by ilene - August 23rd, 2010 11:32 am
Courtesy of Prieur du Plessis, Investment Postcards from Cape Town
Last Thursday was a so-called 90% down-day for American stock markets (and many other bourses also recorded downward dynamics). A 90% down-day is defined as a day when downside volume equals 90% or more of the total upside plus downside volume and points lost equal 90% or more of the total points gained plus points lost. The historical record show that 90% down-days do not usually occur as a single incident on the bottom day of an important decline, but typically on a number of occasions throughout a major decline. As far as the very short term is concerned, 90% down-days are often followed by two- to seven-day bounces.
The stock market is on a knife’s edge at the moment as seen in the chart below, showing the long-term trend of the S&P 500 Index (green line) together with a simple 12-month rate of change (ROC) indicator (red line). Although monthly indicators are of little help when it comes to market timing, they do come in handy for defining the primary trend. An ROC line below zero depicts bear trends as experienced in 1990, 1994, 2000 to 2003, and in 2007. And 2010? With the ROC delicately perched just above the zero line, the primary trend is still bullish, but barely so.
Source: StockChart.com.
Regarding seasonality, I have done a short analysis of the historical pattern of monthly returns for the S&P 500 Index from 1950 to August 2010. The results are summarized in the graph below.
Source: Plexus Asset Management (based on data from I-Net Bridge).
As shown, the six-month period from May to October has historically been weaker than the period from November to April as seen in the average monthly return of 1.05% for the “good six months” compared with 0.25%% for the “bad six months”. Importantly, when considering individual months, September (-0.18%) and October (-0.19%) have historically been the only two negative months of the year. (A word of warning, though: one should take cognizance of seasonality but understand that it is not a stand-alone indicator and it is anybody’s guess whether a specific year will conform to the historical pattern.)
Where does this leave us at this juncture? Considering an array of indicators, we are somewhat in no-man’s land regarding whether the bull or bear will…
Tags: cycles, indicators, seasonality, stock charts, Stock Market, trends
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by ilene - August 30th, 2009 11:32 am
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
This is a re-post from an article we wrote for TheStreet.com:
The rally off the March 8th lows has been nothing but spectacular. In hindsight, it’s clear that investors overreacted to the downside, but as stocks surge more than 50% it’s time to begin pondering whether the current rally is a bit ahead of itself. Contrary to my bottom call on March 8th when I said it was time to invest in risky assets (a full history of my 2008/9 calls can be found here including our 2008 crash call and March 8 buy call), now is the time to put on your risk management cap on as a number of various threats begin to pop up across the market. I recently turned near-term bearish on stocks due to 2 primary reasons: sentiment & seasonality.
1) Sentiment – As I often say, psychology drives markets. After months of skepticism regarding the rally we are finally beginning to see an overwhelming amount of bullishness. This is a screaming contrarian indicator. The latest consumer confidence readings showed a marked jump to 54.1 and bullish sentiment among fund managers has soared to its highest level since 2003:
The latest Merrill Lynch fund managers survey shows an extraordinary jump in optimistic sentiment. The survey makes up the current psychology of 204 portfolio managers running over $550B in assets. The report shows a 63% jump in sentiment since July and the highest reading since November of 2003.
After months of short squeezes and failed market declines this optimistic sentiment has begun to eat into one of the fuels of this rally: short sellers. Recent short sales data shows the lowest readings since the market tanked in early February. As we lose the short sellers we lose an important driver of higher prices.
Perhaps most important has been the enormous shift in analyst estimates. After turning bearish in early June, I reversed the position in early July for one reason – earnings. My analysis led me to believe that estimates were far too low primarily due to the fact that analysts were not accounting for cost cuts. The estimates have been outrageously low, but now as the consensus begins to believe in a full blown recovery the
…
Tags: analyst estimates, bullishness, Consumer Confidence, contrarian indicator, earnings, Housing, Oil, rally, risks, seasonality, sentiment
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by ilene - June 20th, 2009 1:02 am
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Courtesy of Bill Luby at VIX AND MORE
Back in April, in The New VIX Macro Cycle Picture, I predicted that the VIX will likely not drop below the 25-27 area in the current bull market. That prediction has held up so far, but will almost certainly be tested during the summer months.
Most investors tend to think of the summer season as something of a horse latitudes of sorts for trading, with volume tailing off, portfolio managers on vacation and stocks sometimes set to cruise control. As a result, most people equate summer with lower volatility.
While the VIX does tend to follow a distinct seasonal cycle, the truth of the matter is that we are now at the seasonal cycle low, with volatility historically increasing dramatically from June through October. In fact, over the course of the past two decades the increase in volatility has been highest from June to July, increasing by over 10% (1.82 points.) The pattern is quite distinct in the chart below, which shows composite monthly volatility from January 1990 through last month, using 100 as the series mean.
So…while volatility may indeed trend lower as some of the concerns about the global recession are put to rest in the next few months, lower volatility will have to counter the established seasonal cycle.
For some previous posts on the same subject, try:
[graphic: VIXandMore]
Disclosure: Neutral position in VIX via options at time of writing
Tags: annual cycle, seasonality, VIX
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site