T3’s Take 3: The Go-Nowhere Market Is Still Going Nowhere
1) Another Day, Another Yawn I was really hoping that the Fed rate announcement and Dutch elections this week would spur some actual, real-life, lasting volatility. But following Wednesday’s post-Fed power rally, the market went right back into snooze mode. The S&P 500 fell -0.1% to 2378.25, with the Nasdaq flat. The Russell 2000 showed a little relative strength, which was nice to see. We also saw key large-cap tech stocks like Apple (AAPL) and nVidia (NVDA) rally intraday to finish near the highs of the day. Regional banks (KRE), which have been key in the post-election rally, also made a nice move off its morning low. 2) Levels to Watch in SPX This morning, T3 Live Chief Strategic Officer Scott Redler issued analysis of the S&P, saying the following: “Watch 2370-2377. We need to hold above that. Otherwise, more choppy downside can happen.” The S&P actually bottomed today at 2377.74, just missing Scott’s key range that would indicate trouble is ahead. So the bulls remain out of reach of the frustrated bears. 3) Quick Sentiment Update In yesterday’s Weekly Sentiment Update, I pointed out that the ISE Sentiment Index showed a huge surge in call options buying. But call buyers backed off quickly today. The ISE Sentiment Index fell to the low 70’s, indicating that traders went right back to buying up puts in anticipation of downside.. Increased put buying is actually good for the bulls, because it indicates that traders are still somewhat nervous. It’s very rare for traders to be skittish at the top.
Continue Reading -->Weekly Sentiment Update: The Crowd Is Neutral but Options Traders Are Running Wild
Permabulls always say everyone’s bearish. And permabears always say everyone’s bullish. But let’s look at the actual numbers to see how the crowd actually feels. Last week, we saw sentiment fall to neutral territory after two weeks of strong bullishness. (see here and here) So with the Fed out of the way, let’s see if anything’s changed using our 5 primary sentiment indicators: 1) VIX Spread – Bullish The 3-month VIX spread is at +3.01 which indicates that traders are moderately bullish. 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Neutral The Fear & Greed Index is at 53, down from 66 last week. F&G operates on a 1-100 scale, and 53 is basically neutral. 3) AAII Sentiment – Bearish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 31.2% of individual investors are bullish, which is well below the long-term average of 38.5%. Bullish AAII Sentiment has been below the long-term average for 7 of the past 8 weeks. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bearish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.61 yesterday with a 3-day moving average is 0.68. This is slightly bearish. 5) ISE Sentiment – Bullish This is where things get really interesting. The ISE Sentiment Index is at an insane 304 this morning. That means 304 calls purchased for every 100 puts. We very rarely see reading this high, even in a hard rally. So there are a ton of post-Fed call buyers. , which is a bullish reading. The 10 day moving average is just 83, but I’ll call this bullish becasue of today’s extraordinary surge. Conclusion Out of 5 sentiment indicators, we have: -2 bullish -2 bearish -1 neutral So we’re still stuck in neutral territory, though the insane call buying indicated by the ISE Sentiment Index implies that traders are extremely optimistic near-term. With stocks creeping lower intraday, we’re about to see if those call buyers marked the top.
Continue Reading -->How to Define an Uptrend on a Stock Chart
In technical analysis, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to not have clear criteria for the patterns you’re looking at. What do we mean by that? Quite often, you’ll hear traders use terms like head & shoulders and support and resistance. But you never hear But you never hear about the criteria they use to actually define these terms. In our T3 Technical Strategies and Trading the Pristine Method Programs, we pride ourselves on giving traders, particularly beginners, clearly defined criteria for the patterns we use. Let’s start with one of the most important — the good old uptrend. What is an uptrend? A trendline that points up… right? Well yes, but that’s not enough. Why? Because without clear criteria to define our uptrend, we’ll never know when the trend breaks! Here are our 5 criteria for an uptrend on a daily chart: 1) Higher Highs: stock is making new highs (see letters on chart below) 2) Higher Lows: stock is not breaking below prior lows (see numbers on chart below) 3) Rising 20 Day Moving Average: indicates an improved short-term trend 4) A Rising 40 Day Moving Average: indicates an improved intermediate-term trend 5) Even Space Between the 20 and 40 DMA (a.k.a. railroad tracks) Here’s a chart showing what an uptrend looks like: Next Steps We recommend that you pick out 10 stocks, and see how each of them fits our uptrend criteria. By completing this exercise, you’ll learn to quickly spot the REAL uptrends.
Continue Reading -->The Trouble With Crude Oil
The action in crude oil has been hideous as of late, as you can see in this weekly chart: To be fair, it doubled in a year, so some profit-taking may be in order. However, let’s hope it can resume the uptrend, or at least hold the uptrend in the $46-$47 area. The oil rebound off the $26.05 February 2016 low played a huge role in last year’s rebound. There’s been no volatility in 2017 but oil is certainly a candidate for messing up the party. Remember, oil affects a lot more than energy stocks. Many regional banks have large energy loan books, and weak oil means more defaults. There are also an awful lot of high-yield energy bonds that would suffer. And historically, weak high-yield markets means trouble for the broader equities market. For now, the bulls remain in firm control, but oil could inspire the bears to finally step up after getting destroyed in the post-election rally.
Continue Reading -->Q&A: How to Judge an Economic Data Point
Dear Michael, How can you call the jobs report ‘Meh’? NFP came in at +235K and beat the street expectations. How is that meh? -Randy Dear Randy, The 235K headline number was fine, but that’s not the totality of the report. Average hourly earnings grew by just 0.2% vs. the 0.3% consensus, which offset the impact of the headline number beat. Plus, you have the remember that expectations were running very high headed into the report. On Wednesday, the ADP employment number beat by a mile. In addition, bonds have been sinking while the US dollar has been rising, indicating that traders have been anticipating the type of strong economic data that has bolstered the Fed’s case for rate hikes. How to Look at Economic Data Points In isolation, economic data points are completely useless. To properly understand them, you must bring them into context by doing 2 things: Measure them against expectations as set by economists and the market itself. Measure them against expectations as set by the market itself. First, let’s look at expectations as set by economists. News and data providers like Bloomberg and Reuters collect forecasts from various economists to determine a consensus forecast, which is a rough approximation of the market’s expectations. With economic statistics, the consensus forecast is determined by taking a median of the data set. Now, for last Friday’s jobs report, the consensus forecast (the median) was 190K. So 235K was a beat. Had the consensus forecast been 300K, 235K would have been disappointment. However, we must also take the actual market’s behavior, because they also play into expectations. As I stated earlier, bonds were falling headed into the report. This is because a strong report would support the case for more Fed rate hikes, which would push down bonds. But what if bonds rallied ahead of the jobs numbers? That would indicate that traders expected a miss in the jobs number. Admittedly, this is more art than science, and it’s generally only applicable to major economic data points like NFP, GDP, CPI, etc. But by focusing on how economic data is reported relative to expectations, you can get a sense of just how ‘good’ that data actually is. And just so you don’t forget, I’ll say it again: In isolation, economic data points are completely useless. To properly understand them, you must bring them into context by doing 2 things: Measure them against expectations as set by economists and the market itself. Measure them against expectations as set by the market itself.
Continue Reading -->Chart Analysis: SPX
We have mixed markets to start the week. Europe is up a little and Asia had decent strength. The SPX futures are down 1. Last week we put a low in at 2354 right at the 21 day. Now we will see if that was the correction or do we take that out later this week with the Fed on Wednesday? 2376 is Friday’s high.
Continue Reading -->Shorts Gone Wild! How to Avoid Getting Crushed by Stocks Like MBLY
Mobileye (MBLY) is a name I cover in my Morning Note fairly regularly. Today, it’s up $14+ after getting taken over by Intel (INTC). Unfortunately, Citron put out a short report on it a few weeks ago, saying it was going to $35, and I got away from it. However, the MBLY action is teaching us a good lesson about shorting stocks. When a stock is still above the 8/21 day moving averages in the face of a negative report, then it’s showing strength. So even if we’re not getting long the stock, there’s no way we’re shorting it when it’s strong. If the stock action doesn’t confirm bad news, the bad news may not matter.
Continue Reading -->T3’s Take 3: The US Dollar Sinks on a ‘Meh’ Jobs Report
1) A ‘Meh’ Jobs Report This morning, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that 235,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in February, beating the 200,000 consensus. The unemployment rate was 4.7%, in-line with expectations. However, average hourly earnings grew by just 0.2%, missing the expected 0.3% reading. That drove profit-taking in the US dollar, which has been moving higher in anticipation of a March rate hike. That said, the headline number was still pretty good, and traders are unwavering in their belief that March is in play. The CME’s FedWatch Tool shows that markets are pricing a 91% probability of a rate increase this month. 2) The Big Yawn Market While I was hoping for some volatility on today’s jobs numbers, we didn’t it. Stocks once again traded in a very tight range, with the S&P 500 trading up 0.3%. The Russell 2000 and S&P 500 also made modest gains. Like the US dollar, bank stocks saw profit-taking on the disappointing hourly earnings number. Meanwhile, rate-sensitive groups like gold miners and utilities caught a bid. The brightest spot of the day was biotech, which rallied nicely in the afternoon on speculation that sector leader Gilead (GILD) is about to announce an acquisition. Plus, President Trump is expected to appoint Scott Gottlieb, a doctor with deep ties to the pharma industries, as FDA commissioner. Presumably, he’d create the friendlier regulatory environment that Trump has promised. 3) Neutrality Last week, various sentiment indicators showed that traders were getting very cocky. This week, the picture is quite mixed. The AAII Sentiment Survey showed that individual investors have become much more cautious, even though the major indices barely moved. Click here to read my full Weekly Sentiment Update.
Continue Reading -->Weekly Sentiment Update: Back to Neutral That Fast?
Permabulls always say everyone’s bearish. And permabears always say everyone’s bullish. But let’s look at the actual numbers to see how the crowd actually feels. Last week, we saw sentiment climb to frothy territory. Now, let’s see if anything’s changed now that we’re seeing some signs of deterioration, most notably the relative weakness in the Russell 2000. 1) VIX Spread – Bullish The 3-month VIX spread is at +3.96, which indicates traders are still not concerned with volatility. This is a bullish reading. 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 66, down from 81 last week. F&G operates on a 1-100 scale, and 66 indicates moderate greed. 3) AAII Sentiment – Bearish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 30.0% of individual investors are bullish, which is well below the long-term average of 38.5%. It’s also slightly down from last week, which is a surprise to me. Bullish AAII Sentiment has been below the long-term average for 7 of the past 8 weeks. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Neutral The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.72 yesterday, which is a 2 week high. The 3-day moving average is 0.63. This is basically neutral. 5) ISE Sentiment – Neutral The ISE Sentiment Index is currently at 112 (112 calls for every 100 puts) at yesterday’s close, which is a bullish reading. And the 10-day moving average is 84.1. Even though the 10-day moving average indicates high demand for puts relative to calls, I’ll call this neutral because it’s moved up quite a bit, and for the past year or so, the number seems to be perpetually low. In fact, I may have to boot it from these Weekly Sentiment Updates. Conclusion Out of 5 sentiment indicators, we have 2 bullish, 2 neutral, and 2 bearish. So after two weeks of undeniably bullish readings, traders are back in neutral territory. It’s not exciting… but it’s the truth.
Continue Reading -->Throwback Thursday: Two of Our Most Popular Articles
Meet the Traders! 8 Questions With Sami Abusaad 5 Reasons Forex Trading Might Be for YOU! Bonus Article: Trading: Trend Following vs. Counter-Trend
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