Laggards getting active means divergence

Following up on my last post, here is a bit more evidence that indicates a weakening market.

The image below shows three charts:

1. Top frame: /ES (SPX futures contract). Note that there are 7 distribution days in the past trading month (higher volume down days).
2. The green-line chart is a custom index made up of 50 stocks in the 90th percentile for relative strength.
3. The red-line chart is the opposite of the green line in that it's 50 stocks in the 10th percentile for relative strength. 

Notice how the red line is trending up whereas the green line is trending down. Laggards often get active and rally as the overall market reaches an exhaustion point. 

SPY Bearish Options Play

I entered a bearish vertical option spread today (it's a DEC 2016 211/203 SPY put spread). I'm betting that the SPY will close below 203 by 12/16/2016. If it does, I gain a max profit of $630/contract with a risk of $170/contract, for a risk:reward ratio of 3.7.

So what makes me think this is likely? Let's start with the big picture.

The chart above shows the 10 year monthly chart for SPY. Note that the Elliot Wave pattern indicates that a 5th wave could be close to complete. MACD divergence is clear, and the biggest volume months in the past year or so have been down-volume. All these signs tell me that the market is reaching exhaustion point.

From another perspective we can see that Dow Jones Industrials have been out-performing Dow Jones Transports. The two indices haven't confirmed each other and this is a bearish sign according to Dow Theory.

Finally, zooming in to the SPY daily chart, you can see that price is tracing out a pretty clear ending diagonal pattern. I love this pattern because it usually resolves in sharp counter-trend moves that often retrace the entire height of the diagonal. A one or two month move down to 1800 would not be out of the question, hence my reasoning for buying a bearish Dec, 2016 SPY put spread.

I plan to hold until expiration but I would sell early if we got a drop to 1800 at any point before then.

SPX 1290 is the level to watch

If SPX does reverse soon, as I’m expecting, 1290 looks like a good level for the market to peak at.

Notice in the chart above that not only is 1290 the level where Wave-C = .5*Wave-A, it is also the exact level where Wave-v of Wave-C = Wave-i of Wave-C. These tight Fibonacci correlations lend support to the idea that the market will top out around 1290.

SPX Update

SPX may be near completing a 2-year uptrend. I remain bearish, especially as the market nears the 1250-1300 zone.

Notice in the daily chart above that the market made a strong 5-wave move from Oct 2007 to Mar 2009. Following this, we’ve seen an equally impressive 21-month rally that has taken SPX from 666 to 1245, an 86% rally. However, this rally appears to have subdivided into zig-zag 5-3-5 formation, and it is nearing strong trendline resistance.

Note that Wave-C is relatively muted compared to Wave-A. This makes sense to me given the fact that the looming trendlines are providing good selling pressure. Also, given the strength of Wave-A, one would expect Wave-C to be slightly more modest.

The daily chart above shows Wave-C of the rally from the Mar 2009 low. Notice that it unfolded in in a clear 5-wave pattern. Each corrective wave lasted about 3-4 weeks, similar to the corrective waves in Wave-A. The fifth wave coupled with MACD divergence tells me that the market is about to turn over.

I have been proven wrong so many times over the past 21 months. At this point, I see no reason for the market to form a major top near this level, but on the other hand, this kind of sentiment seems prevalent right now. The top occurs when no one is expecting it as a possibility.

Stock Market Near a Peak

Today I’m revisiting my thesis from a few months ago that the stock market is in a bearish formation. Though it has rallied quite strongly over the past month, I think this strength is nearly exhausted. This is confirmed by technicals as well as sentiment.

 

First, check out the SP500 E-mini chart above. I see a very clear 5-wave leading diagonal, followed by a very clear 3-wave upward correction. At a minimum, we need to see a drop below 1,000 to complete this pattern.

Meanwhile, sentiment is very bullish. I have seen many bloggers commenting about the Head and Shoulders formation above, but everyone keeps talking about them and nothing ever follows through. Also, bloggers are very bullish in general, and bullish sentiment is at multi-month highs!

Conditions look ripe for a decline!

Another leg down coming up?

Last Wednesday, bloggers and readers were going nuts as the market was dropping sharply. Crash call after crash call was being published, and it seemed impossible for the market today rally. Of course that was the bottom, and here we are, 70 points higher! I am noticing a bearish pattern that I’d like to share. I consider it valid as long as SPX stays below 1120.

Notice that the drop from 1216 can be counted in a series of first and second waves. Wave1 ended with the ‘flash-crash’, Wave2 was the sharp reactionary rally. Wave-i of Wave3 retested 1040, and now Wave-ii of Wave3 appears to be unfolding as a flat (3-3-5). Notice that volume has been trending higher with the declines, and lower with the rallies. This tells me that we’re still prone to selling off. Today’s breakout above 1105 probably convinced a lot of bears to capitulate, as is apparent from today’s price action. We’ll see what happens!

The stock market is now in a downtrend

Today was an important day in my opinion. We finally made a lower low and broke the 15 month uptrend.

You can see in the chart above that since March, 2009, SPX made a clear series of higher lows and higher highs, thus defining an uptrend. Then we had the crash on May 6th, which stopped just shy of the previous trend low on Feb 5th; uptrend still intact. After a rally which made a lower high, however, the market has now resumed selling off, breaking the series of higher lows.

One might compare this decline to that of August 2007, in which we had two sharp down-legs with extreme bearish sentiment. But notice that back then, the market stopped short of making a lower low, and the uptrend continued for another couple months.

Now that the downtrend has been confirmed, my strategy will be to short rallies against 1180.

Bloggers are very bullish once again

Exhibit 1: http://tickersense.typepad.com/ticker_sense/2010/03/march-1st-blogger-sentiment-poll.html

Exhibit 2:

• Carl Futia: bullish
• White Magic: bullish
• Kevin’s Market Blog: not updated, but posted that if stock trades above 50-day for several days, market should retest highs, I take this as bullish
• Bespokeinvest: bullish, in regards to strong breadth argument
• Slopeofhope: getting gloomy as a bear, turning bullish
• Elliot Wave Lives On: starting to seriously consider the long-term bullish picture, after having expected a bear-market rally for 1 year
• Gary’s Common Sense: bullish, expecting ‘third-leg’ of this bear-market rally
• Evilspeculator: neutral/bearish
• X-trends: bearish

Clearly, the bulls are pretty numerous, but we haven’t even made new highs yet.

Now, look at the chart above. I posted here that the market’s rhythm has changed, because it’s been 18 trading days with no new high (previously, the market always made new highs with 8-10 days of bottoming). Also, you can clearly see that volume has been much lower on the rally, compared to the previous sell-off. Even if we do make new highs, I’m shorting the whole way up. But I think the odds for a drop below 1040 are high.

This isn’t just “another 10% correction”

I’ve recently been seeing a prevalent view point about the market starting to sprout up, essentially that this past 9% correction is just like the June-July ‘09 correction, and that we should soon see new trend highs. I disagree with this view, and I’m betting that we’ll break 1040 soon.

Take a look at the /ES (S&P 500 e-mini futures) weekly chart above. Compare the volume on both corrections: the first correction had withering volume over 4 weeks, followed by equal or higher buying volume when the market blasted higher.

In the January ‘10 correction, we saw massively expanding volume on the downside, and withering volume on the upside progress. This tells me that the tide has shifted.

Even if we do make a new trend high, I will continue shorting into this strength based on the massive volume distribution we’ve seen. Good luck!

Revisiting the Ultra-Bear Projections

It has been some time since I’ve posted some bearish charts. Obviously, I have been wrong the whole way up (as have many others), but now I’ve started to notice a doll-drum atmosphere amongst financial bloggers that I have participated in. I’m feeling that it doesn’t even matter any more, whatever I post will be wrong.

However, having reviewed some long-term charts, I just want to reiterate my bearish prognosis for the SPX.

The chart above is the Quarterly SPX charts since 1930. The wave count I posted above is generally accepted as the long-term Elliot Wave count. In 1994, I can imagine that the Elliot Wave buffs were projecting a top around the 450-500 level based on price reaching the upper end of the channel. This level was ‘supposed’ to be major resistance, but the market just barreled right through it, and that trendline became a new level of support.

15 years later, the market convincingly breaks back below that level of support (as you can see in 2002). My guess is that if the market resumes its downtrend, it will not find major support until the 450-500 level. In my experience, when a level that was supposed to be major resistance breaks, that level then becomes major support, as all the sellers in that region provide demand when price finally retests that point.

I think this downtrend will commence soon, as price is back-testing the uptrend line, and the market environment has become very complacent. Good luck to everyone!