Bears And Bulls Better Brace Themselves

T2108 Status: 72.6%
VIX Status: 10.7
General (Short-term) Trading Call: Buy (hopefully on whatever dips the market provides) to follow uptrend of extended overbought rally; Short ONLY on confirmed weakness (see below)
Active T2108 periods: Day #231 over 20%, Day #83 over 40%, Day #10 over 60%, Day #1 over 70% (over-period/overbought)h2 Commentary/h2

After a two-month hiatus, T2108 is overbought again. I cannot imagine a more treacherous time to attain such heights – bears AND bulls will need to brace themselves. Let’s flip through the story in charts…

T2108 made a convincing punch into overbought territory to begin what I think should be an extended run in overbought territory. For those brave enough to play or continue playing the trend, note that T2108 has spent a maximum of ten trading days in overbought territory since it was last in oversold territory (an eternity ago in June, 2013).

The S&P 500 (SPDR S&P 500 (ARCA:SPY)) is putting on an impressive upward run. Worries about the January barometer and “sell in May” have been swept away into a crumpled heap and have taught a hard lesson to those who blindly follow market adages without context or the REAL data at their fingertips. I have written several pieces on both adages to demonstrate with data the much more complicated stories. This move has taught a hard lesson to people who eschew technicals for fundamentals, insisting that “global growth is slowing,” “China is about to collapse and take the planet with it” or “stocks are expensive by XYZ metric.” Clearly, there are still plenty of buyers who think differently and/or do not care. Or even more likely, the sellers are just simply exhausted from fighting the trend for so long. And of course this breakout is a reminder of the limits of the T2108 framework. It remains a technical indicator that speaks loudest at extremes and not so much in between. (Fortunately, I have been able to use other tools in between during chart reviews of individual stocks).

Amazingly, for all the historic bullishness on display, T2107 – the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 200DMAs – is STILL trapped under a post-recession downtrend. As a reminder, this means that the strong uptrends have been led by an elite group of stocks. A crowd is allowed to gather around these elite, but with each passing year the maximum capacity has declined overall. If/when this downtrend breaks, it may turn into the ultimate sell signal, a time when maximum buying power is finally applied to the market. At the tail end of the last bull market, T2107 produced a breakout from a multi-year downtrend. The S&P 500 topped out a year later. If this is an indicator, it is NOT a fast-acting indicator by any means. The context for any breakout will be important.

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T2107 has yet to look bullish since the recession ended

The ultra-low level of the VIX, the volatility index, makes this overbought period particularly treacherous. I have become a broken record on this point because I think it is an important caveat. Things appear placid now, but when the calm finally breaks (and it WILL at some point!), the downward convulsions could be particularly abrupt, severe, and deep. If this kind of move lays out there in the future, then put options are particularly cheap right now.

I think market-watchers generally still believe/assume that the summertime is a period when traders take time off and stop paying attention to the market. Such a break may have been more true before technology allowed everyone to watch the market in real-time and trade accordingly. NOW, anyone who has paid attention in the last several years and more should know better. Government interventions in the market have provided a particularly powerful focal point for summertime churn. Indeed, the data suggest that the summer is full of trading opportunities. For example, you can review “Summer’s Positive Gains Can Come With High Risks ” which I wrote three years ago. With the European Central Bank (ECB) further easing monetary policy at the same time the Federal Reserve reduces its bond buying to zero, I cannot help but assume that this summer will deliver some notable fireworks.