|
Over
the last few months, the behavior of the US stock markets has been rather
vexing. Usually when they grow overbought, when greed and complacency wax extreme
after a powerful rally, a healthy pullback soon rebalances sentiment. But
instead they've ground higher lately, defying precedent and confounding
students of the markets.
Back
in mid-October, the flagship S&P 500 (SPX) had blasted 24.9% higher in just
over 3 months since the end of its summer pullback. It had stretched 20%
beyond its 200-day moving average, incredibly extreme territory never even
approached in the entire last cyclical bull. Complacency was so great that
the VXO implied-volatility fear gauge fell to 20. Probabilities
overwhelmingly favored an imminent retreat.
But
curiously, the overdue SPX pullback never came. Even though trading volume
waned dramatically, buyers who missed the epic rally since March were still
moving enough capital into stocks to offset the meager selling pressure. The
result was a strange SPX levitation act, the stock markets staying high
despite very overbought technicals and ever-ballooning complacency.
As a
student of the markets and speculator, I've been waiting 3 months for this
pullback that never came. If you study the history of most technical or
sentiment indicators, in the past when they reached the levels they've
somehow sustained in recent months a sharp pullback was soon to follow. But
the markets are full of surprises, and so far today's retreat hasn't
materialized.
Given
the persistently overbought states of so many markets today, I still believe
probabilities overwhelmingly favor a universal pullback in stocks and
commodities to rebalance sentiment. The reasons are legion, and it could be
triggered any day now by some yet-unknown catalyst. Nevertheless, traders
must adapt. We have to accept the markets as they are, not as history teaches
they ought to be.
The
SPX's nonchalant behavior so far in January, edging higher to new post-panic
closing highs on each of this year's first 6 trading days, was so rare that
alternate scenarios must be considered. So this week I was wondering if there
is precedent for the stock markets to grind higher, sans meaningful pullback,
after such a powerful rally. Interestingly enough, there is! We've seen this
show before.
Today
the stock markets are in a young cyclical bull within a secular
bear. Understanding this is crucial for investors and speculators, and I
wrote an essay on it back in June if you need to get
up to speed. To research whether this surreal SPX levitation act might
actually be sustainable, I compared today's markets to the same early point
in the lifespan of the last cyclical bull (which essentially ran from March
2003 to October 2007). It turns out the symmetry and comparisons are uncanny.
In
this chart, the S&P 500's current cyclical bull rendered in blue is
superimposed over its last cyclical bull in red. Even though our current bull
emerged out of an ultra-rare stock panic, while the last one was born after a
far-more-common cyclical bear, these rallies' similarities are remarkable.
The SPX is not only rallying in almost the same way, but it is passing the
same levels at nearly the same times.
Both
cyclical bulls emerged out of deeply oversold lows in March. While the
panic-driven despair lows of March 2009 were far more extreme than the more
typical bear-driven lows of March 2003, it is provocative that these parallel
SPX bottoms happened within a single trading day of each other across the
6-year gulf! Coincidences like this really make you wonder about the
little-understood impact of deep psychology seasonality.
Back
in March 2003, the markets were worried about Washington's imminent invasion
of Iraq. While it seems trivial in hindsight, pre-invasion Iraq had the
fourth-largest standing army in the world. Traders feared catastrophic
oil-flow disruptions when the Scud missiles started flying. But in March
2009, all we had to fear was fear itself. A deep despair driven by
stock-panic-spawned economic worries had set in. The backdrops couldn't have
been more different, yet the cyclical bulls started at the same time.
Both
cyclical bulls saw blisteringly-fast early rallies, which are typical and
expected after deeply oversold fear-laden lows. Note above how closely the
steep rallies between March and May parallel each other. Then in June, both
cyclical bulls temporarily ran out of steam. The 2003 one was up 26.3% since
March and the 2009 one 39.9% (coming from much deeper lows). Yet they both topped
within 2 trading days of each other in June, which is fascinating.
These
infant bulls certainly weren't over, but all bulls need to rest from time to
time. Periodic pullbacks are healthy and necessary to bleed off excessive
greed and ensure the bull doesn't burn itself out prematurely. This is a real
threat if greed is unchecked for so long that all buyers interested in buying
soon are sucked in, leaving no one else to buy. So every few months or so
healthy pullbacks tend to erupt, which is why one looked so probable in
October 2009.
After
their initial rocketing ascents tapered off in early June, both bulls
retreated in June and July to rebalance sentiment. The SPX's 7.1% pullback
over 19 trading days ending in mid-July 2009 was the last meaningful pullback
in our current cyclical bull. After these rebalancing pullbacks, both bulls
were off to the races again in late summer and early autumn. Amazingly, their
intra-month patterns are nearly identical. Early-month rallies were followed
by mid-month interim highs and subsequent late-month selling.
In
late October 2009, the SPX fell 5.6% in 9 days which was the last material
selling episode we've seen. But it wasn't quite big enough to reach the
meaningful-pullback zone (say from 7% to 10%). Then in November and early
December, both cyclical bulls generally ground sideways near their highs. But
midway through December, both started rallying again. This strength carried
into early January in both cases.
Over
the years I've created thousands of custom charts to explore tradable
interrelationships in the markets. And even within this large pool of work,
this chart strikes me as exceptional. It is amazing that two completely
different cyclical bulls, born in very different economic conditions, would
so precisely mirror each other on a month-to-month basis. And at nearly the
same levels on the SPX, no less! Despite the endless differences between 2003
and 2009, these young cyclical bulls evolved very similarly.
And
this brings us back to today's SPX levitation act. Despite its sheer oddness,
there is precedent for markets staying overbought and complacent at
this point in cyclical bulls. This weakens the imminent-pullback thesis,
forcing investors and speculators to consider an alternate near-future where the
stock markets aren't sold off aggressively. What could it look like? There is
no better example than 2004.
Just
as 2003 is the last cyclical bull's equivalent to 2009, 2004 is equally
analogous to 2010. And the red line above chronicling 2004's behavior could
very well prove as prophetic for 2010 as 2003's path did for 2009. Right
about where we are today, 1150 on the SPX, the advance flattened out between
late January and early March. The US stock markets started grinding sideways
right near their highs. While overbought then too, much like today there was
still enough buying to offset selling pressure.
After
that, the SPX started a slow grind lower which persisted for almost 6
months into mid-August. That meandering 2004 span saw several pullbacks noted
above. There was a 5.7% one over 29 trading days ending in March, soon
followed by another 5.8% one over another 29 days ending in May, and then a
final larger 7.1% one over 35 days ending in August.
Now I
think we have to be careful here and not read too much into the precise
timeline of 2004's grind lower. Nevertheless, its strategic implications are
important. After such an amazingly powerful run higher, even if there isn't a
meaningful pullback or full-blown correction (say 10%+), the piper still has to
be paid. Overbought hyper-complacent markets can't persist, sentiment must be
rebalanced one way or another.
And
there are only two ways to bleed off greed and complacency, correction and
consolidation. The former works rapidly via the mechanism of a sharp retreat
that quickly stokes fear among traders. The latter works slowly, as
sideways-grinding prices transform excessive greed into boredom and apathy.
Either way greed is rebalanced away, with a tradeoff between the sharpness of
selling and time elapsed.
This
year we are likely to see stock markets structurally similar to those of
2004. The SPX will probably grind sideways, although I'm not sure if the bias
will be slightly to the upside or slightly to the downside. There are many
arguments for an upside bias to this consolidation including the vast pools
of cash remaining on the sidelines earning nothing in this zero-rate
environment. The Fed continues to try and force idle capital to migrate into
stocks by strong-arming money-market yields to nil.
But
on the other side, a downside bias is probable too. We continue to languish
under very high unemployment rates, this economic recovery is tepid at best.
On top of this, the freedom-hating Marxists running Washington are
aggressively trying to raise already-crushing income taxes on top of imposing
asinine new taxes on everything from electricity to health insurance to
banks. Stealing more money from hard-working American taxpayers to
bribe others for votes creates a very negative investing environment.
So I
really don't know how to game the consolidation grind, it could gradually
meander higher, stay flatlined, or slump lower. But it will almost certainly
be punctuated by periodic pullbacks just like the 2004 consolidation was.
Based on that precedent, we should expect several this year running in the
5%-to-7% range. This is a significantly different alternative from the larger
meaningful pullback in the 7%-to-10%+ range that conventional market analysis
(ignoring the cyclical-bull lifespan) suggests is coming.
Provocatively,
2004 certainly isn't the only precedent for a grinding, consolidating 2010
emerging at this stage in our young cyclical bull. During the last secular
bear, from 1966 to 1982, a cyclical bull emerged in October 1974. Not only
was it very similar to today's, born after a near-panic plunge, it started at
the same point in that last secular bear where we were in late 2008 in our
current secular bear. Once again, it is utterly imperative you internalize
and understand this cyclical-bulls-and-bears-within-secular-bears concept.
Today's
SPX is again rendered in blue, this time superimposed over the last secular
bear. You can clearly see the bull-bear cycle here, cyclical bears followed
by cyclical bulls within the confines of the SPX's giant secular trading
range between roughly 750 and 1500. While the markets grind sideways on
balance for 17 long years in secular bears, they are cut in half
and then doubled within this mighty trading range.
In
our current secular bear's lifespan, 2010 is the rough equivalent of 1976.
Back then there was a very sharp rally in 1975 (2009 equivalent) which
stalled out in early 1976. While the SPX didn't surrender its gains back
then, it didn't go higher either. It flattened and ground sideways in a high
consolidation very similar to 2004's. Here we have yet another example of an
odd SPX levitation act.
Despite
this chart not having zeroed axes, the relative trading ranges across these
different decades aren't distorted. You can see a zeroed-axis version of this
chart back in my June essay if you want to verify this yourself. If
you translate 1976's behavior into today's SPX terms, the markets spent most
of the year grinding sideways to slightly higher (roughly between 1075 and 1150).
It wasn't until late in the year that the 1200 equivalent was approached. This
is very similar to 2004's model.
So in
the second year of a cyclical bull, after the initial year's skyrocketing
rally exhausts itself, there is plenty of precedent for sideways-grinding
markets. We saw them in 2004 at the same stage in the last cyclical bull. And
we saw them in 1976 at the same stage in the last secular bear. Despite
speculators like me expecting a meaningful pullback to rebalance sentiment,
2010 may simply grind sideways instead.
While
I accept this precedent and will alter my trading strategy accordingly,
corrections are much better than consolidations for investors and
speculators. Corrections are not only over fast, but they provide great
buying opportunities when they mature. Hit the markets fast, hit them hard,
and kill the greed quickly so rallying can resume again. But consolidations
are boring life-sapping affairs that lead to dull markets and relatively few
trading opportunities. They burn valuable time and force us into waiting
mode.
Prior
to this research, based on sentiment and technical indicators I figured we
had an 80% to 90% chance of a sharp and meaningful pullback soon. Now those odds
have to change. I'm not willing to fully dismiss the sharp-correction thesis,
but the high-consolidation thesis is equally compelling at this particular
stage in a cyclical bull. If pressed, I'd probably now game it at 45%
correction odds and 45% consolidation odds. And the longer the SPX grinds
sideways, the higher the latter chances will rise.
While
boring sideways markets are a heck of a lot less fun than fast-moving ones,
prudent investors and speculators can still thrive. The key is carefully picking
stocks with great fundamental prospects that are likely to rise over
time no matter what the headline SPX does. At Zeal, we are constantly working
on deep-research projects into commodities stocks to find our fundamental
favorites in promising sectors. We just published a fascinating new report on
our favorite junior base-metals stocks. Buy yours today!
In
our new January Zeal Intelligence newsletter, we bought a junior profiled
in this report. It is a tiny and largely-unknown company that owns the
world's largest primary deposit of a secondary base metal that is soon to
gain a lot of publicity as futures are launched on it. In just 8 trading days
as more investors learned of its potential, this stock has already risen 33%.
This is nothing though, as it has the potential for 10x to maybe even 100x
gains in the coming years. Subscribe today, learn about the markets and trading
opportunities, and become an informed investor!
The
bottom line, much to my chagrin, is there is plenty of historical precedent
showing stock markets consolidating high after their initial sharp rallies
following the births of cyclical bulls. Buyers are exhausted after these
massive moves higher, but few traders want to sell so the dwindling capital
inflows are still generally able to neutralize selling pressure. The result is
slowly meandering (and intensely boring) stock markets. But on the bright
side, if sharp pullbacks aren't igniting big fear spikes, investors gradually
bid up fundamentally-promising companies.
So
prudent stock pickers can thrive in these sideways environments, buying elite
stocks before the thundering herd discovers them. While there are still
significant odds for a fast pullback to scare away today's hyper-complacency,
we have to start adapting our trading strategies to the growing chances for a
grueling high consolidation instead. As wrong as it feels, this surreal SPX
levitation act could persist.
Adam Hamilton, CPA
Zealllc.com
January 15, 2010
Also
by Adam Hamilton
So how can you profit from this information? We publish an
acclaimed monthly newsletter, Zeal Intelligence, that details exactly what we are doing in terms of
actual stock and options trading based on all the lessons we have learned in
our market research. Please consider joining us each month for tactical
trading details and more in our premium Zeal Intelligence service at … www.zealllc.com/subscribe.htm
Questions for Adam? I would be more than happy to address
them through my private consulting business. Please visit www.zealllc.com/adam.htm for more information.
Thoughts, comments, or flames? Fire away at zelotes@zealllc.com. Due to my staggering and perpetually increasing e-mail load, I
regret that I am not able to respond to comments personally. I will
read all messages though and really appreciate your feedback!
Copyright 2000 - 2006 Zeal Research (www.ZealLLC.com)
| 
