Tag: Strategy

Instead of looking at financial markets or asset classes on an individual basis, intermarket analysis looks at several strongly correlated markets or asset classes, such as stocks, bonds and commodities. This type of analysis expands on simply looking at each individual market or asset in isolation by also looking at other markets or assets that have a strong relationship to the market or asset being considered.

The US economy is still the largest in the world and the US dollar is still the most powerful currency in the world.  Over half of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in US dollars.  Thus, the asset classes relative strength will be compared to the US Dollar.

Bitcoin

30 Yr Bond

Copper

Euro Dollar

Gold

Oil

Soybeans

S&P 500

Based on the moving averages and the last daily closing price, relative to the moving averages,

the asset classes’ relative strength, relative to the US Dollar are the following:

Two Weeks Ago

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (known commonly as the S&P 500) is an index with 500 of the top companies in the U.S. Stocks. Because the S&P 500 Index represents approximately 80% of the total value of the U.S. stock market, it’s the bellwether index for the U.S. stock market. In addition, the U.S. stock market is the largest stock market in the world, it’s also the bellweather for equity markets around the world. The S&P 500 is arguably the most important stock market index on the planet.

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Because we live in a global economy, the global equity markets interconnected and highly correlated.  However, some will outperformance other in the short term and long term. When constructing an equity portfolio, for the best returns one needs to have the ability and the capacity to assess all the major equity markets around to asset allocation purposes.  However, the first step is to determine the relative strength of the major equity markets, relative to the bellweather, the S&P 500.

DAX (Germany)

Dow Jones (US)

FTSE 100 (England)

Nasdaq (US)

Nifty 50 (India)

Nikkei 225 (Japan)

Shanghai (China)

Russell 2000 (US)

Based on the moving averages and the last daily closing price, relative to the moving averages,

the world equity markets’ relative strength, relative to the S&P 500 are the following:

Two Weeks Ago

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

Arthur D. Cashin, Jr. is a managing director of UBS Financial Services Inc. and the Director of Floor Operations for UBS Financial Services at the New York Stock Exchange is a well-respected figure on Wall Street. 

Traders are trying to remain positive as stocks came off their sharp morning lows, veteran trader Art Cashin told CNBC on Wednesday.

“If we rolled over here and violated the morning lows, then it would really begin to be a problem,” said Cashin, UBS director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange. “For now, everybody is kind of crossing their fingers and whistling past the graveyard, saying, ‘OK, we tested Monday’s lows,’” he added, around midmorning as the worst of the sell-off was abating.

“The S&P held, so I guess we can be in good shape,” said Cashin, who predicted rocky markets for the next few weeks as global trade tensions mount. “I think volatility is here to stay.”

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However, there is one reason and one reason only why the US equity markets are off the Monday lows.

The moving average is the most ubiquitous and simplest technical analysis tool used by discretionary and system traders, market analysts and those pestering algos. The 200 moving average, the king of moving averages is used on a daily chart to determining the overall long-term market trend over the last 40 weeks.

Discretionary and system traders, market analysts and those pestering algos also use moving averages for support and resistance. For example, in February and April of 2018, the 200 moving avg. (yellow line) served as support for the Market.

In October of 2018, the same thing happened.

And again this week,

Whether you trade cryptos, stocks, forex, but don’t have the 200 moving average on your daily chart, consider plotting it on your daily chart as it might offer you an additional edge to accompany your trading strategy.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

When oil dip to a low of sub $30 in 2016 and came back from the dead, I assumed all the derivative play would follow, kind of like the tide rises all boats. 

It was only when I started analyzing the relative strength of the SPDR sectors against the SPY, that I notice the energy sector didn’t follow oil and has been on this steady decline. 

This means Wall Street is saying the valuation of energy companies today at $50 barrel oil is lower than the valuation of energy companies years ago at $30 barrel oil.  This is a really big deal if one can connect the dots.  One theme is cheap credit / junk bonds funding the expansion of the shale companies, who are having a hard time paying their debt back…this one theme has enormous consequence to the state economies of Texas, the Dakotas, etc.  However, that’s another post for a different time.

Last month, I spoke about VanEck Vectors® Oil Services ETF (OIH®) which seeks to track the overall performance of U.S.-listed companies involved in oil services to the upstream oil sector, which include oil equipment, oil services, or oil drilling and how the chart suggest OIH is headed lower over time.

The Oil Service Companies Continue To Decline

OIH ONE MONTH AGO

OIH NOW

I have another ETF that I think is worth shorting is the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP).  XOP seeks to provide investment results corresponding to the total return performance of an index derived from the oil and gas exploration and production segment of a U.S. total market composite index.  Top holdings include: HollyFrontier Corp, Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum Corp, Hess Corp, Valero Energy Corp and Marathon Oil Corp.

XOP looks very similar to OIH, with one exception.  XOP breached the monthly demand and is now at all-time lows.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.

The CBOE Volatility Index, VIX aka the stock market fear gauge, is a popular measure of the stock market’s expectation of volatility implied.

Devesh Shah, an applied mathematician and hedge fund manager who formerly worked for Goldman Sachs, was one of the creators of the CBOE Volatility Index

The VIX is quoted in percentage points and is the expected annualized change in the S&P 500 index over the following 30 days, with a 68% probability. VIX values greater than 30 represent investor fear or uncertainty, while values below 20 represent complacent in the Markets.

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Just in the past week, we have seen Fed Powell cut US interest rates in attempt to keep the party going, President Trump issue more tariffs on Chinese goods, 900 DOW stock plunge and what appears to be the start of a currency war.

Experts say there could be lots more bad news to come for stocks this month beyond Monday’s big selloff. That’s because August is typically the year’s weakest month for U.S. equities.

Stock Trader’s Almanac Editor Jeffrey Hirsh blames the month’s historically weak performance woes on summer vacations that take investors’ eyes off of the market. “Everyone is in the Hamptons, out playing golf or in the backyard with the kids,” he said. “So, you get a vacuum of lower volumes, and the path of least resistance is down.”

LPL Financial found that while the S&P 500 hasn’t fallen every August, in the years that it’s done so since 1990, losses have averaged 4.6% — the worst showing for any month during that period.

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So any one long the Equity Markets or who have family members with IRAs and/or 401ks, buy some protection and hedge your hard earn dollars.  One way to hedge your portfolio is to buy VIX call options if you think volatility in the Markets are going to increase over the next 3-6 months.

And the newest alternative at our disposal as a hedge, is to buy BITCOIN.

This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.