Tension Builds
Posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2018
We hope that you enjoyed reading our quarterly letter last week. We got some great feedback from people we admire in the industry and we hope that you found it useful as well. If you haven’t read it yet we would encourage you to. Here is the link to our quarterly letter.
2018 is going to be a huge year for corporate buybacks with an expected $800 billion in buybacks but the rest of April may be a bit sparse. Buybacks have, at times, carried this market. The rest of April could struggle with corporations in blackout periods due to earnings. It is interesting to note that Goldman Sachs suspended their buyback for the rest of this quarter. They are investing the money back into their business. Hmmm…
We can now say that the gap has been filled at 2700 in the S&P 500 but it also seems to be proving to be resistance for the time being. We watch gaps because gaps show us where the emotion lies in the market. A break in emotion whether good or bad creates gaps in charts. A healthy dose of good news and we rocket higher creating a gap. Bad news and we see a break lower. We have seen two major breaks in 2018 and they are both in the bears favor. When we get back to those gaps it is natural resistance (support) for markets.
By way of Arthur Cashin comes a note from his friend Jim Brown at Option Investor. It seems that Brown see that buybacks are escalating while the public steps back from the market.
On the public, Jim wrote: Bank of America said equity ownership in individual accounts has declined to 29% compared to the 41% in January. The 29% is an 18 month low. That can be seen as positive from a contrarian perspective. If the market continues higher, individual investors could begin scrambling to add equities to their portfolio. Since the average individual investor functions in a herd mentality, the surge of new buying a couple weeks from now could be at a market top. I wrote back in January that I expected a market decline in late April, early May once all the major earnings had been released. I was not expecting a February decline but my outlook for May is still cautious.
We have been calling for the market to struggle for 9-18 months since we hit 2666 and we continue to trade within 130 points of that number. We are stuck, for now, in a range between the 100 Day Moving Average (DMA) and the 200 DMA. The 200 DMA is the number most watched by the momentum crowd. If we break below the 200 DMA there are very large funds that will go from 100% long to 100% short. The range that we are building also builds tension. When that tension is released the market will move in conjunction with how much pressure has built. Gold and the 10 Yr Treasury have been stuck in a range for a year. Keep an eye on the door. When these ranges break out things will change rapidly – but for now we wait.
I think we aspire less to foresee the future and more to be a great contingency planner… you can respond very fast to what’s happening because you thought through all the possibilities, – Lloyd Blankfein
To learn more about us and Blackthorn Asset Management LLC visit our website at www.BlackthornAsset.com .
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill
Disclosure: This blog is informational and is not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. If you are thinking about investing consider the risk. Everyone’s financial situation is different. Consult your financial advisor.