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By Jani Ziedins | Free Content
Free After-Hours Analysis:
On Thursday the S&P slipped for the fourth time out of the last five trading sessions. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was a strong run following August’s decisive rebound off 2,800 support. Markets cannot go up like that indefinitely and a cooldown was inevitable.
Regular readers of this blog saw this coming a mile away. I wrote the following last Tuesday, one day before we rolled over:
If the best trade is buying weakness and selling strength, no matter how safe 2,900 feels, this is definitely the wrong time to be buying. Resist the temptation to chase these prices higher because recent gains make this a far riskier place to be adding new money. The risk/reward shifted away from us because a big chunk of the upside has already been realized while the risks of a normal and healthy dip increase with every point higher. In fact, if the best trade is buying weakness and selling strength, this is actually a darn good time to start thinking about locking-in profits. Remember, we only make money when we sell our winners and it is impossible to buy the next dip if we don’t have cash.
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I don’t have a crystal ball and I cannot predict the future, but when the market keeps doing the same thing over and over again, it isn’t hard to figure out what comes next.
As I wrote last week, it was inevitable the Canada trade deal wouldn’t be fast or easy. Missing Friday’s arbitrary deadline is all it took for last week’s hope to turn into this week’s disappointment. But to be honest, Canada’s refusal to be Trump’s lap-dog shouldn’t surprise anyone. The fact most people saw this coming means this latest round of weakness will only be a modest dip, not the start of a bigger crash. We fear what we don’t know, not what everyone is talking about. If we were going to crash because of trade war headlines, it would have happened many months ago. The fact we keep holding up so well tells us this is a strong market, not a weak one.
Thursday’s dip found support at the old highs near 2,870, but that doesn’t mean this dip is over. While I like buying 2,870 a heck of a lot more than 2,920, I still don’t feel the need to rush in at these levels.
Sometimes markets consolidate gains by pulling back. Other times they do it by trading sideways. It is still a little premature know which way this consolidation will go. Maybe we dip a little further, maybe we bounce back to 2,900 but struggle to climb back above. Either creates an effective consolidation, unfortunately right now the only thing we can do is wait for more clues. The good news is we should know more over the next couple of days.
At this point it is still a little too early to buy the dip. The discounts are modest and the profit potential is limited. I prefer better risk/rewards and am willing to wait a little longer. In a perfect world, we crash all the way down to 2,800 support before bouncing. That would give us a second opportunity to profit from the move up to 2,900. If only we can be that lucky.
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Jani
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By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
On Tuesday the S&P 500 got off to a rocky start following the Labor Day weekend. Trump and Canada couldn’t come to terms on a new NAFTA and that let air out of last week’s hope-filled rally to all-time highs.
Tuesday’s weak price-action fits perfectly with what I wrote last week:
If the best trade is buying weakness and selling strength, no matter how safe 2,900 feels, this is definitely the wrong time to be buying. Resist the temptation to chase these prices higher because recent gains make this a far riskier place to be adding new money. The risk/reward shifted away from us because a big chunk of the upside has already been realized, while the risks of a normal and healthy dip increase with every point higher. In fact, if the best trade is buying weakness and selling strength, this is actually a darn good time to start thinking about locking-in profits. Remember, we only make money when we sell our winners and it is impossible to buy the next dip if we don’t have cash.
Make sure you sign up for Free Email Alerts so you don’t miss profitable insights like these.
It is little surprise Canada didn’t roll over for Trump and Friday’s arbitrary deadline came and went without a deal. Both sides threw barbs at each other in the press over the weekend, but this is little more than grandstanding for the cameras that accompanies all political negotiations.
Even though we didn’t get a deal this weekend, there is no reason we shouldn’t expect one over the next few weeks. Canadian and American businesses are far too reliant on NAFTA and it would be incredibly disruptive to both economies to throw it out. Even the president of the powerful AFL-CIO union came out strongly against excluding Canada. If the unions are against it, you know it must be really bad for business.
While the market dipped Tuesday, the losses were modest and we are still at levels that were all-time highs last week. This is more of an exhale following a strong run than the start of a bigger correction. This is an incredibly resilient market and owners have refused to sell far more dire headlines this spring and summer. There is no reason to think anything changed this week.
As I wrote last week, there are plenty of good reasons to take profits at these highs, but selling because Canada didn’t jump aboard Trump’s ‘new and improved’ NAFTA deal by an artificially imposed Friday deadline is not one of those reasons.
We take profits because it’s been a nice run. We take profits because we are running into resistance. We take profits because we buy weakness and sell strength. We take profits because we need cash to buy the next dip. But we definitely don’t sell because we are afraid of Canada collapsing this market.
Personally, I would love it if this selling spiraled out of control so that we could jump in at much lower levels. Unfortunately, I doubt we get that lucky. Instead, I expect this dip to bounce quickly. Support at the old highs near 2,870 is as far as this goes, and most likely we won’t even get that far. This is simply an exhale after a nice run and we shouldn’t read too much into this normal, healthy, and periodic gyration.
Until further notice, keep doing what has been working. That means buying weakness and selling strength in our short-term trading account and sitting on our favorite stocks with our longer-term investments.
If you found this post useful, join the thousands who follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss future updates: Follow @crackedmarket
Jani
What’s a good trade worth to you?
How about avoiding a loss?
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