Volatility, Volume and Economic News

It looks like the summary I posted last week in my "Leading and Lagging Indicators" post (on July 18, 2010) was confirmed by positive trading week. In that post I stated "Overall, by summarizing all of the above, I would say that if I would be in short, I would think about closing short position or at least about setting a stop-loss to protect profit. I would not rush into a long trade (majority of indicators are still bearish) and I would monitor index charts closely for possibility of changes in the sentiment toward bullish trading.". Already on Monday (July 19) some technical indicators started to generate bullish signals an already on Tuesday majority of them became Bullish.

Taking a look back at the past week I cannot say that this is that kind of up-move I expected. As a rule, an up-move is less volatile than down move, yet, past week's price advance is an exception. If you take a look at volatility indicators on daily chart (1 bar = 1 day) you will see that volatility went up. From technical analysis prospective, this is not good sign for bullish trend. Another negative sign (on my opinion) is that the past week's up-move was supported by increase in volume which was especially clear in the Nasdaq market. This is not like healthy up-move looks like. Even the stock market moved up as I expected last week, because of the volume and volatility, I do not believe in a strong recovery toward April’s highs.

Another point that makes me cautious is the reaction of stock market on the economic news and reports. I do not analyze economic reports and I do not base my trading decision on the economic reports. However, I monitor how stock market reacts on them. The last week has been enriched by good quarterly profit reports as well as by other economic news. The market did not react strongly positively on these reports, yet it did not miss smaller bad news. This would not be a characteristic of a healthy up-trend as well.

In summary, because of the increase in volatility and volume as well as because of the weak stock market reaction on positive economic reports, I would stay on alert about further up-move. Of course, if I see further advance which would be supported by decline in volatility and volume then I may change my opinion. Yet, so far, results of my technical analysis suggest that the stock market (Nasdaq 100, DJI and S&P 500 indexes) is quite weak, unstable which and may reverse into another down turn.

It does not mean that I am rushing into short position. The indexes are still on their up-side and there is a good possibility that we may see further advance. However, I would monitor charts closely for changes in the sentiment. When volatility is high changes could be fast.

Is it recovery?

By following my last week post (see "Another Crash" post on Sunday June 6, 2010) we had two days of decline (Monday-Tuesday) and then after the indexes (S&P 500, DJI, Nasdaq 100, etc) hit the May 25's lows they reversed and recovered.

Now, when the indexes are at their June 3rd high levels (S&P 500 and DJI, Nasdaq 100 is lower) the question could be asked whether we see bounce from these levels down and continuation of downtrend, or the indexes will continue to recover. To answer on this question, I think we have to take a look at higher timeframe charts.

By looking at 1-year and higher timeframe charts I may say that starting from the beginning of June, I may see slow change in the money flow. The same tendency could be seen in the sentiment defined by the  group of the Advance/Decline (breadth) indicators. This is a good point and would suggest that we may see a recovery toward May 12th highs.

The second positive sign is that the correction down (the market is right now) is quite strong. We had very strong bearish volume surges and we had strong oversold readings on many technical indicators. So, from the technical analysis point of view the stock market could be considered oversold which mean that it has a potential (the money that were pulled out from the market could be injected back) to go up.

The third positive point is that the trading volume is lower which could suggest that the period of panic actions could be over. The indexes did not drop below the bottom marked on May 25th and we did not see any strong bearish volume during June 4-8 decline. This is good and if we continue to see market going up easier (on weaker signals) then going down (on stronger signal) it could indicate that period of worst is over (at least for some time).

Still, the biggest negative sign is high volatility level. Starting from the end of May volatility did not increase, yet, it has not became lower as well. This suggests that even if we see a recovery toward May 12th high, if we do not see decline in volatility, it could be just a temporary recovery before other correction.

Another Crash

As I mentioned in my previous post (see "Short Technical Analysis" post on May 31, 2010) "If we do not see up-side reaction on that volume tomorrow or the day after tomorrow then I would consider a possibility of retesting the Lows seen on May 25, 2010."  - we had side-way volatile trading at the beginning of the past week with strong decline on Friday, June 4 of 2010.

The Friday's decline wiped out almost all gain of the past two weeks. Now we are getting close to the May 25th bottom.

As with majority of the strong declines, the indexes (Nasdaq 100, NYSE Composite, DJI, S&P 500, etc) have generated strongly oversold signal: strong increase in volume during decline (volume surges) and extremely low Breadth (advance/decline) indicators readings. From one side these oversold signals indicate panic selling and possibility of shift in supply and demand balance which could lead to a bounce up.

From other side, we had too many similar signals (7 by my count) over the past month. In majority cases we had bounce up after such signals, however, all of them were short lived and the indexes are still at the bottom. Another negative factor is the high volatility level. We do not see a decline in volatility which tells that the stock market continues to be very sensitive and we may see any time other strong declines.

It is difficult to believe that we are going to face another stock market crash or strong recession. I would rather say that in period from March 2009 until April 2010 the stock market went too far and too fast (it was driven by institutional speculators and not by economy). The economy does not develop so fast and now it could be a time to level it up.

Stock Market Crash

The stock market crash on Thursday May 6, 2010 is quite interesting. Someone may even call it very suspicious by the following reasons:
1. It happened when market was already in decline.
2. The indexes dropped to the lows seen in February 2010 - where the majority of stop-losses were set (support levels always were sensitive for many professional and retail traders).
3. It looks like somebody new that something has to happened and that somebody fix profit in the second half of April 2010 - see high volume surges in that period at the resistance.
4. The huge number of stop-losses were traded and somebody bought them - see huge volume during the crash on May 6 - 7, 2010.

Isn't it suspicious that somebody was fixing profit in huge volumes in the April and than we had "human or computer error by accident" and then somebody was buying in huge volumes during the crash...

I think that, now, after "Goldman Sachs Scandal" everybody knows that it is "OK" for a broker to trade against it's clients. I'm just wondering: is it true that brokers know where the majority of stop-losses of their client-traders are set?

When the Government set a new Law for Credit card Companies, before that Law took affect, almost all credit companies raised rates and introduced additional various fees. When The Government pass Health Care Bill  by which pre-existing condition should be treated, some insurance companies started to through out clients who have pre-existing condition before the new Law is in force. Now, the Government is working on the Wall Street Bill, I am wondering how Wall Street will do the last days of its freedom???

All the above are just guesses and we, simple people and simple traders, will never know what really happened. However, what we can do is to monitor through volume the action and manipulation of big  institutional traders. The first rule is that if you see increase in volume that means that the big traders are in action. If you may spot it then you may try to interpret it and build your trading strategy accordingly.

P.S. Tomorrow I'll try to post some technical analysis points and my view on possible further trend development.

Greece with Media versus Volume and Technical Analysis

Very nice day. If you take a look at my Sunday's post (See "Volatility" post on may 2, 2010) and you will understand why I am in a good mood.

In my Sunday's post I wrote "Taking into account volatility, I would assume that the odds are on the side of the development of a correction down. Big bullish money flow since the end of February 2010 has pushed the stock market into overbought condition and it is in the favor of correction down." and it could look skeptical yesterday, yet, today it is completely another story.

It was interesting to watch financial news today. News always can find an "explanation" of event. If the market goes down the media states that investors are disappointed by FED keeping rates unchanged (if the rates stay unchanged it tells that the economy cannot afford higher rates). If the market goes up media states that investors are happy that FED keeps rates unchanged (low rates stimulate economy). There are always bad and there are always good news on the stock market. Media's job is to pick up news that fit the current market movement, which should not be very difficult, especially taking into account that it is done after the fact. In this way they always look smart and professional and they are "never wrong".

Today media blame Greece financial situation about stock market drop. Common, Greece has been all over the media over the last half of year and state that investors became worried about Greece today (not yesterday and not a month ago) is funny.

The market went down because it was overbought. Over the last two weeks I repeatedly mentioned about increasing volatility and high volume as an indication of coming changes. Whoever (from big institutional investors) was worried about "Greece" have left the market within the last two weeks. If you check the index volume (NYSE volume, S&P 500 volume, DJI volume and especially Russell 2000 volume) you will see it clearly. Now we see only a result of institutional traders' actions over the past two weeks.

P.S. Volume indicators continue to be my favorite tools in technical analysis.

Volume and Advance Decline

I guess now, at the end of the week there should be no questions that the high volume surge may lead to the shift in supply demand balance and reversal. In current case, strong volume surge during the price up-move pushed the market into situation when those bullish traders who wanted to buy bought and the number of bullish traders who still wants to buy became too small to continue feeding price up-move. As I mentioned in my "Big Volume" post on April 14, 2010: "institutional investors decided to dump ... to bullish traders...". The number of dumped shares on April 13-15, 2010 was quite big and basically it changed the balance of bullish and bearish traders.

Of course, the one may say the market dropped down because of the "Goldman Sachs". I do not consider that this is the reason for the drop we had (unless institutional traders, who dumped on April 13-15, knew about this far ahead and they manipulated the market). Of course, it may amplified the decline, yet, it would not happened if the market would not be overbought. The market declines after high volume surge during price up-move. It has to decline to restore supply/demand balance. In the same way, the Google shares declined despite the record profit.

The media will always explains any market movement as a result of some news. Media sells news and if nobody relays on news then media will not be needed. That is why they do it. Personally, I do not build any trading decision on news releases. Following news release, on my opinion, is equivalent to obeying the commands of those who try to manipulate the stock market.

Coming back to strong decline we had on Friday April 16, 2010, I would say that it was not an ordinary decline. The decline was quite strong and volume during this decline was even stronger than the volume generated on April 13-15 during the price up-move.

As a rule, the stock market (when I mention stock market I assume main indexes: S&P 500, DJI and Nasdaq 100) does not crash suddenly, especially after prolonged in time advance. It is custom to see side-way trading and increase in volatility first. That is why I would assume that we may see the indexes moving back to their recent highs. The volume surge during the Friday's decline itself may push indexes higher. The third factor pointing to possibility of rebound up is critically low advance/decline volume and ratio reading on Friday 16, 2010.

Overall, we still may see some push down, however, I do not expect Friday's decline to grown into strong correction, at least not at this time.

Nasdaq 100

Last week in my "Advance/Decline" post on January 24, 2010 I have expressed my thoughts that taking into account volume and advance/decline indications on main indexes (S&P 500, DJI, Nasdaq 100) we could be closed to the bottom of the current correction. However, the past week was negative.

The Nasdaq 100 index was the main player who pushed the market down. The Financial Sector (see S&P Financials), Housing Sector (see PHLX Housing Index) and some other market sectors were flat. The S&P 500, DOW indexes (DJU, DJI, DJT) where flat the first half of the week yet slides by the end of the week under the pressure of the hi-tech companies from the Nasdaq 100 index.

You can hear in the media that the market is upset by the political balance, that Wall Street was worried about Bernanke re-election, that banks were upset by the proposal of the additional taxes, etc. I just do not buy it - those news are not the news that moves market.

Take a look at the Nasdaq 100, DJI and S&P 500 5-year chart. The Nasdaq 100 index during the 2008 stock market crash had smallest loss, there were no big volume surges during the stock market crash and the Nasdaq 100 had strongest recovery after the crash. What does it tell? It simply tells that the main panic was in the financial and transportation sectors. That is why S&P 500 and DJI crashed stronger. The big investors were desperately pulling money out from these two sectors - that is why we may see huge volume during the crash on the S&P 500 and DJI indexes. Big investors were not pulling funds out of the Nasdaq 100 companies - there were no huge volume surge in this sector during the stock market crash. In opposite the big investors were relocating funds from the transportation and financial sectors into hi-tech companies. That is why the Nasdaq 100, Nasdaq Biotechnology, Nasdaq Computer and Nasdaq Internet indexes completely recovered by the end of December 2009 from the 2008 stock market crash.

Now when the Hi-tech sector was at the top, the some of big investors started to take profit out. Does it mean we will see another strong down-trend? Not necessary, for this we need to have strong panic news like bubble in housing sector (2008), internet bubble (2000), etc. Yet, I think the period of the recovery rally on the Wall Street from the stock-market crash could be over and now we could see something like we saw in 2004-2006 - quiet up and down trading with positive or negative bios until somebody make a new bubble.

Citi stock

In the beginning of March I have put a question aboutCiti Group stocks. I usually do not trade stocks, yet such periods when you have so many underevaluated companies are not coming very often in the history of stock market. Yes, after I make Citi point the Citi Group stock dropped from $1.50 to $1.00 and my congratulations to those who did not panic at bought it at $1.00. Not it is at $3.00 and that is 200% higher.

DJI Chart

It was a nice week. The indexes climbed close to the October 14th highs (especially Dow Jones Industrials).

Twice the stock market tried to brake the October 10th lows, yet it is second time up and second time the investors are asking a question "is this the end of the recession and the market will go up or this is just a break before further crash?"

You may remember from my previous posts I stated that 10/10 (October 10, 2008) high volume surges had to stop the market from its panic slide. At the same time I stated, that only when I see the indexes moving up above October 14, 2008 highs I may more or less consider the possibility of the end of the stock market crash. I still belive that the huge volume we saw during the crash could mark the bottom of the crash. We have number of facts that points to the end of the crash: the market is heavily oversold - many technical indicators on the higher-timeframe charts (1.5-year, 2-year charts) show it; there are not many traders left who sell in panic - the fact that we did not see extremely huge volume during the first and second retest of the 10/10 lows confirms that. Yes, I think the stock market has all reasons to move up, yet, it's still close to the bottom and the market is still volatile which reveals that the market is still weak and we still may see changes in the sentiment. Overall, I consider myself bullish over the longer term and October 2008 was a good month to invest into the IRA and 401K.

Even I'm bullish in longer-term, shorter-term charts are showing that we start to see some indication of the overbought market in short term. From the chart below you may see high volume during the recovery on October 29-30, 2008. There could be 2 explanation of this volume surges: a) traders who are in panic and still did not close position on 10/10 decided to exit the market with smaller losses; b) greedy short players started to sell short by expecting the resumption of the recession. I do not think that those traders who bought on 10/10 from panic sellers ware selling now by the following reasons: a) 10/10 volume is extremely big and it tells that those traders were long-term players (short-term traders do not have such big bags of money); b) these traders were buying not just on 10/10 but every time we saw red MVO; c) the volume during recovery on 10/29-30 is relatively small if we compare it to volume surges during decline. I still consider this bullish volume may push the market down at least in a short-term. Other technical indicators are in similar short-term condition: SBV, Advance/Decline Oscillator and Stochastics show overbought market, yet are still bullish; MVO, MACD, RSI and McClellan Oscillator show bearish sentiment and possibility of move down


The 60-day technical analysis applied to the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 charts show similar to the DJI analysis results you may see on the chart above.

Even shorter-term charts show the possibility of slide there could be a scenario when these indication could be ignored if the market is under the influence of the longer-term trend. If this is the case and the market will move up, then it will confirm that the 10/10 bottom could be the bottom of the recession.

Long-term investment

In my last "S&P 500 Chart" post the technical indicators were positive. We still had the positive market on Monday, yet, on Tuesday the sentiment turned into the bearish and by the end of the week we had third attempt of the market to break the October 10, 2008 bottom. The Nasdaq 100 index did pass this support level, however the S&P 500 and DJI indexes stayed above. One more time I would highlight the importance of monitoring chart on the daily basis. In such volatile market the sentiment changes very fast and if you are not watching, your yesterday's winning trade could be in deep loosing situation today.

I have already mentioned two weeks ago in my "Stock Market Crash Analysis" about the importance of the high volume surges. Now, you may see that I was right and the high volume surges did mark the support on October 10, and this level has become very sensitive for many investors.

What we see now looks like normal market behavior in the support corridor:

1. The market hit the Bottom on October 10, 2008 and high volume surges reveal us that a huge number of panic sellers left the market by selling their investments. The volume was extremely big and it tell us that the same big number of shares was bought by other investors (volume is always two side transaction - if somebody sold then somebody bought from him).
2. Those investor who bought on October 10 did not sell yet - we have not seen any volume during the price advance that would be even close to the volume surges on that day. That means that those buyers are still in the market and they are not in panic yet. Their positions are not in the red zone - the indexes did not drop below October 10 lows.
3. It looks like not all traders who are in fear were hit on October 10. Many of them started to sell after October 14 when they saw better price to cut losses, by pushing the market down to retest the support level.
4. On October 14 again, new investors decided to start buying at bargain and again we saw volume surge which was, however, smaller than the one on October 10. That tell us that there were no as much panic sellers as before.
5. And again after October 20, another panic seller who still did not cut losses started to push the market down.
6. And again we see smaller than before volume surge that stopped them at support level on October 23, 2008.

So, what's now? The market may go up, there are not a lot of sellers who is in panic - big part of them already left the stock market on October 10. The market can continue to fluctuate around this support level until all who is in fear leave the market and more traders become attractive by low priced stocks. Or, we may see a new surprise from Government (as we had before with bailout) which may push market again deeper down.

I will repeat one more time what I was repeating over the past two weeks. This is a good time to invest into pension - for a long term. The stocks are underpriced and sooner or later thy will cost much more. Some of the stocks could double or even triple over the couple of years. Of course it's bad idea to invest all you have now. You may divide it in 2-3 portions and if the market is still going to drop you just wait for another volume surge and invest another portion of your portfolio into IRA or 401k. This is very simple principle of long-term technical analysis - Every time the stock market crash and you see big volume surge you start to invest.

Tomorrow, I'll try to post a chart.

2000, 2008 Stock Market Crashes

It  took 2 years after the internet bubble until the stock market hit the bottom and start the recovery movement. During the 2000 year market crash the S&P 500 dropped by 50%. It took more than 4 years for the S&P 500 to recover and reach the same high levels.

It took only a year for the S&P 500 to crash down for 42% now and we still do not see the end... How long will it take to recover from this hole???