribers.

Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends and tweet any changes during the week at @humblestudent. Subscribers will also receive email notices of any changes in my trading portfolio.


Looking past the recession scare
Throughout the most recent period stock market weakness, I steadfastly maintained that the market was just undergoing a corrective period and recessionary fears were overblown (see Why this is a correction and not a bear market published January 17, 2016). Now that signs of economic growth are returning and the SPX has rallied above its 50 day moving average (dma) and stayed there for a week, it`s time to move beyond the angst of a possible bear market and look forward to what`s in store for the rest of 2016.

The full post can be found at our new site here.




Site Notice
I am happy to announce that the new site is now re-open for new subscribers. We closed our site to new subscribers in January in order to better control the rapid growth of our community. After listening to feedback and making a few tweaks to the site and the content, such as the addition of a mid-week technical update, the site is now re-open for business.

You can subscribe for 1 year (US $249.99), 1 month (US$24.99)  or 1 day (US$4.99);. Even if you are not ready to subscribe, you can always sign up for email notification of free posts as they are free and available to the public two weeks after publication.

As a reminder, here is a sample of some of past posts:

I am reminded of a variation on an old adage:
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish...he'll want to get a boat.
We would love to have you join our community. We stand ready to help you build your own boat. Come over to the new site and take a look.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

A "good" overbought market?

Mid-week trading update: Last weekend, I pointed to the analysis by Simon Maierhofer, writing in Marketwatch, who highlighted a bullish "kickoff" signal in which the SPX rose for 1.5% or more for three consecutive days (see The market 2-step: 1 forward, 1 back). Such "kickoff" signals have seen higher stock prices 12 months later. So far, the market is roughly acting according to that script.


An overbought market
Two weeks after that "kickoff" signal, the market is overbought, which should be a cautionary sign for traders. However, such overbought conditions may be the start of a series of "good" overbought signals that accompany bullish thrusts. As the SPX approaches key resistance at about the 2000 level, the key test for the bulls is how stocks behave at these levels.

The full post can be found at our new site here.


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Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Super Tuesday special: How President Trump could spark a market blow-off

Let me preface my remarks with two caveats. Firstly, I am politically agnostic and I don`t have a horse in the latest race for the American presidency. As a Canadian, I can`t vote in a US election. As well, it might be considered foolhardy to project what a politician might do based on his campaign promises, particularly during primary season.

Nevertheless, as Donald Trump has strengthened in the Republican primaries and he has become a serious contender, it is time to consider what a Trump Administration might do (much in the spirit of my last post How to trade the Brexit referendum).

The full post is at our new site here.


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