Home » Economics » charles hugh smith-The Rubber Band Is Stretched–Will It Break?

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

charles hugh smith-The Rubber Band Is Stretched–Will It Break?

charles hugh smith-The Rubber Band Is Stretched–Will It Break?.

A rubber band can remain stretched for some time, but it takes some force to keep it stretched.

The consensus is anticipating a smooth sleigh ride for Santa’s traditional stock market rally from November to year-end. But the rubber band of the current rally is looking quite stretched, and there’s a distinct possibility the rubber band snaps and Santa’s rally hits a rough patch and overturns, distributing lumps of coal rather than additional equity gains.

Exhibit 1: The Russell 2000 index (RUT). It’s hard not to notice that MACD is about to cross in a bearish signal, and that the stochastic has already crossed and is heading south.

Then there’s the open gaps below, which tend to get filled despite endless claims that “this rally is different.” Yes, of course it is.

At the previous top, the RUT noodled around in a trading range for a couple of weeks, reaching for a breakout that quickly failed.

The RUT has repeated the pattern rather neatly: two weeks of going nowhere (a.k.a. distribution), and a breakout that quickly reversed.

It’s also interesting that the RUT’s runs seem to last around 20 days or so. The downturn in October lasted about 22 days, and the current run-up is stretched tight at 24 days.

Exhibit 2: the volatility index (VIX). As Zero Hedge has noted, the VIX exhibits a peculiarity at the close of each trading session: it drops precipitously in the waning minutes of trading, and equally magically, stocks pop up to close positive for the day.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress