I've been a bear since 2004 and began slowly positioning. I'm still a bear long term but I won't fight the tape in shorter frames. Intraday I'm neither bull or bear.
I think with the fed in the position it's in, the real estate market will really show it's ugly side. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a recession sometime this year or next. Thats rare of me to say too, because I'm typically a very bullish guy. It almost looks like everything is forming a cup with handle, but the extreme negative divergences bother me. Also, the market feels awkwardly similar to how it acted before the first correction. The market would fall on bad news, but always end up. Then on "rallies" the volume was pretty light. Thats just my .02 cents, I'm going to stay neutral until I can confirm whats going on. But I expect a bear market.
I am so bearish, I go outside to shit! Few things that you can throw on the pile of bearishness that I have not heard many talk about. 1. Property taxes. I have been getting hit last 2 years with 10% raises in property value (max). 2. Homeowners insurance. Just received my renewel, 30% increase YOY! WTF!!!! And this is from USAA! 3. Tuition for the kids school programs (pre-elementary) up quite a bit. 4. The cost of going to the grocery store. We're getting fucked like housecats for food now. 5. ETC ETC............yeah, we are getting hit from all sides with cost of living increases. The measures of inflation the fed uses are out of some science fiction math course. Now add the cost of energy spiking again this year, if you think the consumer is going to keep it up at the same pace, you must have written that science fiction math book.
Yep, Hibernation season is over...Ground is thawing, trees are budding... Guess I'll tell the matador to get to work....
=================== Yes, something like that, but actually pay more attention to studying like 50 day moving average. Its down with plenty of substance from 2-27-07;ES ,SPY,QQQ,DIA And while i could mention lots of other confirming things confirming that downtrend,but; on 6-08-06 downtrends did about the same in QQQQ,SPY, but then bounced up off 200dma. Not a prediction,remember a downtrend ES trade,in 2-27-07; it was profitable, but late,so did a buy, not buy to enter, but buy to exit.
This small sample is indicative of what many people think. They see a recession coming and are selling, have sold, or are short. I think the portfolio margin rules are going to have a bigger impact than expected, there will be a rally as the Iran Uk situation resolves itself shortly and oil falls. We will get some uptick in housing data from early spring sales and cooler inflation data. Maybe even a few tech companies pulling it out for one more quarter by fudging the numbers one more time. In short we will have a rip roaring rally, most likely to new highs. Then, when the smart money is really out having unloaded to the shorts and the retail suckers who rush to get back in, the market will fall hard as the buyers exhaust themselves and the economic data is too stark to ignore.
That's an excellent analysis but I'm still thinking the market will be under pressure for the following reasons: Oil - Driving season approaching, hurricane season approaching, Iran and the British sailors, implied volatility for options on oil stocks is below average level of last two years indicating complacency. If anything, oil's been unusually stable recently which probably has a lot to do with why Iran is stirring the pot. Market highs and earnings - We're less than 3% off the recent alltime highs even though upcoming earnings are likely to be the worst they've been in a couple of years. I have some doubt that the market has really priced that in after last fall's runup. The recent recovery rally didn't show a lot of conviction volume-wise. Of course, if earnings come in in the high single digits then that's less of an issue. Trade issues with China - China's response to the US re sanctions doesn't look good. Even if this issue gets resolved relatively quickly, it will be a negative for the market for the next week or two. Housing market, subprime issues - This has already been beaten to death so I won't go on about it here. Suffice it to say, an increase in bankruptcies and a decrease in home ownership doesn't usually boost the economy or stocks. Washington DC Clusterf___ - This is more in the area of editiorial opinion but, regardless of political beliefs, we have the worst political leadership (Republican and Democrat) in this country in at least 100 years. I have zero confidence in Washington's ability to address any of the multitude of issues currently facing the US. Stunning incompetence and stupidity all around. A lot of your points, Mvic, are very plausible, though. Especially re Iran and the British sailors. If that gets resolved quickly and peacefully, oil gets hit and stocks rally. And negative sentiment is ramping up so that's bullish.
Finally an accurate state of political affairs. Although I have voted republican over the past few years and hate 90% of the democratic polices, I really don't see a major difference between the 2 parties. AS many a commentator has said, we need a 3rd party to get things back in balance. It would be nice for my interests to be truly served down there.
Same here. It's alarming. I don't want to doom this thread to a political chit-chat move, but just look at the two candidates in the last presidential race. We had a choice between Beavis and Butthead. One thing I forgot to mention in the post above...China and many of the other Asian markets are rife with speculation. And we all know what happened when China took a hit last month.