Expert technical analysis of financial markets by JC Parets
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza
For the week ended Friday, May 1, 2020:
Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
This week we’re highlighting the underperformance from the US using our Global Index and International ETF tables.
Weekends are a great time to take a step back and rip through thousands of charts to see what’s really going on. The S&P500, Dow and all those other indexes can only provide so much information. At a certain point, you need to get your hands dirty and a really look under the hood.
This weekend was especially informative because we got new Monthly Charts on Thursday and new Weekly Charts on Friday. That’s like Christmas for me.
Today I want to go over a few of the most important charts we want to keep an eye on going into the “Sell in May and Go Away” period. [Read more…]
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza
Now that April is in the books that old Wall Street adage of “Sell in May and Go Away” is making its annual tour around the world of financial media. The reason this is such a commonly rehearsed phrase this time of year is that it was one of many seasonality trends first introduced by Yale Hirsch in his book, The Stock Traders Almanac.
The theory is rooted in historical research which shows that stocks tend to experience their worst performance between the months of May and October. Alternatively, the best months of the year typically occur between November and April, which is what we’re going to cover in this post.
Notice how significant the disparity in average return is between these two six month timeframes.
As May gets under way, it’s time to review positions with May options that remain open (haven’t already hit profit targets or been stopped out).
Most trades I put on for All Star Options tend to have a minimum duration of 30 days (short premium plays) and often as long as 6-8 months (for long premium plays). As options approach expiration, greeks like theta and gamma start to become my enemy and whipsaw my P/L. Therefore, as options and spreads get into the expiration month, my best practice is to put each position on notice — it’s time to take action. [Read more…]
The best part about the end of the month is that there’s always a fresh batch of Monthly Charts waiting for us. We only perform this exercise once the candlesticks are completed, which in this case was Thursday April 30th. It takes me about half an hour to get through them all, which represents roughly 6 hours of my entire year’s work. I promise you from the bottom of my heart that there is no single part of my entire process that I find more helpful than this monthly chart review.
You see, this process forces us to take a step back, and gives us no choice but to identify the direction of the primary trends. We use these to put shorter-term trends into context. So no matter what your timeframe is, I think first identifying primary trends, and then working our way down from there, is a huge advantage over a blind bottoms/up approach.
Here are the things that stood out most during my review: [Read more…]
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza
There has been a lot of chatter about the outperformance from Health Care recently. One of the industry groups benefitting from this strength has certainly been Biotechs so we’re going to dive into that space today and take a look under the hood.
This week’s Mystery Chart is a long-term ratio chart of the Nasdaq Biotech ETF (IBB) relative to the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ). Thanks to everyone for participating. Responses were pretty mixed this week as the chart is at a bit of an inflection point as it tries to hammer out a bottom at key prior lows from 2007-08 and 2011.
Gold bugs sure have a lot to chirp about these days with theoretically unlimited money printing happening here in the US and around the world.
And this chart showing the performance of Gold relative to the S&P 500 shows a definitive upward trend in favor of Gold outperformance.
The million dollar question is, is this gold outperformance waning here? Or will the trend reassert itself soon? [Read more…]
Chris Ciovacco is someone whose work I’ve followed for many years. His approach to markets is similar to mine, in that he incorporates a weight-of-the-evidence technical strategy. His open-mindedness and ability to set up multiple outcomes to prepare for, is one to be admired. In this episode, Chris walks through his thought process when analyzing the current environment. He makes a great comparison to early 2009 and asks whether we’re in January ’09, just before another severe decline in stocks, or in May, on the way up after already bottoming.
This is a great episode that I hope makes you think differently and inspires you to keep an open mind and come up with your own possible scenarios for the coming months and quarters. This was a fun one! [Read more…]
