Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Daily Wrap

Well today was exactly what I suspected, lateral chop, the importance being on "lateral" as that's what's needed in a reversal process as I illustrated earlier. There weren't any major surprises, although some were surprised that today's POMO had no effect.

I have maintained from the start that in my opinion QE was nothing more than a stealth bank bailout as the 2008 bailouts were not popular, one item suggesting this may be the case with QE ending is the massive build in bank reserves as a second round of foreclosures is expected with a lot of 5-year HELOCs resetting.

Spike in bank reserves, the free money is over.

Everything looked pretty normal today or at least as suspected.
 HYG lost more ground which is significant.

S
 Professional sentiment also lost more ground

This is the Yen today, flat and choppy as it needed to be, but...

 The 30 min chart is building even stronger, at last look the USD.JPY has a pretty negative signal so we'll see what it does overnight.

There was no dominant Price/Volume relationship today.

I'll be looking in a few hours at futures as the USD/JPY has deteriorated since the close.






Quick Update

So far so good, I drew a little visual so you could get a feel for what I was looking for this morning and what we have today, if you've looked at enough charts you know one of them looks reasonable and familiar and the other not so much, that's what today was about, the reversal process.
 This is the process I always talk about and it gives the market time to deepened the signals, it's really about the large players having time to get positions in order.

This picture I drew would be more of what I'd call a "Reversal Event" rather than a process, we do see these from time to time, but they are in the minority.

That's why I was looking for choppy, lateral action today, I like what the charts have done with it as well.

AAPL Follow Up

AAPL can more or less be considered a bellwether for the market, it has done what it needs to do, what I was expecting this morning (choppy, lateral movement) in to worse divergences and the Put position entered yesterday is just about break even so any downside from here and it should be working well, but the larger picture is that of today's action in broadening out a reversal process that was very parabolic yesterday.

 2 min intraday was very sharp negative, it has added to that to make a new leading low today while we've broadened out the area, this is what I mean about quiet markets, by price alone AAPL would seem to be quiet today at a +0.18% move, but as you see, there's a lot going on under the surface.

 3 min


10 min.

We know have charts as far out as 30 min going negative, but I chose options because this was primarily in the 1-5/10 min range.


USO Trade Idea

I'm going to enter a half or maybe even a quarter position, if it makes an intraday move I suspect it will, I may add to that, but I view it as a bit speculative because of the longer term trend and I want to be able to shut this down quickly if need be. I would likely use SCO (2x ultra short crude).

Many of you may remember a lot of the longer term USO charts and expectations as we covered it pretty heavily.

 On a daily chart we identified #1 as a distribution area, it fell and started accumulating at #2 forming the very common (this week) "W" formation with a head fake move at the second bottom just before lifting out of the base and #3 it's hitting resistance from the Dec. 27th highs.

Here's the same chart with 3C.

#1 is the distribution on a 4 hour chart, #2 is the accumulation at the "W" and #3 is where we are now.

As for intraday charts, the 2 min is in bad shape as an intraday trend

As is the 5 min

The 10 min is one of the sharpest negatives.

The 15 min is negative in the same area.

The 30 min shows the second bottom of the "W" and a negative at the current area.

That's a LOT of confirmation.

The primary trend though...

The 60 min with accumulation at the "W" bottoms has a negative divegrence, I'm not sure if it's a significant pullback or a change in character. The base is large enough to support a move up way bigger than this so it's either a significant pullback or they are changing their minds on USO long, either way, I think it can be traded short for at least a swing trade,

This intraday 1 min chart had a positive in to the close and it gapped up, everything after this is negative, but intraday there's a decent chance of a move back toward intraday highs and this is my reasoning for a partial position, if we get back to intraday highs and the 1 min goes negative, I'd likely add the rest of the trading position.

USO Charts / Trade Idea Coming Up

I just got a look at this, there looks to be a very nice short, but there are multiple or at least 2 trends, the short and a much longer term long so it appears as if there's a decent amount of downside in USO near term, I just can't be sure whether it's a deep pullback in a larger bullish trend or whether that 60 min chart is seeing the effects of migration and instead of reflecting a pullback, it's reflecting deterioration of the trend.

I've confirmed via crude futures as well.

The ideal short entry would be above the highs of Dec. 27th which we aren't far from and it looks like there's a 65%  chance of an intraday push higher.

In any case, I wanted to let you know so you can take a look with your tools while I finish looking with mine.

Trade IDea: HYG Short (or Puts)

HYG (High Yield Corp. Credit) is a popular institutional risk asset, it gained popularity after banks started selling their credit exposure after the 2008 credit/financial crisis, credit traders are some of the smartest, well-informed guys in the room, thus the saying, "Credit leads, equities follow" and yesterday HYG which is among the most liquid assets for trading credit (as banks no longer have enough to lend out to create a diversified position) broke down.

HYG is a popular market lever as the algos read HYG up as institutional risk on, but it's not as simple as that as it has become so manipulated now that it's one of 3 assets that are part of a larger lever called SPY arbitrage, credit up is a risk on or buy signal for the algos, the other two are defensive, VXX, short term VIX futures and if they are up the algos read it as a flight to safety and sell signal and the last is TLT (20+ year treasuries), a true flight to safety signal which algos read as such and sell. The SPY arbitrage is activated (and even though HYG was up this week, there was no SPY arbitrage because of the relative strength in VXX and TLT) when HYG is up and TLT and VXX are down beyond their correlations.

Yesterday I mentioned HYG breaking up which has market implications.

So far we have a quiet market today, quiet markets are dangerous, they're always up to something so don't be lulled in to complacency.

I'd consider HYG a short equity trading position or a (long) put position if it were to make a move toward yesterday's highs.

My custom SPY/NYSE TICK indicator is working well, you can probably get some early signals just using the NYSE intraday TICK like these...
 Note the indicator's trends, TICK can do roughly the same if you draw trendlines and look for a move away from the trend, but this gives good early warning as to what's coming and it looks like we are going to make an intraday move toward the top of today's range, that might be enough to make HYG move and set up a nice trading short.

HYG's 5 min chart is in horrible shape as I showed a few times the last several days, only the 1-2 min charts carried it up meaning it had very little support, just enough to make it move, but not serious accumulation of any kind, making HYG a hollow asset up this high.

I'm setting price alerts for HYG above yesterday's close and toward yesterday's highs, if I can get a move like that which should bring down put premiums, I'll likely open either a put position in HYG or a HYG short, although I prefer the put because of beta.

If you are interested, you might want to set some price alerts too. I'll of course let you know if I'm going to do anything BEFORE I do it.

FAZ, XLF , THE SPX AND BIGGER PICTURE.

This post is exactly why I posted this last night, 1929 Analog Insanity.

If I wasn't clear enough last night then let me say, I am as bearish as they come with regard to the Primary trend (what we'd call a bull or bear market), but there are at least 4 trends (short, sub-intermediate, Intermediate and Primary).

What I was trying to point out last night was not that the market wasn't bearish, not that it wasn't as bad as 1929, in fact I think the market is worse than 1929, it wasn't even to say that this chart making its rounds everywhere may not actually be correct. My point was, everyone is looking for surety is a very dynamic and unpredictable market, this is why to be a market guru you don't need to know anything about the market, you just need to sound like you have 100% conviction in what you say and millions will follow you (like Cramer) no matter how often you are wrong, people crave that certainty in an uncertain environment and isn't that the root of fear? Uncertainty about the future?

We all want to be as certain as we can, but the best you'll get in the market without breaking laws and going to jail is probabilities. For some people this isn't enough, not everyone can be an explorer of a new world and forge ahead in to uncertainty, it doesn't say anything bad about you if that's not you. My ex-wife came from a country that was behind the "Iron Curtain", for them certainty was a necessity, it was born and breed in to them, their entire society revolved around it so she didn't like me trading at all, it physically repulsed her; her view was that you work for the same company your entire life, you don't make waves, you keep your head down and you keep that job until you retire.

Unfortunately those days of pensions, 401ks and job security are long gone, I think to survive what is coming, you have to be ready to dive in to the unkown and forge your own path. Watching The US vs. Europe or China over the coming years will be an interesting case study in this particular topic. I'm not even sure the US has that "American Dream" spirit anymore, we'll see.

I'm just trying to point out, "It may not happen like that chart, be careful in taking it too literally".

Financials are an interesting case study. I know for sure that market dynamics, correlations and character are going to be flipped upside down, this is why I have always said, "IT will be the people who figure out how to trade in the new environment first that will be rewarded", I think we have the tools and edge to be among the first to figure it out.

In any case, here's FAZ/Financials.
 Short term (from the head fake rally), the Trend Channel has FAZ at a stop at $22.40, above that and the downtrend in FAZ, up move in the market the last 4 days looks to be done, that doesn't mean choppy volatility won't dominate before a clean downtrend emerges, but it seems to me that the market is shifting away from "Time" and toward intensity. On the head fake move I wasn't sure if it needed to create a new high to get the retail bears bullish or if it just needed what looked to be an exceptionally strong move, yet one that doesn't alter the technical landscape, it turns out it was the second as retail was bearish last week, they are bullish this week, I said it only takes about 3 days to switch them, they are fickle which means they are just chasing price and have no edge.


 On the 60 min X-Over chart, I'd prefer there were enough lateral market movement to allow FAZ to give a buy signal here, again though, things are changing and moving away from duration and toward intensity.

Look at the last FAZ move up and the size of the base vs now on a 60 min chart with RSI 10.

If you look at the SPX daily, I have a custom "ATR-based" indicator and you can see intraday volatility has more than doubled since the start of the year, just look at the price candles in the white box.

As far as Financials, lets go back to the SPX-200 day moving average conversation.
 My initial theory is that we get an intense move down and below the 200-day moving average as the more cautious of traders will wait for a break of the 200-day before entering and I suspect Wall St. will give it to them. This is such a juicy target for Wall St. because retail technical traders are so enamored with the 200-day moving average, thus it has been my theory that this will be used as the last and most powerful head fake move yet. I can't confirm it yet and the only information I have pointing toward it are the 30 min charts, we'd need to see accumulation in to the move down or as we breach the 200-day, that's where the most supply will be available at the cheapest prices and where we'd see the most accumulation if there were accumulation which would indicate they will run one last head fake move.

The yellow arrow in my opinion would be some kind of bearish consolidation pattern, it is really serving as a reversal process, but it need to keep bears interested and with a bear flag, the last head fake coming out of the reversal process just needs to move below the flag and all new shorts will enter and give the market that kick to the upside just as we saw during the last week.

I'd guess we'd see a move well above the 200-day, knocking out shorts and forcing another squeeze, but I don't see any viable head fakes of consequence after that and I'd guess that's pushing it as far as how much time this market has left.

I reviewed that so we can look at Financials and the bigger story.


 This 4 hour chart looks like a large double bottom with the first bottom in place, I don't think we have time for a proportionate second bottom, but I think something would need to appear, forget the short term, I'm talking about primary trend. What I'd be looking for is a move a bit lower and then sideways, I don't think we get that move unless we get an upside head fake move coming off the break of the 200-day moving average.

This is a lot of "Ifs", but looking at the charts, it looks to be pretty decent probability.

60 min FAZ with a big accumulation zone, much bigger than the move up and the distribution at the top was minor, just enough to send it lower.

The same with the 30 min chart, the question is where will this end up  and what kind of accumulation zone will it build. It seems clear there's something much bigger and longer term going on in FAZ, Home-Builders were under a year and a half of accumulation almost 2-3 years before their big rally.

 The 10 min chart

And the 10 min chart close up, this is a pretty decent positive for a near term move up, but no where near the chart above.

 5 min chart looks decent.

XLF (Financials) would basically need to do the same thing as the SPX, break the 200 on the downside, put in a reversal process and a head fake move on the upside, that would give FAZ a chance to accumulate that second bottom and I'm talking about a trade on a primary trend basis, I might even be more interested in XLF short rather than using FAZ's leverage.

Note the 4 hour XLF chart is the mirror opposite of FAZ's 4 hour so something long term is going on here and it looks to be a trade worth stalking.

As far as short term, if you are interested in FAZ long for a market downside reversal, I wouldn't enter it here, I'd look at it near today's intraday lows around $21.70, I'll set price alerts to remind me to look at it if it gets to that area.

Quick Market Update

So far so good, you can see it on a simple daily SPX chart with a doji as the daily candle, that's more or less what I'm looking for as it represents the lateral movement which is going to have some chop.

The idea is basically this.
It's more a less just a cover for time, lateral consolidation. The market is run by supertankers, we have to view the market in that light. Our experience is that we are like jet skis compared to them, we can get in and out of what would be a large position for us in one trade, they can't do the same because of the sheer size and the dangers they face from entities like predatory HFT, looking for their orders to front run them, thus they have to break large orders up in to smaller pieces, that's essentially what 3C is following, but we, unlike the HFTs, are not targeting any particular institution/Private Equity, Investment bank, we're just looking to tag along on the moves they set up.

In any case, this is what I was expecting.

Volatility has been low so far, but don't be surprised to see an intraday move that wither excites or frightens the bulls...The Bulls? Yes, the bulls.

Last week sentiment was overwhelmingly bearish, as I said about a head fake move, "They have to be strong enough to swing sentiment. As institutions sell short or sell, they need someone to buy and last week's bears are today's bulls.

Our StockTwitss/Twitter sentiment update confirms what we knew was coming well over a week ago.

"It's funny how emotional these people get and now I see targets of 1900 on SPX, it seems whenever a market moves hard in one direction they all become more bullish in that direction or more bearish."

As I said last week before the head fake move even started, the reason we can see the signs of these in advance is because Wall St. doesn't do anything without a reason, the head fake wasn't coincidence, it was set up, we watched it being set up and were able to predict it days, even a week in advance, this was the biggest lesson I had to learn when opening my mind to what 3C showed me, it wasn't what Technical Analysis taught, but it is what it is.

In any case, so far, so good.

Goldman's Parabolic Move Seems to be turning

Yesterday I posted this, GS is looking like a quick Parabolic Short

This morning it looks like it's turning, the thing with parabolic moves is they tend to fail just as spectacularly as they rise, I NEVER trust them.

 GS 2 min intraday

3 min intraday

10 min is much more serious.

I have not been keen on financial shorts, they just haven't looked as good as others, but with GS looking like it's coming apart and the sector as a whole seeing more damage, I'm going to revisit finacials as I know a lot of you have been asking about a FAZ or SKF long.


I prefer GS as a core short rather than a trading position personally.

VXX February $49 Call

I'm going to add to this position, at the discount these are trading at I can't pass it up and I already have a full house with UVXY long equity in the trading portfolio.

In the interest of full disclosure, what I'm doing is absolutely against everything I believe, this is averaging down a position and I do not believe in averaging down or dollar cost averaging, but I believe in this position more so I don't want to be a hypocrite, I'm taking responsibility and knowingly breaking a rule that I believe in, as I said, I just believe in this position more.

If I were to enter a new VXX options position I would go out to March as I like to have about 6 weeks until expiration.

VXX / UVXY Update Trade Position

I have to reiterate, I love UVXY or VXX here, I prefer the equity longs over options at this point.
This is one of the better developed charts in my view.

 5 min UVXY

10 min

At 15 min, this is no joke. Remember this one moves opposite the market so these positives align with the market negatives.

I may even consider adding to calls, but I'll let you know about that if and when I do.

USD/JPY Update

So far, so choppy. The point of the chop really serves no purpose other than a place holder or lateral consolidation, it's the short squeeze uptrend line that was broken last night that needs a little time to round over like the IWM (although it needs a bit more time too, but it has a head start on QQQ/SPY.
Overnight the USD/JPY (above) was up and then down in to pre-market with a small positive divergence and now a small negative looks to be setting in, this should keep the chop fairly lateral possibly with a slight downward rounding bias, once that completes, it should be volatility back to 10 on a downside move.

The intraday Q's are already leading negative twice as deep as yesterday as is the IWM. Intraday the SPY is more inline, but its more important intraday charts like 3 min are deteriorating badly, the 5-15 are already destroyed.

the 30 min charts are still in decent shape and I'd expect them to stay that way until we reach the 200-day moving average, we'll have to confirm accumulation on a move down to the 200-day if my initial theory of the 200-day being gamed is correct, but for now that's my gut feel, however it seems clear the market is running out of time which probably means shorter duration moves with much higher volatility.

A.M. Observations

After looking at yesterday's data and the overnight futures which had a USD/JPY led rally that faded out, I suspect the path of highest probability is a condensed overnight model, which would be more like lateral chop for one reason.

We have this in most averages.
 To me, although it could make a sharp reversal as there's been distribution through the whole move, it's usually not a high probability, so we'd need something like this...

The IWM has a wider top area, but I think yet a bit wider and some choppy lateral trade will do it.

This is the 1 min ES chart that looks to start a move higher this morning intraday and this...

is what the 5 min charts look like, a lot worse than before and I think ultimately this is where we are going, ultimately meaning next, I'd think today.

The USD/JPY has a small intraday 1 min positive after sliding overnight after being up, I think that pattern will likely continue, maybe with more of a downside bias.


The 5 min USD/JPT has a large negative, that is the overriding bias.

So I think choppy lateral with a downward or rounded bias leading to a nasty move down below the 200-day moving average.

I'm positioned mostly short except for a couple larger term positions like MCP.