Nov 15

The simple mistake that keeps costing bears money

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

Tuesday was another back-and-forth session for the S&P 500. The index exploded above the psychologically significant 4k level when another monthly inflation reading came out better than expected. Unfortunately, that early enthusiasm fizzled and the index retreated back to breakeven just after lunchtime. But just when the cynics thought they finally won a battle, an afternoon rebound reclaimed +0.9% of those early gains.

The cynics thought they finally broke the October rebound when they kicked it back under 4k. For a bear that believed this rebound was nothing more than smoke and mirrors, that retreat under 4k was too good to resist and the shorts piled in hard and fast.

But there is a very good reason all new traders are warned against picking tops. The biggest problem bears have to deal with is the odds are simply not in their favor. This rebound has been charging ahead for over a month and Tuesday set yet another multi-month high. That means anyone betting against this rebound has been losing piles and piles of money for weeks.

Sure, this rebound will stall and retreat like all of the others that came before it, but was Tuesday that day? No, probably not. Think about it this way, if something continues dozens of times but it can only reverse once, what are the odds that today is that single day when it finally reverses? Yeah, not very good.

Of course I would prefer to see the market go up every single day, but everyone knows that’s not realistic. Yet every time the market slips a few points, the crowd can’t resist labeling it a top.

It always takes stocks time to push through prior resistance levels because that’s where people love to call tops. But as I wrote previously, this market wants to challenge 4,100. If it was as weak and fragile as the critics claim, we would have already failed by now. As much as people hate chasing a market that’s gone up, the contrarian trade is betting on the continuation and not joining the chorus rooting against it.

The headlines are improving and the bears are losing the argument. Maybe things will get worse, but for that to happen, we need to see things actually start getting worse. We never trade what could happen, we trade what is happening. And right now this market keeps telling us it wants to go higher.

Protect our profits by moving stops up to the mid-3,900s and keep holding for higher prices. And remember, as soon as we get out, always be ready to get back in if the dip proved to be a false alarm.

This rebound will continue countless times and it will die only once, which side do you want to bet on?

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Nov 11

Why this rebound still has room to run

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

After some early flirtations with breakeven, the S&P 500 finished Friday on solid ground, adding 1% to Thursday’s towering gains and the index closed at the highest level since early September.

We finally got some good news on inflation Thursday morning and that sent stocks popping like a cork. As I’ve been writing for a while, inflation has been moderating as this spring’s willy-nilly price hikes have given way to price-sensitive consumers pushing back and hunting for the best deals. Add to this the glut of inventory that built up following the post-pandemic over-ordering and few businesses have the courage to keep raising prices this fall.

As fast as stocks shot up Thursday, it’s tempting to think this surge went too-far too-fast, but that only applies to long and extended runups. Thursday was a single session on the heels of multiple large down days, so we are nowhere near overbought right now and this pop still has room to run. I’m not talking about many hundreds of points, but once we get through 4k, it won’t take long to challenge 4,100.

Sometimes the market needs to convince us we are wrong before it can prove us right, and Wednesday’s post-election selloff definitely did a good job of challenging my conviction. But the art of trading is knowing when to admit defeat and when to get stubborn. And Wednesday was one of those stubborn days.

Now, I’m most definitely not advocating stubbornly holding a tumble under our stops, but there are times when we see the market breakdown in a way we didn’t expect and that tells us to pull the plug long before our stops get hit. But I fully expected Wednesday’s knee-jerk selloff to exhaust itself quickly because this is a Fed driven market that doesn’t care about politics. And Thursday’stowering reversal confirmed the Fed is far more important than who controls Congress.

Even though Wednesday’s dip went a little further than I expected and squeezed me out at my highest stops, I wasn’t worried about the rest of my positions and was willing to continue holding them. If stocks crashed Thursday, I would have admitted defeat and pulled the plug. But lucky for me, stocks went the other direction on Thursday and my conviction was rewarded handsomely.

As I said, there is never an excuse to hold under our stops, but sometimes we have to know when to pull the plug early and when to stand our ground. Wednesday was definitely a stand-our-ground kind of day.

And trust me, as easy as that is to say today, it was anything but easy to do on Wednesday. But that’s where our analysis and trading plan help us stick with what we should be doing.

As for what comes next, keep holding the rebound and lift our stops to the lower 3,900s. 4,100 will be here soon enough.

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Nov 10

Why smart money ignored the election

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

The S&P 500 added a towering 5.4% Thursday, making this one of the biggest up days in stock market history.

As much as I expected inflation to start moderating, I never expected the market to react in such an oversized way to what was a fairly modest change in inflation. But the trend is everything and Thursday morning’s inflation reading suggests our inflation fever is finally breaking.

Netting out Wednesday’s -2% post-election hangover, we’re “only” up 3.4% from Tuesday’s close, which is still a lot, but a tad more reasonable. And more importantly, Thursday’s gains put the rally to 4k back on track. (And at this rate, we could be there Friday morning!)

As much as bears tried to punish stocks for Republicans’ underperformance in the midterm elections, as I wrote Tuesday evening, this market isn’t concerned with politics.

The stock market really isn’t concerned with politics this time around because it knows the Fed is the one controlling the economy. By Wednesday afternoon, expect the election to be old news for the market and it will go back to what it was doing before, which is obsessing over inflation and rate hikes.

If the market’s attention is going back to what it was doing before the election took over the airwaves, that means October’s rebound is back on and 4k is within reach.

Well, it turns out my Wednesday afternoon forecast was a tad premature, but hopefully, most readers can forgive me for being off by a few hours.

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As expected, the only thing that matters to this market is inflation and rate hikes and Thursday morning’s lower-than-expected inflation reading means the Fed doesn’t need to move as aggressively with future rate hikes.

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good and Thursday was one of those days. I was fairly certain Wednesday’s election-fueled selloff would fade quickly. What I didn’t expect was Thursday’s historic gains following a “less bad than expected” inflation report, but that’s the way this game goes sometimes. The important thing is recognizing the direction the wind was blowing because we can’t get lucky if we don’t know which side of the street to stand on.

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Nov 09

The levelheaded way to approach Wednesday’s selloff

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

The Republican’s widely anticipated “red wave” turned out to be little more than a “red ripple”.

As is often the case, the market’s reflex is to buy Republican victories and sell Democrat wins. And Wednesday was no different with the index tumbling 2% following the latest Republican letdown.

While this politically skewed view of the stock market is easily debunked by looking at historical performance under different administrations, that doesn’t stop partisan investors from sour grapes selling in the hours and days after an election.

Now, I will be honest, I had no issue with stocks slipping in a knee-jerk reflex to the Republican fumble, but I thought the market would find its footing and move past the election by Wednesday afternoon. A split government is a split government and Republicans don’t need large majorities or even both houses to stifle the Democrat’s legislative agenda. But obviously, the market saw it differently and the selling continued through the afternoon.

There are two possible explanations for this:

If the market’s latest rebound from the October lows was built on expectations of a “red wave”, that means there is a lot of air underneath us since this “red wave” failed to materialize. Partisans buying the rumor and then the rumor turning out to be wrong is a recipe for falling stock prices.

On the other hand, maybe Wednesday’s one-way selloff was little more than the herd following each other off the cliff. Few things shatter confidence like screens filled with red and Wednesday’s stumble could be nothing more than selling because other people are selling. Lucky for us, selling without a meaningful catalyst tends to exhaust itself fairly quickly.

At this point, either scenario is equally likely. Fortunately, the two possible explanations for Wednesday’s weakness will quickly diverge from each other. If there were high expectations of a red wave priced into the market, the selling will continue for days and even weeks, pushing us all the way back to the October lows near 3,500. But if Wednesday was nothing more than reflexive selling that got a little carried away, supply will dry up and prices will bounce as soon as Thursday.

Buy a bounce Thursday because it means we are headed to 4k and sell/short a further breakdown because it means 3,500 is just around the corner. It really is that easy.

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Nov 08

Why the election doesn’t matter to the stock market

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

Tuesday was another wild ride for the S&P 500 as the index bounced between 3,780 and 3,860 before finally settling in the middle of the range, posting a respectable 0.6% gain.

The talk of the day is obviously focused on the election. Republicans are widely expected to take the House while control of the Senate is up in the air and odds are good a runoff or recount could delay the outcome for this chamber for days if not weeks.

But if Republicans gain control of the House, that means a split government and control of the Senate isn’t necessary to grind things to a halt. And while people complain about a dysfunctional government, the stock market loves gridlock because it means no one is changing the rules in the middle of the game. As far as the market is concerned, bad rules that can be counted on and priced in are better than rules in flux where no one is sure how things will turn out.

The market could experience further reflexive knee jerks over the next handful of hours as it frets over “voting irregularities” and such, but as I wrote previously, the stock market really isn’t concerned with politics this time around because it knows the Fed is the one controlling the economy. By Wednesday afternoon, expect the election to be old news for the market and it will go back to what it was doing before, which is obsessing over inflation and rate hikes.

If the market’s attention is going back to what it was doing before the election took over the airwaves, that means October’s rebound is back on and 4k is within reach.

As always, use trailing stops to protect our profits, but at this point, October’s rebound remains holdable with stops above Friday’s lows. Until we fall below that level, the rebound is alive and well.

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Nov 07

How savvy traders are approaching the election

By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis

Free After-Hours Analysis: 

The S&P 500 continued Friday’s late bounce on Monday as it added another 1%.

Economic headlines remain mostly the same as everyone looks forward to Tuesday’s elections. But for as much coverage as the election is getting, we shouldn’t expect Tuesday’s result to move the markets in a meaningful and lasting way. Partisan politics aside, stocks have rallied and fallen under Republicans just like they have under Democrats. Remember, we trade the market, not politics, so leave that Red and Blue stuff out of this. This economy rests in the Fed’s hands and it doesn’t matter who is in charge of Congress.

If the election were not happening Tuesday, I would be buying Friday’s rebound. But since we have an election on Tuesday, I’m buying Friday’s rebound. See what I did there? I trade the market, not politics, and right now the market is telling me it is time to buy the bounce, so that’s exactly what I doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the election will have zero impact on the market. No doubt we will get a knee-jerk bounce Wednesday morning following a “Red Wave” and prices will slip a little if we get a “Blue Wave”, but after that initial reflex of partisan volatility, expect the election to be old news by lunchtime.

I’m buying and adding to Friday’s rebound with stops spread around Friday’s intraday lows. If prices fall under my stops, I’m out. If the rally continues, I’m adding more and lifting my stops. Let other people second-guess the headlines.

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