Charts for Thursday, February 23rd



Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

Gold vs Gold Stocks and the S&P 500

 Physical gold is up 20% since gold began trading in Hong Kong, yet gold stocks cannot seem to break away from the S&P 500.

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

Gold: Cup and Handle Breakout

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

Commodities

 The Canadian big board was up 1.32% today, vs the relatively flat US S&P 500. Oil and gold moved sharply higher, elevating the stocks within the two sectors.

 Oil stocks seem ripe for the picking, here. There is nothing wrong with Apple, but there is no way in the world that stock should be out-performing an important commodity like oil. We should prepare ourselves for sector rotation, here, even though there is likely a little more upside to both Apple and the Tech sector. 

 

 

 

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

There's No Crying in Trading

 Just because we are closing in on spring training and it's cold here ....

 An ode to baseball.

 Although the North American exchanges were closed today, trading restraints did not apply to the overnight futures market ... and bears couldn't have liked what they saw. Another bullish move on the S&P 500 futures overtook an important target at 1362.75.

 Short sellers continue to walk up to the plate with all the cocky, arrogant swagger of a latter-day Mighty Casey.

 "The markets can't continue to go up!" say the bears.

 "The government statistics are a lie!"

 "A crash is inevitable!"

Bears can only wish they'd struck out just once

 Bearish perseverance is one thing ... the blatant refusal to acknowledge a chart (or charts) is something else entirely. 

 The 1430 area came into play on the ES today. This isn't likely to be a home run ... if we get there at all, it will probably come about by hitting singles, nickling and diming the short sellers to a slow and painful death.

S&P 500 Futures

 We're dealing with a lot of ...



 The dollar, as always, looms over the market, but this is a matter of perspective. Given the state of every other country and their currencies the world over, there is really not much point in being a dollar bear. Investors should consider the US and the US dollar as a safe haven but it extends well beyond that ... there are no hard and fast rules that say the dollar and the markets cannot work together. They have struck a harmonious chord in the past and they could very well do so again in the future.

 The Euro has re-captured some of its lost ground.

 There's no crying in baseball ... nor the stock market.

 Don't discount the gold/oil ratio or what happens to the markets when the ratio gets over-extended. Ignoring this chart could cost you a lot of money!

 As Susan Sarandon said in Bull Durham ...

 Hit 'em where they ain't!

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.

Another Op-X Friday

 The markets seesawed Friday in playground fashion, giving up very little real estate in the morning before closing the day only slightly higher. There is a lot of indecision (but no panic) here as we push higher and now threaten last May's highs. Volume continues to remain light as investors holding don't seem all that anxious to sell. Potential buyers, meanwhile, wonder if they're going to be left stranded at the top of the teeter-totter before those below abruptly hop off and move on to play on the swings, the slide or some other attention-grabbing apparatus.

 Clearly, the markets will need new (or former) participants if they are to push higher. There is (or should be, at least) some incentive here for Wall Street to stabilize the markets as best they can in order to get regular investors back into the market. This is not going to be an easy sell as most people remember all too well the brutal sell-off that took place from the last half of 2008 into March of 2009. Furthermore, there will be no hope whatsoever in coaxing money back into the markets if the people Wall Street are courting are left staring at psychotic charts that continually whipsaw back and forth in an algorithmic feeding frenzy.

 The irony here is that there is a very high percentage of regulars left over from the dark days of 2008 and 2009 who aren't even interested in buying as the markets move higher. Many have been trying to short the market at every perceived top, and will likely continue to do so until Wall Street has taken most of their retail bear money.

 Of course, out of all that comes one of the questions people continually ask: "Why not gold?" 

 Let's take a look at it from Wall Street's standpoint for one minute:

 If you were continually under attack by every tinfoil hat gold bug on the internet (and Lord knows there are far too many of them), why would you move so much as a single cent out of the stock market and into gold, only to support a bunch of miserable conspiracy theorists who can't stand you, your profession nor the country in which you do business?

 And what has gold done for itself that the markets have not since 1980? Perhaps you might bring this chart up with a gold bug some time as they certainly don't want you to know anything about it.

 Left click on chart(s) to expand

 There is much to consider as we move forward. I am not saying precious metals are a bad investment, in fact, I own silver bars, silver coins and a little gold, myself. The difference is ... I didn't buy any of it with the ridiculous hope the entire system will collapse and that I'll be bartering my precious metals for food, fuel or toiletries somewhere down the crazy river ...

  

    

 Here are some charts ...

 There still isn't really much point in being a bear, but I'll leave that up to you.

 The S&P 500 futures may not be done yet ... I'm still watching 1362.75 but any significant break of that and we'll likely be headed to the 1430's soon enough.

Always perform your own due diligence. These are only my opinions.