Dear Subscribers,
Important Announcement: This author has just published a book
review on Stephen Drobny's "Inside the House of Money." This book is
a must-read for any trader/investor alike. A great lesson in the psychology
of trading successfully in the long-run as well as a great update on the
world of "global macro" hedge fund investing as it is playing out in the
world today.
On the afternoon of September 7th, we entered a 50% long position in our DJIA
Timing System at a print of 11,385 - which is now 575.51 points in the black.
On the morning of September 25th, we entered an additional 50% long position
in our DJIA Timing System at a print of 11,505. That position is now 455.51
points in the black. Real-time "special alert" emails were sent to our subscribers
informing them of these changes. Subscribers can refer to our DJIA Timing System
page on our website for a complete
history of our DJIA Timing System signals.
As of Sunday afternoon on October 15th, we are still fully (100%) long in
our DJIA Timing System and is still long-term bullish on the U.S. domestic, "brand
name" large caps - names such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Microsoft, eBay, Intel
(which is not only regaining the performance advantage over AMD, but is actually
extending it), GE, American Express, Sysco ("Sysco
- A Beneficiary of Lower Inflation"), etc. We are also very bullish on
good-quality, growth stocks - as these stocks collectively have underperformed
the market since 2000 and which, I believe, will benefit from a change of leadership
going forward (leadership which will transfer from energy, metals, and emerging
market stocks to U.S. domestic large caps and growth stocks, in general). Moreover,
the breadth of the U.S. stock market has improved substantially over the past
week, while many international, non-commodity based stock markets have also
been performing strongly over the past week. At this point, the stock market
is very overbought on a short-term basis, but that is to be expected in the
early stages of an extended rally. While it may be tempting to take quick short-term
profits here, I urge our readers not to get "cute" and to try to time this
market on a short-term basis. I assure you - no trader on the face of this
Earth can do this successfully on a consistent basis - not Jesse Livermore,
not Bernard Baruch, not George Soros, Stanley Druckenmiller, and not even Steve
Cohen of SAC Capital - who have actually just recently sworn off short-term
trading (effectively forever) in his fund.
Let us now get on with our commentary. I would first like to start with: "What
makes a good financial market newsletter writer?" Obviously, a newsletter writer
that makes you money in the long run, right? For a newsletter that is not focused
on individual stocks, the best service a writer could do is to write to his/her
subscribers in "diary form." By that, I mean a style where the author communicates
to his readers in the most candid way - not only documenting his current views,
but also his mistakes and what would lead him to change his views, his fears,
his thoughts, his conjectures, and his opinions. In doing so, he needs to be
clear that what he writes is usually merely an opinion - an opinion that is
formed by studying (somewhat scientifically) history and what has changed in
the financial markets in the last few years or in the last decade. No matter
how convinced you are, there is always a chance you could be wrong. And given
that there is always a buyer for every seller in the stock market (and vice
versa), there is always a good chance that one can be wrong no matter what
the conviction level is.
A good newsletter writer always does a "post-mortem" on his trades and calls
on market direction - no matter whether they made or lost money. In short,
a newsletter writer should come up with analyses and writings such that his
life depended on it. It should be cold-bloodedly honest and accountable. When
the market goes against you, it makes no sense to be calling the market "irrational," or
if the stock market is rallying, "a sucker's rally." It does not do you or
your subscribers any good (especially if they are paying subscribers). That
is a huge cop-out - and one that no newsletter subscriber should tolerate.
I am writing all this because I "have been there, done that." I know that
most folks really do not care if a newsletter writer calls a GDP or a trade
deficit number correctly (unless they are speculating on GDP futures). What
they want to know is: Is the stock market going up? And if so, what kind of
industries will perform well going forward? Moreover, as an employee in corporate
America, will my skills still be of value to my employer in the near future?
If not, what can I do now to start a business or to secure myself, and my family?
For folks who have been wrong on the stock market since mid-August and are
now calling this rally a "sucker's rally," it is truly a cop-out. As I mentioned
in our October
1, 2006 commentary, "This cannot be any further from the truth, as according
to the ICI, U.S. equity mutual funds actually experienced an outflow of $3.7
billion in August. Moreover, from May to August of this year, the outflow of
U.S. equity funds was $23.1 billion - representing the highest four-month outflow
since a $71.4 billion outflow from July 2002 to October 2002. In other words,
the folks that have been propping up this stock market has been the private
equity investors and the hedge funds (not retail investors) - and most likely,
the suckers that [folks are] referring to were the folks selling stocks (similar
to the folks who sold during July to October 2002), not the folks buying stocks!" And
for folks who are still doubting this view, we now have another
piece of evidence: The number of management buyouts (MBOs) has been increasing
at a blistering pace since the beginning of this year. In other words, the
ultimate insiders (even more so than private equity investors or even Warren
Buffett) are leveraging their own balance sheets to buy out their own companies
and to take them private. Such buyouts are in an entirely different universe
of its own. I definitely would not label these folks as "suckers" unless I
happen to be Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and am thinking of raising the Fed Funds
rate by 75 basis points later on October 25th.
Since we initially went 50% long in our DJIA Timing System on September 7th,
we had argued and presented many pieces of "evidence" that this current rally
is sustainable and that the stock market was making a significant bottom from
July to mid-August. The one missing factor was breadth - even though I had
stated that it did not really matter since 1) We are now in a bull market for
large caps, and 2) Initial rallies off of sustainable bottoms can sometimes
be narrow in scope. However, I also stated that while breadth "did not matter" early
in the game, it is essential that breadth should improve at some point down
the road. And right on cue, the breadth of the U.S. stock market enjoyed a
substantial improvement in the last week - not to mention the fact that many
stock markets around the world (those that do no depend on commodities such
as the Australian, the Canadian, the Russian, or the Arabian stock markets)
have also been making new 52-week highs.
Following is a three-year chart courtesy of Decisionpoint.com showing
the action of the unweighted (or equal-weighted) S&P 500 vs. the S&P
500. Please note that the action of the unweighted S&P 500 has been lagging
the performance of the market-cap weighted (the true) S&P 500 until early
last week, but has since made a new all-time high:

The fact that the unweighted S&P 500 has just made an all-time high suggests
that the rally in the S&P 500 has not just been restricted to the mega-caps
in the S&P 500. Rather, it has been broad-based - as exemplified in the
outperformance of the unweighted S&P 500 over the true S&P 500 ever
since this cyclical bull market began in October 2002. The significant improvement
in U.S. stock market breadth can also be witnessed in last week's rally of
2.7% in the S&P 400, 3.0% in the S&P 600, 4.4% in the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index, 1.4% in the Dow Jones Utility Index, and 1.9% in the Dow
Jones Transportation Index. To top it all off, the number of new highs vs.
new lows in the S&P 600 has also been making new rally highs, as shown
by the following chart of the S&P 600 vs. the 10-day moving average of
the new highs vs. new lows differential on the S&P 600 (again, courtesy
of Decisionpoint.com):

As stated on the above chart - not only did the S&P 600 made a new rally
high, but breadth in the S&P 600 improved substantially as well - thus
confirming the latest rally in the broader stock market. Note that we are also
seeing similar improvements in breadth in both the S&P 400 and the NASDAQ
Composite as well.
More follows for subscribers...