Friday, December 6, 2013

The Morning Call---Watch the bond markets

The Morning Call

12/6/13

The Market
           
    Technical

            The run of down days in the indices (DJIA 15821, S&P 1785) continues, although they still closed within uptrends across all time frames: short term (15451-20451, 1736-1860), intermediate term (15451-20451, 1648-2229) and long term (5015-17000, 728-1850).

            Volume rose---as it has on each of the last five down days; breadth was rotten.  The VIX was up, but is well within its short term trading range and its intermediate term downtrend.

            This from the Sentiment Trader:

The latest comprehensive data on mutual fund assets show that investors have continued to shovel money into equities. traded funds, an increase of $360 billion in October alone. Safe money market funds, however, suffered outflows of about $11 billion, bringing total assets down to $2.4 trillion. That means the ratio of "risky" assets to "safe" assets has ballooned to 3.7-to-1, a new all-time high dating back 30 years. The ratio follows the direction of the overall stock market extremely closely.  So a new record high in many stock indexes should generate a new high in this ratio as well.

But let's look at how stocks performed versus how the ratio changed during the last three major market swings. Leading up to the 2000 market peak, the S&P 500 rose 242% during the prior six years.  During that time, the ratio of assets in equities versus money market funds rose only 83%. The next big swing, including five years from 2002 through 2007, saw the S&P rise 90%, but the fund ratio rose significantly more, nearly 150%. Look at the latest swing.  The S&P has risen nearly 140% over four and a half years, but the ratio of assets has expanded by 236%.  The suggestion from this is that investors have become more aggressive in allocating capital to the stock market, per percentage point of increase, and in a quicker fashion than they had before."


            The long Treasury had a rough day as did most of sectors of the bond market.  It closed within its short term trading range and intermediate term downtrend; it continues to build a head and shoulders formation---not a plus of bond prices.

            GLD was down, finishing within short and intermediate term downtrends and closer to the lower boundary of its long term trading range.  As I noted yesterday, to re-enter this trade, GLD needs to bounce hard and start taking out resistance levels.

Bottom line:  even though the Averages have stretched their losing streak to five days and done so on rising volume, the price action itself isn’t all that alarming.  And when you couple in the fact that we are in what is historically the best calendar period of the year, I still think another leg up is better than even odds.

As you know, my most likely upside targets are the upper boundaries of the Averages long term uptrends (17400/1900)---which isn’t all that much when you consider the downside (Fair Value: 11600/1440).

I can’t emphasize strongly enough that I believe that the key investment strategy today is to take advantage of the current high prices to sell any stock that has been a disappointment or no longer fits your investment criteria and to trim the holding of any stock that has doubled or more in price.

            More from Lance Roberts (medium):

            The latest from the Stock Traders Almanac (short):

    Fundamental
    
     Headlines

            Yesterday’s US economic news was largely upbeat: weekly jobless claims were down more than forecasts, revised third quarter GDP showed better growth than expected, third quarter corporate profits were up more than anticipated and October factory fell less than estimates.  Overseas, the ECB left interest rates unchanged.          With all that good news, it shouldn’t be surprising that, in our current upside down world, stocks would fall. 

            ***over night, German factory orders were down.

Also not surprising, the bond markets took it in the snoot.          I opined above that I thought that the stock market still had a better than even shot at another leg up.  However, I would add the caveat that if the bond guys start ignoring Fed propaganda and demanding a higher risk premium, then it could be a case of 16000/1800---we hardly knew you.  I have repeatedly warned of this risk; and to be clear, it may not be happening now.  But if is it..........well, you know.

***over night the Japanese bond market got hammered.  Remember that low yen rates have played a key role in the ‘carry trade’.  If this trade starts reversing that is going to put pressure on every global yield related asset.

Bottom line: stocks are considerably overvalued.  But as I have noted, they are likely to remain that way until either the Markets stop believing in QE or we get some exogenous event that hits investors in the face. 

Whether that is starting to occur now or doesn’t happen for another six months, doesn’t matter to me as a long term investor.  My immediate task is to be sure that our Portfolios take profits when our Sell Half Discipline becomes operative. 

Were I a trader, I might Hold on to those Sell Half candidates a little longer but I would have tight and irrevocable Stops.  I would also be looking for avenues to profit on the downside when, as and if this Market rolls over---like the all short ETF (HDGE), the VIX (VXX) and gold (GLD) assuming its chart can repair itself in time.

            What America needs (hint: not more QE):

            The uneven results of QE (medium):

            The latest from Kyle Bass (medium):

            No silver bullets (medium/long):

       Investing for Survival

            Simple is best (medium):




Steve Cook received his education in investments from Harvard, where he earned an MBA, New York University, where he did post graduate work in economics and financial analysis and the CFA Institute, where he earned the Chartered Financial Analysts designation in 1973. His 40 years of investment experience includes institutional portfolio management at Scudder, Stevens and Clark and Bear Stearns. Steve's goal at Investing For Survival is to help other investors build wealth and benefit from the investing lessons he learned the hard way.

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