Health of the Market
(12/8/2018)
The charts will be updated by every Saturday. When no change to text, [NC] will be used. Click for favorite investment websites or go to Charlottesville's The Center Investors' Forum. Note: To get tabs to other pages, Javascript (not Java) must be enabled for this site.
The
indicators for the longer term equity
market show a down market within a bear
cycle in a bear trend (see definition on Longer Term page). The
S&P 500 is down 9.13% since the September record high; -1.21% year-to-date; and -4.60% last week. 36.4% of
S&P 500 stocks were above their
200-day exponential
moving averages, down from 49.6% the week before. Only 24.0% of
these stocks were above their 50-day EMAs, up from 58.6% the week
before.
[NC] Lance Roberts stated on 7/20 "While I am trying to give the market as much room as possible, I am very concerned about the numerous warnings signs flashing in a variety of places from market breadth, to the yield curve, monetary policy, and earnings risk. Remember, replacing a missed opportunity to make money is easy, replacing lost capital is much more difficult."
[NC]
A Health Sell Alert occurred on Wednesday 9/26 (see chart below).
This is based on small-cap action. A VIX Sell Alert,
based on large-cap action, occurred on Wednesday 11/14 (see Status page).
[NC] A measure to determine if the price is too high relative to the underlying earnings is the Shiller price to earning ratio. This is the current price divided by the 10-year average of "real" (inflation-adjusted) earnings. This ratio corresponds quite well to the peaks of price as shown by charts on this site.
[NC]
The market in the typical December
is great -- not that this year's market is typical. The charts for the second
year of the presidential cycle compared to all years show
the second presidential year is also great in December. The Power
Zone,
the favorable time of the year, typically starts sometime in
October, but this year it will start later when a Health Buy Alert
occurs. Access more on the best six months in this 2017
article here. A Bear
Cycle began with the signal on 10/26/2018. The long-term BullHeal
System went to a buy on
9/27/2017; it is now on a sell as of 6/29/2018.
[NC]
Since late March 2018, with a dip in August/September, the dollar ($USD) increased in
value with respect to a basket of other currencies as long-term
interest rates were hovering around highs. The
10-year Treasury bond rose to a peak on 10/5 and again on 11/8 closing at 3.23% both times.
The speed of the
increase, 0.3% in a month, spooked the stock market. This was up from
around 2.4% at the start of 2018. The 10-year
Treasury rate ($TNX
/10) and $USD are shown in a 5-year
chart with weekly closing prices.
[NC] From June through October, Korea’s currency, the won, has dropped 3.3% against the dollar, while the Singapore dollar has declined 2.7%, Thailand’s baht has fallen 2.4% and the Taiwan dollar has slipped 2%. Those moves compare with a 7.1% loss in China’s yuan.
[NC]
Also shown is the CRB Commodities Index, which is a measure of inflation. This index is an unweighted geometric average
of prices across 17 commodities including energy, grains, industrials,
livestock, precious metals, and agriculturals. A rising dollar will hurt commodity prices.
[NC] Barry Habib on 2/27/2018 stated that the most important reason we will see higher yields is simple supply
and demand. The US will need to borrow $400B more in 2018 then it
did in 2017 through the sale of more Treasuries. At the same
time, the Fed will curtail its reinvestment in Treasuries and Mortgage
Bonds by an increasing and significant amount this year. They
will buy $252B less this year in Treasuries, at the same time that
$400B more supply will be issued. That's about $650B that will
need to be absorbed by the open market.
[NC] The international bond market is provided
by the WSJ. See the Income tab for a chart of U.S.
Treasury yields.
[NC]
The stock markets in
other countries are quite well correlated to the U.S.
market. To participate in these markets, the U.S. dollar can be
hedged out. Click to check out the country hedged ETFs and the un-hedged ETFs.
Note that BSE SENSEX is an India index, CAC 40 is France, FTSE 100 is a
UK index, Nikkei 225 is Japan, Hang Seng is Hong Kong, DAXK is Germany,
and Shanghai is, of course, Shanghai.
[NC]
Sector investing via exchange traded funds
(ETFs) is popular. The traders rotate between sectors. To see
how some popular sector ETFs are doing, click here for the Candle Glance. Correlations
of the sectors to the market (S&P 500) have been dropping. Sector fundamentals matter more now
than what the overall market is doing. This is probably due to the
concerns about tariffs. Correlations to the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) are
now on the Candle Glance charts as is the relative strength of the
sector to the SPY.
[NC]
The theory is that if the small-cap stocks do better
than the large-caps, it indicates that the traders are willing to
take on more risk and the market will go up. The chart shows the
relative strength of the
Russell 2000 IWM with respect to the S&P 500 SPY. The 10/30-day EMA crossovers are marked by a pole. The U.S. Dollar
is also shown. Note that when the dollar goes up, small cap stocks generally do
better than large cap stocks. The risk traders are willing to take has a major influence on this.
The
S&P 500 large-cap index hit an
all-time high on Friday 9/21 with very high volume, and almost went
there again on Wednesday 10/3. This turned out to be a double top. The
drops and subsequent up-swings have created a channel. A drop below the
support of the channel would probably be very dramatic, perhaps equal
to the height of the channel.
The
Russell 2000 small-cap index hit an all-time high on Friday 8/31. Since
then there has been a drop way below its 200-day
moving average. The 50-day MA
crossed below the 200-day MA producing a Death Cross. The support of
the previous lows has held although there latest low is below the previous low confirming the down trend.
The
technology-heavy Nasdaq composite
index came close to a new high and then dropped on high volume
and
went way below its 200-day MA. Friday there were 22.8% Nasdaq stocks
above
their
50-day moving averages (down from 37.3% last Friday). This index is
showing a downtrend that will be confirmed if the price closes below
the previous low.
[NC] The S&P 500 exchange-traded fund
closing price is shown
with its
Bollinger Bands below. The bands are two standard deviations above
& below a 20-day simple moving average. When the price goes
above or
near the upper Bollinger Band a downswing in price
is likely as the market is overbought. Similarly, when the
price goes below the lower band, an upswing is likely.
[NC] Also shown is the 21-day Money
Flow Index. This is an oscillator that uses both price and volume
to measure buying and selling pressure. A green pole is marked when the MFI moves
above 50 indicating a good time to buy. If the
MFI
hits the oversold level at 20 (green dashed pole not on chart),
it might
be a better time to buy. A red dashed pole when
the MFI comes down from around 80 might be good time
to lock in some profit. A solid red pole when
MFI goes below 50 indicates selling might protect from a further
downswing.
[NC] Below is the Russell 2000 small-cap index that tends to lead the overall market both up and down -- as the small-cap stocks are generally more risky than large cap stocks. This index is shown with high-low-close bars. It's 50 and 200-day simple moving averages are included. The 200-day moving average often acts as support or resistance to price movement as many traders watch it.
[NC] The Health Alert is based on the momentum of the small-cap Russell 2000 index, the Nasdaq breadth data, and the Nasdaq 52-week new highs and new lows. The thresholds are described below. The green buy and red sell 'alert' poles on the chart show when these alerts have occurred.
[NC] A Health Sell Alert occurred on Wednesday 9/26. Then the 21-day RSI dropped below 49. The small cap stock index is used here as small-caps have tended to lead the market both down and up.
[NC] The second pane is the Relative Strength Indicator (RSI) for the Russell index, a measure of momentum of the market. This is the relative strength of the Russell 2000 itself -- it's not relative to any other index. Above 50 shows positive momentum over the last 21 days. The latest plot can be seen by clicking here. The green arrows indicate a positive change in momentum as the RSI crosses above 50; red arrows indicate downward momentum when the RSI crosses 49. The threshold of 49 is used to give a more definite indication of the start of a down-swing.
[NC] The third pane is
the Nasdaq McClellan Summation
Index, $NASI, (red) and it's 5-day exponential MA (blue). This is
a running sum of the difference of two moving averages of the number of
advancing issues minus the number of declining
issues. A 19-day and a 39-day exponential moving average (EMA)
are used. This shows whether a market move is broad based. As the trend
changes, the red index will cross the blue EMA and an arrow
will be drawn. This indicator must be consistent with the RSI before an
alert pole is drawn on the price chart. When this index is below the 5-day EMA, and a 'sell
alert' has not occurred, this is a warning not to purchase new
positions, but to HOLD those that were bought earlier on the 'buy
alert'.
[NC] Dr.
Alexander Elder in his book Trading
for a Living says that the 52-week New Highs
minus New Lows Index is "probably the best leading
indicator of the stock market". This display for the Nasdaq market shows the this index
in pink. The 3-day MA of the NH-NL index is shown in blue. A green
arrow is placed if the 3-day MA of the NH-NL index goes positive for
three consecutive days, or a red arrow is placed if the MA goes
negative for three consecutive days. To see a
summation of the NH-NL numbers, click here. When a green
buy arrow is put on the price chart, it indicates a Health
'buy alert', if the other indicators concur. The red sell arrows
here are not used in the determination to place a sell pole on
the price chart, due to the lag.
[NC] The Health Alert acts as a
confirmation and does not do well as a stand-alone signal for
buying and selling. After a long trend, it works well to signal the end
of the trend.
Long-Term Overview
[NC]
This chart gives an overview of the situation. The market
had done well since the termination of the QE3 Fed bond buying, until
the last half of 2015. The 10-year Treasury rates moved down
even when the Fed raised the over-night Federal Funds Rate in
December 2015. There have been eight 1/4 point rate increases, the
last two in June and September of 2018. Now
there is an expectation of one more in 2018 and three in 2019. The Fed has been
continuously reducing their inventory of bonds. See more here. A chart of various
Treasury yields since 1962 are shown on the Income
tab.
Click here to go back to the top.
The source of the charts is located on the upper right of the chart. This page is for amusement only, and should not be taken as advice to buy or sell anything.