You know the old saying that Bull Markets are more fun than Bear Markets?
It's true.
And not because you can't make money in a bear market. You can. In fact, you usually make money much faster in bear markets. That's just how the market behaves.
But the truth is that bull markets are definitely more fun.
I can tell you from first hand experience over the years. The parties in bull markets are more fun and they are more frequent, than in bear markets.
Last night was definitely a bull market party. Josh Brown turned 46 and I turned 42.
Strazza even flew up to New York for the festivities.
Back in the late 1800s, Charlie Dow was a journalist in Springfield Massachusetts.
His job was to write about the stock market. But when he would go knocking on doors asking companies questions, they would tell him, "Our business is none of your business".
So how could poor Charlie do his job then?
Well, he concluded that there was a better way to do this.
He recognized that there were a select group of stocks that, "Made the goods", and he called those the Industrials.
And then there was the group of companies that, "Delivered those goods". At the time, they were the Railroads.
If one of these groups of stocks were going up in price, and so was the other group, then things are moving in a positive direction together. Those were good signs for the market.
It was specifically when one of those groups were rising, but the other one wasn't, that something was likely wrong.
One of the things we've been monitoring closely over the past month is the new lows list.
I see very often how people love to just subtract random numbers from each other, mostly for the sake of subtracting.
There's really no reason for it.
For example, lately I'm sure you've noticed some traders and analysts taking the new 52-week high list and then arbitrarily subtracting the number of new 52-week lows from it.
The only real safe haven out there continues to be the US Dollar.
That's it.
When money flows into the Dollar, stocks are under pressure. You may not always see it at the index level, but you can certainly see it when you count and go one by one across the stock market.
The US Dollar bottomed on December 27th. That was also the day that the Advance-Decline line on the NYSE put in its top. It was also the day that the Russell2000 Small-cap Index peaked.
Breaking News: "Dow Futures fell 100 points and the VIX rose this Friday on news of new all-time highs for the stock market"
The breadth continues to deteriorate with every week that goes by.
You notice?
You can see it in our trades as well. While the puts on our $SPY and $QQQ haven't started to work yet, the bearish trades on individual stocks are all either working or flat.
It's interesting. What you see in happening in the portfolio, you can also see happening in the market itself.
We saw new all-time highs this week for the S&P500. But we had the fewest stocks in the S&P500 above their 200 day moving average since December. And the fewest above their 50 day moving average since November.
Another day goes by in the market, and more selling came in.
Investors are making a habit of this whole selling thing.
You notice?
In yesterday's trading we saw the fewest amount of stocks in longer-term uptrends since mid-December. We also had the fewest stocks in short-term uptrends since mid-November.
You may not see the selling pressure as much at the index level, but for those of you who actually take the time to count what the stocks themselves are doing, you know.
Take a look at the new highs list, essentially non-existent throughout the month of January, even with the S&P500 and Dow hitting the highest levels ever.
You can also see the divergences in Consumer stocks, Small-caps and Emerging Markets currencies: