There have been some interesting developments in the markets during the past few weeks. They could be signaling some warning signs, so I’d like to bring these developments to your attention with some charts I’ve been watching. Let’s get right into it. The first set of charts takes a look at the retailers via the Retail Index ETF (XRT). As you can see from the chart below, the XRT found
No COT reports, no China or India demand, no consideration of so called “manipulation, ” just good old fashioned technical analysis using a very simple Fibonacci method. Let’s work our way through some charts and see if we can highlight some key Gold Fibonacci levels. Let’s start with a 5 year weekly chart of Gold Futures, noting some key Gold Fibonacci levels (price support and resistance). As you can
In striking contrast to 2014′s dominant theme of “record low volatility” and the numbingly granular tedium with which it has been analyzed, some US equity sectors and industries have never stopped partying following 2013′s outlying bullish performance. A few have left pundits perplexed (e.g. Utilities continues to outperform it’s sector peers year-to-date), but others are held up as an affirmation that the post-crisis cyclical bull market – now well into
One of the most important traits of successful traders and investors is they think in probabilities. Markets have many moving parts and thus take on various shades of grey; set-ups are never binary or black and white. Why Do We Care About Higher Stock Market Highs? Higher highs remove the possibility of a lower high. A lower high increases the probability of bad things happening. The chart below of the
If you haven’t noticed, large cap tech stocks have been on fire of late. And there’s no better measure for this sector than the Nasdaq 100 (NDX). Check this out: Since mid-April, the Nasdaq 100 is outperforming the S&P 500 by almost 2 to 1 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by almost 3 to 1. And since the equity markets typically only go as far as its leaders take
Ah, the VIX. Everyone’s favorite fear/greed instrument, but in reality it is probably one of the most misunderstood things in all of finance. So many have incorrectly (for years now) said a low VIX is bearish, because it shows everyone is complacent. This just isn’t true. The Volatility Index (VIX) is simply a measure of how much traders are willing to pay for various S&P 500 options over the next
Good morning traders. We finally got a little bit of action overnight – some of the action was discussed on my site yesterday. Below are my latest updates and forex forecasts. Note: the Short-Term Forex Forecasts highlight price direction and likely price targets/stops over the next several hours. So this is very short-term in nature. These are not official trade recommendations, merely guidelines and forecasts that I am looking at. North
Considering the way the markets behaved during the first half of the year, it should come as no surprise that there are high levels of investor confusion surrounding the near-term direction (and theme) of the markets. On a day-to-day basis, investor sentiment ranges from a head scratch to a high five to you gotta be kidding me. Several technical and fundamental indicators have flashed caution to no avail. And this has given way to an
The theory of “black swan events” was originally developed by Nassim Taleb to profile unexpected occurrences or rare events that few were able to predict or prepare for. The recent tragedy of the plane crash along the Ukraine-Russian border that led to a swift global sell off is one such occurrence that caught nearly everyone off guard. And events like these add another element to managing risk. From a regional
On Thursday, the S&P 500 dropped 1.18%, ending its streak of days without a 1% move (up or down) at 62 days in a row. While this streak was significant and worthy of my attention (check out my Tumblr blog), something else occurred that day that caught my eye: the Volatility Index (VIX) spiked. In this piece I want to take a closer look at the VIX and market performance post VIX spikes.