How trading feels these days, courtesy of Tim Knight at Slope of Hope – Ilene
Meat Market
Allow me to try to articulate how this market feels different to me. And let’s use a little analogy in which I am a hunter searching for meat. Being a lazy hunter, let’s say I’m looking for meat that’s already been packaged to take home!
Last autumn, I felt like I had been let into the butcher’s aisle at the biggest, newest Whole Foods in the country. I could take whatever I wanted. It was easy. And the only frustration I felt was that, on the way in, I had picked up a shopping basket instead of a big cart, since I could have picked up so much more.
These days, the feeling I have is that – – just before going into the same story, my pockets have been stuffed with pork chops, tri-tip steaks, and hot links, and there are about 75 ravenous hyenas running around inside Whole Foods. I run screaming down the meat aisle, trying to defend myself, trying to keep my own meat from being stolen, and I wind up, breathless, just outside the Exit, having grabbed a single Vienna sausage with some of the gelatinous goo still clinging to it.
And that’s certainly what today felt like! Trading a market like this is a huge, huge, huge – – and I’ll say it again – – huge amount of work, and the payoff these days is meager.
I will offer a couple of encouraging charts, however. First, there’s this one of the /ES since the bottom in March.
I see a real shift going on. The green area was where the bulls were in control. No ifs, ands, or butts. It was their market.
The teal area – – in spite of generally rising – – shows an area of uncertainty and, I think, shift of control. An entire week went by, but no new highs were made.
And then we have the past couple of days. Ever so subtly, the market is moving down. Let’s take a closer look.
Today’s attempt to surge higher kissed that downward trendline to the penny and then immediately changed direction.
If the bulls can get the /ES above 872, then the bears are, for the time being, completely hosed. I could see the bulls taking the market another 75 points higher from that level without breaking a sweat. If we break 823 on the downside, though, I think 780 is almost a foregone conclusion.
Tomorrow is FOMC day, which means that an additional 425 hyenas will be escorted into Whole Foods before we have to go into the place. I am not looking forward to it.
