Another Downside Reversal

Top Line: Monday was Not up and that is something new...that we like. Monday showed yet another big reversal to the downside. These are bearish days and most likely are setting us up for a solid down move.

The market took off like a rocket this morning especially in the NASDAQ 100. In a half hour the NDX was up 1.5% and held there for about an hour when it fell out of bed suddenly. In the next hour, NDX fell 2% wiping out the early morning launch and then some. The rest of the day was spent just treading water. But, the action in NDX actually was an outside down day.


All of these downside reversals we have seen in the market the past few days should resolve to the downside. GDX is one of the confirming indicators. Maybe we should start with the dollar's rebound today.

The dollar was very strong today giving some deep knee bends for the commodities. What is kind of surprising was that the bonds were down today, too. We can rationalize that with the fact that the US Treasury is trying to sell a very large amount of debt this week. The dealers need to hold prices down so they can buy 'em cheap. Or, they are just going down. We are expecting the stock market to go down and some of that money should go into the dollar denominated US Treasury bond market. Just not this week.

Going back to GDX, gold was down about $15 dollars and GDX was down about 2 bucks at 44.69. This was after GDX was up about a buck in the early morning launch. GDX seems to have topped for the time being at the 49.74 high about two weeks back. So far, we've seen a 10% drop in GDX and we expect that it will lead the market down some more. We will be looking at buying GDX back under 40. We're not completely sure we will but we are keeping an eye on it.

Yes, Jackson likes swimming... Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty has a great fall. Now fall into the pool, Jackson.

Strong Monday or Not?

Top Line: The market continues to exhibit topping action. Please see our comment in the last post for details on Friday morning's action.

The past several weeks have seen strong Monday's so maybe this week the market can break that pattern.

We have no time this evening for a post so will add more on Monday evening.

Another Important Reversal Day

Top Line: The stock market had a outside down day which is a bearish sign. We look for further confirmation of downside.

Outside down days are technically bearish due to what they imply. That being, early strength leading to late weakness, which is exactly what happened. Both ends of the day seemed to be driven by news about WFC (Wells Fargo). Early in the day, WFC announced blowout earnings and late in the day an important analyst downgraded the stock. So, news was a driver in this outside down day which doesn't sit well with us but we will definitely take the downside.

This action should be followed by further downside and it should come immediately. The technical picture is ripe with downside potential. Look at a chart and you can see that this vertical run looks very brittle. The possibility exists that the entire rise from the March lows is over today. Yes, we have said that before but that doesn't mean that it's wrong. In fact the next down move could be very destructive to stocks so to side step that move would be ok.

The volatility indexes were some of today's standout performers. The VXO dipped below 20 before blasting higher in the final hour. This is a meaningful reversal and gives us confirmation of the down move that happened in the stock market.

As for our gold mining stock proxy, GDX, it traded to 49 this morning just shy of last week's highs before dropping to close a little lower at 47.39. This reversal was strong but not as strong as the outside down day we saw in the major indexes. GDX started down in the early part of the day and could not get back below those opening lows, still, a strong reversal along with the stock market.

The dollar is the holdout in today's events. It too had a reversal but not as strong as we would have liked to have seen. There are so many dollar bears out there. Take a look at the news. It is unanimously negative. We can only ask why the dollar isn't much lower if all that is said is true.

Today's reversal is the clearest signal we have seen recently to indicate that the market may finally be ready to head south. We will continue to watch this move and see if it does develop into a lasting sell off. We said in our last post there is some pent up selling that could occur in a hurry. We are short already so that wouldn't bother us too much...but as you know we are certainly not very profitable over the past couple of months.

Listen to the market telling you to be cautious. Sell your long positions. The risk is too much to keep your positions.

Market Trying to Decide What to Do

Top Line: The stock market is indeed struggling to go up. Friday saw some downside but not enough to convince us that the top is definitely in. We need to see some normal selling.

Friday's options expiration brought in a few sellers after the two days above 10K in the Dow. Tonight the futures are a little weak but we still need some proof for the downside. Yes, we are already short but the market has been indecisive about moving up. With the upward drift, selling has only been enough to relieve overbought conditions, not enough to get oversold.

Every day that goes by, we think the market can't continue to go up but it manages to hold on. The more resistance the market has to selling means that selling doesn't occur. We would say that there is some pent up selling that will come as soon as a little break down happens.

The Update is keenly interested in the market's down move that seems almost around the corner but still illusive. As you see the market turn over, we will be adding more information to the Update. Sometimes we like to comment during the day if we see something happening. If that happens, we need to put those thoughts in the comment section so check those out. We don't have the ability to post at work so a comment has to do.

The technical position of the market is measured in a couple of ways. Our favorite indicators are the dollar, bonds, and gold, not to mention the volatility indexes. Tonight we look at the dollar for a few minutes. It looks like the dollar is trying hard to put in a low. The media is trying to convince everyone the dollar is going down forever and no one cares that it's going down. The possibility is that there is so much negative press that all of the sellers are gone.

At the same time, gold is trying to find a short term top. The media is still trying to look at gold positively. The dollar and gold are polar opposites and normally they should trade opposite. With gold at all time highs the dollar should be at new lows but it's not. Last year, the dollar was even lower than it has been the past few days. This could allow the dollar to drop a little more but we think it is signalling that it is close to a low if it hasn't already put in.

Let's keep a close eye on the dollar to see if it is finding its way higher. If so, that would be negative for commodities in general. This may give us an opportunity if the market can move down. Stay tuned.

Dow 10,000, Let's Party???

Top Line: More of the same...the earnings for INTC and JPM were greeted with a big lift to the market. The Dow crossed back into 10K land and some would like to see that be the start of something big.

Everyone is excited about the Dow 10,000 event. March 1999 seems like a long time ago but that was the First time the Dow crossed 10K. That time, there were Dow 10K caps for all the traders on Wall Street. Were there caps today or just dunce hats? We don't know but the fanfare had to be much more subdued than 10 years ago.

Still, the media wants you to believe the fantasy that now is a good time to believe the worst is behind us. We are wondering where these news stories were in March when the worst truly was behind us, for the time being. Now, after a 50% move, they expect that you are OK to get back into the market.

Whatever you may think, after no gain for 10 years, there should be no celebration...but people who own stocks for the long term are eternal optimists. We call it the Lost Decade and we expect another Lost Decade to come. OK, enough.

As far as the real action today, stocks were up on the back of JPM and INTC earnings. The earnings were somewhat better than expected and that seemed to be the catalyst for the market's move up...expectations that most earnings reports will show good news. At some point the market will stop partying and move against those complacent stock holders or fresh new buyers. In the mean time, we hope they are very careful.

We are not going to say that we have called this market right over the past few months but we also don't think there can be much more upside based on the money that's been used to get us where we are.

Realism does cross our minds on occasion and this should be one of those times. We do not think the market can continue going up but it is. The right thing for the Update to do is to continue to wait for a point to get back in if that is truly the right thing. We won't know that until it actually happens.

We have considered our position that GDX would go to 55 and gold would go to $1100 but we seriously think there should be more than that. GDX has struggled to keep up with the move in gold and our position is that is not bullish for GDX or gold. We expect both should be sold right here and now. If we get a chance to buy GDX back we will certainly take a hard look at doing so. That would be around 40 and maybe even lower. However, even if that happens we would make sure that it was the right thing to do.

For now, the stock market is not safe due to GDX not leading anymore. We will continue to watch the miners to see if they can tell us anything else. As we have said, gold could go to $1100 but that's not all that far away. One of the Fed officials said that he didn't think the Fed would change their powerful accommodating policy until employment improved so gold got a little pop from that but we are quickly coming to a reversal in both the dollar and gold, of course in the opposite direction. Be careful.

What we are looking for in the stock market is a turn. What we have been getting for a couple of months is modest pullbacks with higher highs after them. This creates a safe environment for traders and gives stock owns comfort because they now don't have to sell. They sleep better due to all the little comeback rallies that have happened over the past three months. In order for them to take note, their stocks need to roll over pretty hard. When that happens, sellers will come back, probably in panic, as usual.

While it's easy, or seems so, to be bullish now, it will not be as easy when stocks are going back down.

Waiting Game

Top Line: The stock market traded pretty flat after an up opening. The main event was dullness. The market still seems to be putting in a top of some kind.

The Columbus Day holiday was a dull event and there really wasn't much new information that we saw. The market opened strong and the various indexes traded back to or near last month's highs. If the market wants to go higher, it will. We still think that the market has stretched itself too far already but with no impetus to go down, we need to wait for confirmation that it actually wants to go down.

As we sit here and wait for the market to make up its mind, time is passing with no meaningful moves. For the past month, we have traded in a pretty tight range (about 5%). The moves we have seen have not been easily traded so we have been patiently waiting.

The TLT has had a rough few days but it should be just a minor setback. The move coincides with a similar but opposite move in stocks so now we need to figure out if either is real. The only way we can do that is to wait for the market to tell us. The odds favor that the market needs to make a move down.

GDX and gold were continuing their dance with gold moving ahead of GDX as we mentioned a few days ago. This is not a good sign if you are looking for a confirmed higher move. It is possible that gold is heading to $1100 as we expect but even if it doesn't there should be a rapid move back down probably dropping back into the triple digits. Since GDX is not really confirming gold's move, we expect that GDX will move down below 40. We will try to buy some more down there.

As we move through the month of October, there should be some downside. This could be a swift move but we expect there to be a reason for it. Earnings could be the cause, whether they aren't good enough or are actually bad. The only real thing that matters is how the market deals with whatever news there is. We wait some more...

No Post This Evening

The market should tell us more on Monday so we will post Monday evening. We went to the Twins' last game at the MetroDome tonight. Yes, they got sweep by the Yanks.

Today May Have Been Significant

Top Line: Today was a key reversal day for gold and the dollar as both moved to extremes and then backed off. This has implications for the broader market.

We feel compelled to post this evening. There were a few key indications that present information that is valuable. The combinations are interesting.

The dollar collapsed to a fresh relative low like it seemed to have wanted to do for about a month. Meanwhile gold jumped to a new actual high. Normally this is what is supposed to happen, these two asset classes move in opposite directions. We think that the reversals are what are important today. The media will most likely tell you about the extremes in both and conclude they will continue in that direction.

Today's reversal is a first good sign that the moves might be over. Time will tell but for now we say that the market is showing us something different. The reason we say that is the action in GDX today. Yes, GDX went to a new high for the move near 50, that's true. But, as we mentioned yesterday, GDX is Following gold, not leading. This is not a sustainable in our opinion.

While this was going on, the stock market was merrily moving higher which it can easily do because it is Below its recent highs. We think the market can always get back to where it was but getting past that is what makes us pay attention. Today, the market failed to get back to the highs together with a new relative low in the dollar and a new high in gold.

Taken all together, we think today was significant. We hope you found some way to sell some of your GDX in the 49's today. If not, we would probably have you re-read yesterday's post and figure out a way to get off that risk for awhile as we wait for further developments. Tomorrow should tell us a lot about whether today was important or not.

Gold at New Highs

Top Line: The market does not seem to want to go down. Our key indicators are still negative on stocks. No buying should be done here.

As we look at the last three days trading, the Dow has run up over 200 points. GDX has jumped back up to the 48 level even as gold has mounted a rally to new highs. TLT has remained pretty strong in spite of these developments and we watch it carefully.

The key item for us is the dollar which is struggling under the strain of negative press, mostly. Gold has popped to a new high but the dollar and the TLT have remained steadfast. The dollar should be making new relative lows along with the spurt in gold and TLT should be dropping due to the same.

Let's concentrate on GDX for the moment. We are in a position that GDX is getting close to a long term capital gain if you purchased it last year at this time and haven't sold it. This makes the decision to hold on much easier since we still think GDX will enjoy some remarkable gains going into 2010.

Right now, with GDX under performing gold, we are getting a little concerned about GDX and frankly the gold move as well. Gold could well pop to $1100 and is moving up as we write. That price isn't too far away and we'll see how GDX reacts to any more upside in gold. With all of this bullishness in gold, we contrarians get nervous. The interesting thing is that no one actually believes that inflation may be a problem but still gold rallies. Imagine if people begin to think that inflation may come back...gold will soar. This is exactly what we think. We don't really think a lot of inflation is coming but we do think enough will appear so as to scare gold much higher which will be led by the GDX.

We mostly think that GDX Leads gold, not the other way around. If GDX is struggling to follow gold up, which it currently is, we would want to lighten up on both. Again, if you have a taxable position, we would be more cautious about selling if the position is close to a long term capital gain. If it is, then we may recommend a legal tax hedge just in case the complex drops.

Since we are trying to focus on GDX, we would want to short something else. This is not something that you should do without some serious thinking. In fact we're not sure we would recommend this to you unless you are close to a long term capital gain. If you are near a year, holding out until then would be an extremely tax friendly transaction.

We will explain this further if you like. Send an email or make a comment here. First of all you will need to get a margin account in order to short something. Please do not attempt this without full consideration of taxes and whether you really want to deal with selling your position.

This recommendation to buy GDX over the past year has yielded us great gains. That is not a good reason to sell necessarily but when you have a good gain you sometimes want to protect it. In this case, there are plenty of reasons not to sell. If you have been trading it all along and there is no pretense of a long term holding period, then you can feel free to do more trading.

The question then becomes is this a good time to get out. If it is, we would recommend a strict buy back point which we will be watching and waiting for.

With that in mind, the stock market is currently being led by GDX. If GDX leads the market and gold, at least in the current environment, then we need to watch GDX for clues. If GDX does manage to rally with gold here, we would need to consider that the market can go up as well. We do not have this position at the moment, as we are fairly bearish stocks. This, as you know, has not served us well over the past couple of months.

Jobs' Report Disappoints

Top Line: The stock market seems to be tracing out a down move. The Dow dropped 200 points on Thursday and failed to make any headway on Friday after the jobs' report. The market should have a solid intermediate high in place and we will see how far it can go down.

Since the 23rd, the Dow has dropped about 400 points and we don't think the first wave is complete. The market may try a quick pop on Monday morning or maybe a little longer than that. After that we should see another drop to a fresh low for the move. At that point we may have the first completed down wave which will tell us some more about how far we can go down.

If we were to guess, that first wave could be around 550 points down to the 9350 level in the Dow. That should give us a good read on the next move which we will project when we have that information. For now, we would say that would mean about a move to 8500 in the Dow in the next month or so. More as we see it develop.

TLT jumped above 100 as the jobs' report was announced Friday morning but then dropped the rest of the day. Still, TLT is showing some strength over the past month and should give us some confidence in our current position that the market is declining. Meanwhile, GDX dropped to a relative low on Friday morning. Both of these indicators support our position.

October should give us a much anticipated drop in the market. The Update will be back on Wednesday evening and we'll see how things go.

September is Over

Top Line: Since last Wednesday's reversal, stocks have stayed under the high set that day. We will look to that September 23rd high as our ceiling.

Today's action gave us more questions than answers due to the early freefall followed by a churn higher. That up move took stocks back to where they were in the morning.

The market is struggling with several items this week. The Big one is the jobs' report on Friday but today's end of quarter probably had something to do with the somewhat wild ride. The quarter was very strong and the big money needed to do their final adjustments to show they managed to participate in the big rally. The morning's news provided the media with enough reasons to be confused and you can read their accounts for yourself.

Last week's highs should hold. We have seen a continued rally for the entire third quarter. No, it hasn't been studded with a lot of big days but just a steady churn higher. This gives people a sense of security and gets them to buy. The media have been calling for a high for a long time and we have been bearish for most of this rally, too. This has not been a good quarter for the Update. Maybe fourth quarter will be better.

Let's take a look at two of our indicators, GDX and TLT. GDX seems to have topped two weeks ago while the broader market seems to have topped a week ago. This is very compatible with the leading nature of GDX. As for TLT, it continues to be strong, putting in new highs for the move around 99. This action means the TLT has rallied over 10% from its lows. Higher prices for TLT, our long bond proxy, means that the safety play is still happening. That implies that the smart money is probably moving out of the stock market and into safe positions.

These two indicators are still lined up with our thinking process that we are in the early stages of a stock selloff. The next two days should be interesting. The first day of the quarter may give us clues to the rest of the quarter but the second day will provide some hesitation as we get the September jobs' report. What would you want to get into tomorrow. We generally say that the jobs' report marks an important point in the month. This month could continue that tradition. We expect October to have a down trend so Friday morning could give us an effort to best last week' highs and fail...or, it could give us something else. We prefer the former.

Take care and we'll be back on Sunday evening.

What Do You Know, a Reversal

Top Line: Huge Downside Reversal. Well, maybe not So huge but still it is a step in the right direction for the market, that would be down.

[Editor's note: We will Not post on Sunday evening but will be back Next Wednesday evening. We apologize for continuing on our Summer schedule but the market has been tough to read over the past month, at least for us. We were out of sync as you know from reading our posts. Since the July lows, which we were predicting and didn't buy, we have been struggling. Today's move puts us back insynch so to speak, at least we think so. We are thinking of adding a emoticon to indicate if we Feel insync or out of sync but haven't decided for sure. Maybe we will be insync for the rest of time...Right.]

Going into the Fed's announcement this afternoon, the market was holding onto modest gains, especially in the NASDAQ 100. After the announcement, stocks exploded to the upside for about a half hour and then it happened...finally...a Reversal which took stocks down the rest of the day. The decline was about 2% from top to bottom which isn't a lot and may not be convincing to some but it did give us some indication that the turn may have happened.

Today's trading represents an outside down day which is a good reversal day. Outside down means that compared to the day before the trading was both higher and lower and then finishing down below the previous day's low. With the market signalling its turn today, many were expecting something a lot different right after the announcement, but the market couldn't support the earlier buyers leading to significant selling in the final hour.

Things have been coming to this point for quite some time and the Fed announcement gave us the ideal reversal situation. First, with ever continuing zero interest rates, the dollar has been getting punished. Then today there seemed to be no relief and it plunged to new lows for the move. The sellers were then exhausted and the dollar rallied, basically leading the stock market but in the opposite direction. (See DXY on the bigcharts for a reverse image of the stock market move today.)

The telltale leader was GDX. As gold moved higher and higher GDX moved up too until a couple of days ago when both started to find trouble rallying to relative highs. Today's high in gold was near last week's high but was just too much to hold onto. Gold and GDX fell along with the market which should make some sense to readers.

What else should make sense is that the Treasury bonds moved with the dollar and opposite the stock market. TLT, our proxy for the long bond, has been trading in the 95.5 to 96.5 ranger for about a week and today it started to drop through 95.5 going to 95.2, again scaring the bulls a little. What is missed in the analysis is that TLT traded in the high 80's back in early June when the SP500 was 950. Today the SP500 was at 1080 before reversing.

The last piece of the pie is the volatility indexes which really traded with the dollar and Treasury bonds...also making sense to long time readers. The VIX found a new 52 week low today at 22.19 before reversing Up to close at 23.49. We expect a 3 handle on the VIX before this selloff is over. (For those of you who read this "handle" stuff and wonder what that means, we use it to indicate the Front number on the price, in this case that would be 3 if it was in the 30's.)

We sold the rest of our long positions except for a large quantity of UNG, we did sell some UNG today as well but only part of our position. With commodities about to drop due to dollar strength, we expect we can sit out of our long positions for at least a while.

We want to emphasize our long standing position that we don't want to ride this next wave down and there is a greater than zero probability that today's high was The high so we want to be out of our longs. We are strictly short (except for some UNG) and now we have a little cash to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

We do have it in the back of our minds that public sentiment for stocks is still not giddy enough and we expect people to come back into the market full force before this rally completes itself. This Could happen after we see a good sized correction in the current rally. That's a while off but we want to be clear that we still think GDX will have a good run which will come when inflation worries hit the market.

We say inflation worries because the Fed, no matter what they may have implied today, will Not pull the punch bowl of easy liquidity because they do Not believe the worst is behind us. They want to Make Sure that the economy has survived this test well before they do anything to jeopardize the recovery. Again, we think this is a major possibility but we will assess this position as we find out how much the market can actually go down now...that should be a lot. Yes, it's a technical term. We will know more when we see how the first wave presents itself. Then we can at least take a guess. For now, we would say that the September move from just under 1000 in the SP500 should be completely erased and then it's just a question of how deep we get to the July lows around 870.

While we wait, here are some new pictures of Jackson. It was grandparents' day last week so we had frosted doughnuts with Jackson at his school. He enjoyed them as much as the grandparents did :-)

Great Gramma was here for a couple of weeks and she enjoyed some time with Jackson, too.

Of course, new pj's are always good, especially if they come from Gramma and have a monster on the front. At least you know where the monster is and it's not under the bed.

Remember, our next post will be next Wednesday, September 30th.

Market Trying to Continue Advance

Top Line: With options' expiration behind us, the stock market should be free to trade with some normalcy...ok, maybe with the Fed's announcement on Wednesday the market still can be a little temperamental.

The market has had a pretty good September and it seems that we have been waiting and waiting for a break. Our position is that as the market goes up, we think it is becoming more and more dangerous. Meanwhile, there seems to be some complacency and outright bullishness.

We see that the overnight markets are a little skittish with the stock futures down just a little and gold down about $6. There are so many reasons for the market to go down but as long as it is continuing its run we have to respect it. Pullbacks have been opportunities to buy, not the start of a down move. With this uptrend in place, it does have an end and we will be waiting to see the trend switch from up to down.

With that in mind, we remind you that we are still looking for some more upside but we can not be Sure about that. We are pretty sure but, with stocks in a more and more precarious position, this could be the actual top. That is why we are so cautious and getting more cautious by the day.

As for the Fed, we think they don't carry the same weight as they once did. With short term rates virtually zero, what can they say to move the market? We don't think there is anything they can say. The market has given them the benefit of the doubt as to whether their money policies are the right thing to do or not. Only time will tell but the market seems to believe that what they are doing is ok.

We will reassess after the Fed's announcement on Wednesday.

Market Tried to Reverse Today

Top Line: Stocks are moving ahead but the pace of the advance is labored at best. There are so many reasons for the market to stall and turn down, at least for a small correction.

The trading over the past few days has included the effects of options' expiration coming up Friday, the 18th. As we move into next week, a more normal trading pattern should emerge. That's not to say that the market will be easier to figure out, just that the multiple personality of the market will be reduced by one.

Let's take a look at the usual suspects, starting with GDX. Trading in GDX has become wild with huge volume and big moves, up, that is. We have seen this stock jump over the past couple of weeks from 38 to 48, a pretty healthy move. The move in GDX is not surprising because the broad market has gone up and GDX has been leading it for about a year now. The move in GDX gives you some idea how this stock can move if it wants to. We still expect a modest pullback in gold itself and GDX. Depending on how deep these corrections are, we will be buyers.

The volatility indexes have not done much of anything for the last week and have only modestly moved even as the indexes have run up 10% over the last couple of weeks. We don't believe the options' players are reading this correctly because the VXX has been dropping with the advance in the stock market. VXX is basically a volatility futures proxy while the volatility indexes we follow, VIX and VXO, are based on the options values.

Our constant companion, TLT, has stayed strong over the past several weeks, too, even though the market has gone straight up. Some have suggested that, at least on the front end of the curve, you know, the one to three month rates, with the expiration of some of the Fed programs, investors want to stay in the safety of Treasuries.

We see the dollar has also dropped to a significant low amid much dollar bashing in the media. This is indicative of a near term low being put into place.

The higher prices go, the more dangerous it becomes to be long stocks. We can't say that we have played this right at all over the past couple of months but the market is starting to become very overbought. The prices in some of these stocks have moved plenty far. Confidence is briming and very little fear remains. This fact alone is enough to drive a market in the other direction.

Confidence and the stock market should not be present in the same sentence. Every trade is a way to lose money and fear is a very good thing to have when your hard earned cash is on the table so to speak. Of course, we like to take advantage of good prices both on the entry point and the exit point but patience has never been a strong suite for us.

We are "confident" that we will be wrong in the future but we also think the market will have some struggles as we move into 2010 and beyond, with a possible low sometime in late 2011 or 2012. So, even though we think that the market will pull back here, we are much more likely to see it go down hard during the next two years. The market is doing much as we have said it would do...and didn't pay attention to our own words. Now, we think prices are just Too High to own them.

On Thursday the market did manage to reverse lower after a little bit of a run early on, which took the market to new highs for the move. The final couple of hours did manage to cut those losses but the market closed off its highs for the day, something new for a change.

Delay This Evening

Top Line: Stocks continued their upward movement with steady progress.

We have been out of internet access this evening so we will need to postpone our post until Thursday evening.

Lucky for you, there are some pictures of Jackson with his Sponge Bob Square Pants pillow and his Grampa and his stuffed chocolate Lab that stays at Grampa and Gramma's house.

Down Monday Morning?

Top Line: The stock market continues to try to hold up with ever diminishing power. Tonight's futures and the Asian markets are down with the possibility that a down start to Monday may occur.

The main idea tonight is that the market is ready to take a breather. We have been waiting for that since, well, a long time. Our portfolio has gradually moved from extremely long to its current nearly completely short position.

With the volatility indexes barely breaking below their earlier lows, the market is set up for a good drop. When the volatility indexes are low that indicates some investor complacency, in other words, No fear. With prices drifting higher and volatility slightly lower, we expect a reversal in both of these directions.

Stocks, in terms of the SP500, should drop back down about 10% or down to about 900. If a selloff does occur, we sort of expect a sharp decline but we will be watching closely for a tradable bottom.

We still think the public is not sure about the market and a selloff would scare them off even more. What this tells us is that the market is not at its top but we can not be sure. With the market, you need to be careful about making predictions about what happens after the current move...but we seem to be disregarding that recommendation.

We think the public will find some optimism later in the year as prices take out the current highs and move a bit higher, yes, to SP500 1234 level. When this occurs, we will be watching to see if the public truly is buying heavily. If so, we will have more confidence that a high is at hand.

Right now, there is some exaggerated insider selling and the market feels overbought so we remain heavily short getting ready for a sizable pullback.

09-09-09 Update Failure, One of Many

Top Line: The stock market seems to have some strong buying interest on dips the last few weeks. The has been little net progress in the indexes but a pop to finish the move is possible.

We have been saying for months that the SP500 would go up to 1234 on this day, 9-9-09. Well, we missed by about 20% but we did get the direction right. We went back to our March posts to see when we were suggesting this level. It was on Sunday evening, March 22, go check the archives at the left for yourself. In fact, take a look at how bullish we were back then during the weeks surrounding the low on 3-6-09, SP500 of 666.

But, that was then and this is now. We have become much more bearish in our thinking over the past few weeks and have moved to a net short position which has just been painful as the market continues to defy gravity. What does the market tell us now?

The market has done very little in the way of net gain for several weeks. It has frustrated the bulls and the bears but maybe it has opened the door for some resolution now that full September trading is here. We say that but we realize that trading is not very strong in general. Citigroup continues to dominate trading (day trading probably) as it contributes greatly to the daily volume every day, at a price around 4 dollars. This is what the volume on the NYSE has come to, one stock trading around 4 bucks. This isn't something for stock technicians to be hanging their bullish hats on day after day.

But, we digress. The stock market may have some upside left. We thought that the market would take a breather when it got to an overbought position and it did but it was more like a shallow breath. The NASDAQ indexes as well as some other broader indexes did break their August highs today even though the SP500 and the Dow did not. We think it shows the wrong message if you are bearish. For bearish thinking you want the generals to be leading not the troops. So, we are again on the wrong side of this move. We can't say how far it will go from here but there certainly doesn't seem to be any real selling in sight.

From a contrarian's viewpoint, that is one of the most important considerations, complacency in sentiment. There seems to be no fear in the market as the volatility indexes hang around here in the low 20's. The other interesting event has been the GDX. We recommend a quick look at a ten day chart of GDX. You will see it sitting around 38-39 for the early part of that period and then a rally that culminated on Tuesday morning on a jump to nearly 47.50 and now followed by a close around 44 today.

One of the hedged gold miners, ABX, (American) Barrick Gold, one of the largest miners, announced that it would be unwinding its downside hedge. These miners like to protect themselves from a drop in the price of gold which is why they hedge. ABX has said it thinks the price of gold is going up. It is so strong in its belief that it is willing to unwind its downside hedge. In fact ABX is selling stock to pay for the unwind. This story seems to be part of the craziness in the gold mining stocks over the past seven days or so. Fascinating story for the contrarians. So bullish because gold can't go down...sounds like gold may be nearing a top.

We hope you enjoyed your 9-9-09 even though the SP500 did not reach our target for that day. We are still cautious and will be watching for more signals from the market.

GDX Screams

Top Line: The market did decide to slide on Tuesday after all the "good" news on the economy earlier that day. Now what? The stock market still needs to go down to get rid of some of the bullishness.

Yes, the switch from hugely bullish on Tuesday morning with a reversal from the down open to the positive situation an hour after the open. Then we see the Real reversal going from the 50 plus to the 200 minus. People are fickle and change their minds easily. It's a trader's mentality. The way a person decides what to do can't be something that happens with a 200 point swing in the Dow Jones Industrial average. Going from bullish to bearish in a couple of hours. Please.

The stock market seems to have put in a top on Tuesday morning. We won't be sure until we see some more selling but the idea that the market should go down is still in effect for the Update. As we patiently wait for the market to continue what it started on Tuesday, we will probably see a few days of upside going into the holiday weekend. This, of course, is Not guaranteed.

There is this one other Thing that we need to discuss, GDX. Did you notice that GDX was up nearly 10% today? We are not that happy about it since we don't own very much of it anymore. We were hoping to get most of it back in the area of 36 but that will now need to wait and possibly need to be raised. Gold itself jumped as it looked like it wanted to break out of its recent tight range. Gold mining stocks usually signal the move but actually followed this move today which doesn't confirm this move...still, the 10% move is convincing.

Treasury bonds have had a good few days and now are getting to a place where we might be willing to start thinking about selling them. We have been watching the TLT and have seen about 10% rally in the last couple of months with possibly some more to go. We will be looking to sell them as the market goes down. We'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, the market continues to keep people guessing. That's the way it works, keep most of the people losing money.

This weekend is Labor Day and the Update will not be posting on Sunday evening as usual. We will post on Wednesday evening next week. We are not sure when we'll get back to a normal daily schedule or if we should. We'll keep you informed and if you have any thoughts, let us know in comments. Have a great weekend.

We Still Recommend Selling At Least Some Of Your Stocks

Top Line: Last Friday's action looked like the start of a downtrend as we mentioned in the comment section in our last post. The stock market should now retrace a great deal of the rally from the July lows down around 870 in the SP500.

The stock market's reversal on Friday didn't lead to much in the way of net selling but the opening blast followed by a cliff dive fits our definition of an important reversal. This reversal came at the right time and could be a harbinger of near term selling. The Asian markets, other than Japan, are down with China down over 5% as we write. The Chinese market has been the source of a lot of movement this year and that continues this evening.

We want to point out that the best course of action right now is to get out of at least some of your long stock positions. There will be lower prices in September to get back in. We sound like we know that will be the case and we Don't know for sure. The market's position Seems to be poised for a reversal. We are short and would certainly like there to be some selling.

What we do know is that sentiment has grown to a level that is too high to ignore. This sends chills down a contrarian's spine and keeps us firmly in the bearish camp. This message will be lost as the market drops over the next several weeks but for now it rings loud and clear...Sell.

What we do not see is full public buying of stocks. There may be some bullish sentiment in the press and among investment advisors but we still don't seem to see the public enamored with stocks. This would be the final piece in the puzzle for now but it just doesn't seem like there is much buzz about the market. This type of behavior will take more than a four digit Dow, which is one reason we are not convinced these current highs are the final ones for the countertrend move. This should start the chatter back up at work and in your family discussions. If bullishness is the conversation already, please let all of us know. That would definitely put us in a longer term bearish mood.

That thinking does not allow us to hold stocks here because the probability of a high here is just too high to ignore. As the market drops, or if it does, we will then see how the world reacts to lower prices. If there is a huge build up of negative sentiment, then we will get bullish again. If the volatility indexes go up very fast to levels of March, then we will probably get bullish again. But, if the market heads down and people continue to buy the dips and volatility does not go up, meaning there is no fear of a larger down move, we will have to conclude that the market will go into the abyss. We don't have to worry about that thinking just now but we will be watching it closely.

Right now we are watching the Treasury bonds, or our proxy for them, the TLT. We have seen a nice rally and this provides us with some confidence in the stock drop. Our other consideration is the GDX which popped over 40 on Friday but is well off its early June highs around 45. We continue to think its lows for the move are in down around 34 and will be looking to buy it back if it gets into the 36 range. We'll keep you posted.

Sell Into Whatever Strength the Market Gives

Top Line: There is significant lack of upward momentum but the stock market seems to float higher every day. The wind should be blowing in a different direction very soon.

We saw the big announcement that Bernanke is being allowed to run the Fed for another term. And, while that may not have been the reason for the early rally that day, it seemed like a good high profile news story to bring the last of the bulls in to buy. We don't always get a bell to ring signaling the high for the move so this may not be it.

The market started getting tired this week, no more tired than we are...waiting for the market to turn over. The first moves are not going to be big but the turn should be very close if not very noticeable. This is giving you a good chance to get out of your positions. We think there could be a significant drop, enough to warrant selling some of your holdings. We do think there will be a good chance to get back in a little later, say later in September.

If you want to hold onto your positions through this sell off, you can, but the odds of this recent move being a top are more than zero. We are pretty sure that the market will make new highs near our target of 1234 in the SP500 because the public is just now starting to get excited about the bull move. There needs to be a sell off to scare some of them off but then a large rally should spring out of the next low. This rally should get Everyone excited about the possibilities and that's when we will unequivocally sell our long stock positions. The point being that you can close your eyes for this drop especially if you are in taxable positions that could be long term gains if you hold them for another few months.

For now, we recommend selling at least some of your holdings, especially if they're in a retirement account where gains are not taxable right now.