Weekend ramblings

Weekend reading

If you're just a tad confused about what Uncle Ben was talking about yesterday, so am I. The absolute best explanation I've read of what Bernanke said (or more to the point, didn't say) on Friday is this piece by Bruce Krasting over on zerohedge.com.  It's right on the money and the Night Owl give it four hoots up.  As they say down at the Public Library, check it out.

Last Sunday, August 21st, I wrote a piece called War With China that was fairly well read.  Three days later, a piece appeared over on marketwatch.com called Is the market forecasting war?  Hmmm...

Google Trends

And speaking of World War III take a look at this search term graph from Google Trends:  And what term did I search for?  "War with China"!  This term wasn't even on the radar until 2008.  It began perking in 2009 and has been running at about 5 times the average level ever since, with one big spike to over 10x normal in mid-2010 that Google chose not to annotate for some reason.

Know your enemy

And while we're at it, does anyone remember this iconic image?  At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a wallpaper pattern.  It isn't.  It was those 2,008 Chinese drummers pounding away in perfect clockwork synchronization during the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Peking.

No doubt meant to be an "oooh, ahhh" moment by the organizers (or maybe it wasn't), but it just gave me the willies.  None of those guys looked  happy.  What do you think?

Two more interesting articles for the student of history: this one seems to have been forgotten in today's Short Attention Span society but it's important: China shoots down satellite.  Way back in 2007, China demonstrated to the world its ability to shoot down satellites orbiting the earth.  Gosh, I wonder why they'd need to be able to do that?

And this item is just a few weeks old: China's first aircraft carrier 'starts sea trials' That's right, the Peoples' Liberation Army (or I guess in this case, Navy) needs an aircraft carrier to, to, um, just why do they need an aircraft carrier?

So do I think WWIII is really coming?  Gosh, I hope not.  Maybe, eventually.  I don't think it will involve duking it out with nukes though.  It will be more of a cyber-socio-economic kind of war.  Every new great war differs substantially from its predecessor.  This one should be no different.

Executive Summary

From world war we move on to class war.  Not rich vs. poor.  This one is workers vs. management (which I guess amounts to the same thing).  Actually, this is just a funny story, not an executive summary  Back in the days when I worked for a big tech company, management decided to install a  fancy new video projector for the conference room.  They left the actual setup of this device to us techie types.

We carefully opened the box and unpacked it.  The first thing we pulled out was a remote control.  This looked like it had once been part of the console for a nuclear reactor or perhaps the space shuttle, had the space shuttle been invented back then.  It just bristled with buttons of various sizes, colors and shapes.  Suffice it to say we were mightily impressed.  Then someone said, "Hey wait, there's another remote in here".  We all took a look but this time we were just puzzled.

This other remote had only two buttons on it.  On for power, and the other for volume up and down.  We roundly scorned this useless sad button-impoverished excuse for a remote and wondered what kind of idiot would want to use it.  Then we came across the installation manual.  And right there in the parts list, under "master remote control", we got our answer.

The kiddie remote was called the "Executive Remote Control".  I kid you not.  We laughed about that for months.  It became something of a standing joke.  And the funny part is that the executives loved it.  Fortunately, I was never called on to hand over the "Executive Remote" to a visiting executive before his presentation.  I don't think I could have done it with a straight face.  So that's why I don't call my "quick overview" the "Executive Summary".  Ain't that a hoot?

Have a great weekend and stay out of Irene's way.

Mr. Market likes Ben, Friday to close higher

Hey Mikey, he likes it!

Mikey Market

That was about my reaction to the market's reaction to Ben Bernanke's eagerly awaited speech from Jackson Hole this morning. Never before have I seen the can so artfully and expertly kicked down the road, one month until the next Fed meeting, to be precise. In any case, the market definitely seemed to like it for some unfathomable reason.  My best guess is that since Bernanke didn't say anything awful, it was presumed to be good.

So much for my theory last night that Mr. Market was going to hate it because "he hates everything". Bzzzt - wrong.  In any event, you can't argue with the Dow up 135 points at 1 PM EDT. And since this rally took us above today's daily pivot at 11,221, it looks like we should end the day (and the week) on a positive note after all.

The Swing Trend

An alert reader took me to task over my putting up the "who knows" swing trend icon yesterday and I've got to admit he has a valid point.  So this seemed like a good time to review how I decide what the trend is.

First off, "swing trend" isn't precisely defined.  I think of a swing trade as something longer than a day trade but shorter than an investment - usually on the order of a few days to a few weeks.  Nonetheless I try to be analytical about it.  The "swing trend", as I define it, is based on the regression trend channel fitted to the daily Dow chart from the most recent high or low.

Dow daily

So for example, there was a rising RTC from 8/10 to 8/16.  I put up the green arrow after two days, on the theory that any move shorter than that can't really be considered a "trend".  Once the candles leave the RTC, the "X" trend-end icon goes up.  Then usually a new trend begins but sometimes I just get confused, and that's when the question-mark curly track icon goes up.

So for example. here's the most recent dozen daily Dow candles.  There's the 8/10 RTC I mentioned (the low in the center of the chart), the one we're in now, and the end of a descending weekly one providing something of a cross-current.  After last night, even though we were still inside the current RTC, it looked to me like the trend wasn't developing the way it should, so I took the liberty of changing the arrow.  In retrospect, I should probably stick to the objective system and will do so from now on.

Now, there's one more icon I use, the "channeling" zig-zag, and I may bring that one up if Monday's action remains inside the range of the last three days.  But for now, we're going back to the up-arrow, because, as you can see, we're still inside the rising RTC.

The Hoot

The same alert reader pointed out that having the "Bottom Line" up on top was kind of odd, and suggested I rename it to something more catchy, like "The Hoot".  Well, the Night Owl has to agree and gives that idea four hoots up.  Thanks Daniel and a tip of the Hatlo hat.  Starting next week, my actionable market call or the next day will still appear right up front but will be called "The Hoot".

Bias lower but way too uncertain to call Friday

The bottom line

Remember, I'm giving a quick "executive summary" right up front in each post now. If you want to know why I'm making these calls, read on.  Hey, read on anyway - it's fun.  Otherwise, here's all you need to know:

The technicals strongly suggest a lower close on Friday. But everything will depend on what Uncle Ben says.  There's really no way to make an informed call tonight.

Things are looking a bit more optimistic for next week.  The monthly outlook remains poor.

Recommendation: Do not trade ahead of Bernanke.  We want to ride on the bus, not lie down in front of it.

Why calculus is harder than the market

Back when I took calculus (about a million years ago), it was not enough to get the right answer on a test.  You had to have the right reason too.  In fact you got more credit for having the right reason and the wrong answer than the other way around. Fortunately, the stock market works exactly the opposite.  In the market, there is no credit for your reasoning, all that matters is having the right answer.

And so it was last night.  I thought we'd be down today because Steve Jobs quit.  Well we were indeed down, but it had more to do with rotten jobless numbers and fresh shenanigans on the Dax over in Europe.  Which explains why my other idea, that we'd recover as the day wore on, was wrong.  I'll bet also that people were pricing in disappointment over Uncle Ben's not-yet-issued pronouncement tomorrow.

To QE3 or not QE3, that is a heck of a question

I've actually rarely seen such widespread disagreement over an upcoming event.  I read a bunch of blogs and it seems that everyone has a different opinion of what Bernanke will say tomorrow.  So I might as well join in the fray.  Is QE3 coming?  I'm pretty sure Ben will announce something to prop up the market, in the form of QE or otherwise.  Considering that we seem to be teetering on the brink again, he doesn't have the luxury of sitting back and hoping things will just work themselves out.

But I don't think he'll announce it tomorrow.  And whatever he does say tomorrow, I'm willing to bet the markets aren't going to like it, given the nervous mood on the Street lately.  Unless perhaps he brings out President Obama who will tender his resignation on the spot.  And I'm pretty sure that isn't happening either.

The charts

Technically, all the charts look the same tonight.  I checked the Dow, the Nasdaq, the SPX and the SPY and at least they do all agree.  They all have a bearish engulfing pattern going on.  This is one of the strongest bearish patterns in the candlestick lexicon.

The VIX meanwhile put in a huge bullish engulfing pattern.  This coupled with a hammer the VIX futures put in strongly suggests the VIX going higher Friday.  Another point for the bear case.

The only factor in favor of the bulls right now at 1:35 AM is that all three market futures are now up around half a percent.  But ES is bobbing around like a cork in a hurricane - quite unusual for this normally sleepy time of night.  So I'm not even sure how much to read into it.

But again, none of this will matter a hoot (a Night Owl specialty) if Bernanke delivers some sort of Christmas in August surprise.  So tonight it's all pretty much just hunker down in your hurricane shelter and wait and see.  That's all she wrote.


News Flash: Bill Clinton Becomes a Vegan

Wait - that's not quite all she wrote.  Wonderful news tonight.  I just heard on TV that Bill Clinton has become a Vegan.  I know it's hard to believe, but if that's what it takes to get rid of this guy, then that's fine with me.  Vega, of course is the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere and a mere 25 light years from Earth.  I wish him well on his journey and hope they have dry cleaners in the Vegan solar system.  Oh and say, could you please take Obama with you?  Hasta la vista, ba-by.

ES Fantasy Trader

Oh, and another thing.  I'm not touching this one with a 25 light year pole.  Tonight I'm taking my own advice and I'm not even betting Obamabux on tomorrow's action.  See ya!

Jobs quits, look for reflex drop Thursday, then recovery

The bottom line

Starting today, I'm going to try something new.  I know how all too well the overwhelming deluge of information that's out on the web.  And I know that as much as I love explaining how I come to my conclusions, many people just want to get to the bottom line right away.  And I also realize that I seem to be going into more and more detail with my analyses as time goes by.

So from now on, I'm going to put the Bottom Line on top.  You'll be able to get my prediction for the next day (and sometimes week or month) right away.  Of course if you want to dig deeper I'm always delighted, but from now on the actionable news is right up front.

So what's the bottom line tonight?  The Steve Jobs resignation is going to weigh on the markets Thursday with the Nasdaq (obviously) taking the brunt of it.  Look for a lower open followed by a retracement.  I'm not looking for a big advance after this news.  The ES daily pivot of 1163.75 will be key.  Above, bullish, below bearish.  Plan your trades accordingly.

Now for the gory details.

The details

Dow daily

Last night I had some mixed messages and couldn't really come up with a convincing case for either the bulls or the bears.  I had a vague feeling we might go lower today (Wednesday), mainly because I found Tuesday's rally to be less than convincing.  However, I did point out that the ES daily pivot would hold the key to today's action, and so it did.

ES briefly dipped below 1145.92 twice around 3 to 4 AM, and then it was up up and away from there.  The Dow finished up a nice 144 points.  And so here's the chart.  The double bottom is progressing nicely.  Note one of the important points for a powerful indicator is already in place - the second leg of the "W" has a higher low than the first.

The breakout (and resistance level) is 11,450 (horizontal blue line).  With a close of 11,321 today, we're within easy striking distance of that tomorrow.  Can we do it?

Technically, I think we can.  Notice how all of the indicators have now bottomed and are headed higher.  The stochastic in particular (bottom row) just finished a bullish crossover.  And once again, the regression trend channel worked to perfection.  Yesterday I noted that the Dow's action, outside the RTC was a bullish trigger.  And so today was the payoff.

Meanwhile, the VIX sagged lower today by 1% and I see nothing there to indicate a possible reversal just yet.  And the VIX futures were lower again for the second day on increasing volume.  That's all positive for stocks.

However, Steve Jobs threw a big money wrench in the works by announcing he's packing it in this evening.  Although I have never particularly liked Apple products, Jobs' influence is undeniable.  And tonight the futures are telling the tale.  NQ is now down just about a full percent at 1 AM EDT.  And that's weighing on both ES and YM, both down about a third of a percent.

So my best guess is that we're going to be in for a sell-off at the opening bell on Thursday, followed by a retracement, maybe back to break-even.  Once again, the daily pivot will be key.  Tonight watch the 1163.75 level.  Holding above or bouncing off that is bullish, breaking under and staying under is bearish.

And I do wish Steve Jobs all the best and hope he pulls through.

ES Fantasy Trader

Well last night I went short despite a gut feeling that it might be better not to.  Turns out I should have paid attention to that.  I ended up covering at 1162.25 for a 14.25 loss.  Ouch.  That's 7125 Obamabucks down the drain.  But we're still in a tidy profit position with $116,000 after five trades (3 winners, 2 losers).

SLD    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1148.00   USD    GLOBEX    01:56:37

BOT    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1162.25   USD    GLOBEX    11:34:37 

Tonight I'm going to take a pass.  Withe the Jobs news, there's too much uncertainty to take out an overnight ES position.

Leaning bearish Wednesday, ES pivot is key

Last night's post was titled "Larger rally likely Tuesday" and that's exactly what we got today, a broad-based market advance that featured a big 322 point jump in the Dow with all 30 components up.  It was good to see but I'm afraid it was also too much of a good thing.  We have now retraced half of the latest big drop from the August 16th high and although the indicators are still oversold, volume has been lagging the past two days, indicating a lack of conviction to this buying.

However, the VIX, as I expected did drop an impressive 14.5% today on a solid red candle and the VIX futures have now peaked, also as I predicted.  But will the VIX continue to fall tomorrow?  I'm not so sure.  I think today's rally was based more on pre-Bernanke Jackson Hole enthusiasm that may or may not pan out on Friday.  When people wake up Wednesday morning and say to themselves, "I bought what yesterday?" they may have a change of heart.

Unfortunately, the Dow just barely exited its descending regression trend channel today and that is a bullish trigger.   So we sort of have a tie between bulls and bears tonight.  There is no clear direction here.

The bottom line

Therefore the deciding vote goes to the market futures, though there's mixed signals here too.  At 2:10 AM, they're voting thumbs down, being all in the red.  ES is now down three quarters of a percent.  However, the new ES daily pivot is 1145.92 and ES just bounced off that.  That's bullish.  So tonight I'm just going to punt and claim that if ES stays above its pivot between now and the open, we'll go higher on Wednesday.  If we fall through it, we'll close lower.  Watch the pivot - it is the key to Wednesday.

ES Fantasy Trader

I exited today's trade at 1143.25 after buying last night at 1123.00.

BOT    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1123.00    USD    GLOBEX    AUG 22 20:32:13

SLD    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1143.25    USD    GLOBEX    11:47:23

That's  20.25 points x $50 x 10 contracts = $10,125.  After four trades, the fasntasy account now stands at $123,125 with three wins and one loss.

Tonight (Tuesday night) I'm going short ES at 1148, but not feeling all that confident about it.

SLD    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1148.00    USD    GLOBEX    01:56:37   

Larger rally likely Tuesday, 30 day view bearish

Monthly SPX

Why I went bearish

Last night I wrote that we were overdue for a rally either today (Monday) or Tuesday. Turns out we got it Monday, though it was essentially all over in the first two minutes of trading. It was all downhill from there, and after the "Libya effect" subsided were were left with a puny 37 point gain in the Dow. But I'll take 37 points up over 600 down any day.

But tonight I bring you the SPX monthly chart, because today the weekly Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll came out. This represents peoples' opinions on where the SPX will be in 30 days. I voted "bearish" but it was a very difficult decision.

Looking at this monthly SPX chart we see first how the SPX fell off a cliff as soon as it exited the rising regression trend channel in July. Lesson one: do not underestimate the predictive power of the RTC. But note also how this month we dove and dove with nothing to stop us, until we hit... the 200 month moving average. The 200 MA is now 1102.55. The August low (so far) is 1101.54. Coincidence? I don't think so.  Lesson two: do not underestimate the 200 month MA.

The 200 month MA is powerful support. It marked the lows of 2010, where the bears tried to break it for four months in a row, unsuccessfully. But in October 2008, we broke under it and then went on to drop another 33%. So the question is: is now more like 2010 or 2008? And that's the crux of the problem. In some ways, now is not like 2008. In other ways, it's worse.

Here I give you what I'm calling the Chart of the Month:

This comes courtesy of the absolutely excellent daily newsletter from the Wells Fargo Economic Group (see http://www.wellsfargo.com/economicsemail to subscribe).

Today's topic was "Philadelphia Fed Index: Can It Predict a Recession?" and looking at this chart of GDP growth vs. the Philly Fed with recessions highlighted, I've got to say the answer is yes.  Out of the last seven recessions, every single time the PFI went under zero, we had a recession.  Seven out of seven.  The latest number?  Negative 30.7.  QED.  The next recession is coming, if it's not already here.

So unless Uncle Ben can pull a miracle out of his hat at Jackson Hole or soon after, things are looking very not so good.  Also I note that while the number of bears in the latest Ticker Sense poll increased, they're still not so plentiful as to constitute a bullish contrarian indicator.

The short run

So that's my longer view.  But what of tomorrow, Tuesday?  My pessimism does not extend to tomorrow.  In fact, things are looking not so bad right now.  The Dow put in an inverted hammer which is bullish.  And unless tomorrow's action is spectacularly bad (which as we've seen enough of lately it certainly could be) we could easily exit the four day descending regression channel the Dow is in now.  That would be a bullish setup

Meanwhile, the VIX today did come down as expected, although it did it in odd fashion on a gap down green candle.  It's a bit hard to tell much from that so we look next at the VIX futures.  The VM had another gap up day, even bigger than Friday's.  I'm looking for this gap to fill in, probably tomorrow.  Lower VM -> lower VIX -> higher stocks.

But the piece de resistance tonight has to be the market futures, all of which are up solidly at 1 AM EDT.  ES is now up 0.89% and has been trending higher since 8 PM.  More importantly, at 1133.25 it is now above its new daily pivot of 1127.  Tuesday this number is key.  Holding above it or bouncing off will be bullish.  Falling though it, bearish.  Also, ES has some pretty good support not far from here in the 1110-1120 area but very little resistance up to 1170.  Tonight the risk/reward favors the upside.

Personally, I think we're going higher tomorrow.

ES Fantasy Trader

Given all of this, tonight it seemed appropriate to go long again, so I picked up 10 more ES at 8:32 PM at 1123:

BOT    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1,123.000    USD    GLOBEX    AUG 22 20:32:13

Right now, it's looking good.

ES fantasy portfolio doing well - rally on tomorrow?

ES Fantasy Trader

I closed out last night's long trade at 1:10 PM today for a nice 10.5 point gain.  Why then?  Well after 6 consecutive 5-minute up candles, this was the first down one.  And also, I happened to be sitting in front of my monitor at the time.  It just looked like a good time not to be too greedy.

With 10 contracts, that's 5,250 Obama-bucks.  The ES paper trading account, after three sessions now stands at $123,125.  Dang - too bad I didn't do it for real, eh?

BOT    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1121.75    USD    GLOBEX    02:27:11 
SLD    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1132.25    USD    GLOBEX    13:10:00

I'm now watching the evening futures trading and will have my forecast for tomorrow later tonight, around 1 or 2 AM EDT.  I've got to say though that right now, at 7:50 PM, I'm not feeling the love.

War With China

Kick 'em when they're down

 Coming soon to a basketball court near you

The headline over on marketwatch.com a few weeks ago screamed "China rips U.S. on debt-rating downgrade". Apparently, the Chinese, as the US's largest single creditor, now feel that gives them the right to hector us to the effect that we must slash "gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs” and accept international supervision over U.S. dollar issues." Of all the unmitigated gall.

And just this past weekend we get an absolutely iconic image right here that's worth a lot more than 10,000 words: a Chinese basketball player putting the boot to an American lying on the ground.  You couldn't have posed anything nearly so telling.

Communist China, the country that stole all our jobs, sends us deadly dog food, defective drywlla, toxic toothpaste, dangerous drugs, and cheap garbagy electronics that break the first time you try to use them, suddenly has the nerve to tell us how to run our country? Communist China, the country with the worst human rights record on the planet with the possible exception of their puppet client state of North Korea, the country that is so afraid of freedom of expression that they kicked out Google, the country that mowed down its own citizens in Tienamin Square for having the audacity to conduct peaceful protests, this antisocial rogue nation has the temerity to tell the US what to do? This is simply beyond outrage.

Now the great irony of course is that they're absolutely right. We are wasting tremendous sums of money on all sorts of stuff we obviously simply can't afford.  This can't go on forever.  But gosh darn it all, we don't want to hear it from them.

The lessons of history

In the meantime, I'm going to go waaay out on a limb and at the risk of sounding like a crackpot, predict that World War III is already on the distant horizon.  It's not entirely clear where the lines will be drawn but I'm pretty sure that this time it will go something like this: the US, plus her traditional allies like Britain, the British Commonwealth nations (Canada, etc.), and France, plus our former enemies, now great allies, Germany and Japan, versus Russia, Iran, China, and their hangers-on, ie. North Korea, Pakistan, and Venezuala.

In some sense, the war's already on.  Just look at the picture again.  Then consider all the recent episodes of cyber-hacking against the US originating freom China.  China knows they cannot defeat us militarily (yet) so they are concentrating on other less obvious means.  Just as Sun Tzu advocated a few thousand years ago.  Dodgy exports and computer hacking are the least of it.  China's shameful currency manipulation shenanigans don't get nearly the blame they deserve.

Basically, the Chinese have been cased for the West since the advent of the 19th century missionaries who thought it would be a good idea for them to all become Christians.  That's what the Boxer Rebellion was all about - to kick out the "white devils".  Then America had the misfortune to back the wrong side in World War II.  China has never forgiven us for supporting Chiang Kai Shek and his nationalists instead of Chairman Mao.  Now they're out for revenge.

What can we do?

Not a whole heck of a lot, I'm afraid.  Personally, I've got *.cn blocked at my router.  I also check the tags now of everything I buy for the "Made in China" warning label.  Admittedly,  it's sometimes hard to find an alternative, but I'd rather buy jeans from Mexico or Thailand than anything from China.  Beyond that, God help us.

Rally coming if not Monday then Tuesday

Daily VIX

 My weekend reading of the blogosphere leads me to conclude that opinion is still pretty well evenly divided between the bulls and the bears, as borne out in last week's Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll. 

The VIX

For my money (or at least what's left of it), the most interesting chart last week was the VIX. Here's the VIX daily chart. Although the VIX closed on Friday just a hair above the day before, it formed a pretty good bearish hanging man candle in the process.

While one should wait for confirmation of a hanging man the following day, I do find this development encouraging. The other interesting thing is that the VIX appears to be putting in a double top. Bill Luby in Vix and More nicely points it out in his latest post. The gist is that if this is in fact a top, then we should be looking for the VIX to decline this coming week. And as we know, lower VIX implies higher stocks.

And although the daily indicators on the VIX are not oversold, the indicators for the weekly VIX definitely are.  We also note that for two weeks now, the VIX has found resistance around 45, corresponding to the highs of May of last year, when the Greece hit the fan (the first time).  Tomorrow will tell the tale, but it's sure looking like the VIX is ready to go lower.

The futures

The market futures, however, aren't buying it, at least not just yet.  ES, for example, enjoys some pretty good support around 1110.  Right now, at 8 PM EDT Sunday night we are running at 1117.50, down just over half a percent.  With the daily pivot at 1153.92 completely out of the running, it's not at all clear that a rally is in the cards for Monday.

I'm not even going to try to call the entire upcoming week this time.  There's just too much global uncertainty and a whole bunch of fundamental newsmakers out there coming up, from Jackson's Hole to Libya.

ES Fantasy Trader

I lost my nerve and covered Thursday night's short at 1138.50 on Friday just before noon for a 1.5 point loss.  As it turns out, had I closed either earlier or later, I would have turned a profit.  But that's how it goes.  We lost 750 Obamabucks on that one but that still leaves the account at a respectable $117,875 after two sessions, not too shabby. I'll post tonight's trade in my late-nite update (below).

The bottom line

It's looking like we're overdue for some sort of rally, if not tomorrow, then even more likely Tuesday.  Watch here for my late-nite update.  The longer term picture is a bit more complex - we'll get into that tomorrow night.

The late-nite update

At 2:30 AM EDT it appears that the futures are slowly gaining ground.  Therefore, given the current state of the VIX and the fact that both the Dow and SPX are very near some good support levels, I am going to gingerly put on my long hat for Monday.  If that doesn't pan out, I expect it will on Tuesday.  And accordingly I just went long ES.  Here's the trade:

BOT    10    ES    false    SEP11 Futures     1,121.750    USD    GLOBEX    02:27:11