Caution Flags
Posted on Saturday, August 26th, 2017
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill
“…algorithmic traders and institutional investors are a larger presence in various markets than previously, and the willingness of these institutions to support liquidity in stressful conditions is uncertain.”- Janet Yellen Jackson Hole 8/25/17
In Janet Yellen’s speech this week at Jackson Hole she brokers the subject of market structure and her anxieties surrounding the structural integrity of the market given additional stress. Will current market structure provide the liquidity needed given a stressful event? We think that it will not and a temporary condition will be created consisting of a lack of liquidity will happen for a time. The pessimist sees what would be a very scary moment if market structure lets us down in the next stressful period. What we see on the horizon is a market structure that we think will fail and will create a big opportunity. Market structure. We see the risk as real and evidently we are not the only one.
Dow Theory is the long running thesis that if Dow Jones Industrials are hitting new highs then its brethren in the Dow Jones Transports should be hitting highs as well. The Industrials make the goods and the Transports ship the goods. So if the one is doing well shouldn’t the other? We are not the only one concerned. By way of Arthur Cashin, comes Jason Goepfert recent notes on the topic.
Jason Goepfert, the resident sage at SentimenTrader noted the recent wide divergence between the Dow Industrial and Dow Transports. He recalls that prior similar divergences have rarely been resolved in a bullish fashion. Here’s a bit of what he wrote: The Dow indexes are out of gear. The Dow Transportation Average continues to badly lag its brother index, the Dow Industrial Average. The Transports are not only below their 200-day average, they just dropped to a fresh multi-month low. Yet the Industrials are more than 5% above their own 200-day average, a divergence which has tended to resolve to the downside for both indexes, especially in the shorter-term.
While we have the caution flag up we are intrigued by how many analysts and investors are calling for a downturn. When everyone expects something to happen something else usually does. From Bloomberg this week comes notes from Morgan Stanley, HSBC and Citigroup that markets long term relationships are breaking down and signaling that a correction is in store.
Analysts at the Wall Street behemoths cite signals including the breakdown of long-standing relationships between stocks, bonds and commodities as well as investors ignoring valuation fundamentals and data. It all means stock and credit markets are at risk of a painful drop.
“Equities have become less correlated with FX, FX has become less correlated with rates, and everything has become less sensitive to oil,” Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley’s chief cross-asset strategist, wrote in a note published Tuesday.
At the beginning of this week stocks were very oversold and due for a bounce. Equities were so oversold, in fact, that we did buy some equities for underinvested and new clients. The S&P is now approaching very important resistance levels at 2450 and again at 2475. 2475 is THE resistance level that the market has been struggling with since mid July. The market looks tired here and the seasonality is not in its favor with September and the October debt ceiling approaching. A failure at 2475 could give the bears confidence. The S&P 500 saw support at its 100 Day Moving Average (DMA) and the 2420-2400 area is support for now. The next support is the 200 DMA at 2350 which is down about 3.7% from here. If markets fell to that level that would be a 5.5% drop from the all time highs, certainly, not a major crisis. However, the bulls would need to hold the 2350 level or then the bears are in charge. We are still concerned that while the S&P 500 has held in there the Russell 2000 is struggling. That coupled with high valuations and a negative Dow Theory signal has us sending up caution flags.
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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
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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.