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Onward to Stock Market Nirvana… Or Not

June 18, 2018

Onward to Stock Market Nirvana… Or Not

Rising wedges tend to lead to declines, so ignore them.

At long last, we have reached the Nirvana of consensus: the stock market is heading to new all-time highs. Even the perma-Bear camp seems to have accepted the inevitability of new all-time highs ahead: The FANG stocks are hitting new highs, the Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index is hitting new highs, and the laggard S&P 500 is sure to catch up to its peers, as it climbs the ladder of higher lows. Once again we’ve reached the Nirvana of ever-higher stock valuations.

Or not. That troublesome kid watching the naked Emperor ride past in his imaginary finery keeps muttering about rising wedges. Consider the Russell Small-Cap Index (RUT):

The Raging Bull of the FANG stocks, Netflix:

The S&P 500:

And the so-called “fear index,” the VIX, reduced to the Nirvana of complacency and supreme confidence:

The Nirvana of January–super-low VIX and an ever-rising stock market– was disrupted by an unwelcome eruption of reality.

The beaten down VIX traced out a couple of blue wedges before the eruption, but let’s ignore them. What matters is order was restored to the Universe by the triumph of complacency and confidence as the VIX was ground down to sub-12 levels again.

Rising wedges tend to lead to declines, so ignore them. Never mind their ubiquity– Nirvana blasts right through resistance and rising wedges.

The faithless few might be troubled by the similarities of late January to the present, but the faithful have supreme confidence in the Fed, the tremendous bite of the FANGs and the all-powerful forces of greed and complacency–a marriage made in heaven!

Here’s a look at the real Nirvana: the income and wealth gains of the top .1%.

Debt-serfs “own” nothing but debt, the Technocrat class shouldering student loans and mortgages keeps the machine running by working themselves to exhaustion, and the speculative class skims virtually all the gains.

Stock market Nirvana feeds wealth/income inequality Nirvana.

MARKET MELTDOWN CONTINUES: Gold & Silver Prices Begin To Disconnect

April 3, 2018

MARKET MELTDOWN CONTINUES: Gold & Silver Prices Begin To Disconnect

As the BLOOD continues to run on Wall Street, gold and silver were the few assets trading in the green today.  As I have mentioned in past articles and interviews, investors need to get used to this sort of trading activity.  Even though the Dow Jones Index ended off its lows of the day, it shed another 458 points while the Nasdaq declined 190 points and the S&P fell 60.

As the broader markets sold off, the gold price increased $15 while silver jumped by $0.25.  However, if we look at these markets during their peak of trading, the contrast is even more remarkable:

At the lows of the day, the Dow Jones Index fell 730 points or 3%, while the S&P 500 fell 3.2% and the Nasdaq declined by 3.8%.  Also, as I expected, the oil price fell along with the broader markets by dropping 2.7%.  If individuals believe the oil price will continue towards $100, due to supply and demand fundamentals put forth by some energy analysts, you may want to consider one of the largest Commercial Net Short positions in history.  Currently, the Commercial Net Short position is 738,000 contacts.  When the oil price was trading at a low of $30 at the beginning of 2016, the Commercial Net Short position was only 180,000 contracts.

Furthermore, if we agree that supply and demand forces are impacting the oil price to a certain degree, does anyone truly believe oil demand won’t fall when the stock market drops by 50+%???  I forecast that as market meltdown continues, the oil price will decline as oil demand falls faster than supply.

Now, when the markets were at their lows today, gold at its peak was up $20 while silver increased by $0.44.  Of course, this type of trading activity won’t happen all the time, and we could see a selloff in all assets some days.

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

What Happens After A Crash?

September 4, 2015

What Happens After A Crash?

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Our posts this week have dealt with analyzing the aftermath of the recent historic events that have unfolded in the stock market. However, of all the worthy topics that we have addressed, we have not directly addressed the most important one: the “post-crash” environment. Seeing as though the dramatic market decline in the latter half of August was the tremor from which all other price action has resulted, it stands to reason that we take a good look at it directly. In other words, how has the market historically behaved following similar “crashes”.

We put quotation marks around the word crash as the term is obviously open for interpretation. Certainly anyone who experienced the October 1987 events would be hard pressed to call anything since then a “crash”. However, for the sake of this study we are going to call the recent decline, and any similar such historical selloff, a “crash”. Specifically, we looked at all times in the S&P 500 since 1950 in which the index dropped at least 10% within 10 days (credit to fellow advisor and friend, Paul Schatz [@Paul_Schatz on Twitter] for the concept).

As it turns out, we identified 11 prior unique crash occurrences. By unique, I mean we eliminated any successive crashes and any crashes that were within the confines of a retest of a prior crash. Among the 11, 2 of them – July 1974 and September 2008 – continued to cascade lower, nearly unabated, for several more months. The other 9 resulted in an initial low in relatively short order. By initial low, we mean the first step within a market bottoming process. Those 9 are the subject of today’s Chart Of The Day, and this post. These are the months containing the 9 dates:

  • May 1962
  • May 1970
  • October 1987
  • August 1998
  • April 2000
  • March 2001
  • September 2001
  • July 2002
  • August 2011

 

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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