Crude Oil confirmed a failed breakdown below the 2009 lows last week. This development is extremely important from a risk management standpoint and has big implications from an inter-market perspective.
This market has been in a structural downtrend since late 2014 when prices broke down out of a five year long symmetrical triangle. The resolution out of this pattern was explosive, with prices declining roughly 75% off of the 2014 highs in less than two years. During this decline there has been no reason to be long this market for anything more than a tactical bounce, but with last week's close above the 2009 lows it is finally feasible for those with a longer-term time horizon to approach this market from the long side.
If you're a market participant, Lumber should be on your radar. The weight of evidence suggests that this market has upside roughly 20% upside from current levels and offers a trade opportunity not correlated to US equities.
Lumber has been in a structural downtrend since breaking down from a symmetrical triangle in early 2015. The decline continued throughout the year, with prices putting in a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence at long-term support near 215. After confirming the failed breakdown by closing back above the May 2015 lows, prices consolidated for 5 months and have now broken out above a multi-year downtrend line.
This morning I was on the Benzinga pre-market radio show, where I am invited as a guest every other Thursday. So basically twice a month a rap with the boys about the direction of the Stock Market, both U.S. and globally, Interest Rates & Bonds, and more recently precious metals and precious metal stocks.
You guys know that I prefer to incorporate more of a weight-of-the-evidence approach to markets rather than basing my decision making on a single indicator. We look at stock markets all over the world to find themes, both bullish and bearish, and then take advantage of them within U.S. markets. I then take a similar approach and go sector by sector in the U.S., including a series of sub-sectors, to break it down even further and find themes within the U.S. As you guys well know, the reason we were bullish since January was because of the weight-of-the-evidence internationally, not because of what we saw in the S&P500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Today I conducted an experiment where I went sector by sector doing my normal annotations and note-taking, but this time I asked myself 3 questions for each sector/sub-sector:
Changes in trend rarely get cleaner and as well-defined as the distribution taking place in the semiconductor space. The infamous head and shoulders topping pattern is as clear as day in this one. Today we're looking at the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which is the benchmark for semiconductors. This basket of chip stocks appears to be near a completion of a massive multi-year distribution pattern.
This is a weekly chart of semi's putting in their highs last summer to begin the right side of this topping pattern. This one fits the description
With all of the bad news and negative sentiment surrounding the high yield bond market, I think this is a place where we want to be buyers, and no longer sellers. High yield bonds are just a fancy way to refer to "Junk bonds". At the end of the day, high yield is just that: high yield, because you're getting paid a higher return for the risk you're taking by owning junk. Both on their own and relative to the safe-haven U.S. Treasury Bonds, these things have been destroyed over the last few years.
How often do we hear one person ask another, “So what are the charts telling you?”, or “What does that chart say?”. Think about that. Charts don’t actually say anything at all. They’re charts. Charts don’t speak. So why do so many people want to know what the charts are saying?
Technical analysis is the study of the behavior of the market and market participants. The most important tool that we have as technicians is price. Movements in the price of an asset represent the changes in equilibrium between supply and demand. It just so happens that the best way to visualize these changes in equilibrium is in chart form. This is why many technicians prefer to be chartists. It is not necessary for a technician to use a chart
This week I was running up and down the east coast in meetings and conferences. With some of the free time I had left, I sat down with a few of my favorite financial journalists to rap about the markets. On Monday afternoon I was on Bloomberg TV and Tuesday I was on the Business News Network with Frances Horodelski. I don't have as much time to do TV like I used to in the past, so it was a fun experience for sure.
On Monday afternoon I was over at the Bloomberg headquarters in New York City to discuss markets with Joe Weisenthal, Alix Steel and Scarlet Fu. Every time I've been on a guest on this show I've had pretty much nothing but bad news to share as far as the stock market is concerned. In January, all of our downside objectives were achieved and I've really changed my tune. I think this strength we've seen in stocks over the past month continues, particularly the relative strength in emerging markets.
