Weekend Reading: The End Of ‘Choppiness’

July 22, 2016

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Courtesy of Lance Roberts of Real Investment Advice.com

While the markets have indeed broken out to new highs, as I addressed earlier this week, it has done so without a significant improvement in the fundamentals. However, the breakout, such as it is, should not be dismissed or ignored. The technical underpinnings have improved enough to warrant an increase in equity related exposure given a proper entry point in the days or weeks ahead. Such an entry point would require a relaxation of the extreme short-term overbought conditions that currently exist. But a violation of critical support would negate the breakout and return the market back to a more bearish posture.

The potential for such a pullback is extremely high. As Tom McClellan noted recently, the “14-day Choppiness Index,” which tracks the path of a short-term trend, suggests Wall Street’s “uptrend is getting tired.” As McClellan notes, the very linear path for the index implies that the trend is likely to come to an end soon, while more volatile, or choppy, action suggests the opposite. A low reading in McClellan’s index signals a fairly straight-line, or linear, move. And presently, his choppiness index is at its lowest level in two decades.

“The reading on Monday was the lowest since Feb. 12, 1996 (yes I scrolled all the way back that far to find a lower one). And in case you are interested, that 1996 instance marked a price top which was not exceeded until 3 months afterward. Linear trends either upward or downward are very exhausting, requiring a lot of energy from either the bulls or the bears to keep everyone in formation and marching together. The market tends toward entropy, so excursions like this toward extreme organization cannot last for very long.”

Furthermore, with volatility levels at extremely low levels the probability of a further advance, without a pullback first, is extremely limited. My friend, Salil Mehta made a great comment on this recently noting that at current levels of volatility there is only about a 20% probability of further declines.

“At 11 [in the VIX] you are really close to the floor. chances are higher that you won’t go lower on VIX and will instead pop up on some risk-off day,”

As I stated in last week’s missive, the safest course of action for those more “bullishly” inclined is to wait for a pullback in prices to further increase equity allocations in portfolios. However, as I also noted, the current setup is extremely weak and the potential for a sharp pullback in August/September could quickly extinguish the bullish exuberance.

Caution remains highly advised.

Here is what I will be reading on the way back home.