One more up day possible

My call last night for a higher close today proved to be correct, with the Dow gaining another 93 points.  Today's close at 12,719 leaves us just 62 points shy of the May 10th high, and not much further from the YTD high on May 2nd.  Tonight I'm going to base my call entirely on the candlestick pattern, since I'm just not feeling the love from either the futures (which are basically flat at 1:45 AM EDT) or the VIX (which is acting oddly today).

That leaves us with a recent daily chart starting on June 27th with five big solid green candles, one small doji of indecision and then two more green candles, smaller but still solid, indicating that the indecision was resolved to the upside.  There is not even the hint of a reversal pattern here and volume increased today over yesterday, so I'm going to have to say that we still have room to run at least another 50 points higher tomorrow.

The indicators are all still in "oversold broken" territory, so there's nothing to see there.  J'Trader's Market Analysis system went short today.  I think that might be a day early, but we'll see.  I could be wrong, and Lord knows I am often enough, but I just don't see the selling pressure yet.

Oh, one more thought - there are some big jobs numbers coming out tomorrow and the buzz on the Street is that they're going to come in BTE.  I don't know how they decide this, but these rumors seem to be right more often than not.  So that could also provide a boost to tomorrow's results.  That's all she wrote.

Indecision resolved to the up side, more gains possible

Yesterday, I wrote that the market should be going lower today. The 56 point gain in the Dow we got instead proves once again why you should never use the word "should" when talking about the market. In my defense, I will point out that I was concerned that the futures were not echoing what looked like bearish chart patterns. Turns out I should have (oops - there I go again) had more faith in the futures.

One call I did get right was the VIX, which also went higher today, though not by much. Anyway, if you look at the Dow chart, you see Monday's big run-up followed by yesterday's doji indicating indecision. The decision was made today, and it's up. And having broken out over the resistance highs from the last two days, it appears that there there is no further resistance until 12,760, another 150 points from here.

And the futures are up once again this evening at 1 AM EDT, only tonight they're up even more than last night at this hour, with ES up over half a percent, a strong showing for this hour. I learned that lesson last night - I'm not going to vote against the futures tonight.

We're apparently now in one of these phases where the indicators all get broken at oversold levels and lose their predictive power. Sometimes this can go on for days. Back in March, we stayed oversold for two whole weeks before pulling back.

I checked on J-Trader's Market Analysis and note that he has canceled his short signal too, so I guess I wasn't the only one who got fooled here. Sometimes it just all boils down to, you can't fight the tape, the trend is your friend [insert favorite market cliche here] so my best guess is that we're going higher again tomorrow.

More mixed signals

Yesterday I was thinking today would go lower and indeed it did, though admittedly not by much.  And the Nasdaq actually managed to go higher, but it often marches to the beat of its own drummer, so I don't really follow it.

Now here's what's odd.  It's 1:15 AM EDT right now and all three futures are up.  ES is up 0.17%, NQ is up 0.22% and YM is up 0.15%.  Why is this odd?  Because today the Dow put in a small doji at the top of last Friday's tall green candle.  It almost looks like day 2 of an evening star.  And the Dow's indicators are all topping at overbought levels.

What's more, I was right about the VIX today too.  Remember those two hammers from last week.  Well they pounded the VIX higher today, leaving its own indicators looking like they have bottomed.  The VIX certainly seems poised to go higher still tomorrow, implying lower stocks.  And J-Trader's system is sticking to its guns on its now two day old short call.

Returning to the Dow again, today's close made two days we hit the 12,570 level - a resistance line we tried to break, unsuccessfully, twice in May.  And a quick look at the daily dollar chart looks like it's getting ready to go higher tomorrow too, implying lower stocks.

It looks for all the world like this market should be going lower tomorrow.  In fact, I even took out a position in SDS today to hedge against that.  So I don't get it - with all these warning bells going off, why are the futures higher tonight?  I always hate to go against the futures, but right now I have to go with the charts and say tomorrow is looking bearish.  It will be most interesting to see how this plays out.

Profit taking possible Tuesday

I hope you all had a pleasant 4th of July and a nice break from the markets.  But now it's time to get back to work.  After last week's monster advance, I'd be tempted to go short at time point just on the principle of not being too greedy if nothing else.  Indeed, J-Trader's timing system (that I mentioned in my previous post) has apparently issued a short signal.

So let's start off with one of my favorite charts, the VIX. In this daily chart, you can see how the VIX hit its lower Bollinger band three days ago and has been dribbling down it ever since. It's now formed two consecutive hammers, and as we know, two hammers are better than one. With its indicators all oversold and having bounced off its recent 15.5 support area, I'd say the VIX looks more likely to go higher than lower at this point. Higher VIX implies lower stocks. If not tomorrow, then the next day.

Meanwhile, the Dow daily chart is definitely in overbought territory now and its short stochastic looks ready to execute a bearish crossover. Its momentum has also peaked and is headed lower. The Dow's daily pivot at 12,528 has also moved much closer to the last close at 12,583. A break below the pivot tomorrow would definitely be bearish. We could conceivably open below it for that matter.

Finally, not much guidance from the futures at 1 AM EDT. NQ and YM are up a bit and ES is down just 0.15%. Notably, the ES pivot is now 1332.25 and we just bounced off that level in the last five 5-minute candles. A break under this level before the open Tuesday morning will also be bearish.

This being a holiday-shortened week in which I think many of the big players will be on vacation, it's possible anything could happen, but right now things aren't looking too positive. Though I hesitate to actually put on my short hat just yet, I'm reaching for it and I'd definitely be looking to take any short-term profits tomorrow . In any case, I wouldn't be looking to be a buyer at these levels.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!

Today we celebrate Independence Day and the founding of America, a land that for all its faults, is still the envy of the world.

A Trader's Library

It's the start of a long weekend, so I thought I'd share what I read every day to get a feel for the markets.  There's so much stuff out there, it's impossible for any one person to cover it all.  But here's what I've found useful, so head to the beach, load up your laptop or Eye-Pad, and enjoy!

http://www.marketwatch.com/  Marketwatch is a nice web site full of both news and interesting commentary.  It also has a very active user community that never fails to chime in on most any topic.  I find that reading the comments is often as useful as the articles, mostly for their contrarian value.

http://www.finviz.com/  Finviz is the Swiss Army knife of financial web sites.  Its main focus is on charts and numbers rather than news and commentary.  It's fast, free, and well laid out.  It also has a great stock screener.

http://seekingalpha.com/ Seeking Alpha is more for the serious trader than Marketwatch.  Lots of excellent news and commentary here too.  The user contributions tend to be more sophisticated than over on Marketwatch.

http://www.morningstar.com/ A relatively new addition to my reading list, Morningstar has an extensive site, most of which I haven't explored yet.  This is where I get the Morningstar Market Fair Value Indicator I often refer to in my posts.

In addition to these web sites, there are a few blogs I read:

http://quantifiableedges.blogspot.com/  Quantifiable Edges, by Rob Hanna is interesting.  Most every day, he does an analysis of what happened in the past when certain current market trends existed, carrying out the results of a hypothetical investment 10 days.  There's also a paid section (that I don't subscribe to).

http://humblestudentofthemarkets.blogspot.com  Cam Hui is the Humble Student of the Markets and publishes interesting macro-view commentary on market-related topics.  His blog is well-written, well-researched, and thought provoking.

 http://www.buysellmodel.com/ This is J-Trader's Market Analysis.  He recently was kind enough to contact me and bring this blog to my attention.  He has a quant system going that he makes freely available and posts daily updates.  I've just started following this one, but it looks pretty impressive so far.

This isn't reading, but I also generally have CNBC going on a separate monitor, usually with the sound down low.  I never make trading decisions based on the endless parade of talking heads that appear there, but I find it is a useful source for breaking news.  You can subscribe to a real-time news feed, but then you're stuck having to watch and evaluate every item that pops up to get any benefit from it.  CNBC does this work for you.

And finally, although this one is no longer published, it is the greatest gem in the blogosphere on the psychology of trading as far as I'm concerned.  I refer of course to the great Dr. Brett Steenbarger's http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/.  He was kind enough to leave it up when he took his services private last year.  Even though it's no longer current, I highly recommend it to anyone who trades the market, from beginner to expert.  There's something in here for everyone.

All of these sources are free.  I don't subscribe to any pay services, not particularly because they're any better or worse, but simply because there's already so much good free information out there, I would never have time to get around to anything more.

Disclaimer:  I have no affiliation with any of these information sources in any way other than as a regular reader.

The Dow comes through - can it last?

Last Sunday I was very wrong about my call for the week.  But I think I made up for it last night when I gave nine reasons why the Dow would go up today, and only two half-hearted reasons why it might go down.  Turns out 9 beats 2 every time with a whopping 168 point gain to start off July with a bang and cap off an impressive solid five day winning streak.  I started a new rising regression trend channel and it came up with a Pearson coefficient of 0.991, about the highest I've ever seen.  And that's reflected in the daily momentum, which now stands at 68.75.

And that's sort of a problem.  We don't like to see momentum get this high because at these levels it's an overbought indicator.  For that matter, RSI is now in overbought territory and the short stochastic is peaking and looking like it's about to execute a bearish crossover.

I'm going to take a longer view on the monthly chart later this weekend, but for now I will say that after this great run, my initial reaction is to be cautious for next week.  More details to follow.

Nine reasons why we can go higher on July 1st

One thing I like about the market is there's always something astonishing going on. Today it was the 154 point solid green candle the Dow put in. In just four days, we erased very nearly all of the losses from the entire month of June. Amazing.

So after such a big four day rally, can we still possibly go any higher? I get nervous saying it, but I think we still can, and here are no fewer than nine reasons why:

1. Today's gain was a solid green candle with no hint of indecision to it, not like a doji or other potential reversal indicators.

2. This week started off with a three white soldiers pattern and that's usually a very good rally indicator. Today's gain confirmed that.

3. Tuesday we exited the descending regression trend channel that's been bedeviling us since the start of May. That was a bullish trigger, and when that trigger was pulled, the bull ran like mad.

4. Tomorrow is July 1st. The first day of the month is historically bullish.

5. Today the Morningstar Market Fair Value Indicator, which has been gaining over the last few days went back over 1.0 for the first time since the beginning of June. That is not consistent with further market deterioration.

6. Both the Dow and ES are well above their daily pivot points, though not yet so far as to be overextended.

7. Just as the market put in a double bottom this week, the dollar put in a double top and broke under its confirmation line today. It shows no sign of turning tomorrow. Lower dollar, higher stocks.

8. The Dow weekly chart is still looking very strong.

9.  Volume has been increasing for the past three days, indicating we're not running out of buyers just yet.

And I've only got two contrary signs:

1. The VIX fell again today as I had expected and actually hit its lower Bollinger band before ending up forming a hammer. That is a potential reversal sign. Right now the VIX looks to have more chance of moving higher tomorrow than lower. Higher VIX, lower stocks. But remember, the market can lag a turn in the VIX by up to two days, so even a higher VIX tomorrow does not necessarily preclude further gains.

2. The ES indicators have now climbed into overbought territory.  But that can often go on for several days before the top is in, so that's not really 100% reliable at this point.

I guess we'll just have to see.

Still more gains possible

[Note - unfortunately, Blogspot went down last night just as I was about to publish this post. So here it is on Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night. Sorry.]

Sunday night I wrote that the outlook for this week was "very gloomy". Right now, that's getting my nomination for my worst call of the year, and it's only half over. We've been up three for three. And like Doublemint gum, today's 73 point gain in the Dow gave us two, two, two bullish signals in one. First, we broke above the 12,189 resistance level that formed the top of the double bottom formed this month. That's a classic bullish signal. And second, the long descending regression trend channel from May 2nd is now definitely broken.

In addition, the daily 200 MA (dotted orange line in the chart) is now flattening out as the gains from earlier this year fall over the event horizon. This makes it harder for any drops to hit it (now at 11,802). And while we did hit the upper Bollinger band today, the weekly Dow chart remains quite strong.

I actually think we still have room to run higher over the next two days, mostly based on the VIX. Yesterday the VIX put in a big hanging man. That was confirmed today with a long red candle providing a nearly 10% drop to close at 17.27. VIX now has no support until 15.5 and its lower Bollinger band isn't til 13.45. Its indicators are also all on their way lower.  Lower VIX, higher stocks.

A tale of two regressions

Last night I was so uncertain I didn't even attempt making a daily market call. Turns out the Dow went up another 145 points. Where it ended is important. This number, 12,189 (blue line) is exactly the highs from our earlier rally this month. It was also support for the April lows and even the early March consolidation we saw.

I see three things going on here. First is it looks a lot to me like we have put in a double bottom this month, and that is a bullish reversal indicator. It remains to be seen if we can break out above the 12,189 resistance line to confirm that.

Second and third are the two regression trend channels on this daily Dow chart. We exited the first, shorter one eight days ago. We saw the bullish setup, and then the trigger, and we have indeed since gone higher. Now look at the other longer RTC going from May 2nd. Today we closed convincingly above its right edge. That is a bullish setup. If we can close outside the channel tomorrow, that will be a bullish trigger. That makes two bullish technical signs.

Meanwhile the weekly chart is also still looking bullish with the RSI and stochastic both having bottomed off highly oversold levels. There's not much guidance from the VIX tonight, having fallen into the middle of its Bollinger band range.

The futures meanwhile have been sagging a bit into the overnight and are now down about 0.2% at 1:30 AM EDT. ES is at 1291.75 which puts it in striking distance of tomorrow's daily pivot of 1287. That's tonight's key number, if we do go lower into the night and bounce off the pivot, things are looking good for tomorrow. But if we go through the pivot, then watch out.

After two days of such large gains (and note the declining volume there), I'm not at all sure that we can sustain this momentum into tomorrow, but I'm thinking we have a good shot of ending the week higher. Note that the week ends on July 1st, and that is a historically bullish day.

Whipsawed

Last Thursday night I thought the market would go up on Friday.  Instead, it went down - big.  Last night I thought the market would go down today and that's right, it went up - big.  With today's gain virtually equaling Friday's loss, I don't see any predictive power in the daily charts at all right now.

When we get into states like this, I like to back out to the weekly chart.  This paints a much more clear picture and a very bullish one as this Dow weekly chart shows.

On the weekly chart, all the daily lines kind of just merge together, but what emerges is a picture of support forming around the 12,000 level. But the most prominent feature is the stochastic (bottom indicator) which is currently highly oversold and has just executed a bullish crossover. This is a very reliable indicator and right now it's more oversold than I've ever seen it, including at any point in the Great Recession.. The current weekly candle has also already exited the descending RTC channel from the beginning of May, and that's also bullish.

On the other hand, the monthly Dow chart still looks weak. So at this point about all I can say is that on a weekly basis, things are looking up, in the longer term, say a month or two, not so hot, and I have no idea where we're going tomorrow.

Very gloomy weekly outlook

With a fair number of good news items out late Thursday and the futures trending higher, I really thought there would be some follow-through on Friday to carry the market higher, despite charts that looked bearish.  Wow - was I ever wrong.  It looks like I am going to have to put my short hat on now simply because I had to eat my long hat.


Not that there isn't ample reason this Sunday evening to be gloomy for the upcoming week.  Check out the daily Dow chart here. This chart has the same markings I put down on June 12th showing four possible 200 MA intercept points. My guess back then was that we were headed for point C, being 11,819 three days from now. After last week's four day rally, it was looking like the intercept might not happen at all. Unfortunately, it now looks like we are right back on track for point C. And when we hit it, the market is going to go lower, probably to retest the March lows at 11,614. If that fails to hold, things could get really ugly.

Right now, the Dow has come off its overbought levels of last week but it still has lower to go before being anywhere near oversold. Of greater concern is that the selling volume has been increasing over the last three days. Also,the last week of June is historically a poor performer.

Next we see that the VIX executed a bullish engulfing pattern, which is generally a strong indicator that it is ready to go higher, and that is bad for stocks. Also, the VIX's indicators have all bottomed and its stochastic in particular has executed a bullish crossover. VIX higher, stocks lower.

Then we have Morningstar's Market Fair Value indicator, which remains at 0.95 and has been below 1.0 all month. We're not going to see a meaningful rally until that goes higher.

Add to this that all three futures I watch (ES, NQ, and YM) are down at the moment at 1 AM EDT by about a quarter of a percent, and the fact that last week's good news failed to inspire a rally as I had thought it might, and I'm not seeing much to drive this market higher tomorrow. I'm going to look for a lower close tomorrow, and quite possibly for the week as a whole. I was right 3 out of 5 times last week; let's see if I can do better this week.

Friday prospects looking good

Give it a rest

Technical analysis is a great tool and I use it all the time, but I'll admit that there are times when you need to give it a rest.  I believe that tonight is one of those times.  Technically, the daily Dow chart looks like it's rolling over again.  Four nice up days, then a dark cloud cover and another down day today  Not so hot.  Then all the indicators have peaked at oversold levels and started heading lower.  That's usually a bearish sign.

But not tonight.  I am going to call tomorrow higher right here and now because I believe the market is now in one of its news-driven modes rather than its usual technical mode.  And the news today is quite bullish.  First we had the big oil dump which sent the price of crude lower.  Next we're hearing positive noises about the EU and IMF  concerning the Greek problem.   And now we hear that the Premier of Communist China made comments in the Friday edition London's Financial Times to the effect that he's declaring victory over inflation.

The futures are definitely liking something right now, with all three in the green, and I'll bet this is what's driving them.  ES in particular  is up nearly six tenths of a percent at 1:30 AM.  And at 1284.50, it is well above Friday's daily pivot of 1271.58.

Now I'll admit that today's Dow candle could be taken either as a hanging man if you consider it as a termination of our earlier four day winning streak, or a hammer, if you take it as a reversal of yesterday's losing session.  I'm leaning more to the hammer theory at this point.

Then the VIX put in one of these topsy-turvy days where it closed higher on a gap-up red candle.  When the VIX has one of these gaps up in the middle of its Bollinger bands, it very often tends to resolve by filling the gap.  If tomorrow holds true, then the VIX should go lower, and stocks higher.

Given all of this, I'd be nervous going into Friday with my short hat on.  I'm three for four on market direction calls this week.  Let's see if I can make it four out of five.

Lower Thursday looking more likely

Last night I wasn't quite sure how today would go, though I was feeling a bit negative about things.  Well we were actually up a good part of the day until Uncle Ben came to my rescue by tanking the market with his speech this afternoon.  Thanks, pal - you helped me improve my record for the week so far to 2 out of 3.

In a way, he made my job easier for tomorrow though.  Today's Dow candle ended up forming basically a bearish dark cloud cover.  The bullish trigger I was looking for out of the May 2nd descending RTC did not occur, so we remain in that downtrend, just.  Today's 80 point drop also caused the RSI and momentum to put in an overbought top.

Meanwhile, the VIX put in a second hammer today.  It's 18.52 close left it just under  its 200 day MA at 18.79 and its daily pivot at 18.68.  And its indicators inched closed to showing oversold.  It's looking like the VIX would rather go higher tomorrow than lower, a bearish sign for stocks.

Looking at oil next, it appears to have put in a daily bottom yesterday and could move higher tomorrow.  That's also bearish for stocks since oil is now back in an inverse correlation with the markets.

Turning to the futures, they're all lower by about a third of a percent at 1:30 AM EDT.  Tomorrow's ES daily pivot is 1284.33, virtually the same as today, and we're already well below that at 1275.25.  We won't go higher unless we can break above this level.

Put it all together and what do you get?  Looking for lower once again.

The weekly charts, on the other hand are a different matter.  I think we're pretty safe from hitting any 200 MA's this week.  The Dow weekly chart right now is looking extremely oversold.  We'll take another look as this week's candle fills in.

Looking a bit negative for Wednesday

Sunday night I was wrong in calling the market lower for Monday, but I kind of redeemed myself by looking for higher today.  We got that in a big way with a 110 point pop in the Dow.  Today's action, coupled with three consecutive previous up days, makes the theory of a down week look a lot less likely.  And the 200 MA intercept I've been predicting for Friday - well I think we can fugeddabout it.

The Dow is now completely out of the June 1st descending RTC.  The RTC worked perfectly here.  Friday was the setup, Monday we cleared the line and that was the trigger.  Today was the payoff.  In fact today's gains now give us a bullish trigger on the longer term May 2nd descending RTC.  We also handily cleared the 12075-12,100 resistance zone today - also bullish.

That said, I'm not so sure about tomorrow.  The VIX did in fact go lower today, but it put in a classic hammer in the process and that's a reversal candle.  It also found support right at its 200 day MA which could help keep it from continuing lower.  VIX no lower, stocks no higher.  And all three futures are lower, though not particularly convincingly so.

So I don't know.  The whole setup is looking a lot like what we saw back on May 24th through the 31st, almost candle for candle, and I sure got burned jumping over those candles.  So now I need the Dow to put in a green candle entirely outside this May 2nd RTC before declaring the downtrend over.  I sure don't want to get fooled by that one again.

And then tomorrow is a Fed day again, so there's no telling how that will affect the charts (though I do not expect any real earth shattering statements from them tomorrow).  So bottom line: my bias for Wednesday is slightly negative, but I'm not really confident about it.  It will be a key day technically to determine if we can break our month and a half long down trend.

Another up day possible Tuesday

Oops.  What can I say?  I thought for sure we were going lower today.  In retrospect, I let the recent wave of negativity, along with some bad futures numbers late last night overcome my views of the technical indicators which have been screaming "oversold" for some time now.  I also failed to give enough weight to the all-important VIX which hit its upper Bollinger band.  That in itself is always a bullish sign for stocks.

And that was the problem, because after seeing oversold indicators for so long, but still going lower, eventually you stop believing in the indicators, like the boy who cried wolf.  But in the end the indicators came though and we went up today, an impressive 72 Dow points, not down as I had thought last night.

Now this presents us with an interesting problem.  With three consecutive up sessions, I have to wonder if the Dow is going to encounter the 200 day MA this Friday after all.  Today's close at 12,076 parked exactly along a two week long resistance line.  Tomorrow's action will be key.  If we can break up above this level, then I'm more encouraged for the end of the week.  Today's action, a long green candle, was bullish enough.  We broke over the daily pivot around 10 AM and it was up up and away from there.

Similarly, ES broke above its daily pivot yesterday and hasn't come back since.  Tomorrow's pivot is 1267.25.  We're comfortably above that at 1274.75 right now at 1:25 AM EDT.  All that's left is to see if we can finally put in a higher high, something that hasn't really happened since the beginning of May.  That would be quite bullish.

In the meantime, we have exited the Dow's June 1st descending RTC, also a bullish sign, but we remain inside the longer May 2nd descending RTC, so that trend remains down.  However, it will only take two days to exit that one if we continue along the lines of the last few days.  And if that happens, that would really be bullish, given the week historical nature of this week in June.

Finally, with the VIX taking a big tumble today from its upper Bollinger band (as I thought it would) and all three futures up by non-trivial levels I have to go with my long hat for tomorrow.  I could be wrong.  God knows I was today.

The Week Ahead

So much for streaks

Well I guess it turns out  that six was the magic number.  Last week the Dow snapped a record but one losing streak at six weeks in a row, with a 43 point gain to finish the week up a modest 59 points.  So for the folks holding out for a record tying seven straight week down, close but no cigar.

In a way, I would have been happier if the week had ended lower.  That would have decreased the historical odds that this coming week would end lower.  Had we gone down seven weeks in a row, that would put us in record territory, since the Dow has never gone down more than seven in a row, at least not in the 82 years a I looked at (see earlier posts).

Greece is the word

So where do we go next? A tip of  the Hatlo hat tonight to Greg Salvaggio, a senior vice president for Tempus Consulting who made what I'm going to call the Quote of the Week:

“The ECB made a valid point: if it was Greece alone they’d let it default, but there’s a strong argument for the contagion effect and the precarious state of markets since the financial crisis,"

So there you have it: Domino Theory, 2011. As Greece goes, so go we all. If we can avert this modern day Greek tragedy, undeserving though they may be, we may yet avert the dreaded double dip.

 The lessons of history

So much for the good news. Now here's the bad news, courtesy of The Stock Traders Almanac:

"Week After June Triple Witching, Dow Down 11 in a Row and 18 of Last 20"

Holy moly, 11 in a row??  Last week I asked if you were really going to fight the odds that the market could continue lower after six straight down weeks. Tonight I have to wonder about these particular odds.  18 out of 20?

The futures

But, but - tonight we take a look at the ES futures, and note that we're now looking at the September contract, ES U1.

Since it's a new week, here's the weekly chart. Two things jump out: we're technically quite oversold, and we're at a decent support level at 1263 (blue line). After two long red candles, last week formed a doji, indicating classical indecision in the market. this is a reversal indicator, though admittedly one that requires confirmation.

The RTC for the daily ES chart shows that we have exited the descending channel that began on June 1st. That is a bullish setup. The Dow is still headed for an unpleasant encounter with its 200 day MA as I've discussed previously, however, the momentum of its descant seems to be slowing.

I think Monday's action will set the tone for the entire week. I'll have a better idea later on tonight when I can get a handle on the overnight - come back around 2 AM for an update.

Late night update

Well, it's 1:30 AM and the futures have spoken.  All three are down and ES is not only down more than half a percent, but at 1259.25 it's a full 8 points below Monday's daily pivot at 1267.25.  And that also means the 1263 support line caved in just like that.  Apparently Greece may be the word but it isn't the last word, and traders are not impressed by the Europeans' latest can kicking efforts.  At least not tonight.

So while we do have some mixed signals among the tea leaves for the week ahead, I think we're going lower tomorrow.

A tough call for Friday

Last night I wrote that it would not surprise me to see the Dow go lower today, but that an overall up week was not out of the question.

Well the Nasdaq did go lower today but while the Dow also went lower for a while today it finally managed to close up a respectable 64 points. And it was the kind of points I like to see. I'd much rather get two 64 point up days than one 128 point up day followed by 192 points down. And interestingly, unlike the last 10 straight sessions the 3 PM sellers failed to show up today. That's different. Indeed rather than knocking 'em down into the close, they kicked 'em up.

Turning to our daily Dow chart with my four 200 MA possible intercept points, we see that the 200 MA continues to creep up, standing now at 11,726, just 236 points away from today's close. Point B is now off the table, but my earlier prediction of point C (11,835 next Friday) is still on track. That said, being as today's close actually leaves us 17 points above Monday's open, it's also still possible for us to end the week up, thus breaking the six week losing streak.

So will the Dow close higher tomorrow and break the streak? Hard to say. The VIX today put in a shooting star today, albeit not a great one. Shooting stars are usually really good reversal patterns, but the real body of this one is a bit on the long side, so it may not work. However, today makes two days that the VIX closed above its upper Bollinger band and even in the depths of the Great Recession, whenever this happened, it goes lower the next day, implying higher stocks.

However, all three futures are lower right now at 1:30 AM EDT and ES in particular just broke under its new daily pivot at 1267. That is bearish. On the other hand, ES is near a support level (1266) that has been tested three times in the last five sessions and has held each time.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is a triple witching, with all the volatility that implies. According to The Stock Traders Almanac, the Dow has been down 7 of the last 12 years on this day by an average of 0.5%. So it really could go either way.

As I write this, ES has found support and bounced off 1266.25. If we do go lower tomorrow, that will be particularly bearish, momentum-wise for next week. It will be very interesting to see what happens when we reach the 200 MA.  But I'm still not comfortable making a call right now for tomorrow.  Just watch that pivot.  On the other hand, I'm fairly sure we're going to see some lower action by the end of the month.

Trades

I just completed a quick trade in OMEX, Odyssey Marine. In at 3.02 on Tuesday, out today at 3.63. In this kind of crazy yo-yo environment, I'm making trades that are either shorter or longer than usual, when I'm trading at all.  I'm now overall 2/3 cash, 1/3 long.

No rally in sight, more bad news in store next week

Last night I thought the Dow would go lower today, but only by maybe 50 points. But I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition. That or the 179 point tanking we got. We're now in one of these stages where Mr. Market is totally off his meds, up big, down big, up, down, with the VIX today blasting to 21.32 for nearly a 17% jump.

There's absolutely no way to predict where we're going the next day in this kind of environment, so I will bring back the daily chart I put up four days ago to see where we might be by the end of June. Recall that the descending RTC's we're in intersect the rising 200 MA at four different points I labeled A-D. Point A has already gone by. I still think we're headed towards point C, which would be 11,835 on 6/24, that being next Friday.

Point B is still not entirely off the table though.  After today's pounding, it's only 168 points away from here, and we dropped more than that today alone.  However, if we don't go down that much tomorrow, then we have a few more days to go before hitting the 200 MA.

Wherever it is, I still believe that when we do reach the 200 MA, it will trigger a quick drop to test the March lows at 11,615.  Below that, there's no support until 11,434.  Then we go straight to  the next support at 11,000, the early 2010 highs.

Until then, every time some overpaid, keep your hands off my stack Greek railroad conductor decides he needs to start throwing Molotov cocktails to ward off the possibility that he might (gasp) have to work beyond 50, then the market will go down more.  That or our pal J.C. "zut alors" Trichet opening his mouth for any reason, or Uncle Ben, or actually just about anything at this point.

Can we go lower tomorrow?  Sure - I see no technical reason not to right now.  At 1:30 AM the futures are all flat.  The daily ES pivot is now at 1271 and we're already 5 points below that.  ES is going to be hard pressed to break over that level tomorrow.  And tomorrow there's a whole slew of economic news coming out, including the Philly Fed that a lot of people seem to put a lot of stock (no pun intended) in.  And given how stinko most of  the recent news has been lately, I doubt we're going to get anything that will give the market a boost.

But right now, perhaps surprisingly, a higher close for the week is actually still not yet out of the question, as we're still only about 50 points below Monday's open.  And here's something reallystrange: today the weekly RSI number hit zero.  It doesn't go any lower than that.  That's lower than it was at any point during the Great Recession, including the Lehmann panic week.  In the whole time I've been trading, I've never seen RSI go this low.

Meanwhile the monthly charts are looking grim as ever.  The 200 month MA now stands at 9,532.  Since it's slowly rising, it's not even out of the question that we could reach that in a month or two.  The monthly indicators have all peaked, but they're still just coming off their overbought extremes.  And to round things out, the Morningstar numbers remain entrenched below 1.0.  Don't look for any meaningful rally until that improves.  It is what it is.

Maybe lower Wednesday but seven down weeks looking less likely

What a difference a day makes.  Last night I wrote "I do think we're going higher tomorrow.".  And did we ever.  The Dow gained 123 points and I had my best day of the year so far, up 1.58%.  The Dow's gain completes a truly classic morning doji star pattern, and this is one of the strongest bullish reversal patterns around.

It also brought us entirely outside the steep descending RTC from the start of June, strongly suggesting that this particular trend is now broken.  In fact, looking at the Dow daily chart, it looks like we're now more in a sideways consolidation pattern than a steep decline.  And at this point I'm willing to say that point "B" from my earlier post is now also off the table (where the RTC would hypothetically intersect the 200 MA).

In fact, the indicators are also quite bullish.  Right now, the stochastic, RTC, money flow and momentum have all bottomed and turned upward from their mega-oversold levels.  That's bullish.

Then we have the VIX.  Last night I said

As I've noted before, whenever [the VIX hits its upper Bollinger band], the VIX goes lower, most often the next day or a day later. That sort of reversal would also be bullish for stocks.

And sure enough that's exactly what we got today. The VIX gapped down, the market went up.

Now while this all makes me think that a seventh straight down week for the market is looking less and less likely, I'm not so sure that tomorrow won't be down. The futures are all down at 2:15 AM, with ES down a third of a percent. It may be that the profit-takers who showed up at 3 PM today will reappear tomorrow taking us back to the 12,000 area. I am impressed however with how well that 12,000-11,950 support level held up.

Tomorrow's daily ES pivot is 1284. We're just above that now. If we go through it, look for a lower close. I would not be surprised to see a 50 point drop tomorrow, but the call tonight is not nearly as easy as it was last night.

Looking for higher

Last night I thought that we might get a short respite from the month-long pummeling the market's been taking.  And after some give and take, the Dow actually managed to close up, a whopping one point, but hey I'll take one point up over 270 down any day.

Particularly telling was the action in ES.  Last night I mentioned the daily pivot at 1275 as being the number to watch.  And indeed ES came up to periscope depth at 8:35 AM, then actually surfaced shortly after the market opened, took a look around, didn't like what it saw and headed for the bottom.  Until 1 PM, when it came back up for another look around.  Then it slowly descended just underwater for the rest of the day.  But the important thing is that the markets did not tank today.

The pivot: And even more important, all three futures (ES, NQ,  and YM) took off around 9:30 PM this evening, possibly on news of China inflation, and right now (1 AM EDT) are up significantly, with ES up by two thirds of a percent, the highest gain at this hour in a long time.  That also brought it convincingly about its daily pivot, which for tomorrow becomes 1271.25.  We're now 10 points above that.  Watch this level closely tomorrow.

Technically, the slight stochastic reversal in ES I noticed yesterday is now more pronounced and RSI is also turning around.  Both of these are quite bullish in the short term.  And with the overnight action providing a relatively long green candle, it looks like a bullish resolution to today's doji, at least so far.

On to the VIX.  While it managed to climb over its 200 day MA today, it also hit its upper Bollinger band in the process.  As I've noted before, whenever this happens, the VIX goes lower, most often the next day or a day later.  That sort of reversal would also be bullish for stocks.

Meanwhile, longer term, looking at the Dow chart, there's nothing on the radar yet to suggest we're not still headed for the 200 day MA sometime before the end of the month, and that's sure to be bad.  We remain firmly in a descending regression trend channel.  But in the meantime, I do think we're going higher tomorrow.

And finally, Mark Hulbert had a piece in Marketwatch.com yesterday basically reiterating what I've been saying recently about market streaks.  This was accompanied by a particularly clueless comment from someone who claimed that market action is like flipping a coin and has nothing to do with what's happened before.  Of course, that's a quite naive view and demonstrably wrong.  At this point, if we do go higher tomorrow, I think we may even break the six week losing streak.  As I've been saying, going down for seven would be highly unusual indeed.  That's all, she wrote.

Weekly outlook: tough sledding ahead

OK, let's start with the easy part. Here's a monthly chart of the SPX going back to 2008, just before we fell off the cliff into the Great Recession.

Compared to the fall of 2008 (pun intended), the last two months don't look so bad, do they? However, take a look at the stochastic on the bottom of the chart. It's still just coming off its most oversold levels. And just when does the market rally? Well look at where the stochastic was in July 2010 and March 2009 the last two turning points. That's right, down near the zero line. By this measure we have at least one more down month ahead of us.

This theory is supported by the two regression trend channels on the chart. Notice how we fell out of the RTC in May 2010. That was followed by another down month before bottoming. Where are we now? Well we just fell out of the latest RTC. Clearly, on a monthly basis, this market is going lower before it goes higher. Position yourself accordingly.

And if you need more supporting evidence, look at the Morningstar Market Fair Value graph.

This is a one year chart. Just off the left edge is the line crossing under the 1.0 level in May 2010. The market then sold off until July. The Morningstar chart bottomed right there, with a reading of 0.90. Today's reading is 0.96. The current market downtrend is not going to end as long as the Morningstar numbers continue to edge lower.

I know, you're saying, but what about this week, Michele? OK, this is where it gets interesting. Here's a daily Dow chart with some extra added tea leaves.

Point X is where we are now. Points A, B, C, and D are all places where the last two descending RTC's intersect the 200 day moving average (and I'm using the SMA, just to be generous). I don't think the real fireworks will start until we get to there. Right now, I'm fairly certain point A is off the table. But we're still inside the latest RTC, and that puts point B four days away.

If we manage to climb back into the May 1st RTC, then points C and D are on the table. C is on 6/23, and D is on 6/29. My best guess is that we're headed for point C, at 11,820.

Now here's where it gets interesting. As I've pointed out in my last two posts, the Dow has fallen more than six weeks in a row only five times in the last 82 years. And the longest losing streak in that period was seven weeks. The Dow has been technically oversold for a week now. And the chorus of gloom and doom on the net is rapidly reaching a crescendo.

Like today's headlines from marketwatch.com, "Economic data may be as grim as bad summer movie", "Another losing week looms", "How to time you exit move". Holy moly! On a purely contrarian basis, I'd say we're going higher. Are things really that bad to merit a record that's only happened 5 times in 82 years?

And while it's still early (I may update this post later tonight as we enter the Night Owl's favorite time of day around 2 AM) the futures are all actually up right now at 8:40 PM EDT. ES in fact is up 0.20%. And the ES short stochastic has actually now reached an inflection point, intimating that a short term bottom may be at hand.

Also the VIX is now at the upper end of its recent range.  It also hit its own 200 day MA last Friday and was rejected there.  That suggests a lower VIX tomorrow, and implies higher sotcks tomorrow or Tuesday.

It's still a bit early to call it but I'd say that for tomorrow at least, things aren't looking all that bad. That's all she wrote... for now.

2 AM Update: Well the ES has given back some of its earlier gains this evening but it did test Friday's closing lows once and that held.  We're still up 0.14% at 1271 right now and the daily pivot it just 4 points away at 1275.  That's the key number for tomorrow.  If we can break above that early in the day, then we're going higher.  If the 1275 level is rejected or we never get close, we're going lower.  At this point, the overnight action is looking sort of like the overnight from June 8th and that led to an up day on the 9th.  We'll see.

A seven week losing streak? Do you feel lucky?

Update on losing streaks

Since my post last Friday about what the longest Dow weekly losing streak was (seven weeks since 1971), I found some additional weekly data.  This let me go back to the week of October 1, 1928, or an additional 43 years.  So now I can say that since 1928, or in the last 82 years, the longest weekly Dow losing streak has been (drum roll, please): still seven.

Yes, looking back 43 more years found no streaks longer than seven.  We did pick up just two more streaks of length seven.  (And the number of six week losing streaks went up to 15).  So it looks like the final tally is 5 losing streaks of 7 weeks in 83 years.  There were no streaks longer than seven weeks.

Now of course there are still 32 years missing, being the period between 1928 and the Dow's founding on May 26, 1896.  Maybe one day that data will turn up online somewhere too, but I think we now have a pretty good historical perspective. The historical odds of the Dow ending lower this coming week are 5 in 4264.

I know what you're thinking. "Did the market go down six weeks or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a major stock average, the most powerful stock market in the world, and would blow your account clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?

Let's look at it this way.  You go to Vegas.  To your left is a roulette wheel.  You put your stash on red or black and you know your odds of winning are slightly less than 50-50.  Then you look to your right and you see a  table where everyone is playing Pai Dow Poker.

The odds there are constantly in flux but there's a big sign advertising the current spread: your odds of losing here are just 5 in 4264.  Which one do you put your money on?  The 50-50 roulette wheel, or the 4259 out of 4264 poker game?  Or more to the point - are you going to bet against odds like that?

I guess it all depends on how lucky you're feeling.  Fortunately, we can help our luck a bit by looking at the charts.  I'll post some more on that after the futures start trading this evening.  Stay tuned.

How long can this go on? Dow losing streaks

Dow weekly losing streaks

Well it's only 2:40 PM but I'm going to take a wild guess that with the Dow now down 150 points on the day so far that we're not only going to end lower on the day but for the entire week as well. That makes it six straight losing weeks in a row now. So the obvious question is now, how long can this go on?  (Or as Devo said, "Lord, how long can this go on?")

I thought it might be interesting to find out what the longest weekly losing streak in the Dow was, and while I'm at it, how the lengths of losing streaks sort out. I took 40 years of weekly Dow data, back to April 1971 (as much data as eSignal would give me) and looked for losing streaks. Here's the results:

 

As you can see, the longest losing streak in the past 40 years is seven. Seven straight down weeks. And there were three of those. The last one occurred in June 2001. You have to go as far back as 1980 and 1973 to find the other two.

Then there were (until now) just eight instances of streaks of length six. That's just 6 times in 2080 weeks.  The last one of those was in October 2002.  The raw numbers by streak length are: [307   119    42    32    13     8     3].

There were no streaks longer than seven weeks. So there you have it. The historical odds favor an up week next week. The chances of next week being down are just 3 in 2080, or about 0.14%. Of course, the keyword here is "historical". We're living in funny times.  I'm keeping my short hat firmly in place for the time being.

Rally may be short lived

Well what do you know about that.  Last night I wrote about waiting for Godot, and today he finally showed up, in the form of a 75 point advance for the Dow, thus snapping the daily losing streak at six.

Unfortunately, I think it's premature to start popping the champagne corks.  Today's rally still leaves us right along the left edge of the descending regression trend channel.  At this rate, the Dow will hit its 200 day moving average on June 21st, at 11,808.  Those numbers are only seven sessions and 316 points away from today.

Can we go higher tomorrow?  Technically yes.  All of the Dow daily indicators are still quite oversold and point to more upside potential than downside risk.  And we now have a bullish three day "morning star" candlestick pattern that usually is highly reliable.

However, the VIX is now at the lower end of the narrow range it's been stuck in for the last six days and all three futures, ES, NQ, and YM are lower at 1:30 AM EDT.  ES in particular is back under its daily pivot, which for tomorrow is 1285.58.  If we can't get back over this number, we're going to close lower again.  And ES right now is down by a third of a percent, and that is not a trivial number at this hour of the night.

Meanwhile the Morningstar Fair Value Index dropped again today to 0.97, making four days now that it has been below 1.0.  That is a bearish indicator.  I just don't see a lot of gas in the tank to power the market higher tomorrow.  Given the amount of fear still in the market and the fact that tomorrow is Friday, I think people may use today's rally to do some selling tomorrow in anticipation of worse times ahead.

You think this is bad? Here comes the 200 day MA

Ouch! Five straight down weeks.  Now six straight down sessions, and unless we can pull off some significant gains in the next two days, it's going to be six straight down weeks. Double ouch!

Beware the 200 MA

But if you think that's bad, check out what's coming next.  We're now at the point where the Dow's 200 day moving average is coming into view.  And if we go through that, then it's look out below.  Here's the daily Dow chart.  In this chart, you can see the 200 MA as the dotted orange line rising slowly up from the bottom of the chart.  You can also (obviously) see the steady downward march of the Dow since the start of May.

This presents an interesting opportunity.  If we extend the descending regression trend channel the Dow has been in for over a month now, and extrapolate the 200 MA out from today, eventually they will cross (the rising blue line).

And when does that happen?  Any time between June 21st and July 1st, assuming the Dow stays within the same RTC and depending on where it is inside the channel at that time.  So unless we can end the current down trend in the next two to three weeks, we are going to hit the 200 MA.  And that usually does not bode well.

The last time this happened was on May 20, 2010, a day the Dow dropped a whopping 372 points.  Check it out (remember the months in this chart are from last year).  This year's recent pattern looks a lot like last year's just before we hit the 200 MA.  Even the time of year is nearly the same.

Even the issues are the same.  Last year it was the Greek debt crisis, this year it's the Greek debt crisis.  And just like the Croaking Chorus from The Frogs by Aristophanes, this issue is irritating and you just wish it would go away.  But apparently, the Europeans are bound and determined to drag out the agony as long as possible, like slowly peeling a bandaid off a hairy arm.  Ugh.

The John Hopkins Newsletter, 10/15/04

Waiting for Godot

So what about tomorrow?  Honestly, after so many days of technically oversold conditions, waiting for this downturn to end is beginning to be like waiting for Godot. Will tomorrow be the day he finally arrives?  All the indicators say so, but we've been down that road for days now.  The VIX  is at the upper end of its range and should go down, but doesn't.

The ES is now (at 1:45 AM EDT) up 0.27%, but we've seen futures higher before, only to see those gains evaporate the next day.  If it isn't those pesky Greeks singing brekekekek, it's Ben Bernanke.  If it isn't isn't Ben Bernanke, it's OPEC.  Or lousy job numbers.  The gloom on Wall St. has reached a point where any excuse to knock 'em lower will do.  I think we can pretty much write off having a winning week.  I just want to know when we'll ever have a winning day again.  As I wait for Godot and wonder if tomorrow's the day.

And if we don't get out of this slump by the last week of the month, things are really going to get ugly.

Close but no cigar

Last night I thought we'd go higher today, mostly based on technical indicators.  But I did add that there was nothing positive-looking about the Dow chart.  And so today we actually weren't doing all that bad posting some decent gains right up until Ben Bernanke opened his mouth, sending the Dow into a more than 100 point dive in the last 90 minutes of the day to close down 19 points.  So close to posting a winning day, yet so far.

Now after that big disappointment, just as I said last night, all of the factors that were in play then are still active, only now even more so.  Where we were oversold before, we're even more oversold now.  Technically, we're overdue for a bounce.  But where is it?  The failure of gains to materialize in the face of such oversold conditions only adds to my current unease over the state of the markets.

And on that note, tonight I bring you the Morningstar Fair Value graph, from http://www.morningstar.com/market-valuation/market-fair-value-graph.aspx.  (Click on the image to view larger).  

I've started paying more attention to this number recently but I thought it would be interesting to look at a longer period, so here is a five year chart of this index.  In this graph, numbers above the reference line indicate that stocks are overvalued and below it, undervalued.

The important thing though is how well it correlates with market trends.  Note the blue area last year beginning on May 6th.  That corresponds exactly to the big market correction we saw beginning that same day.  Stocks did not recover until the end of September last year, just before the index went back above 1.0 again.

And of course the previous time the index went from above 1.0 to under it was on May 27, 2007, less than two months before the all-time high of the Dow and the start of the Great Recession, clearly seen in this graph as the huge blue area in the center that looks like frozen stalactites hanging from your gutters in the winter.

So what's that got to do with now?  Well, two days ago, the number flipped from above 1.0 to below 1.0. Yesterday was 0.99 and today was 0.97.  I believe that this is yet another warning that we are in trouble and that it's going to be a rough summer and fall ahead.

And if that isn't enough, even Jim "there's always a bull market somewhere" Cramer has been telling his viewers to take profits.

So is it time to go short?  I don't think quite just yet.  I still want to see that overdue oversold bounce.  The VIX fell today and its indicators are all overbought and headed lower.  That implies a lower VIX tomorrow which in turn implies higher stocks, hard though that may be to believe after five straight down weeks and now five straight losing sessions.

The futures meanwhile are essentially flat right now at 1:45 AM EDT, although they're trending higher after falling earlier in the the mid-evening hours.  Once again, the daily pivot will be important.  It's now 1287.58.  If ES cannot break above that then all bets are off.  Below the current level of 1284, ES has no support at all until 1250, the March lows.

Oil is decoupling from the market so I'm not looking for guidance there.  The only evidence for a bottom in the Dow comes from today's candle, a gravestone doji, but that's not a particularly strong reversal indicator unless followed by confirmation, which we don't have right now.

Overdue for a higher close

Last night I said there were two numbers to watch today in ES: 1301 on the upside (good) and 1291 on the downside (bad).  Well we never even came close to 1301 and ES did make two stabs down to 1291 in the morning, both of which were rejected at exactly that level.  But they say the third time's the charm and at 1:30 PM the 1291 support was effectively punctured and ES never looked back.

The Dow in the meantime dropped another 61 points for four straight losing sessions and five straight losing weeks, now plus one day.  But the factors I mentioned yesterday about the technical indicators being oversold in both the ES and the Dow remain true today, only now even more so.  And the VIX formed a hanging man candle today.

And right now, at 1:15 AM EDT all three futures are actually up for a change, with ES up 0.14%.  It's not much, but at this point I'll take anything I can get.  The important number here for tomorrow is now 1289, tomorrow's daily pivot.  If we can break above that number, then we have a good chance of closing higher.  Lord knows we're overdue for at least a rally attempt.  We'll have to see if the contrarians come out to play on Tuesday

And I'm waiting for any sort of rally to exit some more of my long positions, because I still see nothing to change my longer term view that the market, and the entire country is in for some tough times later this year (see my post earlier today on "Is the next recession imminent?")  There is no reason to believe that a higher close tomorrow suggests the start of an uptrend.  I'm usually an optimist, but I see nothing to cheer about here whatsoever.

Sadly, there's absolutely no indication of a rally coming from looking at the Dow daily chart.  That last Wednesday's crushing drop was not only not followed by any sort of bounce but actually three more days of solid declines bodes poorly for the Dow.  And these last three days form a "bearish identical three crows" candlestick pattern.  This is all indicative of growing panic.
If there is to be any turnaround tomorrow, it will have to come from the indicators, the VIX, and the reversal we're starting to see in the overnight ES trade. .I think we have a shot at it.  If ES can't break over 1289 and the Dow breaks 12,000 (only 90 points away now) then it's look out below.

Trades

Today I sold some NLY and NCZ.  NLY is looking overbought and NCZ was just some profit taking.

Is the next recession imminent?

Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd 

 Scary stuff

Lately I've been reading some pretty alarming commentaries about how we're about to head into another recession.  The latest one,by Peter Brimelow, is titled Five down weeks stir crash whispers and just appeared today in Marketwatch.

You can read it here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/five-down-weeks-stir-crash-whispers-2011-06-06?link=MW_story_popular.  It's the number one story on Marketwatch today.  Of couse, MW's readers seem to be eternally pessimistic, but this article really got me thinking.  Apparently, Richard Russell of Dow Theory fame, not normally known for his pessimism, goes so far as to say

"we could see the beginning of Great Depression No. 2.”

Whoa! As Count Floyd on Second City TV's Monster Chiller Horror Theater  used to say, "Scary stuff, eh kids?"

The Dow monthly chart

So I decided to take a look myself (at the charts, not SCTV). Here's a monthly chart of the Dow going back to late 2006. It completely encompasses the Great Recession and the follow-on rally bringing us to today.

 

The regression trend channels

I have drawn in two regression trend channels here.  Both have pretty high Pearson's coefficients, so they're pretty good.  The first documents the run-up in 2006-2007 to the peak in October 2007.  The second is the run-up from June 2010 to the April highs of this year.

Let's look at that first.  Last month the Dow touched the right-hand edge of the RTC.  That is a bearish setup.  Now admittedly this month's candle is not fully formed, so it's a bit early to draw any conclusions, but so far we are entirely beneath the lower RTC line.  That is a bearish trigger.

And does this work?  Well take a look at the 06-07 RTC.  We touched the lower line with a monthly doji candle in October 2007.  November closed below the line and then December fell entirely outside the line.  You don't need a magnifying glass to see what happened next.

The technical indicators

Now let's look at the indicators.  The line with the red and green boxes is the RSI.  Red means overbought.  Note how not only have we been overbought for some time now but the RSI has peaked and is going lower, just as it did in November 2007.  In fact, it's at the same level now as back then.

The next line down is momentum.  That has been running at overbought levels since March of last year.  Going into the October 2007, momentum had also been at very high levels for a long time.

The next line down is money flow. The current level is 84.95, which is even higher than the entire 06-07 rally, when it was in the 50's and 60's running up to the October peak.  But more importantly, it has started coming down.  Last month it was 87.4.  Now look back at money flow in 2007.  Once money flow starts decling, that is not good for the market.

Finally, check out the short stochastic on the bottom line.  This has been reading highly overbought all year.  But just now it's starting to turn downward.  That is always very very bearish.

Now going back to the candles, notice how after running up the upper Bollinger band for five months this year, we have now pealed away from that line.  The same thing happened in October 2007.

Oil

Now let's look at oil.  A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a newsletter put out by Colin Twiggs at incrediblecharts.com.  This one was called "Crude spike warns of trouble ahead."  His basic premise was that every time we get a spike in the price of oil and commodities, a recession is sure to follow.  He included a chart demonstrating the effect.  In fact, by the time these items have started coming back down, we're already in a recession.

Here's a daily chart of oil futures, the CL N1.  Notice the big dump it took early in May.  This was followed by an attempt at a retracement that ultimately failed, leaving us rangebound in the 96-102 area.  And the stochastic of this chart has also peaked and is now headed lower.  This is not a chart that looks like it's going higher any time soon.  Earlier this year, I thought we were going to go back to $140 like we did in 2008 before peaking.  Now I'm not so sure anymore.

Right now, we're looking at oil that peaked on May 2nd.  Last time around, oil peaked in July 2008.  By that point, the market had already peaked nine months earlier and had undergone a significant correction.  But worse, much worse was just around the corner as the Dow then crashed from 11,344 to 6470 in March 2009.

Politics

Have you seen the mini-series Band of Brothers?  Remember the part in Bastogne where Sgt. Compton tells Lt. Nixon, "I have every confidence in my men.  On the other hand, I have no confidence in our leader.  Lt. Dyke is an empty suit".  Well guess what, today in Washington we are being led by another empty suit, this time in the form of Emperor Nerobama, who is happily fiddling away while America burns $100 imported oil.

Obama seems far more interested in his own re-election than the good of the country.  That's unfortunate but also perhaps to be expected when you elect a product of the Chicago political machine to the White House.  The scary part is that he seems so clueless.  I have to hand it to Jim Cramer, who a couple of weeks ago called on Obama to raise oil futures margins.  That would take care of the speculators who are busy driving the last nail into our coffin while they make out like the bandits they are.

But there doesn't seem to be anyone home at 1600 Pennsylvania today.  "Yes we can" is now more like "yes we kick the can down the road".  Only the can is getting bigger and bigger and is about to start rolling backwards crushing everything in its path.

I'd pinned a lot of my expectations for 2011 on the pre-presidential election year phenomenon by which the party in power pumps up the market to ensure victory at the polls in the coming year.  Unfortunately, it looks like Obama isn't listening.  He's apparently not even paying attention and this is most worrisome.  This is causing me to question whether this might not be the year the pre-prez year phenomenon stays home.

So I am now going to go on record that while I still think we may have a short rally before the end of this week, my longer term outlook for the rest of 2011 is gloomy in the extreme.  We are certainly in for some significant additional downside from here.  Is it going to be another recession?  Maybe.  Is it going to be the Great Depression?  Probably not, but given all the gathering storm clouds, on the horizon I don't even think that's out of the question.

The bottom line

Right now I'm holding onto my low price/high yield portfolio.  It's about 1/3 of my trading account.  It should be fairly secure until interest rates start going up, and it sure doesn't look like that's on the table any time soon.  The other 2/3 of my account are 60% long, 40% cash.  I'm going to use any rallies coming up to liquidate long positions and I'm going to start looking seriously at good shorting opportunities. 

I am more pessimistic right now than at any time since I started trading back in 2003, with the exception of September 2008.  FWIW.  I could be wrong.  I hope I am.  But those monthly charts are haunting me in my sleep.  I don't like it, not one bit.

History to the rescue?

Five straight down weeks for the Dow.  This is getting ridiculous.  It's starting to look like my prediction last week that the end (of these declines) was near might have been premature.  Or was it?

I had to go back to June of 2004 to find the previous instance of five losing weeks in a row.  We never even had a run that bad during the entire period of the Great Recession.  Before 2004 though, there was a run of six straight down weeks in the summer of '02 (remember those fun times?) when the Dow went from 9017 down to 7461, a 17% drop.  In fact there were two six week losing streaks in 2002.  1999 had one too.  1997 had a 5 week streak.  Then you have to go back to 1984 for another 6 week streak.  There was one awful seven week losing streak back in 1980; another 6 week one in 1977, and a 5 in 1973, which is where I got too depressed and stopped looking.

So in the last 38 years, or 1,976 weeks, the longest run of straight losing weeks was one instance of seven, then six instances of six week streaks, and three instances of five week streaks (not counting the one we're in now).  Using this as a guide, history would seem to indicate that the odds favor an up week ahead.  Only 7 times out of the last 1976 weeks has a losing streak gone longer than five weeks in the Dow.

And looking to tomorrow, there is (for once) no major economic news coming out.  Since that news has been mostly bad lately, that's one less excuse for the market to tank.  We also have indicators that are entering extremely oversold territory.  The Dow's momentum now stands at minus 454.  The last time it hit that level was at the very bottom of the March Japan-induced sell-off.

Then the VIX hit its upper Bollinger band again last Friday.  Every time it has done that in the last two years, the VIX has gone lower either the next day or the day after that.  In addition, the ES futures have been wandering about the flat line in Sunday evening trading and are now at 1296.25.  They have some fairly good support at 1291.  The next support level in the Dow meanwhile is only the psychological 12,000 level, just 151 points away.

Also note that the Morningstar Market Fair Value Indicator  has declined again to stand now at 0.99, slightly below fair value.

That said, we remain firmly entrenched in descending regression trend channels in both ES and the Dow with no signs of any candlestick reversals.  So some more downside is still possible for tomorrow, but there's only a 7 out of 1,976 chance that the entire week will end lower.  I almost hesitate to say it because I was badly wrong last week, but this sort of decline can't go on forever.  And that said, the monthly charts are a different story, and they're not pretty.  But this is long enough now, we'll go into that later.

Important numbers to watch on Monday: pay attention to the ES.  If it breaks support at 1291, that's bad.  If it breaks above its daily pivot of 1301.42, that's good.

The end is near!

No, not the end of the world, but the end of the recent sell-off on Wall St.  Last night I was reluctant to go out on a limb for today because I couldn't get a real good read on the charts and because I felt that the market was being largely driven by short term economic news.  I guess the results we saw today proved no one else had a very good handle on which way the market was going either.  The Dow was down 42, the Nasdaq was up a few points and the S&P was essentially flat.

What I find interesting about the Dow in the last few days is the volume.  Volume on Wednesday, the day of the Dump, was actually lower than on Tuesday, when we had a decent advance.  And today's volume at 156M shares was lower still.  This suggests that the sellers are getting tired.  Also note that the Morningstar Market Fair Value indicator dropped today back to 1.0, fair value, for the first time since May 26th.  So it's looking like some of the froth that existed at Dow 12,569 a few days ago has been wrung out at Dow 12,249.

Also, today's trading formed a hammer.  However, I'm a bit cautious about this one and want to see some positive action tomorrow before calling this latest decline over.  This hammer may or may not be a bottom.  I want some confirmation.  Note that at least the Dow has some support at 12,200, a spot that was tested today and held.

Turning to the futures, ES, NQ, and YM are all lower at 1 AM EDT, but only by a bit over 0.1%.  And that's been in a kind of directionless meandering over the course of the evening.  As I write this, ES is actually headed higher.  So we get a bit of guidance, but only to tell us that another big drop tomorrow is unlikely.

Oil, meanwhile is back up over $100, amid allegations that some Swedish oil tanker baron is manipulating the futures market, news that should come as a complete surprise to absolutely no one.  But as long as oil and the market remain positively correlated, this is bullish for stocks.

And last but not least, the VIX today hit a high of 18.72, right at the upper end of its monthly range, before falling back to close just over 18.  And its short stochastic is now at the level from which the VIX has gone lower on its last two peaks.  All this suggests that if the VIX isn't going lower tomorrow, it at least has more downside than upside potential at this point.

So put it all together and I'm going to guess that any further market downside tomorrow will be limited.  Note that we're now pretty far extended from the Dow daily pivot at 12,380.  We remain, of course, firmly entrenched in the descending RTC channel that goes back to the start of May, so it's too early to call for a trend change, but I would not be surprised to see at least a small advance tomorrow, particularly if the non-farm payrolls and unemployment numbers come in better than expected (though I'm not counting on that).

Like a bolt from the blue

Wow - last night I really thought the Dow would go higher today.  All the signs seemed to be pointing in that direction.  I guess when I'm wrong, I'm really wrong, to the tune of a screaming 280 point dive that left the entire Dow in the red, along with nearly everything else on my watchlist, and an A/D line of worse than 1 to 5..  And aside from the magnitude of the decline, it had a few other really nasty features.

First, unlike recent big drops, most of the action did not occur in the first 2 minutes of trading.  This was just a steady downhill drumbeat all day long.  Second, just as we cut above the 12,450 resistance level yesterday, today we not only crashed right back through it, but also support at 12,350 before finally coming to rest right at the lower Bollinger band at 12,290.  And third, we're not only right back in the descending RTC channle that I thought we had escaped yesterday, but we're all the way down to its lower edge.

And the amazing thing is that even after today's sharp drop, the indicators are still not particularly oversold.  Indeed, I checked out the Morningstar Market Fair Value Indicator and while it came down a bit today, it still stands somewhat overvalued at 1.02, where fair value is 1.0.  And the Dow daily short stochastic went right back into a bearish crossover.

So we're now left with the third rally attempt in May ending in dismal failure.  So where does this leave us?  Looking at the bright side (if there is one), today's action was welcome because it lets us exercise the Golden Rule of trading: buy low, sell high.  It's been tough finding decent buying opportunities lately.  Today's sale on stocks should help a lot.  But I'm not sure the discounting is even over yet.

There could be some more downside left, judging by the VIX which took a big pop today but did not reach either its upper Bollinger band or particularly overbought levels on its indicators.  However, the futures are all pretty much flatlining right now at 1:45 AM, indicating that the worst may be over for now.  We might even see something of either a relief rally or a dead cat bounce tomorrow, depending on your point of view.

Either way, when Mr. Market goes off his meds like the last few days, my reaction is to generally stand aside and wait for him to calm down.  There's no point in trying to reason with the old guy when he gets like this.  I console myself that while the Dow lost 2.22% today, my losses were exactly half that.  Not that I'm ever happy to have a 1.1% down day, but taking heat is just a necessary part of playing this game.

I think tomorrow's action is going to be largely news-driven based on the economic news coming out in the morning, so there's no point in trying to call it tonight based on the technicals.  At this point, it could go either way.  Much as I'd like to sound the all-clear, it looks like there's still a chance for some further downside.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Looking good for tomorrow

Sunday night I was sure the market would go higher today and it sure did, giving us an excellent 128 point advance in the Dow to close at 12,570.  This is important because it definitely broke us out of the descending regression trend channel begun on May 2nd.  That is a bullish trigger.  It's also the first time we've had a four day winning streak since late April.  Can we make it five?  Let's see.

All three futures are up right now at 1:50 AM EDT by 0.18% to 0.26%.  Though not as good as the gains we were looking at last night, that's still non-trivial.  The action in ES in particular today was important because we blasted right through the 1338 resistance level.  And in the after hours, we've gained even more.  The ES is now at 1346.25, and that's just above the May 19th high of 1345.50.  If this holds, that will be very bullish as it will mark the first time ES has put in a higher high in over a month.

Meanwhile oil continues to hold above $100 and as long as it remains in positive correlation wit the market, that's bullish too.  The dollar meanwhile continues the fall that began on May 23rd.  We have now begun retracing the huge jump it took on May 9th.  I think the dollar has at least two more days of decline ahead and that is also bullish for stocks.

And our old friend the VIX did indeed move lower again today as I thought.  It just about touched its lower Bollinger band at 15.15 before closing at 15.45.  That means the VIX is now knocking on the oversold door.  However, tomorrow is the first trading day of a new month and that's historically bullish.  Also, I'd expect it to take a day before any turnaround in the VIX is reflected in the market.

So all in all, it looks like we've got the green light for more gains in the Dow tomorrow.  So far this week, I am 1 for 1 on market calls.

Trades

Today I dumped my AKS at 15.22.  It put in a classic hanging man and its daily indicators are all overbought.  Time to give it a rest.  I then used part of that cash to buy some TWO, Two Harbors Investment Corp., a REIT that's yielding a juicy 14.9%.  At 10.65, it barely misses getting into my low price/high yield portfolio, but I'll give it an honorary position there based on its yield alone.  It closed at 10.74.

Further gains likely to wrap up May

Tomorrow is not only the last day of the month, but also the first trading day after Memorial Day, and a Tuesday.  That's a historically bullish triple play.  And the futures seem to be agreeing.  Right now at 2:30 AM EDT all three (ES, NQ, and YM) are up by about two thirds of a percent, one of the highest overnight readings I've seen in quite some time.  And equally important, this move brings ES above the top of a month long descending regression trend channel.  That is a bullish setup.

Also, oil continues to move in tandem with the market and it is inching higher, back over $100, in the overnight.

The only dissenter is the VIX which put in a hammer last Friday to close at 15.98.  However, I do not attach as much importance to this as I usually might, since last Friday's action was distorted by the upcoming holiday weekend.  All said and done, I'm pretty confident we're going higher tomorrow.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day, the day on which we honor and pay tribute to all those who have served in our armed forces to preserve our cherished rights and liberties, and defend out country from its enemies, who never seem to be in short supply.

To all the brave men and women serving and sacrificing today at home and around the globe, I salute you. Your courage, honor, and dedication are greatly appreciated. I am humbled and grateful.