“I firmly believe that we could see another round of deflation this summer. And that's when the Fed will begin to stage its next round of intervention/ stimulus: autumn 2011 going into 2012.”
Just an FYI and this time may be different. The last 3 big selloffs lasted
Aug. 9 to Aug 30 = 15 trading days
Nov. 5 to Nov 30 = 16 trading days
Feb. 18 to Mar. 16 = 17 trading days
May 2 to May 23 = 16 trading days or 17 trading days if the low of today is taken out...so I assume we are close to, if haven't hit a bottom here.
FJoe Posts: 65Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:40 am”
“As you are probably well aware, everyone has gotten complacent over the broad stockmarket, with premature top callers continually getting burned as it has somehow stayed levitated, but as we will now see the situation is getting more and more dangerous with passing time. This is because the market is rounding over beneath the large parabolic "Distribution Dome" shown on our 1-year chart for the S&P500 index below. Few traders understand these Dome patterns or what they portend. The rounding nature of the pattern is evidence that profit takers are increasingly overwhelming fresh buyers whose efforts to drive the market higher are blunted to the point that they have no effect at all and once the Dome starts to roll over, as is happening now, the bears have gotten hold of the ball, and it only takes the re-emergence of fear in the market to precipitate a potentially severe decline. Add into the mix that the market has just broken down from a 3-arc Fan pattern as pointed out by Richard Russell and also shown on our chart, which usually precipitates a drop, and you have the recipe for a potentially heavy selloff. Here we should note that Domes don't always lead to bearmarkets, as they can simply be a form of rounding correction - sometimes the market breaks suddenly above the Dome boundary and a new major upleg ensues, but here the situation is complicated by the Fan breakdown - so it will take not just a break above the Dome boundary, but a break back above the 3rd fanline to turn the market bullish again.”
“the financial sector was extremely weak so far this year, and it has been a drag on the market as a whole. The performance graph below shows that the financial sector is the only sector that is down so far this year. The rotation into defensive sectors is also clear on this graph with Healthcare and Utilities leading the market.”
“The answer is very simple and it is linked to the recent underperformance of banks almost everywhere. Indeed, with short rates still low everywhere, and yield curves positively sloped, we are in the phase of the cycle when banks should be outperforming. The fact that they are not has to be seen as a concern. So does the underperformance come from the fact that the market senses that losses have yet to be booked (Europe?)? Is it a reflection of a lack of demand for loans (US?) or that more losses and write-offs are just around the corner (Japan?)? Is the bank underperformance signaling that we are on the verge of a new banking crisis, most likely linked to the possibility of European debt restructurings? Or perhaps it is linked to the coming end of QE2 and consequential tightening in the liquidity environment (see our Quarterly published earlier today for more on this topic)?
“In our view, any of the above could potentially explain the recent bank underperformance. But whatever the reasons may be, it has to be seen as a worrying sign. One of our ‘rules of thumb’ is that if banks do not manage to outperform when yield curves are steep, the market must be worried about the financial sectors’ balance sheets (given that, with a steep yield curve, there are few reasons to worry about the bank’s income statement).”