A Manic Stock Market Leaves Behind An Extreme August Drawdown – Above the 40 (August 9, 2019)

Much ado about nothing? The 15-minute chart of the S&P 500 (SPY) shows the gory details of a manic swoon to a near flat close for the week.

AT40 = 37.3% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 46.5% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 18.0Short-term Trading Call: neutral (caveats below!) Stock Market Commentary The S&P 500 (SPY) ended the week almost where it started. In between the bookends, the market gyrated wildly … Read more

An Enticing and Risky Bounce Off the Oversold Threshold – Above the 40 (August 6, 2019)

AT40 (T2108) bounced sharply away from the oversold threshold off 20%.

AT40 = 30.4% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 44.9% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 20.2 (the day before it closed at 24.6 and a 7-month high)Short-term Trading Call: neutral (caveats below!) Stock Market Commentary Almost Oversold I underestimated the market’s readiness to … Read more

Fed Waffling and Trade War Expansion Reject Market from Overbought – Above the 40 (August 1, 2019)

The S&P 500 (SPY) lost 3.1% for the week. Buyers just barely pushed the index off its intraday low to on Friday to close above 50DMA support.

AT40 = 41.5% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 49.8% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 17.6 (high of 20.1)Short-term Trading Call: neutral Stock Market Commentary A Pause of Recognition I am writing about financial markets at a time when there is renewed pain … Read more

Trade War Pairs Trade: Best Buy Vs. Emerging Markets

Best Buy (BBY) dropped 10.8% on news of the expansion of Trump's Trade War with China.

The Extreme: Best Buy Regular readers know that my favorite trades come on the heels of extremes in financial conditions. After President Trump announced a 10% tariff on $300B of Chinese imports, I saw a lot of extremes that made me sit up and take notice. One of the biggest extremes occurred in the shares … Read more

British Pound: From Organized Chaos to Orderly Selling

The freefall in the British pound is even more clear in the GBP/JPY pair.

Three months ago, I wrote about the “organized chaos” in the British pound (FXB). I described an organized process of GBP/USD bouncing off and pivoting around key moving averages with the occasional sharp interruption of Brexit-related trades. Ironically, the sharp Brexit-related rally that sparked that post looks now like the British pound’s last gasp for … Read more