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It’s been an exciting couple weeks in the market with gold now making new all time highs as money floods into this shiny safe haven. It has everyone all worked up wanting to take part or they are riding the rally up already. But the big question is when should some money be taken off the table to lock in gains and lower your overall risk during these crazy times?
Below are a few charts showing you how I see things at this time.
GLD – Gold Exchange Traded Fund The price of GLD and gold appear to be going parabolic (straight up). The tough part about this type of price action is that large moves can happen in a very short period of time. But on the flip side, when the price reverses we tend to see prices fall just as fast if not faster. Trading this type of price action carries a very high level of risk. Those chasing it up buying at these overbought market conditions is a double edge knife.
SLV – Silver Exchange Traded Fund Silver is trading similar to gold but the key difference here is that silver has not broken to a new high as of yet. The high was set in 2008 just over $20 per ounce. But from looking at the chart I think metals are ready for a breather.
HUI Index – Gold Stocks Gold stocks have yet to breakout along with silver as they both are nearing key resistance levels. With gold stocks and silver trading near resistance I figure we will see pause in the coming days as traders digest the recent strong moves up taking some money off the table incase prices get stuck under these resistance level.
SPY – SP500 Broad Market Exchange Traded Fund The broad market appears to be forming a possible short setup on the daily chart as the price continues to drift higher with declining volume. Also indexes are testing key resistance levels and the 10 period moving average. The next few days should be interesting....
Mid-Week Precious Metals and Index Exchange Traded Fund Report: In short, it looks like precious metals and the broad market could take a breather in the coming days. I’m not sure how large of a correction we will see but I do not think it will be all that big.
Gold and silver should have a quick dip with buyers stepping back in on weakness. The SP500/broad market is a little more tough to call as last weeks market crash messed things up washing out all the stops in one day instead of weeks....but we could easily see a 5% drop in the market still.
As we all know, last weeks stock market blip/mini crash was very emotional for those of you watching or trading it live. A lot of money changed hands last week and you either lost a bundle or made a bundle…
I did send out some charts and a video on Thursday night about the market crash/recovery if you have not seen it. It’s called “Stock Market Micro Intraday Crash Shows Us Where The Safe Havens Are”.
Below are my ETF charts for the commodities and index I actively follow and trade.
GLD – Gold Bullion ETF – Daily Chart GLD is a great ETF to trade as it generates 10-20 quality low risk setups each year for subscribers. The chart clearly shows the large rally in late 2009 and the correction as it formed patterns moving from a down trend – base – and back to an uptrend.
$USD – US Dollar Index – Monthly Chart This weekly chart I think shows some serious potential for gold and silver prices. The US Dollar is now trading at a key resistance level which I think it will have a tough time moving higher. The dollar has been moving up for several months and looks ready for a pullback or at least a pause. If the dollar starts to roll over in the next few months then we should see gold and silver move substantially higher.
SLV – Silver Bullion ETF – Daily Chart Silver like gold bounced off a key support level last week as investors started to buy silver as a safe haven. Gold moved up sharply on the day of the intraday market crash while silver traded sideways for a day before joining the party. The following day investors starting buying up silver because it was lagging its big sister “yellow Gold”.
USO – Oil Fund – Daily Chart Several weeks back I posted this chart showing how volume was drying up as oil tested resistance on declining volume. This indicated to us that once/if the price started to roll over it would trigger a sharp sell off as short term traders who bought in anticipation of a breakout to the up side sold out of their positions once support was broken. This is what caused the heavy volume and sharp price drop.
SPY – SP500 INDEX Trading ETF – Daily Chart It’s tougher now to read the index charts as last weeks heavy volume market crash could be seen in two very different ways…
One – We are starting a correction and had a jump start with the human error of selling billions of dollars worth of investments instead of millions prematurely pushing pulling the market down to a level where I think it should/will test again before moving up.
OR Two – This extremely heavy sell off is just the start of what is to come....
Since the government owns the largest banks and the banks are unloading/selling massive amounts of shares calling it an error how do we know it’s not a scam for them to completely short the market in anticipation for a collapse which would make them unheard of amounts of money as the market drops… It is tough to trust anyone sitting up there in those power positions after everything they have been caught for already…
I personally think we could see lower prices in the coming month then the market will bottom and we will see new highs for 2010.
Weekend Commodity & Index ETF Trading Strategy Conclusion: Stepping back and looking at the above charts it looks as thought we could see stocks and commodities digest the recent moves. In short, gold and silver have rallied strong and now trading near resistance. Oil dropped last week and is now trading near a key support level. I feel it the market will trade sideways and stabilize before for a while as the SP500 had that crazy drop last week and now the market is in shock. I figured it would see 3-4 weeks to reach those prices yet it happened in 1 day so now the market could do very little for 3-4 weeks…
The US dollar is something we will be watching more closely because it’s trading at key resistance level. In the past it has taken a month or two for a rally to roll over and head back down. This could play out very nicely if the dollar tops and the rest of the market trends sideways to digest the recent moves. Once the dollar starts to fall it will provide fuel for the next rally in both stocks and commodities.
Gold and the stock market continue to trade within a tight range this week. While the long term trend for both stocks and metals are up, and the charts look bullish I am not buying at this level because the market is over bought.
Chasing prices higher especially after a run this large is not the right move in my opinion. I did mention last week that we could see stocks continue to grind higher going into earning season which is about 2 weeks away still. I think that could happen, and if the same thing happens which we saw last January with great earnings (which I think we will see again) then watch out for another drop.
In short, if earning are good which they have been and everyone is expecting the same this April, then the typical Buy on Rumor (pre-earnings rally) which is what we have now, and Sell on the Good News in April then all the suckers thinking the market should rally will provide some liquidity for the smart money to sell at a premium.
That being said, if the earning are not good, then people will sell on that news also because the market is just waiting for news to sell… It’s the exact same situation as last time, that’s how I am feeling about it.
Trading Bottoms in the Broad Market
The past few months I have been really focusing on buying dips in the broad market after I see a mini 3 wave correction. I use a mix between price patterns, volume, market sentiment, and market internals and of course years of watching how the market moves and evolves during times of economic expansion and contractions. This is represented on the chart below as the purple line.
This chart below shows one of my custom indicators which have successfully timed intermediate market bottoms 1-2 days before everything started to rally higher. This is one of the reasons we bought into the selling on Feb 5th and again on Feb 25th using ETF’s.
Because this is a new etf trading strategy and type of trading signal to be used in a bull market I still have to fin tune it a little more because I want to be sure we don’t get shaken out of positions to early which is what happened to a couple ETF’s we got into Feb 5th.
What happened was were buying when EVERYONE was bearish and panicking out of positions making it an extremely emotional time for traders and myself to buy into the market. This is not an easy task… I still have trouble pulling the trigger on these days and some times I just sit back in my chair and with one quick poke from my finger I hit the enter button to buy. My heart pounding just from that… but add few thousand followers on the pile relying on quality analysis and you start to understand what im going though. Not to mention the hundreds of emails with people telling me the market is about to crash, we should be shorting etc....Crazy times for sure.
Anyways, I will be provided these new signals for subscribers which is very exciting. Because my focus is on managing risk and keeping it as low as possible this will be a learning curve as I apply it to the service and set protective stops which is very difficult to do during a time of high volatility in the market. We can see the market move 2-4% in one day during these times so if we are trading the TNA 3x leveraged Russell2000 fund we could see our position drop 12% in one day. Bigger risk, bigger rewards as they say.
GLD Gold ETF – Daily Chart
Gold and silver are currently trading in limbo at the moment. It’s tough to say what’s going to happen here which is why I continue to wait for something with a high probability of winning before putting any money to work.
The daily chart clearly shows a multi month bull flag, ABC retrace, Reverse Head & Shoulders, and wedge. All of which are very bullish. It’s just a waiting game as I do not jump the gun on any move because the market has the tendency to catch everyone off guard and I don’t want to be one of them. Been there, done that to many times....
Mid-Week ETF Trading Signals Conclusion:
Keeping things short and simple, I think the stock market is in a major bull market. I am not buying anything until we get a pullback of some type. If the market unfolds properly we could have a great shorting opportunity (profit from a falling market) happening any day now, so that is my main focus at this time.
Earlier this week I noticed a pattern in the market throughout an entire trading session that has inspired me to write a short piece on sector rotation.
On Tuesday March 16th, my quote screen was flashing green as sectors reached new intraday highs or 52 week highs. The interesting part was that every sector that was flashing green happened to be in sectors that strengthen at the end of a bull market cycle or strong rally. This would include basic materials, staples, services, utilities and financial.
Today I investigated the different sectors and came across some interesting numbers between the January market peak and this week’s price action as I show in the charts below.
JANUARY – ETF Sector Rotation Trading – 28 Day Cycle I may not explain this well but try to follow me here Just before the market rolled over and lost over 9% last January, all the proper bull market sectors were very strong during the previous 28 days. This is normal and a strong sign that market participants were bullish on the overall market.
But the market was overbought; trading volume was light indicating that not many people are willing to buy at these lofty prices. And the VIX (volatility index) had reached an extreme low (a level that has triggered large sell offs in the past). All this means one thing to me. And that is, trade with caution and tighten your protective stops.
General rule, if everyone is buying all the hot stocks at these over bought levels then you can’t help but think its time for the market to roll over and shake them all out.
MARCH – ETF Sector Rotation Trading –28 Day Cycle The chart of March shows where the sectors have finished over the past 28 days. Notice how similar the sectors have appreciated in price…
I have overlaid John Murphy’s sector rotation image to show which sectors are strongest in a bull market.
Now the interesting part is that it appears to be the setup as in January. My quote system is flashing new highs for the bear market cycle sectors which are the one which have not performed well (Stapes, Services & Utilities) and I have to think the market is about to take a breather or do a swan dive.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we are on the verge of a bear market. I actually think the market is strong and will trade sideways in a large range for most of this year or just continue to trend up. What I am saying is that these sectors go in and out of favor during smaller market cycles and that can be very useful information.
Sector Rotation Explained You can learn more about sector rotation from this detailed course How to Profit From Sector Rotation Using ETFs. This course explains how different sectors are stronger during different points within the economic cycle. The chart above shows the relationships and which of the various sectors should strengthen from the economy. The financial Market Cycle leads the Economic Cycle because traders try to anticipate the economy.
Market Update & Trading Conclusion: Stock Indexes: The market in my opinion is way over bought on the daily chart and needs a breather. Volume is light, VIX is at the same level we saw in January just before the top and the bullish sectors are firing on all pistons. You won’t catch me buying up here. Any type of pullback will most likely be sharp and there is no need to put money to work right now.
Precious Metals: Gold and silver had a nice pop this week off of a support level. I did not have a low risk setup as momentum was not on my side at the time of the pop. Also the large gap up on GLD makes me nervous as gaps tend to get filled. I am just waiting for something to unfold which looks to be a few days away still.
Oil: It has popped higher also and is trading at resistance. As I mentioned in Sundays report, if the USD dollar completes this breakdown then we will see commodities and stocks surge to higher prices and most likely post a nice multi month rally.
Natural Gas: We are seeing natural gas prices dip below support, shaking out traders who had their protective stops set just beneath the previous low. Natural gas is a silent killer as it will shake even the best traders out of the market. I feel natural gas is over sold and ready for a bounce but until I get a low risk setup I remain on the side lines.
Since the market crash in late 2008 we have seen investors favor quality stocks that pay dividends and have steady earnings. Fast growth companies and equities with physical resources like commodities have also done well.
Gold – Monthly Chart Looking at the monthly chart as far back as 2004, we see that gold has formed the same patterns repeatedly. This has created a stair step pattern and allows us to calculate measured moves and a time frame for this to take place.
As we can see gold has broken its 2008 high and is starting another rally which we have seen several times before. I figure we could see gold rally for another 3-5 months and possibly reach the $1500 -$1600 level before forming a multi month or year consolidation.
Investors around the world are buying gold because it is a physical product which has been proven to hold its value.
Silver & Precious Metal Stocks – Monthly Chart Silver and PM stocks have been trading in tandem since 2004 and we can see this by looking at a price performance chart of both silver and the HUI index. The interesting part is that the physical commodity silver has held its value better than the stocks during corrections. Apparently investors prefer tangible investments over stock certificates of mining companies in periods of increased volitility. Lower risk is in the commodity.
Oil – Monthly Chart Crude oil has held its value over energy stocks for the majority of the time since 2003. And currently, investors are more comfortable holding oil as a safe investment over energy stocks.
Natural Gas – Monthly Chart Natural gas is the energy sector’s underdog in my eyes. The world has found so much natural gas in the ground and discovered cost effective ways to collect gas that it will continue to see investors move away until inventory start to deplete.
Commodity Trading Conclusion: Investors around the world continue to put money into gold which is a universal hedge against inflation. The broad market appears to be trading at a major resistance level. Tops in the market generally take a much longer than to reverse directions than market bottoms. We will not knot for sure if we are entering a top for a couple months as the charts unfold. Now that commodities are trading back at reasonable levels I think they will hold up better than equities if the market starts to correct.
We continue to enter low risk setups and trade with this strong up trend but are aware that we must be protected and focus on the lower risk plays.
