The First Time in Months

With virtually all major US stock indexes at or approaching all-time highs it may seem blasphemous for me to bring up the possibility of a correction. Especially if I am talking about investors beloved Nasdaq 100 index, the past 2-year sector best performer. But I will risk the hate mail, scud missile threats and worse yet, derogatory White House Tweets to outline what I see may be developing anyway because hey, it’s only a possibility.

As you can see in the daily chart of QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 index, price has formed, the first time in many months, a topping pattern. In this case a rising wedge. Because all corrections (or, gawd forbid, reversals. Remember them?) require a topping pattern, when they do appear (or in development) they should not be ignored. What is likely obvious, the pattern has not confirmed (only 4 touches whereas a minimum 5 is required or broken below support) and could easily be negated if price were to hold above the lower support channel. If on the unlikely chance it does confirm by breaking lower, the pattern’s price target is at T1) below, while just below that is the rising 200 day moving average and immediately below that is an open, unfilled gap, T2.  Any of these are areas of logical support and a place where any pullback (I think I was 12 when the last one occurred), if it were to happen, would find support. It’s also noteworthy to mention the negative RSI momentum divergence in the upper pane.

I know some of you are yawning out of boredom since this “potential” correction is a whopping 5-8% and the sneers of “bring it on big boy” are bubbling from within. But because of its importance to the US stock market, a pullback in this Nasdaq 100 index would likely be the catalyst the overall market uses to do the same. With seasonality still in the bears favor and the charts of some of the top 5 Nasdaq 100 stocks looking rather ill, now is as good a time as any. But not to worry, we are in an uptrend and each and every pullback is being bought. Heck if 2 nuclear blasts and ICBM’s cant rile the market I don’t know what can. Bottom line is any pullback is a buying opportunity as we are setting up for what I expect to be a healthy year-end rally.   

August 2017 Charts on the Move Video

For those who were lulled to sleep with August's market action, seasonality says it time to sit up and pay attention since September is historically the weakest month of the year for stock returns. Weak or not, we are in the midst of a powerful bull market so plan accordingly.

August's video link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PfC6I2wVE4&t=6s

Breakout or Fake Out?

After bottoming in December of last year gold went on to make a series of higher highs and higher lows through June, the sign of a possible new uptrend. Since June though, it has chopped sideways, stuck in a well-defined range, where $1210 acted as support while $1300 as resistance.  That all changed on Monday as gold broke out above both the 2017 range and November 2016 high. Yesterday, gold gapped up at the open but ended the day near the lows, forming a gravestone doji, and two legs of a 3-legged bearish shooting star reversal pattern.

There is no question how Wednesday closes will be critical for both gold bulls and bears alike. A close higher will likely invalidate the shooting star and put gold back on the path to retest 2016 highs near $1375. On the other hand, if gold closes lower and below the breakout level, there is nothing more bearish than a failed breakout which puts the nail in the “new uptrend” coffin and warns of a retest of this year’s lows.

Sometimes breakouts are event not market driven (could Monday's big move be caused by the fear trade brought on by North Korea’s missile launch or the fact on the same day a breakdown of the dollar occurred?). And when they are, they are susceptible to reversals as they turn in to “fake outs”. With that in mind investors need to be aware of this possibility and react to insure the protection of investment capital.

Nothing Good Rhymes with August

For regular readers of this blog the name Tom McClellan requires no introduction as I am a big fan of his technical work and repost it regularly. With the dog days of summer upon us and the market a jumbled mess awaiting an impetus, I thought I would use Tom’s most recent work to add a little spice. Today’s post is a look at the seasonality patterns in play and their historical impact.

Everyone knows about annual seasonality, and has heard of “Sell in May and go away”.  That slogan persists even though actual seasonal strength typically peaks in August, but nothing good rhymes with August.  There is also a strong tendency of the market to show regular patterns on a 10-year basis, now known as the Decennial Pattern.  And years ending in the number 7 have an ugly surprise for the bulls. 

In year 7s, the stock market typically peaks in August and bottoms in early November.  And thus far the DJIA seems to be following the pattern very closely.  The real decline comes after a peak due Oct. 3.

The worry in following this pattern is that it might be overly influenced by the huge decline that the DJIA experienced in 1987.  So in the chart above, I show two versions of the Decennial Pattern, the lower one leaving out the data from the entire decade of the 1980s.  This allows us to see that it was not just the effects of the 1987 crash that are pulling down the Pattern in year 7s.  It is a persistent effect. 

The strong correlation that we are seeing this year between the DJIA and the Decennial Pattern is pretty impressive, and it is worth noting that the DJIA had not been seeing such a strong correlation earlier in this decade.  Here is a longer term comparison:

The market strength which is a normal feature of years ending in 5 did not appear this time.  I would argue that having the Fed doing $85 billion a month of QE earlier in the decade pulled forward the normal year 5 strength.  Then shutting off that free money pushed the market into withdrawal symptoms, like a heroin addict trying to quit cold turkey.  Now that we are farther along into the post-intervention era, the market is more free to follow its normal tendencies and we are seeing better correlation to the Decennial Pattern. 

If the stock market keeps following the Decennial Pattern with the strong correlation we are seeing now, then we can expect prices to bump along gradually lower, and then accelerate downward once October gets here. 

The following chart was added by me (Chuck) to provide a look at the DJIA performance for each and every year ending in “7”. The months of August through November have been outlined by the red dashed box. Note, only 1927 was the only year in which November ended higher than August. Will 2017 be the second?

The Rear View Mirror

You can’t do the same things others do and expect to outperform. – Howard Marks

When trying to get a reading on the overall stock market health most everyone uses the SP500 index as their proxy. The problem with doing that is twofold; 1) it includes only 500 stocks. While it is a much better proxy than the Dow Jones Industrials (30 stocks), it is a far cry from including all stocks in our markets which is currently in the neighborhood of 4500. 2) the SP500 index is cap weighted which makes the smaller companies less important. Ideally any index used should include as many in the universe of listed stocks as possible and be equal weighted.

The Value Line Geometric Composite Index (XVG), originally created in in 1961, includes more than 1700 stocks which are equally weighted using a geometric average. Because it is based on a geometric average the daily change is closest to the median stock price change. Suffice to say that while still not perfect it does a much better job of representing the US stock market than almost any other proxy.

With my long term model still very bullish and my short term model flashing a sell signal, these conflicting signals tell me it’s a good time to check in on "the market" (using a daily and weekly chart of XVG) and see what it is telling us. There is nothing more bearish than a failed breakout and is exactly what occurred and we see on the daily chart below. Note how the failed breakout occurred while RSI momentum was creating negative divergence. Since then price breached the 200-day moving average to the downside and closed Friday just below horizontal support (breakdown). The saying is from false breaks come big moves so that failed breakout was a potentially ominous signal and one that got my attention. As you know, horizontal support lines are drawn with fat crayons as they are not one specific price, rather they represent a range or zone. So, Friday’s close may be nothing more than being within that zone and not an actual breakdown. That is why confirmation is always needed when a breakouts or breakdowns occur. Suffice it so say, next week’s price action will be very critical. A confirmed breakdown, points lower with the first two targets are marked with the green horizontal bars, T1 and T2.

Taking a look at a longer weekly look, XVG broke its 2016 bottom uptrend line two weeks back while forming negative RSI momentum divergence. Looking left, notice what happened the last time this occurred from the 2012 bottom uptrend line, price fell 27%.

Since the 2011 failed top, investors have become conditioned to just buy the flipping dip (BTFD) as pullback buyers have been rewarded each time it has occurred. If we get follow through to the downside in the coming week(s), if recent history is our guide, it will likely just be a minor blip on the road higher. But because all bull markets eventually come to an end, investors should never become complacent as every dip may be the start of something much bigger. Either way, the answer will only be known in the rear view mirror.