A Hundred Times

Baidu (BIDU) which literally translated means “A hundred times” is one of the largest internet companies in the world and China’s search engine leader.  Since reaching an all-time high in late 2014, found a bottom a year later. Since that time it has been making a series of lower highs but higher lows essentially going nowhere. This, as we know, creates a symmetrical triangle pattern. A break out of the pattern can occur in either direction and because of its unreliability, an investor who took a position in the direction of the break needs to be alert for the possibility the break was a fake and price quickly reversing in the opposite direction. With all this uncertainty and potential management headache many investors will be better off ignoring these patterns and move onto something with a higher probability.  But those willing to take the risks see the upside targets these patterns offer well worth their hazards and Baidu is no different. 

After last week’s breakout from the pattern on some 20% increase in volume combined with momentum above 50 and rising, provides some level of comfort this move is real. Baidu’s (BIDU) first conservative upside target is back up to prior highs at $250, some 30%+ higher.  Beyond that is anyone’s guess as once price has moved onto new highs and it gets into rarefied air, reasonable target estimates become fuzzier. An investor who wants to wait for a confirming move higher this week could buy the breakout and place a stop just under the breakout level. A move back into the pattern would invalidate it and provide the reason to exit the position. Using this management framework offers the investor an excellent opportunity to make $4 for every $1 invested. Personally, I would take an opportunity offering this risk to reward ratio a hundred times out of ahundred.

$60 Trillion of World Debt

I saw this chart posted by visualcapitalist.com and had to forward it along. While it has little to do with investing, it is an obsession of mine. I am a firm believer that one day we will have to face the piper and have our day of reckoning.  While debt isn’t evil, the level of debt we (the US) have almost fits that description. But the interesting thing is, and maybe provides some solace, is looking across the global landscape it appears as if there are a few countries/regions that may have to face the piper before we do. Ultimately though, our day will come.

As you can see the chart breaks down $59.7 trillion of world debt by country, as well as highlights each country’s debt-to-GDP ratio using color. The data comes from the IMF and only covers public government debt. It excludes the debt of country’s citizens and businesses, as well as unfunded liabilities which are not yet technically incurred yet. All figures are based in USDollars.

The numbers that stand out the most, especially when comparing to the previous world economy graphic:

• The United States constitutes 23.3% of the world economy but 29.1% of world debt. It’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 103.4% using IMF figures.
• Japan makes up only 6.18% of total economic production, but has amounted 19.99% of global debt.
• China, the world’s second largest economy (and largest by other measures), accounts for 13.9% of production. They only have 6.25% of world debt and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 39.4%.
• 7 of the 15 countries with the most total debt are European. Together, excluding Russia, the European continent holds over 26% of total world debt.
• Combining the debt of the United States, Japan, and Europe together accounts for 75% of total global debt.  Yet, combining their population they account for less than 25% of the world’s total humans

Wow, That was Fast!

Back on March 1st I wrote about the inverse head and shoulders pattern developing setting the stage for a big rally in Beef prices in “It’s What’s for Dinner”.  At the time cattle future prices were hovering around $55/contract and the pattern’s upside target was some 45% higher at $80.  I am happy to say that last week that target was hit. While it is massively overbought, there is no divergence and as such looks like it may want to make another push higher after the current pullback is complete. Anyone who followed the call should consider taking at least partial profits. 

It’s important to remember pattern opportunities don’t always work out this well and when they do, it is rare they move this quickly.

Junk Bonds Pointing to Further Stock Upside

The latest from one of the best technical analysts out there, Tom McClellan.

Junk bonds are the canaries in the stock market’s coal mine. 

If you want to know ahead of time that trouble is coming for the stock market, then one of the best places to look is the high-yield (or junk) bond market.  The movements of prices among these bonds correlates much more closely to the stock market than to T-Bonds.  More importantly, when liquidity gets tight, the junk bonds are the first to be sold by traders wanting to lessen their portfolio risk. 

We can see the importance of this message in this week’s chart, which features A-D data from FINRA TRACE.  For those who like the full spelling of acronyms, that means “Financial INdustry Regulatory Authority Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine”.  FINRA tracks the price changes on a total of 7876 individual bonds, and breaks down the Advance-Decline statistics into categories of Investment Grade, High Yield, and Convertible bonds.  The chart above features the A-D data for the High Yield bonds.

This A-D Line arguably does a better job than the composite NYSE A-D Line at doing what we want an A-D Line to do, which is to show us divergences at important times.  That is the whole reason behind ever looking at breadth data of any type.  We want it to give us an answer which is different from what prices are saying, but only at the right moments. 

A lot of analysts mistakenly assert that if one is interested in the stock market, then one should only look at A-D data from the stock market.  And to take that point further, they assert that one should filter out all of the contaminants such as preferred stocks, rights, warrants, bond closed end funds, and other detritus which together are making the stock market less pure.  I debunked that point in a March 24, 2017 article. 

Just recently, the overall NYSE A-D Line moved to a new all-time high, saying that liquidity is plentiful and it should lift the overall stock market.  The same message comes from this High Yield Bond A-D Line, which has also pushed ahead to a new all-time high.  The message is that liquidity is so plentiful that even junk bonds can go higher.  And history shows that such plentiful liquidity is also beneficial for the overall stock market.

Sell in May?

It’s that time of year folks. When the “Sell in May” statisticians provide the historically compelling numbers to make the case for being out of the stock market for the next 6 months. If you are not aware, the odds are heavily stacked against you if you do. Or are they? Much of the evidence is due to the fact almost all of the nasty bear market declines (’29, ’87, ’00 and ’08) began during this period. But the facts are the facts. On que, Dana Lyons posted an obligatory but non-confirming article that looked at the data in a different light and dug a little deeper than the raw numbers. Because of what he found and the fact it is contrarian, I thought it worthy of passing along…

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There is some evidence to suggest that stock investors would be well served by NOT selling in May and going away this year.

One of the most famous of all of Wall Street’s trading bromides is “Sell In May & Go Away”. Of course, the saying refers to the tendency of stocks to perform worse during the 6 months from May through October than they do from November through April. Perhaps the reason why it is still so popular is that, unlike some of Wall Street’s other sayings, there is actually solid historical evidence to back it up, including recent history.

Specifically, here are the average returns in the Dow Jones Industrial Average during the 2 periods since 1900:

November-April: +5.45%

May-October: +1.61%

Not only does the average return for the May-October period lag badly, but the consistency of positive returns has been much less reliable:

November-April: 69% Positive Returns

May-October: 61% Positive Returns

Plus, as mentioned, unlike many seasonal tendencies that lose their effectiveness over time as the edge gets arbitraged away, the Sell In May pattern has held true even as of late. For example, 6 of the last 7 years, 10 of the last 12 years and 18 of the last 23 years saw the Dow stronger from November-April than from May-October.

So is there anything that bulls can hang their hat on during the forthcoming 6 months? Well, first of all, despite the fact that May-October has generally lagged its 6-month counterpart, the historical average return for the period is still positive. So it’s not like the whole period has been a disaster, though there have certainly been some of those.

In parsing the data, however, we have found one historical trend that may actually encourage traders to stay invested during this year’s May-October period, rather than the mere expectation that their investments will just be biding their time. It is based on the performance of the just completed November-April period – specifically, the Dow’s strong (but not too strong) +15.4% performance.

Here’s what we mean. We again went back to 1900 and measured the return in the Dow during every November-April period. We then broke the returns down by those less than -15%, those greater than 20% and all 5% intervals in between. We then looked at the subsequent May-October periods to see if there was any correlation.

As it turns out, negative November-April returns had a strong tendency to lead to negative May-October returns (except for the very worst years which typically saw mean reversion). Conversely, positive November-April returns had a strong tendency to lead to positive May-October returns. And the historical sweet spot for May-October periods came following November-April returns ranging between 15%-20%, e.g., this year.

As the chart reveals, following the 13 November-April periods with returns between 15%-20%, the average May-October return has been +9.64%. That, again, compares with an average return during all May-October periods of just 1.61%. Furthermore, 11 of the 13 years saw positive returns from May through October.

Now, there are no guarantees in financial markets. As recently as 2011 saw this tendency fail when the Dow lost 6.7% during the May-October period (with a drawdown that was much worse) following a November-April period that gained more than 15%. Furthermore, who’s to say these returns aren’t just completely random anyway?

We will say that this seasonal tendency is far down on the list of decision-makers for us as it pertains to these upcoming 6 months. We have our models and indicators that we track which, as always, will guide our investment posture. That said, given the negative ink paid toward the “Sell In May” period (and deservedly so), at least this is some evidence to suggest that, for this year, stocks could instead Excel In May