U.S. Treasury Bonds have treated us very well this year. Coming into January we wanted to buy a breakout above $122-123 in the U.S. Treasury Bond ETF $TLT with a target above $133. This upside target was achieved last month as interest rates simultaneously hit our downside target, 1.65% in the 10-year yield. Since then, we've wanted to back off and let new data dictate our next move. Over the past month, we've seen rates bounce back up towards 2.0% and the $TLT has fallen back down towards $128.
The question now becomes: Do we get back in on the long side? Or is there more consolidation or price correction needed first?
This is a forgotten space. Since early 2014, the last time Ags had any sort of meaningful rally, we've just seen a deterioration of prices. Whether you're looking at Corn, or Coffee, or Soybeans, the Ags have gotten destroyed. We've see massive rallies this year out of some of the other commodities like in Energy and Metals. Now I think it's time for the Ags to participate in this Commodities Rally.
One of the best ways to be positioned over the past 2 months has been to be in Emerging Markets, not in U.S. Stocks. I've been pounding the table on this trade since January and it has really worked out in our favor. The big question today is: Now What? Does this thing keep going, or does the longer-term trend of the U.S. outperforming Emerging Markets resume in the second quarter?
The noise surrounding the Federal Reserve is some of the silliest and biggest wastes of time in all of the financial industry. The media loves to talk about it, because well, they get paid to talk, not to help you make money in the market. Discussing the Japanese Yen for hours on end isn't sexy. That doesn't drive traffic or boost ratings. But if you're here to try and make money in the market, it's actually the most important thing to be watching here.
Long-time readers and Members of All Star Charts know how much I've been pounding the table about watching the Yen to gain insight on the direction of the U.S. Stock Market. Notice how last month when Yen put in its top (USD/JPY bottom), the S&P500 made its low on the very same day. The Nasdaq Composite also put in its low that day, so did the Russell2000, so did the Mid-cap 400, so did the Russell Micro-cap Index, so did the NYSE Composite. I can keep going, but I think you get the point.
This has been a pretty simple one coming into 2016. Not all charts are as clean as this, so it's hard for me to argue against selling Growth and buying Value. The longer-term trend has been to buy Growth stocks and sell Value stocks since 2006. This strategy has worked well, except maybe during 2012, but even that correction came within the context of a much larger bull market in Growth vs Value stocks.
Today we are looking at a ratio of the Russell 1000 Growth Index Fund vs the Russell 1000 Value Index Fund (IWF / IWD). This is a weekly line chart going back to the low in 2006 showing prices trending higher between 2 converging uptrend lines:
Cotton has been in a horrific bear market for 5 years. When you talk about some of the worst places to be on planet earth over the past half-decade, Cotton has to be near the top of the list. After peaking near 220 in early 2011, the price of Cotton has collapsed recently hitting a low under 55.
Although Turkey has already rallied 25% from the January 20th lows, the weight of evidence suggests this may be the start of a much larger move to the upside on an absolute and relative basis.
Structurally Turkey has been in a downtrend since a failed breakout near its all-time highs of 77.50 in early 2013. In August of 2015 prices broke below long-term support at 40 and have since been building a multi-month base below that level. Last week prices were able to break and close above it, while also closing above the downtrend line from the 2015 highs.
We've had quite a rally over the past month in the U.S. Stock Market. This is exactly the type of behavior that we should come to expect after a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence, like we saw occur in early February. Let's remember that the U.S. and other developed markets, like Europe for example, are the laggards here. We turned bullish Global Equities in late January, particularly Emerging Markets, and it wasn't until a retest of the January lows, that we started to see the shift in the U.S. and other developed economies early last month.
We only wanted to be long the S&P500 if we were above the August and September lows. The bullish momentum divergence on last month's sell-off helped spark this mean reversion rally.
Dow Theory is something that gets thrown around a lot, usually irresponsibly. What I mean is, that there is a lot more to Dow Theory that what you normally hear about on the TV or read about on the Internets. Usually, conversations about Dow Theory revolve around the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average either confirming or not confirming each other's trends. This is indeed part of Dow Theory, but not even in my top 5 most important Dow Theory Tenets. There are other aspects of Dow Theory that we need to pay attention to even more.
Fibonacci Analysis is one of the most valuable and easy to use tools that we have as market participants. I've studied supply and demand behavior for over a decade, and I find myself using Fibonacci tools every single day. These tools can be applied to all timeframes, not just short-term but longer-term. In fact, contrary to popular belief, technical analysis is more useful and much more reliable the longer your time horizon. Fibonacci is no different.
This doesn't have to be complicated guys. Supply and Demand dynamics do not change. I keep hearing how this market is "algo driven" or whatever, but those algos are built by humans. Supply and demand is based on fear and greed in humans, whether discretionary or systematic. I think the debate about algos is a waste of time for all of us. Let the noisemakers, who aren't trying to make money in the market, worry about that stuff. We're here to focus on supply and demand. Period.
The S&P500 has struggled over the past week to continue this monster rally from last month's lows. It should not be a surprise to anyone that we have struggled. Why? Because prices just ran into a ton of overhead supply. This correction is normal, and should be expected. Blame the algos if you want to sound smart in front of ignorant people at a cocktail party, but where I come from, we call this "normal":
