"If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story;
if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him." - Horace
BC 65-8, Italian Poet
Extracted from the July 31st market update; new updated comments added at
the end of the article.
| Moving averages of New Highs and New Lows |
 |
| Moving average |
New Highs |
New lows |
 |
| 20day |
310 |
1360 |
| 100 day |
140 |
780 |
| I year (365 days) |
105 |
485 |
There has been a noticeable drop in the number of new lows in all the moving
averages this week. Ideally we should get one more massive spike in the number
of new lows as was the case last week to signify that the majority are starting
to panic. When the majority panic a bottom is usually very close at hand.
Standard Deviation Analysis
The premise here is simple. When either the +3sd band or negative -3Sd bands
are hit; it suggests that an oversold or overbought condition is in the works.
Example if the market is topping and the +3SD band has been hit each time then
it would indicate that there is a pretty good chance of rather sharp downward
move occurring and vice versa. If we are in an up trend, meaning that the +3Sd
band was hit and the markets have pulled back. A test and the ability to hold
above the 18 or 30 day moving average would indicate that the markets will
most likely rally to test the +3Sd bands again. This tool should be used in
conjunction with 2-3 other TA tools or simple trend analysis. One should never
make a judgement based on this tool alone or any other individual tool; always
use 2-3 tools. The more TA tools use familiarize yourself with the better.
However one should not exceed 6 tools as you will most likely overwhelm yourself.
Ideally 3-5 tools should suffice
| Standard Deviation |
Dow |
NASDAQ |
 |
| +3Sd |
14493 |
2826 |
| +2Sd |
14221 |
2768 |
| 18 day SD moving average |
13679 |
2650 |
| -2Sd |
13136 |
2532 |
| -3Sd |
12896 |
2473 |
Difference between -3Sd and +3Sd bands
(15 weeks worth of data provided below; updated on a weekly basis) |
 |
| Index |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
 |
| Dow |
1597 |
1222 |
645 |
636 |
796 |
738 |
655 |
661 |
902 |
1163 |
1424 |
1214 |
774 |
779 |
800 |
| Nasdaq |
353 |
214 |
172 |
154 |
157 |
178 |
178 |
110 |
115 |
139 |
178 |
212 |
185 |
175 |
198 |
 |
Highest value between the -3Sd and +3Sd band
for Dow = 1619 (March 13, 2007)
Highest value between the -3Sd and +3Sd for NASDAQ = 397 (March, 13, 2007)
This is what we had to say last week and to some degree it has come true.
Okay the markets surged as expected and the bands snapped wide open now
the markets still need to mount some sort of correction and we expect them
to mount a mediocre correction to the -3Sd bands which now sit roughly in
the 13109 ranges. Market update July 24th, 2007
The SD bands have expanded yet another 300 points on the Dow and roughly over
140 points on the NASDAQ; the bands are now just walking distance from the
all time high put in March 13, 2007 (1619 on the Dow and 397 on the NASDAQ).
Market Commentary
The SD bands are now just a few points away from taking out the high put in
March of this year. When the band expand so rapidly it usually leads to a strong
upward move; this move can take anywhere from 3 weeks to as long as 21 weeks
to materialize. Based on the many bullish factors we have listed in the last
few weeks we feel that this move up will take place sooner then later. In addition
we stated that the markets would experience a mediocre pull back that would
take them to -3Sd level of 13109 (last week's value); we are almost there as
the Dow has so far traded down to 13134.
The moving average of new lows also continues to lead all the moving averages
of new highs and ideally we should get one more washout day where at least
the 20 day moving average of new lows surpasses the 2550 mark.
NYSE short interest has put in yet a new record high and it's almost impossible
to witness a bear market with such a high short interest ratio; if it were
to happen it would be one for the history books.
Note the main culprits driving the market down are not new factors; in fact
this news is old news. Thus it surprises us that the jackasses or experts as
most people fondly refer to them are all clamouring taking about the massive
fall out from the sub prime sector, higher energy prices, inflation and so
on. If this was something new we would agree but these problems were around
before the Dow put in a new high and despite all these problems the market
still rose to new highs. Not one of these chaps can come out and state that
this market was in sore need of a correction and that the current correction
is something good for the markets as it going to cleanse out all the excess
garbage and allow it to build force for the next leg up. We suspect something
so simple is beyond such brain surgeons; on second thoughts if they were to
come out and state this we would have to be more cautious as the masses are
always wrong. Perhaps we should be happy with their observations and deductions.
Though as of late a few individuals have come out and stated that its time
to buy; thus it will probably take a bit more sideways action before the markets
are ready to move up again.
Incredibly we had two selling climaxes last week on Tuesday and Thursday,
where the Down volume was over 90% ( 93% and 94%) and we came very close to
having a third one but the Down volume just missed by 2 percentage points.
All in all we have had 3 selling climaxes in less then 3 weeks and we view
this as a rather bullish development from the intermediate time frames (6-15
months).
The Dow experienced its worst week in over 5 years last week when it lost
close to 600 points; again this was long over due so at least for now there
is no reason to panic. On Thursday when the market was down over 300 points
some experts started talking about a repeat of black Monday and normally coupled
with the 3 selling climaxes this market has gone through we would have said
that the time to buy was very close at hand. However as stated earlier some
individuals actually started coming out and stating that it was a very good
time to start buying. Thus we feel that the markets will trade sideways for
sometime or drop a bit further before putting in a base. We feel that most
likely the next leg up will begin towards the end of summer and that during
this base building stage individuals should be looking to add to or open up
new positions in many of the plays in our portfolios. Advanced traders can
also look for stocks that are holding up the best or putting in base formations
earlier as these chaps will rally the strongest when the markets begin to move
up.
Here are several reasons why believe that a bear market is unlikely at this
point in the game
- Short Sales by NYSE specialists have once again reached record low levels
- NYSE short interest at record levels
- No Major sell signals on any of our indicators; psychological and technical
- Program traders who now accounts for over 50% of the trading volume have
opened up massive short positions and they will need to cover these positions
eventually which will generate a surge in buying power. Remember the only
way to make money from a short position is to actually close it out and eventually
every short position has to be closed out if the individual wants to bank
a profit.
- Institutional investors unloaded billions of dollars worth of stock; they
were selling into strength; we mentioned this in the last few updates. For
them a 10% gain is a big deal as they are dealing in billions of dollars.
Now that the markets have pulled back they are going to be looking for sectors
to redeploy this money.
- If you look at the number of odd lot shares being purchased it shows that
the small investor is still sitting on the sidelines. The small investor
for the most part has missed this entire leg up and sooner or later they
are going to feel that the markets are the only place to make some money
now that the housing sector is dead. These small investors collectively have
a huge amount of money that has been sitting down and doing nothing now for
quite sometime. When they decide to commit this money it's going to provide
quite an upward thrust to these markets.
- Short selling on the NASDAQ has also reached record levels and now stands
at 1.8%; it would now take over 4.9 days to close out all these short positions.
- The ULPIX to URPIX ratio (ultra bull profound and Ultra bear fund) reveals
some rather interesting data

Charts provided courtesy of www.stockcharts.com
This chart indicates that the dumb money is actually still shorting the markets
quite aggressively and this ratio is now approaching the bullish zone. The
ratio now is at the same level it was before the markets embarked on this huge
move up which began around March.
As we stated last week there are several negatives but one of them stands
out quite a bit and that is the huge levels of margin debt. At some point in
time this is going to be a problem and will result in the markets pulling back
even more but it's still not at extreme levels and such bull markets always
end when everything is at an extreme point. Unless there is a major catastrophe
the Dow will be trading at the 20,000 mark in the years to come.
Finally we decided to conduct a rather in-depth and tiresome analysis of the
Dow 30 stocks. Let's see what they reveal.
Analysis of the components of the Dow 30
| Stock |
Oversold/Overbought |
Divergence (Daily Chart) |
Divergence (hourly Chart) |
| MMM |
Overbought |
none |
None |
| MO |
Oversold |
None |
Yes |
| AA |
Neutral |
None |
Yes |
| AXP |
Oversold |
None |
Yes |
| AIG |
Oversold |
None |
Yes |
| T |
Neutral |
None |
Yes |
| BA |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| CAT |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| C |
Oversold |
Possible as one could
potentially show up this week. |
Yes |
| KO |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| DD |
Oversold |
None |
None but one could develop
in the next 3 weeks. |
| XOM |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| GE |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| GM |
Oversold |
Yes |
YES |
| HPQ |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| HD |
Oversold |
None |
Yes |
| HON |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| INTC |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| IBM |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| JPM |
Oversold |
None |
Yes |
| JNJ |
Oversold |
Double positive divergence |
Yes, Double positive |
| MCD |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| MRK |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| MSFT |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| PFE |
Oversold |
None |
None |
| PG |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| UTX |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| VZ |
Overbought |
None |
None |
| WMT |
Neutral |
None |
None |
| DIS |
Oversold |
None |
Very close to flashing one |
11 stocks are in the oversold regions, another 11 are in the neutral area
(they have pulled back but are still not in the oversold area but they appear
to be moving in this direction) and only 9 stocks are overbought. In addition
we have one stock that has flashed a major double positive divergence both
on the daily and hourly charts; in total we have 9 stocks that have flashed
positive divergences on the hourly charts and two that are close to flashing
positive divergences. Thus it appears that this market right now is far from
overbought based both on the number of actual stocks that are overbought and
the number of positive divergence signals that have been generated. Risk takers
and once again note that we are suggesting this play only to those willing
to take a risk could consider buying leap options or buying shares in PFE as
a contrarian play.
Conclusion
While this correction appears to be brutal, it is only brutal to those who
jumped in too late and who sit and think that the markets trade in one direction
only. Nothing goes up forever just as nothing goes down forever; though things
tend to trend upwards much longer then they do downwards. As stated risk takers
can start looking at all the positions and identify the strongest plays out
there and slowly nibble at these positions. We will also be analysing the markets
for new plays and looking at our stocks to see if new strong buy signals are
flashed. Yesterday one of our stocks flashed a pulse signal; this is usually
a very bullish development.
As stated before we did not short the markets simply because our daily sells
signal was invalidated and based on that we felt it would be more prudent to
wait for new long entry points. Many of the uranium stocks are starting to
enter the mouth watering ranges as they have taken an usually heavy beating;
thus when they move up the move up is going to be twice as powerful as the
move down. As always patience will be needed. In addition there are several
plays in the natural gas, oil exploration, drilling, Palladium and shipping
sectors that have also pulled back rather severely; many of these chaps are
in our portfolio.
Finally a bear market has never begun with such a record high short position
on the NYSE, such record low short positions by the NYSE specialists, more
oversold then overbought stocks in the Dow 30, no major sell signals from any
of our indicators and with program traders holding such massive short positions.
We stated way before this correction even began that those subscribers with
low thresholds for risk should start locking in profits and sitting on the
sidelines waiting for a new buy signal. We also put out a new rule stating
that from now as a result of some subscribers not taking the time to find out
their own profit targets (this info is listed in the pass coded section of
our website) that we would be implementing a new rule where half of all positions
will be closed out as soon as they are 100% in profit. The reason we have come
up with these rules is because no two traders are alike and we do not want
our subscribers to trade based on our risk threshold only (which for the record
is very high). It's okay to mix and match; sell half your positions based on
your profit targets and then the other half based on when we issue a general
sell signal. The problem with most other services is that they force you to
trade based on the level of their risk threshold and as we stated before no
two people are alike. Our goal has always been to educate our subscribers for
this information once learned can be applied to all aspects of one's life and
not only in the trading arena. Remember that life is nothing but one huge market
place. We are always buying and selling or sitting on the sidelines waiting
for a new opportunity. Think about your current relationships and see how they
could actually be classified as trades where either you bought (joined forces),
Sold (ended the relationship) or are waiting for a new one (sitting on the
sidelines). Think about this carefully and slowly and you will realise just
how very true it really is.
New Additional notes August 12, 2007
A lot of the recent market volatility is due to quant funds which supposedly
can benefit from either an upward trending market or downward trending market.
However these chaps were using models that for the most part were outdated
and did not factor in the potential increase in volatility. According to one
of the founders of these models the recent volatility in the markets was something
these models envisioned as possibly occurring once in 10,000 years. This is
the problem with using models that they cannot account for everything. As a
result these funds have been buying and then suddenly shorting, as a result
they are losing on both ends. Many of the fund managers have become so desperate
that they have temporarily shut down the models and taken over themselves and
in doing so have caused even more chaos. Longer term this should provide some
rather juicy entry points for key stocks.
We do not believe the markets will rally forever; in the not too distant future
the markets will have to mount a rather severe correction but based on the
number of new participants entering the markets, the new booming and ever increasing
middle class emerging from Asia (their appetite for stocks will continue to
increase) and the huge surpluses many of these nations have which will sooner
o later find their way into the US markets will ensure that the markets will
be trading significantly higher a few years from now. Yes in between the Dow
could pull back say even 30% but unless something catastrophic happens there
is a higher likely hood that the Dow will be trading at 20,000 in the years
to come then 2,000. Note that China has already created a 200 billion monster
hedge fund which basically takes this worthless paper and invests into tangible
assets. Many other nations with huge massive dollar surpluses will follow suit;
there is simply no way to dump all their dollar holdings. If they were to do
so it would cause a massive crash in the dollar and they would end up destroying
themselves to in the process.
Final note remember that markets do not turn around immediately after
pulling back so violently. We suspect there is a lot more volatility ahead
and the sea saw ride will get a lot wilder before things calm down. As they
say before the calm there is usually a violent storm.
"There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his
life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at
the door, and flies out at the window." - Charles De Montesquieu 1689-1755,
French Jurist, Political Philosopher