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All Star Interviews Season 3, Episode 17: Jeff Hirsch, Author of The Stock Trader’s Almanac

February 18, 2020 by JC

Jeff Hirsch is the Author of the Annual Stock Trader’s Almanac. He, and before that his father Yale Hirsch, has been publishing the must-read almanac every year since 1967. This year is the 53rd edition of the Almanac and a lot of the smartest traders I know keep the most recent copy on their desk. I personally have issues I’ve kept going back decades. When it comes to Seasonality, whether it’s the 1-year cycle, Presidential cycle, or even intra-month and intra-week cycles, Jeff is the person I turn to first. The month of January brings along a ton of information we can use to help us make decisions in the stock market the rest of the year. The track record is pretty spectacular, as we discuss in this episode. Today, Jeff uses these seasonal trends to help him in his role as Chief Strategist at Probabilities Fund Management. In this episode of the podcast we discuss what the down January might mean for the rest of this year, how markets tend to behave on Election Years and why Seasonal trends are so important to recognize.
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New All-Time Lows For Banks Relative To The Stock Market

February 16, 2020 by JC

It’s been a while since we’ve had a conversation about new all-time lows for stocks. But this week we saw the Regional Bank Index Fund close at new all-time relative lows. This is the lowest they’ve ever been.

What’s fascinating is how this is happening just as the Financials Index Fund is attempting to break out to new all-time highs, finally exceeding their 2007 peak before the financial crisis.

Here in this chart you can see the $XLF trying to finally get through those 2007 highs for the first time ever. But Regional Banks are not confirming these new highs. Neither is Momentum or Relative Strength. [Read more…]

Here Come Higher Bond Prices

February 15, 2020 by JC

Over the past month, Bonds are up a bunch as the collapse in Interest Rates has resumed. We jumped on board this bond trade last month and so far it’s working.

Meanwhile, a majority of U.S. stocks are actually down over the past month. While the S&P500, Dow Industrials and Nasdaq100 have gone on to make new highs, the NYSE Advance-Decline line (stocks only) did not, Small-caps did not, Dow Transports did not, and a majority of individual stocks did not. It’s only a minority of names doing the work, particularly large-cap stocks and some higher dividend paying areas like REITs and Utilities.

When you run the numbers, most stocks in the U.S. are down over the past month, with negative average and median returns for the Russell3000 components. It’s the bonds that are up and I think they’re just getting started.

Today’s chart focuses on the Intermarket Relationships we lean on to supplement our absolute price analysis. With rates rolling over again, are stocks and commodities confirming what the bond market is doing? In a simple answer: Yes! [Read more…]

Media Appearance: Raising Cash Now Is Prudent

February 14, 2020 by JC

As you guys know, we’ve had a much more defensive approach to the stock market over the past few weeks, especially compared to how bullish we had been for so long. There is a time to be big and aggressive and a time to be small and cash heavy. I believe we’re currently in the latter of those two categories.

Here’s the clip in full: [Read more…]

Buyers Defend Support in Aerospace & Defense

February 13, 2020 by Steve Strazza

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thank you to everyone who responded to this week’s mystery chart.

There was a nice diversity of responses. Many said they were anticipating a break of the support line and would get short against that level while others were buyers as long as prices held above it. But the majority took a neutral approach, preferring to wait for the current range to resolve before having a directional bias.

A sound argument could be made for any of these answers in my opinion, so with that as our backdrop let’s take a look at this week’s chart.

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Playing for an Energetic Bounce in Energy

February 12, 2020 by Sean McLaughlin

The ASC team is out with a piece calling for a potential short-term bottom in the Energy space. I’m liking some of the setups I’m seeing and I’ve got an options play to get us involved. [Read more…]

[Chart Of The Week] Crude Oil’s Range Remains Intact

February 12, 2020 by Tom Bruni

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

With Crude Oil down 25% over the last month and the rest of the Energy complex struggling in tandem, let’s take a look at where it stands and where it could potentially head. [Read more…]

Mystery Chart (02-11-2020)

February 11, 2020 by Steve Strazza

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?