A friend who is a fund manager asked me the following question today: What’s the greater fear, missing a rally, or owning equities that go down?
Today’s rip-roarin expiration day market rally might help answer that question. The fear of missing the rally certainly appears to be the much greater sin — at least to most professional managers today.
Now consider this interesting variation (This one should definitely get the attention of trend followers).
John Roque — the very smart technical analyst for Natixis Bleichroeder — John relates how he continues to hear on CNBC and from clients that “financials are cheap…we’re doing selective buying.” Or, “We’re buying financials down here. They’ve been destroyed.” Or, “The financials are raising capital and getting the deals done. The worst is over. We’re buying some good ones.”
Now, compare that attitude with typical investor interest/sentiment about oil, food commodities, or natural resource stocks. Extended! Overbought! Driven by speculation!
So if you are looking for a true contrary trade, which do you choose:
– The one in a long-term uptrend with no sign of any technical weakness, widely disbelieved the whole way up?
– Or, do you go for the relentlessly beat up, long term down trend — the one if you are buying here,
you are merely guessing the worst is over.
Thanks to John Roque of Natixis Bleichroeder, here’s the relative Market Cap of S&P Energy versus S&P Financials:
courtesy of Natixis Bleichroeder
Amen my brotha
I’m a very bearish guy, but I keep suspecting that we will need some real Bear Capitulation to go down.
Then we can get back to bull capitulation.
I also suspect with all the inflation, and materials strength, continued global strength…… Long and shallow recession.
Stagflation is far worse than “Recession”
How has the stock market done historically in periods of inflation?
Days like today, I know money managers have lost their minds. I doubled my long on Swiss Francs, and doubled my short on Xinhua index. If I’m wrong by next month, come visit me in the crazy house! :)
sounds like two guns on the table and you have to choose the one that has the least amount of bullets…
In order to buy either you have to ignore ALOT of reality and embrace fanaticism….
You’re still dead in the end.
Ciao
MS
“sounds like two guns on the table and you have to choose the one that has the least amount of bullets…”
The problem is that, at the moment, neither gun is a revolver…
It’s a great time to buy or sell stocks!
Someone mentioned a Dow Theory “Breakout” today…. Was it the Transports?
I’m not well versed on Dow Theory.
– Or, do you go for the relentlessly beat up, long term down trend — the one if you are buying here, you are merely guessing the worst is over.
it’s interesting that this applies to both financial stocks and houses…
i guess another interesting question would be, why aren’t money managers buying real estate?
My money is invested with these assumptions:
– gold/gold stocks haven’t topped
– treasuries have topped
– financials have not bottomed – but 5 years from now – will likely think that WM @12 and C @23 were good buys.
to paraphrase J. Rogers investors (amateur and professionals) don’t find anything sexy in commodities/basic materials/industrials.
as a generational cohort, baby boomers taken for granted cheap commodities (1980-2000)…which is ironic as they grew up during the oil crisis (I’m only 31.)
we haven’t seen any blow-off top…..you don’t hear of your house-flipping neighbor now playing the futures market.
The genuine commodities blow-off top will come when you see people carpooling, investing in futures and even the most ardent right-wing enviro-skeptics talking about conservation. Plus the requisite “Death of the American Lifestyle” cover on Time magazine.
fear not cash.
Bull markets are led by financials gaining strength first followed by a general bull market. That’s in the standard playbook.
What I see here is traders buying financials to set up that bull market appearance anticipating that the rest of the bull market will appear out of thin air. This is cargo cult magical thinking that has cause and effect backwards.
I don’t worry about missing rallies in this market; I worry about preserving capital. This markeet is like a bowling ball going down stairs. When it hits a step, it will bounce sharply but, that is just part of the ballistic trajectory that carries it downward again. Don’t try to catch a falling bowling ball.
How about something approaching day trading? Jumping on the surge but getting back to cash at the first sign of weakness?
Every decade since the 1960’s began with a global recession. The early 80’s was the worst. The current US recession started because of the consumer began drawing back first because they began earlier in the cycle. Investment overseas has gotten wildly out of control. By this time 2 years from now, that investment will be all but over.
I think this one will challenge the early 80’s. May portend outright deflation.
Personally i will feel bad about missing a rally. I am a long term investor (buy & hold for decades), so missing a rally means i am purchasing at higher price. If the equities in my portfolio go down, then i assume this as short term trend and expect things to move up at a decent ror in near future.
more guesses,
If we get a breakout just into 1400, My guess is we will shake things out and realize that, for Equities “Rising interest rates are bad” “Rising Dollar is Bad ” An Inverted yield Curve will be bad”
that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually the Train.
I am not a Dow Theorist, but Richard Russell is (Note today’s action takes up above his 12,743 level):
“Hey, remember the Dow Theory? It tells us that a move by one Average, unconfirmed by the other, is meaningless for prediction purposes and may very well be deceptive. Well below we see the daily Dow. Yesterday it shot above its (blue) 50-day moving average, but as of yesterday’s close, the Dow had still failed to better its February peak of 12743.19. That was a great move yesterday, but the Dow still must better its February 1 peak.
So why does the Dow have to better its February 1 peak? The reason can be seen on the daily chart of the Transports below. The Transports, which have led the market for months, have bettered not only their February peak but they have bettered all preceding peaks right up to their record high set last July. So if the Industrials are going to confirm, their first move must be to advance above their own February 1 peak of 12743.19. Bettering 12743.9 would be a huge and very bullish accomplishment.
As matters stand now, we have an upside non-confirmation with the Dow not confirming the latest move by the Transports.”
April 17, 2008
Eric & co.
trying not to be wise-guy here, but I’ll ask the same question I ask on here 2-3 weeks ago… (no response then)
Your work has shown you nothing…nothing at all to get long over the past month or so? No chemicals…no basic mats…no oilservices…no Brazil/latin…no steel…no ag…no nothing?
If your your answer is no, then you are probably too bearish, which like those who are too bullish, will result in poor performance. Again….the enemy of a trader is ego. The inability to come off an opinion that you are on record as having. Many talking heads are bitten’ by this problem…..”I’ll be proved…the market is wrong”. Always respect both sides of any and all trades.
yeah, i suspect most people fear missing a rally way more than seeing stocks go up and then down later. IMO far fewer people have the patience and confidence in their thesis to sit out a bear rally, and in fact prefer to ride it up only to ride it down a few days, weeks, or months later. You have to have a ton of confidence that the rally gains aren’t permanent and we’ll just round trip or that the valuation of the market is not worth the risk.
tough one, i struggle with it every day!
what do you guys/gals do in that struggle?
Thank you Barry,
Your input is as always, Priceless.
My own Chart Astrology, says we break 1400..
Then I’m looking for Bear Capitulation.
If “The Fly” being bearish, didn’t set every one’s spidersense/contrarian off….. I swear he is a plant by money managers.
But will the fundamentals (esp. consumer spending) support a change-about to bull for the mid-term? Can a change at this point be anything but a short-term bounce in a longer term down trend?
The period 1989-1991 might offer a useful historical parallel. By way of example, BAC (Bank of America) fell about 65% over a period of 15 months, from a peak in July of 1989. And during the period 1999-2001, financial stocks fell over an even longer period of time (18-20 months). As for the present situation, the XLF peaked in May of 2007. It’s only been 11 months. In addition, inflation is on the rise, which is not particularly good for financials.
The XLF probably has more work to do on the downside.
‘fear not cash.’
really? in an inflationary environment? i fear it greatly.
Matt M.
agreed, even if you think broad market indexes may be going down, you can still find individual stock or sectors that can outperform. I try to do that because it’s my full time job. a potential problem is that a lot of non-investment profession people may not have time for the necessary due dilly to pick individual stocks or sectors, so they rely on broad market indexes.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24196045/
“Citigroup share price jumped Friday, as many investors had been bracing for even more dismal results…Citigroup essentially lost in the first three months of the year, $1.02 per share…Analysts, on average, had expected the New York bank to lose 95 cents per share, according to a Thomson Financial survey.”
Can anyone ‘splain this apparent contradiction to me? This is why I’ll never be smart enough to be a banker (or a financial reporter).
Craig:
Tremendous question on the reality of trading. None of us are battling the market….we only battle ourselves. The market doesn’t know you…care about you or give a sh*t about your opinion.
My .02 is that you must have a core discipline that has worked for you in bull…bear… and volatile markets. You must have complete condidence in your system…be it fundamental research..point & figure (mine)…candlesticks…IBD system…whatever. If you can’t trust your system, then you are at the mercy of opinion. And we all no what opinion is worth. Find a system that fits your personality…trade it thru cycles… adjust your phsycology and realize that successful trading must be conquered mentally….not thru following goofy economic reports. Sorry to run on here, but I do read a level of frustration on the boards, and it usually has to do with the markets or it’s participants “being stupid” and not following your opinion. The market is…period….how you handle it is up to you.
When you mark up the stock market on the back of construction (mostly SFR’s)consumer spending and cheap labor you need some sort of catalyst to continue the mark up….
Those three catalysts are a spent force. I see nothing in the forseeable future that can or will take the place of those three engines.
Where is it?????
and where will it come from??
This is the BIG PICTURE not a stock picker’s blog…….so any calls for individual stocks just verifies that you have no idea about the original question.
Sectors?? OK but they have to have some sort of equality to the original three engines of this bubble.
Show me….
Ciao
MS
MS:
I’ve never mentioned a stock on this blog, nor have I mentioned bullish or bearish (piker words). I think people read this blog with a thought that it can improve their trading/investing. Unfortunatly, most of the comments on BR’s blog are just rants about nonsense (politics…PPT…crooked markets…etc.). Any comments I’ve ever made tend to question a comment made here…that’s all. I have to admit…..I get a huge kick out of yourself and a handful of other posters here!
“It’s a great time to buy or sell stocks!”
And I’m long LEAPS call on popcorn. So many good shows to watch on the markets.
Did I miss something today or did the 70% of the economy that is the consumer come roaring back all of a sudden?
What changed today for the consumer?
Anybody?
‘fear not cash.’
Sometimes you have to pick your poison. If you think commodities are in a bubble, financials are cheap because they should be, business activity is going to slide, T-bill will drop and rates go up, foreign economies will follow the US down… then you have to ask which are the worse outcomes and which are the better.
Common John Roque and Barry Ritholtz, both of you are disappointing me repeatedly…
You are obsessed with the trends, missing the big picture, and missing the bottoms and the tops as the result.
Even though, the crowd is right during the trend; nevertheless, the crowd is wrong at both ends (remember me [Blind Bearish Squirrels] screaming to “buy like crazy” when S&P was at 1285). Trends exhaust themselves and at those times you get the turning points. Charts do not really have resources for catching the turning points until well after the fact.
As I said to you multiple times, charts do not have great resources for catching the key turning points. You have to look at charts in the context of other things like sentiment (extreme bearishness by retail at S&P 1285) and fundamentals (P/E at historically low levels and stock prices discounting Armageddon).
What changed for the consumer?
Citi lost a packet; Google made, I don’t know how many packets; oil up; gold down; the worst is over for financials; it’s a relief rally! When you have a rally the market goes up. Consumers think about that on line in Walmart.
I’m not an active investor, but I want to invest more. I’ve had 2K sitting in a TDAmeritrade account waiting to be used for experimentation and learning. I’ve got 63K (homesale proceeds) in an emigrantdirect account waiting for what I deem to be the “bottom”. Then about 60K is in 40lk and iras of mutual funds. My plan is to “wait for the bottom” then use the 63K on index funds. Since half my life is in cash, I’m more afraid of missing the rally, and really praying for a major crash (something pronounced that I cannot miss)
Russel Napier’s (anatomy of a bear) opinion that we’ll be in bear but up&down market for 6 more years doesn’t thrill me. At least the 2.75% at emigrantdirect is better than my slowly falling mutual funds…
Matt M & MS…good comments….
….i suppress the living crap out of my pysche when making trades….however, it doesn’t stop me from getting pissed when i miss a rally…..
i agree though with MS re: the engines…as of now, they are spent…
This is an amazing rally off the March lows…those who are watching see it for the low volume fake out that it is. Today was the 21st consecutive trading day that QQQQ volume could not even get to its 100 day MA. I must say it hasn’t gotten close on any of those days. I eyeballed my charts and I could see no such similar streak for the last 4 years and I stopped looking. if someone had the data, I’m betting this is a very rare occurrence.
yusef @ 4:14:36 PM: Yes, really. Why would you “fear” cash if you already know the downside(s)? Sure, inflation sucks, the rates on FDIC-insured money markets suck, etc., etc.. So you might not like cash, you might want to avoid it like the plague, but it ranks at the bottom as far as “fear” factor goes. (If you’re a man of the world and can get slammed by exchange rates, different story of course.)
The big laugh about “missing the rally” is how it exposes the inner-gambler that most people want to believe is their inner-investor. An investor wouldn’t fear watching markets bottom, climb & calm before buying into what would by then prove to be a healthy economy. The inner-gambler; well, it’s a horse race and the betting windows are about to close and this just might be the lucky day….
Here is a thought: What if the Rally is in Ultra Shorts?
SRS, FXP, SKF, SDS.
Hey, one man’s crash is another man’s rally!
Don’t miss out, BUY THE ULTRA SHORTS, THEY ARE ON SALE!
You gotta admit it, this ETF thing has changes the landscape-lots more choices.
P.S. forgot to mention that some of the ultra shorts are dividend plays!
can you show the dow again in terms of gold versus dollars?
You did this once before, Barry.
This is why these “rallies” occur. The QQQQs are up less than 10% after about 3 years.
Think about how much gas, health care, milk, stuff costs from 3 years ago. These rallies are meaningless because they’re priced in dollars. My guess is the Dow (in terms of gold) continues to be in a long term downtrend. Anyone making 9% for the year in the stock market is still a loser.
You need to make at least 12 – 15% to stay ahead of inflation now.
Fact is, the markets could go up 9% a year for the next 5 years and everyone would be calling it a wonderful bull market — wouldn’t they?
How is this a bull market if in REALITY — you can’t buy as much stuff?
Graph for Market Caps: S&P energy vesus S&P financials does not make sense to me!
Total Market Value of energy stocks has been going up last few years, total market value of financials has been going down.
Thus a ratio with a numerator-energy (up) and a denominator-financials(down) should be up substantially. Please explain!
“what do you guys/gals do in that struggle?”
How nice to be asked! I sold my index fund because I don’t feel like I know what is going on right now. So that’s sitting in cash. I still have my tech stocks, but I am way overweighted and really ought to sell some. But I don’t know where to go. More cash? Perhaps some of those inflation bonds so I don’t have to fear the cash.
Oh, and I fear losing value more than missing a rally.
Since over 90% of any given year’s returns, on average, are attributable to less than 10% of the time in the market, a prudent strategy would be to just stay in…
Consider this: The broader market is up 4% this week. If the market has an average year and puts in a 9% gain, then missing just one out of 52 weeks nearly cut your gains in half…
Perhaps I have been managing assets too long but it’s all about risk management…
Not sure Mr Roque’s framing of the question is all that helpful.
The S&P energy sector is now at about 14% of S&P500 market cap, which is the highest level since the mid 1980s. Its high cap share was just under 30% in the early 1980s (on a brief spike; more realistically it was in the mid 20s) and the low just under 6% in the late 90s / early 00s.
While it — and commodities more generally — may well have further to run, I don’t think one can realistically say sentiment has been particularly negative. It’s been mostly bullish for quite a while and is currently (at 83% by the crude oil composite sentiment indicator at SentimenTrader) within a sniff of its highs. In addition, the heavy inflow of institutional money into the commodities sector (hardly a sign of disinterest) will in due course leave what may prove a highly problematic inventory overhang for the market to deal with. In that sense, this is truly new territory.
As for the financials, at 17% of market cap, they’re only about 5% off their recent highs and a very long way from their lows of 5-6% in the 80s. FWIW, a decent rally seems likely to me but based on historical market cap shares and the fundamentals, I’d have thought the odds favour selling into one of we do get it. Hard to see how it won’t be a sector under seige for quite some time.
…but then when cash pays 1% and the things you have to buy to live… food, fuel, heat, electricty, healthcare, rent … are going up 10% per year, you can’t afford to stay in cash too long now can you?
How has the stock market done historically in periods of inflation?
Posted by: Jonathan Garber | Apr 18, 2008 2:42:59 PM
//////////////////////////////////////
very well if your into oils and golds and agriculture… and all the winers in here complaining about speculators will keep wining and keep paying through their noses at the
gas pumps….. without thinking for one second to invest into the major trend
I survived the 2nd half of 2007 with all the market turbulence turning in decent profits in my trading account and my clients.
Q1 of 2008 I traded totally defensively with scared money and very small positions and was flat, which I guess I shouldn’t complain about.
All along I have feared missing the inevitable rally and except for this week I have missed it. Thank goodness I caught a wave finally. My big fear really is not keeping up with inflation. Being a saver sucks in this environment. The Fed is forcing me into taking on much more risk than I want to.
I don’t know what the Big Picture is here. We’re in a bifurcated economy where multinational corporations with pricing power can thrive while many consumers are in great pain. I guess there’s no reason to think that can’t continue for quite a while. I truly believe $250/oil and $6-7/gas is a realistic possibility. I guess that can put RIG and POT at $400. I can’t see how most Americans don’t end up sucking huge wind in that reality.
One thing I do know for sure is standing still in an inflationary environment, while better than losing money, still sucks.
The herd buys an up market because they are afraid of missing out. If a bubble is in formation and the rise has just begun, it’s not a bad plan. Decent economic forecasts or an inflating currency are also helpful in sustaining the rally. Doom on the horizon is not an impediment, providing the forecast doom is only an abstract concept.
Belief in a Bernanke Put also provides an incentive.
Preservation of capital is scary. CNBC and sites such as this present investment as sport. The brokers and pundits would always like you to believe there is a rainbow and a pot of gold around the corner.
Are commodities in a bubble, or are they reflecting reality? If significant excess profits are going towards additional capacity, then the bubble reflects reality. When easy credit allows speculators to attract dumb money and everybody sell contracts to each other … many not even reflecting delivery … it is inflation, pure and simple. The FOMC and other central banks are subsidizing it.
Anyone who ignores $116 oil as an effect on consumer spending is, to put it tactfully, fucking stupid. Who is going to buy an LCD tv or a new house if all spare cash is going into the gas tank? McDonald’s … yes. Tablecloth restaurants … not likely.
Anyone who speaks of commodity cycles at this time is really talking about inflation cycles, since additional capacity appears to be an insignificant concern at this time.
Unless the speculative commodity cycle is broken, I am changing my tune and expecting new lows later this year. The smart money will take profits now, and plan to re-enter after clarity emerges.
BTW, as usual, the quality of CAT’s earnings was mixed. $310 million of Sales were due to currency effects. With CAT, their lead times are so long that orders are booked in foreign currency at one level, but the sale is closed and paid upon delivery much later when the dollar has fallen even further.
Thus, it is not a true currency translation effect that flows to the financial statements. But rather a booked order when the Euro is worth $ in dollars is closed when the Euro is worth $+ in dollars.
CAT did well but $310 million off the top was due to the falling dollar and nothing else.
Barry,
I like your blog and I like many of the things you post. But, I think you too are sometimes guilty of making duplicitous arguments. It’s interesting you infer in THIS post that it’s probably better to go with the market that shows no technical signs of peaking. While just two posts later you go on a dissertation about how you cannot always trust market action or what the markets telling you.
So which is it? I know, I know….you just have to be saavy enough to unearth the clues to the puzzle and you are here to help us along.
I take great exception to your assertion that the commodity rise has been “widely disbelieved” the whole way up. IN FACT, the bullish consensus for a wide range of commodities reached maximum, multi-decade extremes in the past several weeks. Gold hit a 95% BULLISH consensus going into the 1000 peak…”showing no technical weakness.” Soybeans showed 90+% BULLISH consensus going into the $16 peak and “showing no technical weakness.” I can go on and on…..And, now, Crude, Heat, RBOB….all pegged out in the mid to high 80% BULLISH CONSENSUS, showing no signs of weakness.
Barry, THIS IS what markets look like going into peaks. True, CNBC can always cart out some top economist that will tell you why commodities are a bubble and are going down…they try very hard to always present two opposite views on every debate. Thus, you may feel like it has been “widely disbelieved.” But the DATA say something different. The exponential rise of LONG ONLY commodity funds RUSHING large amounts of cash into these SMALL markets this decade say something different.
We’re facing some seriously difficult economic times. NO ASSET CLASS will go unscathed.
AT.
BR’s friend asked him: “What’s the greater fear, missing a rally, or owning equities that go down?”
For someone who takes a professional, business-like approach to trading, missing the rally is (or ought to be) the greatest fear.
For someone who takes an amateurish approach, owning equities that go down is the greatest fear.
Stops and margin calls can always get you out of a losing position, but there are no mechanisms like that for getting you *into* a position.
Looking back on my trading career, it’s not my losses (and there have been plenty) that I regret, it’s the rallies that I was too afraid to take advantage of, even though I had good intellectual reason to trust them.
FYI, I’m “afraid” of the current rally, but I’m 75% long anyway, because I’ve got good intellectual reason to trust it.
Sebastian
☺☺”The genuine commodities blow-off top will come when you see people carpooling, investing in futures and even the most ardent right-wing enviro-skeptics talking about conservation. Plus the requisite ‘Death of the American Lifestyle’ cover on Time magazine.”–Posted by: i try to avoid reading comments but still can’t help myself | Apr 18, 2008 3:17:08 PM
You’re too America-centric.
It’s possible that all the things you mention may come to pass, and the dollar-denominated price of oil and other commodities continue to go through the roof.
The bottom line is that the OECD countries, of which the U.S. is the biggest, may just have to get by on less, while the rest of the world enjoys more.
What we may be witnessing now is the end of the U.S. as the polestar of a unipolar world. The U.S. may go down. But it does not automatically follow that the rest of the world will go down concomitantly.
Rydex energy + basic materials assets are 45% of total Ryex ssets, which is 250% of actual market weight as of yesterday’s close.
Anyone who says sentiment is less than torrid towards commodities and materials is being less than forthright or is ignorant of the near record trading long position in these sectors by market timers.
The institutions are fully on board, and the hot money traders and hedge funds are fully on board.
is this the little tail in 2008?
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=XLE:XLF&p=W&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p02423184482
for the record (the any not-too-smart person who trolls internet comments for stock advice) as I commented earlier that commodities are going to the moon…
My 1 cent prediction is that we’ll see a retracement in oil and the energy complex as a lot of the smaller sector names have gone parabolic off the Jan. lows. (but not XOM/large caps, can you say divergence?)
And as the big boys will do an asset allocation trade away from energy into tech as it should apparent evident that the US economy isn’t collapsing.
And as I see regular at $3.79, I’m inclined to see the $4-gas-this-summer news.
However get ready to load the boat once the dust settles and look for one final, tempestuous blow-off top some day….don’t know what the catalyst will be though.
Hi Barry
Doesnt the chart suggest that the long-term avg is speciously high because of the 77-87 decade? The avg would be much lower post that and seems to trend downward.