stocks above their 50dma. As you can see for the NASDAQ, we've gone from one extreme in Aug to another here. A very rare event to get 90+% stocks over that moving average. Doesn't mean we crash and burn here. We could muddle along, take a pause that refreshes, stall with multiple tops... who knows.
$VIX - at some point the fear factor will pop and bite unsuspecting traders, especially new traders who get cocky in this forgiving uptrend.
I'm back in Vad's madhouse and have noticed these last two days how things are slowing down. Whether the market is trying to bore us to death or is just resting before its next move higher that no one believes will happen is yet to be seen.
My thought is that the next tranche of ECB LTRO offering of free money to Euro banks come February 29 will be double or even triple of the first offering and then we'll see Greece out the door. Stock the banks up with cash to avoid the liquidity crunch and get this over and done with. The market expects it. Whether it's priced in or not?
right. So more than anything they're just a commodity and yeh, you need to create some emotional attachment in order to flog that commodity off to people in exchange for cold hard cash, which remained king throughout the latter half of the 20th Century.
It just occurred to me, in reading that post, your response, Bill's link to an interview with Rob McEwan yesterday, a Max Keiser report just now - how I'd define these goods, specifically gold and silver.
Here's what the author interviewing McEwan had to say on the mining magnate's thought:
"gold is a currency like Canadian or U.S. dollars or the beleaguered euro. “And here we are seeing the entire Western world debasing its currencies at a frantic pace,” he says."
That's worthy of note, especially coming from a former banker that McEwan was.
I think one of the most interesting things to come out of Max Keiser's mouth was said in the vid I just watched of him interviewing Gonzalo Lira:
"The deflationary contraction that's changing the global markets has repositioned gold from a commodity to being a currency, same thing for oil to a lot of degrees..."
That's an interesting thought IMO. While confidence remains high in the monetary system then gold is treated as a commodity for bling bling, electronics in small quantities, rainy day insurance etc. Armstrong makes it quite clear that a return to the gold standard is not a silver bullet, as gold has historically had its own boom and bust cycles over the centuries. But it's time comes about twice a century as the boom cycle of human ingenuity turns to greed and bust.
What I like, and what I've bet on, is the continued attitude to silver and the fact that it remains in so many eyes an industrial commodity. Gonzalo Lira, an author I respect, noted how calm the attitude remains in Europe as he does a tour of the continent, in comparison to the United States. He suggests that many in Europe think that we're going to muddle along, which may or may not be the case.
But the record purchasing of silver coinage that is presently an American phenomena has yet to touch European shores IMO. Yeh the elites are stocking up on gold and to an extent silver, as Bill pointed out talking to someone who had visited a precious metals meeting in Germany last year. But we are far from panic.
The attempt to provide a modicum of control over the Euro situation by Eurocrats is the butt of Vad's jokes, but I think for the most part people are buying this crapola. The money required to offset these deflationary pressures that will continue to build has yet to flood the continental economies. The ECB giving away €500B in LTRO's so that banks can buy sovereign debt is a ponzi scheme, no two ways about it, but it's really peanuts compared to the amount that ultimately comes due.
Gold, like a Chameleon, has changed its skin from one of commodity to that of currency. Silver remains a commodity to most people - it's time has yet to come. Diamond's might participate in the crack up boom, but I guess they remain fixed in the (emotionally charged) commodity space. Perhaps enough women will find themselves divorced before this mess is over to collectively understand the value of the rocks on their fingers...
IVEY PURCHASING MANAGERS INDEX Canada for Jan
Actual: 55.7 Cons.: 57.0 Previous: 53.6
---------------------
AIG PERFORMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION INDEX Australia for Jan
Actual: 39.8 Cons.: Previous: 41.0
Australia: AiG Construction Index contracts for 20th straight month
FXstreet.com (San Francisco) - The Australia Industry Group reported late Monday that the Construction Index has contracted farther to 39.8 in January from 41.0 in the previous month, amid more falls in activity and new orders. This reading remained below the critical 50 point level separating expansion from contraction for a 20th consecutive month.
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama ordered a freeze on all Iranian government and central bank assets held in the U.S. or any foreign branch of a U.S. entity, the White House said today.
The president cited “deceptive practices” of the Iranian central bank and an “unacceptable risk” to the international financial system from Iranian activities.
For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
The Athenians in the Melian Dialogue - Thucidydes.
A link at Jesse's led me to this, probably the most in-depth look at the diamond market I've read. A monopolised market. I wonder what comparisons, if any, we could make to the gold and silver markets?
Yep, so as Armstrong recently pointed out, this plan will come to ruin because it is only about saving creditors. Merkel is as much a puppet of the elite as Obama. A red herring IMO for Der Speigel to be concentrating on the 'myth' that Germany benefits from the present Euro situation, but revealing of old attitudes rising to the surface of Europe once again:
They're all going down together, just appears to be a question of time. I wonder if the people with the real money behind the Euro are continuing to pony up, or have withdrawn or liquidated their holdings and are stashing it elsewhere. Gold above $1700 and the dollar returning to test 79 is suggestive of what hard assets may be capable of doing in the coming months.
Where art though Italy, in all this mess? Keeping a low profile I imagine...
What surprises me almost more than anything is that these jokers are willing to risk bringing down the financial system for a measly billion dollars, which is a fraction of what they take in personal bonuses in a good year. Is this some sort of perverse adherence to the Ferengi rules of acquistion? "Once you have their money, never give it back."
The blatant theft of this tiny amount (relative to the money floating around the system today) has left me mystified too. I've been wondering if it's a test case, to see if HB&B can push the limits of the law, indeed break them, without being called to account. So far the getaway looks good.
My thoughts are to be wary of an intermediate top when this IPO goes out. Bill's thoughts on the GOOG game related to an FB IPO were noted in the WIR. Right now we appear to have market tailwinds. By the time of this IPO, I'm not sure where we'll be. Which is what makes this market so dang interesting, day in, day out.
Yesterday I posted a monthly VIX chart, which stockcharts.com didn't hold the link to. Now I remember why I stopped using them. See attached. Notice ROC, which I pay attention to, less so than the level of VIX. Given the rapidity that VIX has dropped in this advance, I had to wonder how much resistance the 15 level was going to offer.
If equities show strength on any pullback and bonds show the money outflows necessary to maintain an equity bear market rally higher than here, I have to wonder if VIX will drift back to the 10 levels again. Europe of course is the big unknown.
Perhaps these 'fear' pulses are quickening and we crash big time from here. I don't know, but I do know that America's economy isn't ending tomorrow. I'm still wary of Tim Wood's Phase 2 bear market sell off in his Dow Theory; will keep an ear open for his 'DNA marker' that tells him when the top is in.
note the above chart, and potential for a repeat performance. Note potential resistance - 1600 on the S&P. Note the following passage from John Murphy's latest newsletter:
Quite simply, the risk-reward is to the upside given the October-2011 trade formed a bullish monthly key reversal to the upside - a signal that new highs were a higher probability than previously thought. Certainly given the European fiasco, one would have thought prices would trade lower; but when they did - it was only for a very short period. This is reminiscent of the pattern seen during the Russian debt crisis in 1998, when prices traded lower in October-1998 - only to trade over +40% higher in the ensuing 18-months.
Frankly, the current technical pattern seem eerily similar from a corrective and MACD point-of-view - which would lead one to surmise that new highs in the S&P are forthcoming - in all probability into the 1600 area. But having said this, even if new highs develop, we would this as a bear market rally in much the same manner as those were in the 1970's trading range that broke to new highs only to falter massively in the months thereafter.
So technical traders like Murphy are left chasing are they? Let's have a quick recap of Brian Shannon's cycle of trader emotions in a given market cycle. From the time the market makes a base, we have 1)disbelief, 2)hope, 3)optimism, 4)belief, 5)thrill, 6)Euphoria... and then we have market rollover. I'm guessing we're still somewhere between disbelief and hope:
But I think Geoff said it best Friday: we just want to see a break-out either way and will trade accordingly.
What we can do with Bill, and I have no end of thanks for showing me this, is to continue monitoring fundamentals for our clues that the market may be ready to turn. All we can do is watch, be good observers of the market, and not make judgements based on anecdotal, localised or personal views. Because it is clear to me that the trillions of dollars flowing through various international markets do not move according to these criteria. I'm still quite wary of bonds, which have not fallen by the wayside yet.
Returned to the madhouse with Vad and fellow traders on Friday. Nice to take the thinking cap off and just go with it.
Mitt Romney's campaign is amending the financial disclosure form he filed in 2011 to acknowledge that a Romney trust earned interest income from a Swiss bank account, a detail that had been missing from the report.
"An amendment is being filed to address this minor discrepancy," a campaign official told ABC News in an email Thursday in response to questions about the apparent omission.
Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.
Ron Paul for 2016 IMO. Once again the people need to be disillusioned and disappointed. Faced with Europe and Japan imploding on their television sets in coming years, such events may be the existential wake up call America needs. Till then, bring in the clowns...
2007/8? That's a huge time period you're covering there Grym. Don't misinterpret my thoughts on a potential multi-quarter improvement as Puplava's work, that was my own supposition I was voicing.
Note also the data that Puplava is pointing out. There is no BLS data (read 'massaged' data) in his article. Fed State Leading Indexes, ISM manufacturing, loan data and S&P technical data - all pointing one way AT THIS TIME.
As for 2H2012, that's another story. As for the jobs data Friday, excuse me if I'm a little skeptical:
BUT... I've learnt as a trader to watch how the market trades the data for my cues - and the market was pretty bullish Friday. You can buy and hold whatever investment suits your temperament best.
As I pointed out, the market is stretching to severely overbought status here (specifically the tech index, which is running hot). How it behaves on this pullback, in conjunction with the bond market, will determine whether this rally has legs.
As Armstrong remarked of an author of political "expert" judgement, "there was one kind of expert turns out consistently more accurate forecasts than others. The most important factor he discovered was not how much education or experience the experts had but how they actually thought. The best forecasters were those who were self-critical, eclectic thinkers who were constantly updating their beliefs when faced with contrary evidence instead of clinging to dogma.
I thought this article title quite apt for those talking recession and the irrationality of the market going up when things are so bad. Puplava has lots of charts - note especially the expansion in lending. I won't elaborate on what Puplava has written; it's solid weekend reading for those interested in Bill's understanding of how fundamentals and the market are cyclically connected.
Having said that, I do note the complacency - not yet euphoric - of the market's behaviour.
I notice the old hands are now warning trader's not to get cocky here in a market that is so forgiving in the present dip buying strategy. After the disasterous year in 2011 I can understand why it'd be so gentle in permitting fresh cash to reenter the casino - how many retail traders were scared away by the awesome volatility of the last 12 months?
On $VIX. Yes we can see how quickly $VIX is returning to 15, its historical base during this financial crisis of the last 4 years. But let's pull out the chart a bit further to look at 2000 - 2012. What if we're about to enter another multi-month/year bear market rally? Will we see volatility suppressed back to the 10 level? If you look at MACD in the following monthly VIX chart, it has just made a negative crossover. Plenty of downside from here.
I'm not convinced of it yet - we're certainly due a pullback and on the basis of that I'd then like to see how support holds. But I posted the other day some quick thoughts from Armstrong.
He suggests that authorities may have dodged the bullet here and 2015+ is now the next cyclical turn of the wheel in this debt saga. In any case, as he makes clear, Europe and Japan are going down before Uncle Sam. Much will happen between here and those events.
Business activity across the combined manufacturing and service sector broadly stagnated at the start of 2012, with the HSBC Composite Output Index falling from 50.8 to 49.7. There were divergences by industry, however, with continued manufacturing weakness contrasting with steady growth of services output. Nonetheless, the rate of expansion in service sector activity remained weak in the context of historic data, with the latest seasonally adjusted Business Activity Index reading of 52.5 down on the long-run trend (56.8)
---------------------------------
PURCHASING MANAGER INDEX SERVICES Germany for Jan
Actual: 53.7 Cons.: 54.5 Previous: 54.5 Revised from 52.4
GMCR seems to be getting some momentum behind its coffee products, so a massive gap up which is just begging to be sold short as a day trade at the open:
What you can see in common with Vad's catch of the day yesterday - indeed all the setups I've posted there is how I seek a tailwind in MACD readings in multiple time frames when entering a trade, still using price as the final arbiter of that setup. So no quick scalping, preference will be given to intraday trend or reversals.
It was the same tailwind I used in my swing setups during 2011, except I also relied on stochastics as well. Now I've reduced it to one indicator as an accompaniment to price and volume.
This will be my edge as a day trader. Looking forward to getting back in.
I went and looked at what GMCR actually sells. It's the same disgusting stuff that is making Nestlé's fortune in Europe, little coffee capsule machines that while are admittedly practical for the office space, have no place in a coffee lover's kitchen.
Nothing beats the Italian coffee pot - preferably stainless for health reasons:
"As usual, I will be keying gains off the Rupee and the Ruble and the GDXJ:GDX ratio chart... Traders will be wary of the dilution effect of takeovers of the majors, so I think those prices will underperform the rest."
Shareholder dilution makes sense for the under-performance - thanks for clarifying that. The Rupee has made solid gains as the attached USD/INR chart shows. I note the zone of consolidation here likely to serve as support for Uncle Buck. That may coincide with PM's cooling their heels here. When you look at the downside still left to USD/INR and you look at the daily gold chart, then things don't look so bad - certainly not going to hell in a hand basket as the cheerleaders were portending recently. I see Indian marriage season runs through to May or something like that.
In any case, if that trendline resistance in $gold:$silver is broken, then I'll be looking for further downside and potential consolidation:
CEW - Emerging market currencies. A solid run from Dec, the support base of which presaged a reversal in the dollar long before Uncle Buck itself was ready to roll over. Some RSI bearish divergence kicking in at overbought levels of 70+ as CEW hits the 200MA. A potential for easing off here and as Geoff remarked premarket, some money flowing back into Uncle Buck as it develops a base at 79:
some quick charts supplied by Robert Sinn:
http://www.robertsinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/...
I noticed the EUR/USD high got taken out yesterday. This market wants up. So the 1.3234 recent top was not the January high.
http://www.robertsinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/...
stocks above their 50dma. As you can see for the NASDAQ, we've gone from one extreme in Aug to another here. A very rare event to get 90+% stocks over that moving average. Doesn't mean we crash and burn here. We could muddle along, take a pause that refreshes, stall with multiple tops... who knows.
http://tinyurl.com/7bhcatu
$CPCE - Equity only options put/call ratio still very optimistic, read complacent here. Buyer beware.
http://tinyurl.com/7as4p6s
$VIX - at some point the fear factor will pop and bite unsuspecting traders, especially new traders who get cocky in this forgiving uptrend.
I'm back in Vad's madhouse and have noticed these last two days how things are slowing down. Whether the market is trying to bore us to death or is just resting before its next move higher that no one believes will happen is yet to be seen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis...
My thought is that the next tranche of ECB LTRO offering of free money to Euro banks come February 29 will be double or even triple of the first offering and then we'll see Greece out the door. Stock the banks up with cash to avoid the liquidity crunch and get this over and done with. The market expects it. Whether it's priced in or not?
right. So more than anything they're just a commodity and yeh, you need to create some emotional attachment in order to flog that commodity off to people in exchange for cold hard cash, which remained king throughout the latter half of the 20th Century.
It just occurred to me, in reading that post, your response, Bill's link to an interview with Rob McEwan yesterday, a Max Keiser report just now - how I'd define these goods, specifically gold and silver.
Here's what the author interviewing McEwan had to say on the mining magnate's thought:
"gold is a currency like Canadian or U.S. dollars or the beleaguered euro. “And here we are seeing the entire Western world debasing its currencies at a frantic pace,” he says."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/...
That's worthy of note, especially coming from a former banker that McEwan was.
I think one of the most interesting things to come out of Max Keiser's mouth was said in the vid I just watched of him interviewing Gonzalo Lira:
"The deflationary contraction that's changing the global markets has repositioned gold from a commodity to being a currency, same thing for oil to a lot of degrees..."
http://maxkeiser.com/2012/02/07/kr246-keiser-repor...
That's an interesting thought IMO. While confidence remains high in the monetary system then gold is treated as a commodity for bling bling, electronics in small quantities, rainy day insurance etc. Armstrong makes it quite clear that a return to the gold standard is not a silver bullet, as gold has historically had its own boom and bust cycles over the centuries. But it's time comes about twice a century as the boom cycle of human ingenuity turns to greed and bust.
What I like, and what I've bet on, is the continued attitude to silver and the fact that it remains in so many eyes an industrial commodity. Gonzalo Lira, an author I respect, noted how calm the attitude remains in Europe as he does a tour of the continent, in comparison to the United States. He suggests that many in Europe think that we're going to muddle along, which may or may not be the case.
But the record purchasing of silver coinage that is presently an American phenomena has yet to touch European shores IMO. Yeh the elites are stocking up on gold and to an extent silver, as Bill pointed out talking to someone who had visited a precious metals meeting in Germany last year. But we are far from panic.
The attempt to provide a modicum of control over the Euro situation by Eurocrats is the butt of Vad's jokes, but I think for the most part people are buying this crapola. The money required to offset these deflationary pressures that will continue to build has yet to flood the continental economies. The ECB giving away €500B in LTRO's so that banks can buy sovereign debt is a ponzi scheme, no two ways about it, but it's really peanuts compared to the amount that ultimately comes due.
Gold, like a Chameleon, has changed its skin from one of commodity to that of currency. Silver remains a commodity to most people - it's time has yet to come. Diamond's might participate in the crack up boom, but I guess they remain fixed in the (emotionally charged) commodity space. Perhaps enough women will find themselves divorced before this mess is over to collectively understand the value of the rocks on their fingers...
IVEY PURCHASING MANAGERS INDEX Canada for Jan
Actual: 55.7 Cons.: 57.0 Previous: 53.6
---------------------
AIG PERFORMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION INDEX Australia for Jan
Actual: 39.8 Cons.: Previous: 41.0
Australia: AiG Construction Index contracts for 20th straight month
FXstreet.com (San Francisco) - The Australia Industry Group reported late Monday that the Construction Index has contracted farther to 39.8 in January from 41.0 in the previous month, amid more falls in activity and new orders. This reading remained below the critical 50 point level separating expansion from contraction for a 20th consecutive month.
RBA INTEREST RATE DECISION
Actual: 4.25% Cons.: 4.00% Previous: 4.25%
---------------------
LEADING ECONOMIC INDEX Japan for Dec preliminary release
Actual: 94.3 Cons.: 93.9 Previous: 93.7 Revised from 93.2
---------------------
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION S.A. W.D.A. (YOY) Germany for Dec
Actual: 0.9% Cons.: 4.3% Previous: 4.4% Revised from 3.6%
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION S.A. (MOM) Germany for Dec
Actual: -2.9%Cons.: -0.3%Previous: 0.0%Revised from 0.0%
http://www.fx360.com/calendar/
FOTFLMAO!!! ht Jesse's,
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama ordered a freeze on all Iranian government and central bank assets held in the U.S. or any foreign branch of a U.S. entity, the White House said today.
The president cited “deceptive practices” of the Iranian central bank and an “unacceptable risk” to the international financial system from Iranian activities.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-06/obama-...
For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
The Athenians in the Melian Dialogue - Thucidydes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h....
http://www.blogher.com/forever-dies-hard?page=full
A link at Jesse's led me to this, probably the most in-depth look at the diamond market I've read. A monopolised market. I wonder what comparisons, if any, we could make to the gold and silver markets?
Yep, so as Armstrong recently pointed out, this plan will come to ruin because it is only about saving creditors. Merkel is as much a puppet of the elite as Obama. A red herring IMO for Der Speigel to be concentrating on the 'myth' that Germany benefits from the present Euro situation, but revealing of old attitudes rising to the surface of Europe once again:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,...
They're all going down together, just appears to be a question of time. I wonder if the people with the real money behind the Euro are continuing to pony up, or have withdrawn or liquidated their holdings and are stashing it elsewhere. Gold above $1700 and the dollar returning to test 79 is suggestive of what hard assets may be capable of doing in the coming months.
Where art though Italy, in all this mess? Keeping a low profile I imagine...
What surprises me almost more than anything is that these jokers are willing to risk bringing down the financial system for a measly billion dollars, which is a fraction of what they take in personal bonuses in a good year. Is this some sort of perverse adherence to the Ferengi rules of acquistion? "Once you have their money, never give it back."
The blatant theft of this tiny amount (relative to the money floating around the system today) has left me mystified too. I've been wondering if it's a test case, to see if HB&B can push the limits of the law, indeed break them, without being called to account. So far the getaway looks good.
RETAIL SALES S.A. (MOM) Australia for Dec
Actual: -0.1% Cons.: 0.2% Previous: 0.1% Revised from 0.0%
HALIFAX HOUSE PRICES (3M/YOY) UK for Jan
Actual: -1.8% Cons.: -2.1% Previous: -1.3%
SENTIX INVESTOR CONFIDENCE EMU for Feb
Actual: -11.1 Cons.: -14.3 Previous: -21.1
FACTORY ORDERS S.A. (MOM) Germany for Dec
Actual: 1.7% Cons.: 1.0% Previous: -4.9% Revised from -4.9%
FACTORY ORDERS N.S.A. (YOY) Germany for Dec
Actual: 0.0% Cons.: -0.4% Previous: -4.3%
http://www.fx360.com/calendar/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-year-of-faceb...
My thoughts are to be wary of an intermediate top when this IPO goes out. Bill's thoughts on the GOOG game related to an FB IPO were noted in the WIR. Right now we appear to have market tailwinds. By the time of this IPO, I'm not sure where we'll be. Which is what makes this market so dang interesting, day in, day out.
Yesterday I posted a monthly VIX chart, which stockcharts.com didn't hold the link to. Now I remember why I stopped using them. See attached. Notice ROC, which I pay attention to, less so than the level of VIX. Given the rapidity that VIX has dropped in this advance, I had to wonder how much resistance the 15 level was going to offer.
If equities show strength on any pullback and bonds show the money outflows necessary to maintain an equity bear market rally higher than here, I have to wonder if VIX will drift back to the 10 levels again. Europe of course is the big unknown.
Perhaps these 'fear' pulses are quickening and we crash big time from here. I don't know, but I do know that America's economy isn't ending tomorrow. I'm still wary of Tim Wood's Phase 2 bear market sell off in his Dow Theory; will keep an ear open for his 'DNA marker' that tells him when the top is in.
Ok, let's continue the story with John Murphy and put another potential spin on market outcomes:
http://blogs.stockcharts.com/.a/6a0105370026df970c...
note the above chart, and potential for a repeat performance. Note potential resistance - 1600 on the S&P. Note the following passage from John Murphy's latest newsletter:
Quite simply, the risk-reward is to the upside given the October-2011 trade formed a bullish monthly key reversal to the upside - a signal that new highs were a higher probability than previously thought. Certainly given the European fiasco, one would have thought prices would trade lower; but when they did - it was only for a very short period. This is reminiscent of the pattern seen during the Russian debt crisis in 1998, when prices traded lower in October-1998 - only to trade over +40% higher in the ensuing 18-months.
Frankly, the current technical pattern seem eerily similar from a corrective and MACD point-of-view - which would lead one to surmise that new highs in the S&P are forthcoming - in all probability into the 1600 area. But having said this, even if new highs develop, we would this as a bear market rally in much the same manner as those were in the 1970's trading range that broke to new highs only to falter massively in the months thereafter.
http://blogs.stockcharts.com/chartwatchers/
So technical traders like Murphy are left chasing are they? Let's have a quick recap of Brian Shannon's cycle of trader emotions in a given market cycle. From the time the market makes a base, we have 1)disbelief, 2)hope, 3)optimism, 4)belief, 5)thrill, 6)Euphoria... and then we have market rollover. I'm guessing we're still somewhere between disbelief and hope:
http://alphascanner.com/Home/About
But I think Geoff said it best Friday:
we just want to see a break-out either way and will trade accordingly.
What we can do with Bill, and I have no end of thanks for showing me this, is to continue monitoring fundamentals for our clues that the market may be ready to turn. All we can do is watch, be good observers of the market, and not make judgements based on anecdotal, localised or personal views. Because it is clear to me that the trillions of dollars flowing through various international markets do not move according to these criteria. I'm still quite wary of bonds, which have not fallen by the wayside yet.
Returned to the madhouse with Vad and fellow traders on Friday. Nice to take the thinking cap off and just go with it.
the latest from Romney is pure theatre:
Mitt Romney's campaign is amending the financial disclosure form he filed in 2011 to acknowledge that a Romney trust earned interest income from a Swiss bank account, a detail that had been missing from the report.
"An amendment is being filed to address this minor discrepancy," a campaign official told ABC News in an email Thursday in response to questions about the apparent omission.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-failed-disclo...
Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-million...
Is this the best that the GOP can field, or are they deliberately setting him up to fail?
Ron Paul for 2016 IMO. Once again the people need to be disillusioned and disappointed. Faced with Europe and Japan imploding on their television sets in coming years, such events may be the existential wake up call America needs. Till then, bring in the clowns...
2007/8? That's a huge time period you're covering there Grym. Don't misinterpret my thoughts on a potential multi-quarter improvement as Puplava's work, that was my own supposition I was voicing.
Note also the data that Puplava is pointing out. There is no BLS data (read 'massaged' data) in his article. Fed State Leading Indexes, ISM manufacturing, loan data and S&P technical data - all pointing one way AT THIS TIME.
As for 2H2012, that's another story. As for the jobs data Friday, excuse me if I'm a little skeptical:
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/02/c...
BUT... I've learnt as a trader to watch how the market trades the data for my cues - and the market was pretty bullish Friday. You can buy and hold whatever investment suits your temperament best.
As I pointed out, the market is stretching to severely overbought status here (specifically the tech index, which is running hot). How it behaves on this pullback, in conjunction with the bond market, will determine whether this rally has legs.
As Armstrong remarked of an author of political "expert" judgement, "there was one kind of expert turns out consistently more accurate forecasts than others. The most important factor he discovered was not how much education or experience the experts had but how they actually thought. The best forecasters were those who were self-critical, eclectic thinkers who were constantly updating their beliefs when faced with contrary evidence instead of clinging to dogma.
FWIW
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/chris-p...
I thought this article title quite apt for those talking recession and the irrationality of the market going up when things are so bad. Puplava has lots of charts - note especially the expansion in lending. I won't elaborate on what Puplava has written; it's solid weekend reading for those interested in Bill's understanding of how fundamentals and the market are cyclically connected.
Having said that, I do note the complacency - not yet euphoric - of the market's behaviour.
Sentiment is frothy: http://www.sentimentrader.com/
$CPCE - equities only put/call ratios heading back to complacency for a DB:
http://tinyurl.com/6rpmchv
Inverse ETF vol. has fallen off a cliff - no one is hedging: http://sentimentrader.com/blog/archives/131
$NAMO - NASDAQ total market breadth heading to extreme overbought:
http://tinyurl.com/845ewtg
Here's a market structure graph published by Brian Shannon; everyone here should be familiar with how the market functions:
http://alphascanner.com/content/images/marketstruc...
I notice the old hands are now warning trader's not to get cocky here in a market that is so forgiving in the present dip buying strategy. After the disasterous year in 2011 I can understand why it'd be so gentle in permitting fresh cash to reenter the casino - how many retail traders were scared away by the awesome volatility of the last 12 months?
http://www.robertsinn.com/2012/02/03/when-everyone...
On $VIX. Yes we can see how quickly $VIX is returning to 15, its historical base during this financial crisis of the last 4 years. But let's pull out the chart a bit further to look at 2000 - 2012. What if we're about to enter another multi-month/year bear market rally? Will we see volatility suppressed back to the 10 level? If you look at MACD in the following monthly VIX chart, it has just made a negative crossover. Plenty of downside from here.
http://tinyurl.com/7opxxlv
I'm not convinced of it yet - we're certainly due a pullback and on the basis of that I'd then like to see how support holds. But I posted the other day some quick thoughts from Armstrong.
http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/Sovereign%20D...
He suggests that authorities may have dodged the bullet here and 2015+ is now the next cyclical turn of the wheel in this debt saga. In any case, as he makes clear, Europe and Japan are going down before Uncle Sam. Much will happen between here and those events.
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/ryan-pu...
Interesting to see revenue deceleration occurring, and quite rapidly. Zuckerberg cashing in before FB cashes out?
HSBC China Services PMI
Actual 52.5 Cons. 52.5
http://www.markiteconomics.com/MarkitFiles/Pages/V...
Business activity across the combined manufacturing and service sector broadly stagnated at the start of 2012, with the HSBC Composite Output Index falling from 50.8 to 49.7. There were divergences by industry, however, with continued manufacturing weakness contrasting with steady growth of services output. Nonetheless, the rate of expansion in service sector activity remained weak in the context of historic data, with the latest seasonally adjusted Business Activity Index reading of 52.5 down on the long-run trend (56.8)
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PURCHASING MANAGER INDEX SERVICES Germany for Jan
Actual: 53.7 Cons.: 54.5 Previous: 54.5 Revised from 52.4
http://www.markiteconomics.com/MarkitFiles/Pages/V...
PURCHASING MANAGER INDEX SERVICES EMU for Jan
Actual: 50.4 Cons.: 50.5 Previous: 50.5 Revised from 48.8
http://www.markiteconomics.com/MarkitFiles/Pages/V...
PURCHASING MANAGER INDEX SERVICES UK for Jan
Actual: 56 Cons.: 53 Previous: 54
http://www.markiteconomics.com/MarkitFiles/Pages/V...
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RETAIL SALES (YOY) EMU for Dec
Actual: -1.6% Cons.: -1.3% Previous: -1.5% Revised from -2.5%
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UNEMPLOYMENT RATE Canada for Jan
Actual: 7.6% Cons.: 7.5% Previous: 7.5%
http://www.fx360.com/calendar/
GMCR seems to be getting some momentum behind its coffee products, so a massive gap up which is just begging to be sold short as a day trade at the open:
http://tinyurl.com/7dw75vl
What you can see in common with Vad's catch of the day yesterday - indeed all the setups I've posted there is how I seek a tailwind in MACD readings in multiple time frames when entering a trade, still using price as the final arbiter of that setup. So no quick scalping, preference will be given to intraday trend or reversals.
It was the same tailwind I used in my swing setups during 2011, except I also relied on stochastics as well. Now I've reduced it to one indicator as an accompaniment to price and volume.
This will be my edge as a day trader. Looking forward to getting back in.
I went and looked at what GMCR actually sells. It's the same disgusting stuff that is making Nestlé's fortune in Europe, little coffee capsule machines that while are admittedly practical for the office space, have no place in a coffee lover's kitchen.
Nothing beats the Italian coffee pot - preferably stainless for health reasons:
http://www.alessi.com/en/3/517/coffee-machines/esp...
"As usual, I will be keying gains off the Rupee and the Ruble and the GDXJ:GDX ratio chart... Traders will be wary of the dilution effect of takeovers of the majors, so I think those prices will underperform the rest."
Shareholder dilution makes sense for the under-performance - thanks for clarifying that. The Rupee has made solid gains as the attached USD/INR chart shows. I note the zone of consolidation here likely to serve as support for Uncle Buck. That may coincide with PM's cooling their heels here. When you look at the downside still left to USD/INR and you look at the daily gold chart, then things don't look so bad - certainly not going to hell in a hand basket as the cheerleaders were portending recently. I see Indian marriage season runs through to May or something like that.
In any case, if that trendline resistance in $gold:$silver is broken, then I'll be looking for further downside and potential consolidation:
http://tinyurl.com/7mgwqar
CEW - Emerging market currencies. A solid run from Dec, the support base of which presaged a reversal in the dollar long before Uncle Buck itself was ready to roll over. Some RSI bearish divergence kicking in at overbought levels of 70+ as CEW hits the 200MA. A potential for easing off here and as Geoff remarked premarket, some money flowing back into Uncle Buck as it develops a base at 79:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=CEW&p=D&b=5&g=0&i...