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.
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.
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.
A few weeks ago global equity markets began to mean revert to the upside after many met downside targets and momentum positively diverged. For examples of this check out my posts from then here and here. The same failed breakdowns and bullish momentum divergences that sparked a rally globally are now present across many of the US sectors and indices.
Of the 41 US indices / sectors I follow, 28 of them have bullish momentum divergences on the daily charts and have either confirmed, or are working on confirming, a failed breakdown by trading back above a prior low.
Twitter has been a disaster of a stock for the majority of its time as a public company, but recent price action suggests a tradable bottom may be in on an absolute and relative basis.
Before getting into the price action, it's worth acknowledging the continued deterioration in sentiment regarding this stock in recent months. I've been negative on the stock for a while, but with the downside targets I outlined here being met, I don't see a reason to be overly pessimistic on the stock at current levels. With price action improving in the face of another poor earnings report and another slew of analyst downgrades, it appears, at least anecdotally, that sentiment is overly bearish in this name.
With sentiment suggesting a neutral/bullish stance is appropriate, let's see what price is indicating.
Regardless of how strong their brand may be, Disney continues to remain correlated to the S&P 500, as most stocks do during a bear market, and remains in a downtrend. Despite the neutral to bearish structural picture, the stock looks to be setting up for a tactical bounce in the coming weeks.
Structurally the stock remains range bound between 90 and the all-time highs at 122. During this recent selloff, prices retested the uptrend line from the 2009 lows, which also corresponded with the 38.2% retracement of the 2011-2015 rally. I don't believe in triple bottoms, and although this is the third time testing the $90 level, current evidence suggests the stock can stage a counter-trend rally before continuing to the downside.
Momentum is a word that gets thrown around a lot. I personally like to measure momentum using a 14-period relative strength index (see here), but different people have different definitions. Fine. For today, we'll argue that "momentum" stocks are those listed in the MSCI USA Momentum Index. Looking at these stocks as a group, I think they are going to continue to get destroyed going forward, particularly relative to the rest of the market.
First of all, forget this whole FANG thing. I don't know who made that up or why people like to limit it to just 4 stocks. I think it's stupid. They have nothing to do with one another and there should be others included in the list. In fact, in November I wrote a piece about how FANG stocks are this cycles Four Horseman (See here) and was further evidence at the time that made us very bearish U.S. Stocks heading into December and January. That obviously worked out very well.
Is there anyone left out there who wants to buy Yahoo? I don't see any.
Talk about terrible sentiment in a stock. Anecdotally that's obvious, but our data suggests the same thing. Also, does anyone have anything nice to say about Marissa Mayer? All of this really gets my attention and has me thinking. Can Yahoo seriously mean revert here? I think there's a good chance.
Back in November I pointed to the Value Line Geometric Index as one of many reasons why I was bearish the U.S. Stock Market. One of many, but definitely a good one. You see, when we look at cap-weighted indexes like the S&P500 or Nasdaq100, the components with the largest market capitalization have the heaviest weighting in the index. This allows relative strength in some of the largest companies to hide what is actually happening underneath the surface. It doesn't tell the entire story.
By looking at the Value Line Geometric Index, which consists of around 1700 names and assumes an equal dollar amount invested in each stock covered by Value Line, we get a much more broad based look at the U.S. Stock Market.
A big reason why I've been bearish towards the U.S. Stock Market is because I'm in the weight-of-the-evidence business and globally stocks have been getting crushed. It was only a matter of time before the selling came to the United States Index. A good example of a broken market making new lows is India's Nifty Fifty Index.
That was fun wasn't it? S&Ps lost a cool 13% since the last week of 2015. You think that's a lot? Emerging Markets lost 16% during that period. The Russell 2000 Small-cap Index lost over 17%. Micro-caps lost over 18%. 13 is nothing. And get used to it, because I think there is a lot more selling coming.
Today, we're going to focus on what the S&P500 looks like because that is what all of you keep asking me about. I like to look at stock markets from a more global perspective, taking into account what other asset classes are doing like commodities, currencies and interest rates. Remember, I'm in the weight-of-the-evidence business. I believe that in order to navigate through what is a constantly evolving global marketplace, taking the weight-of-the-evidence is the best approach. But today, we'll take a deep dive look at S&Ps on their own.
