US Dollar continue to rize

As I mentioned over the last couple of days: with volatility at these high levels, we should be ready to strong and sudden swings. High Volatility always have been a sign of mid- and longer-term bearish mood. On Sunday in my "Side Way Trend on Indexes" post I have pointed to the few signs that suggest dominance of mid-term Bears. Lets see if they will be able to break the low seen on November 16, 2010 on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 - DJI's low was broken yesterday. Or it will be another session of strong swing at the morning and then side-way trading for the rest of the day (as we had over the last two weeks).

US Dollar index is up, and it looks like nothing will hold it from moving higher to the August 2010 levels. Stronger dollar is another force that support bearish trading.

I'm moving from 15- and 30-min harts to the 5-and 15-minutes time-frames. One of my rules is to lower time-frame on higher volatility or reduce bar period settings.

US Dollar Up - Stok market Holds the gain

It looks like I was wrong and the indexes did not pulled down, but moved side-way. the money flow an all intraday time-frames is positive. Third time the S&P 500 and DJI are coming close to their highs seen on November 18 and November 19. If those highs are broken, the odds could be good we may see indexes running up to the highs seen on November 5th. Under those conditions, I would set tight stop-loss for short position.

US Dollar index has recovered from today's morning negative trading, yet, indexes manage to hold the gain and did not dropped. This is not good sign for Bears as well.

Right now, I'm on 15- and 30-min charts. Money Flow on the 15-min charts started to decline (yet still in positive area). Lets see if the 30-min money flow follows it.

Bear in mind that the volatility level is high and we may see sudden strong moves.

Another point worth mentioning is that we have extremely strong Bullish Advance/decline reading. On Nasdaq 100, all 100 stocks are traded above their yesterday's close. Advance/Decline readings on the S&P 500 and NYSE composite index are at very high levels as well. In many cases such strong readings could be seen before strong down-turns.

Dollar Up - Stocks Down

As I mentioned yesterday, despite the fact that some technical indicators show bullish signals on intraday time-frame, sometimes it is useful to take a look at longer-term time-frames. Yesterday’s bullish signals were caused by the yesterday’s afternoon rally. Yet, when longer-term sentiment is bearish we may have strong swings down as we had today at the market open.

This is common misunderstanding when a trader asks to give him/her one chart setting that would work all the time. If you locked in one indicator, in one chart time frame, sooner or later you will get caught in the situation like today’s drop down and all your profits will be wiped out. You always have to look beyond time-frame you trade. This is what helped me yesterday to avoid playing long. Yes, I did not play this morning’s swing, so what – I did not lost and I had plenty of time at the morning to reanalyze the situation.

At the current moment the technical analysis is bearish on all time-frames. The Advance/decline on the S&P 500 and NYSE Composite indexes readings are extremely negative as well. The good news for Bears and bad news for Bulls is that the today’s decline, so far, have not generated any volume surges. Absence of increase in trading volume during decline suggests that current decline does not generated panic selling yet.

US Dollar index is up by breaking its high seen on November 16. As I numerously mentioned over the last month, stronger dollar supports correction down.

Short Trading Week

The past week could be characterized by strong decline during the first half of trading session on November 15, 2010 and by strong advance during the first 30 minutes after the the market opened on November 18, 2010. The rest of the time we had side-way trading. By the end of the trading on Friday, the indexes (Nasdaq 100, S&P 500 and DJI) were just a little bit below their Monday's opening levels.

As I already mentioned on Thursday (see "Advance/Decline" post on November 18, 2010), despite the strong advance on that day the longer-term charts (based on the daily bars) continue to indicate bearish sentiment. On the other hand intraday timeframes (with exception of hourly charts)  have some bullish signals. As an example, Money Flow on the 15- and 30-min charts points to the possibility of positive opening tomorrow. The index futures and emini index futures are already traded more than half percent up. If they stay on the same level overnight we may face strong swing up at the market open.

The coming week is not very reach on economic reports. The only thing that may push stock market into volatile trading is Minutes of FOMC meeting on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 around 2pm. In addition There is no trading on November 26 and there is a short trading session on November 27.

There is a lot of attention has been around US dollar over the last month. The S&P 500 index was highly correlated with US Dollar Index. Most likely we will continue to see this dependence. Yes, the Indexes show strongly overbought levels on the longer-term charts and many technical indicators, including money flow, suggest the good odds of stronger that we had correction. If the US Dollar continue to go up as it went up two week ago then most likely the indexes will decline deeper. Yet, if the FED manage to push US dollar lower, we may see indexes back to their high levels seen in the beginning of November.

Advances and Declines

Past week's decline has been supported by high bearish volume in the Nasdaq 100 sector. As a result today's session was under the Nasdaq 100 attempt to push the market higher while other indexes remained flat. US Dollar index was down today and it was another factor that hold the market form further decline.

We had strong decline yesterday during which advance/decline volume and advance/decline issues on the S&P 500 and NYSE composite indexes has hit very low readings. As a rule such readings in technical analysis are considered with oversold condition and panic selling and are usual noted at the bottom of a correction. However, current decline did not generated any noticeable bearish volume surges on the S&P 500, NYSE Composite and Russell 2000 indexes. Yes, we saw high volume on the Nasdaq 100, however, the Nasdaq 100 index is not volume leading stock market index. Because of these low advance/decline readings we may see some bounce up, yet, I'm skeptical that it could be end of correction.

From the money flow prospective, we may see positive money flow on 1-min time-frame, however, 5-min, 15-min, 30-min and hourly time-frames have negative or very close to negative money flow on the S&P 500, DJI and Nasdaq 100 indexes. From this point we may expect negative trading tomorrow at the market open. However, emini index futures are already traded now about half of percent up which, on other hand, suggests positive trading tomorrow at the open.

I would continue monitoring US Dollar index, as it looks like S&P 500 index continues to move in opposite to this index direction.

US Dollar up - Stocks Market Down?

As I mentioned yesterday "positive signals on the intraday charts should not be considered as strong signals" - we had today some positive trading, however, by the end of the day the indexes moved back down by ending the today's session flat.

Right now, all intraday time-frames (1-min, 5-min, 15-min, 30-min and hourly) an all main indexes (Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, DJI and Russell 2000) indicate negative Money Flow. This may suggest bearish trading tomorrow.

The US Dollar index has move today up and break its highs seen on October 19 an 27. Now, with some degree of confidence many trader may consider that recovery on the US Dollar is confirmed (which started on November 4, 2010). As I previously mentioned, this may push some traders to leave the stock market and move into currency and it could be additional force that may stimulate bearish trading.

The only thing that could be considered slightly positive is that Advances and declines are trending toward positive sentiment on hourly chart, yet declines are still dominant.

Money Flow and Volatility

We had up-swing at the market open and then decline as I expected yesterday. However, around 11am the indexes started advance as US Dollar started to decline. If you compare today's US Dollar Index and S&P 500 index you will see that their trends are exactly opposite. As I already mentioned several times, it looks like current stock market investors are looking at US Dollar trend.

Regarding money flow: the money flow continue to stay negative on the hourly charts. Today's advance did not greatly affected it. On 30- and 15-min charts it have became positive (I have mentioned yesterday that I would watch these charts). Yet, on 5-min chart money flow is becoming negative again.

Overall, from the money flow prospective I would say that the main sentiment(hourly chart) continue to be weak, in addition we may have decline tomorrow at the market open (5-min chart). If this happen and we see change in the flow on 15- and 30-min chart he we may have some strong decline.

Other things to consider is :

- The ETFs already dropped after the market close and index emini futures are already traded down. So most likely we will have weak opening tomorrow.

- The US Dollar index is close to its high seen on October 19 and on October 27, 2010.If this level is broken many traders may consider that the US dollar is not any more in down-trend. It could be additional fuel for stronger decline on the stock market.

- There are not a lot of economic reports, so most likely the trend will be guided mostly by technical analysis over the next couple of day (should not be surprises).

- Over the last couple of trading sessions we have an increase in volatility. I'll be reducing bar period setting on most of my intraday technical indicators to avoid a situation "when it's too late"

US Dollar ans S&P 500

As I mentioned a week ago in my "Strong Volume" post on October 16, 2010 "if market is predisposed to reverse its trend it does not mean it will happen tomorrow. It could happen tomorrow, yet, we still may see a week or even two weeks of side-way trading." - since October 13, 2010 the S&P 500, DJI, Russell 2000 and other indexes could be considered in the side-way action. The Nasdaq 100 index could be considered moving side-way since October 18, 2010.

As I commented over the past week, this side-way trading was supported by very strong increase in volume and was very volatile. It is not a common thing to see such huge trading volume at the top. As a rule, at the resistance levels volume surges are smaller and more prolonged in time, while at support levels volume surges are very strong. I have scrolled index charts over the past 10 years and I was not able to find any occurrence of such strong increase in daily volume on the S&P 500 and DJI history. Some similar, but smaller increase in volume was noted in period from April 14 until April 19, 2010 when the indexes were traded at the same high levels. My neighbor would say "There's some serious sh... is going on that market"

The critical point on mine view is that on last trading day of the week (Friday, October 22, 2010) volume was down to its normal level. The volatility was down as well. I would even say that volatility was very low, "like a silence before storm".  I have already mentioned on Friday (see "Low Trading Volume" post) that such decrease in volume and volatility could imply that the period of movements in investments positions of "Big Guys" could be over; which could mean that the next week could show who won (Bulls or Bears) and whether the market (S&P 500, DJI and Nasdaq 100 indexes) will be trending up or down. Conservative traders who does want to spend a lot of time on technical analysis could simply wait when either October 19th low or October 21st high is broken and then make a trading decision.

On the other hand I will not be surprised to see the market at the same level next week. The Election Day is coming and I do not think that some political leaders would like to see any type of crash or strong move down right now. In 2008 the stock market crashed too deep down. I was always under impression that the market was over-pushed down artificially by some "Big Players". This is why we had in 2009 very strong recovery in short period of time. In 2008 the stock market played on the hand of some party and it looks like now it is helping the same guys. But this is another story, I'm not a politician and I do not play conspiracy games - it may drag away from "cold-blooded' and unemotional analysis. Just in some cases, some weird market swings could be very difficult to explain from the prospective of technical analysis.

Coming back to the technical indicators I would say that

 - The daily charts remain to be bullish, yet I see strong overbought signals, especially on the volume based technical indicators. The volatility on daily charts is going up, which is usually  happened before Bear markets.

 - The hourly charts have mixed signals - some indicators and some indexes are bullish and other indicators and indexes are bearish. The common thing between all indexes on hourly charts is that all of them have overbought signals.

- 30- and 15-min charts could be considered slightly positive: you may see some positive Money Flow, however at the same time you may see negative divergence in the Money Flow.

 - Smaller time-frame, after Friday's quiet trading, is very neutral, yet, I would say that some indicators have tendency to become negative.

Note: by referring to volume and advance/decline based technical indicators I refer to MarketVolume charts. See NYSE, Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, DJI, Russell 2000...

It is worth mentioning that US Dollar index has generated number of oversold signals and many technical indicators on this index indicate bullish sentiment. If the US Dollar reverses and moves up it could be as trigger for the stock market to go down. At the current moment I focus some on mine attention on dollar simply because over the last three month the S&P 500 index trend is chronically opposite to the US Dollar index trend. It's like some invisible hand is trying to direct the stock market by using US Dollar.

Chart #1: The US Dollar and S&P 500 index daily chart with elements of technical analysis applied to the US Dollar index

Strong Volume on all Indexes

As I mentioned on Friday before the market opened and in a few hours after the opening Bell, the last day of October's options was very volatile at the beginning, yet the volatility dropped down by the end of the session. The interesting part of Friday's trading was strong advance in the Nasdaq 100 index (2.1% up) at the moment when the rest of the indexes was trying to push down: DJI dropped 0.29%, Russell 2000 declined 0.23% and S&P 500 modestly advanced by 0.20%. At the same time, the indexes from the financial sector strongly declined on Friday: S&P 500 financial dropped by 1.71%, Nasdaq Banking by 1%. Housing and precious metal indexes were strongly negative on Friday as well: Amex Gold, PHLX Gold/Silver and PHLX Housing decline more than 1 %.

Friday's trading session was very interesting from the prospective of volume technical analysis as well. It was the third trading session in a row of high trading activity on all indexes and on some indexes the volume surges were very strong. However, since we hade mixed trends on Friday, we have mixed volume readings on different indexes. On the Nasdaq 100 index we had strong bullish volume surges on the S&P Financial and DJI indexes we had strongly bearish volume surges (especially if we look at them from the lower timeframes). From the longer-term prospective I would consider all volume traded over the last three trading session as Bullish volume, simply , because it was at the top of the recent up-trend. The only under a question for me could be the S&P 500 Financial index which has been in strong decline for the last two trading session.

Overall, I would say that the volume we saw over that last three trading session must affect longer-term trend. The question is when. We have all the factors that precede the reversal down - we had strong up move without even short-term corrections; we had huge bullish volume accumulation during this up move which indicate strongly overbought condition; we had strong increase in volume which could be considered as greedy buying by retail traders, etc. Still, as consistently mentioned before, if market is predisposed to reverse its trend it does not mean it will happen tomorrow. It could happen tomorrow, yet, we still may see a week or even two weeks of side-way trading. To be sure in reversal I would monitor money flow direction on the daily charts (1 bar = 1 day).

The third interesting point is that on Friday we had up move on the US Dollar index which was supported by extremely strong volume. If we take a look at the US Dollar reversal in December 2009 we may see that when US Dollar started to move up this up-move was accompanied by huge volume surges. If we see that US Dollar will continue to recover it could be another point that would support correction on the US stock market - if you compare US Dollar index to S&P 500 index you will see that over the last half of year, in most cases, the US dollar trend is opposite to the S&P 500 trend.

P.S. I'm sorry I did not post any chart snapshoot today - will try to do it tomorrow if I have time.