Thursday, September 19, 2024

S&P 500 Projection Chart from 2009 to 2025 | Jeff Hirsch

We are revising our 15-Year Projection chart. This was first drawn in 2011 when our book Super Boom: Why the Dow Jones Will Hit 38,820 and How You Can Profit From It (Wiley) hit the stores. The projection was based upon, drawn from, years of historical patterns and data. In the years to follow numerous unprecedented events occurred, the Fed held its key lending rate in a range of 0 to 0.25% for an incredible seven years, under took multiple rounds of quantitative easing (QE) and essentially pledged unwavering support for the market. Many other nations and central banks around the world were taking similar or even more aggressive steps to support their own economies and markets. Negative interest rates and negative yields on 10-year bonds are not what we consider normal.
 

Our current updated projection is illustrated in the red line in the chart. In keeping with the history of market performance in pre-election years and the current trajectory of the indices, it would not surprise us for the market to continue rising through April make new high here in Q2, then pause over the weaker summer months before hitting higher highs toward yearend. Next year promises to be an embattled election year and the likelihood of another significant correction or even a bear market are higher.
 
 
 
 
   

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

September Quadruple Witching Week Dodgy, Week After Dreadful | Jeff Hirsch

Since the S&P index futures began trading on April 21, 1982, stock options, index options as well as index futures all expire at the same time four times each year in March, June, September [20 - Fri], and December. September’s quarterly option expiration week has been up 54.8% of the time for S&P 500 since 1982. DJIA and NASDAQ have slightly weaker track records with gains 52.4% of the time and 52.4% respectively.

However, the week has suffered several sizable losses. The worst loss followed the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. In the last twenty-one years, S&P 500 and NASDAQ are tied for best record during September’s quarterly option expiration week, up thirteen times, but NASDAQ has been down the last six straight. Friday had been firm with all three indices advancing every year 2004 to 2011, but S&P 500 has been down 11 of the last 12 and NASDAQ has been down 10 of the last 12 since.

S&P 500 Down 27 of 34 Week After September Quarterly Options Expiration, Average Loss 1.06%

The week after September options expiration week, has a dreadful history of declines most notably since 1990. The week after September quarterly options expiration week has been a nearly constant source of pain with only a few meaningful exceptions over the past 34 years. Substantial and across the board gains have occurred just four times: 1998, 2001, 2010 and 2016 while many more weeks were hit with sizable losses. In 2022 DJIA and S&P 500 declined over 4% while NASDAQ fell 5.07%.

Full stats are the sea-of-red in the tables here. Average losses since 1990 are even worse; DJIA –1.09%, S&P 500 –1.06%, NASDAQ –1.06%. End-of-Q3 portfolio restructuring is the most likely explanation for this trend as managers trim summer holdings and position for the fourth quarter.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

September 19-26 Weakest Seasonal S&P Week of the Year | Wayne Whaley

The weekly performance measure used for comparison is an average of the weeks of interest over the last 50 years, which,
1. Underweights outliers that can distort averages and overweights the observations congregating more toward
     the median and,
2. Weights the most recent years 2 to 1 vs those 50 years prior. 
 

Don't Panic in or out of a Market | Robert Miner

Beware of FOMO. Don't Panic in or out of a Market. Learn to identify probable market position, specific trade opportunities and trade management.
 
ES U24 - daily closes.
» A "daily" high is likely early next week, followed by a 4-5 day or so decline. «
 
ES U24 - weekly bars.
 » ES is likely to be mostly trendless for another week or two. When the two momentum cycles are 
aligned, a consistent trend will follow. The resolution is likely to eventually be to the upside. «
 

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Price Action Patterns & Entries at High and Low of the Day | Cameron Benson

Our focus is on price action trading at key levels: daily high and low, and the previous day's extremes. We examine how price reaches these levels — through Stair-Stepping or Ramping — and its subsequent behavior. The price action patterns include M's, W's, Double Tops/Bottoms, and Pin Hammers at daily highs and lows. 
 
 Stair-Stepping and M Patterns: These indicate potential reversals at daily highs or lows, 
with detailed entries and exits often managed through lower time frames.

Ramping is characterized by parabolic price movements and often leads to swift reversals. Observing tight candle patterns with minimal overlap helps identify strong trends and potential breakouts. We also look for specific patterns like Stair-Stepping and Three Pushes, with Peak Formations signaling possible reversals.

 
 Ramping Behavior: Recognized by tight, parabolic moves followed by rapid reversals. 
The ramp into extremes usually signals significant price shifts.


The following 5 minute charts of the NASDAQ are from last week
(September  9-13, 2024). They show Entry and Exit Strategies, using Pin Hammers and Engulfments for Entries, and managing stops based on price action, with adjustments for larger, more volatile bars.

Monday, September  9 (Day 1 of 3 Day Cycle):
 
 Identified an M pattern at the high of the day with a pin hammer and engulfment, suggesting a strong short entry.

Tuesday, September  10 (Day 2):

 
Despite a promising setup, a large entry bar resulted in a stop-out. 
Emphasis on avoiding large entry bars and managing risk.
 
Wednesday, September 11 (Day 3/1)
 
 Similar to previous days with M patterns and engulfments, also highlighting entry points and risk management.

Thursday (Day 2) and Friday (Day 3), September 12-13:
 
 Charts show patterns like descending triangles and W formations, 
with a focus on understanding price behavior relative to session timings.
 
Successful short-term trading relies on recognizing and acting upon the above presented price action patterns, managing entries and exits based on contextual behavior, and adapting strategies according to the specific market conditions within the 3 Day Cycle.
 

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Hurst Cycle Projection for the NASDAQ and S&P 500 | David Hickson

 
There is uncertainty regarding the 20-day cycle trough's exact timing. The average length for this cycle is 17 days. Positioning the trough on August 22 aligns better with the 40-day cycle, which should be forming around September 9.

 
In the NASDAQ, similar trends are observed. The crest of the red dashed line of the Hurst Cycle Composite is around Quadruple Witching Friday, September 20 ± a few trading days.

 
See also:

Financial Oligarchies vs. State Power | Michael Hudson

My articles about the origins of credit, money, and interest share a common frame of reference. From the inception of economic practices and enterprise in the ancient Near East, through classical antiquity and medieval Europe to today, wealthy classes have sought to transform themselves into an oligarchy that controls government and religion to protect, legitimize, and increase their wealth, especially their rent-extraction privileges as creditors, monopolists, or landlords.

 Marcus Licinius Crassus (115 – 53 BC): 
general, statesman, the richest man in Rome, and a textbook oligarch.
 
We see the same struggle through the ages, with financial elites opposing any government power capable of restricting their self-serving rent-seeking and creditor power at society’s expense. We see it today in the pro-creditor economic policies of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the ‘libertarian’ ideology, all of which seek to centralize power to allocate resources and plan economies within the financial sector instead of democratic governments. Today’s neoliberal idea is to eliminate government authority (except where it is controlled by rentier sectors) and let banks in the privatized financial sector control money and credit, which is the most important public utility.
 

That should be the context in which one examines every epoch’s economic view of the world, above all its perspective concerning how ‘free’ a market should be and just whose freedom is being endorsed. This has been the great question throughout the history of civilization—from the Bronze Age Near East, when rulers regularly proclaimed Clean Slates debt cancellations to restore economic order and check incipient oligarchies, through the five centuries of civil war in the Roman Republic and Jesus’s fight against the emerging Jewish oligarchy, to today’s civilizational struggle between the NATO West, dominated by U.S.-oriented rentier oligarchies, and the global majority now centered on the BRICS.

 Rare Anomaly: Populist Pariah Oligarchs Proclaiming to Serve the Common Good —  September 2, 2024.

China’s government has financed its remarkable industrial takeoff without having to borrow from private creditors. There was little money to borrow from its domestic population, so the Bank of China printed its own money. Unlike typical financial practice, it did not demand personal wealth be pledged as collateral because stock and bond holdings or substantial real estate did not yet exist. The government did not need to turn to bondholders to increase its public spending—and in any case, there were no domestic bondholders to borrow from in the wake of its Revolution. China did what any sovereign national government can do—what Abraham Lincoln did in the Civil War. It simply printed the money.
 

Failed U.S. Regime Change Attempt in Mexico

The adoption of a constitutional reform in Mexico ended in riots. Demonstrators seized the Mexican Senate building and tried to disperse lawmakers. But unsuccessfully, two thirds of the senators managed to vote in favor. The reform will affect the Supreme Court of Mexico - its members will now be directly elected. This has become a priority for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. After all, the judges blocked many of his initiatives in every possible way. López Obrador's successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won the recent elections, and his Morena party won two-thirds of the seats. Now they are going to change the judges.
 
 USAID demonstrators storm the upper house and enter the chamber.
 —  September 11, 2024.

At the moment, the courts are increasingly involved in politics, and all over the world - from the USA and Brazil to Poland and Israel. Therefore, the struggle for control over the judicial system is intensifying everywhere. In Mexico, López Obrador's reforms are causing acute dissatisfaction with Washington. The American ambassador even called them
"the erosion of democracy." Well, through USAID and funds from the United States, the activities of opposition NGOs are sponsored, whose participants just stormed the Senate building on September 11. And, unlike the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 this did not cause any criticism from Democrats in the United States. 
 
Mexico has already curtailed military cooperation with Washington and refuses GMO grain from the United States. During the López Obrador era, Mexico began to drift towards China. The pro-American candidates in the recent elections have flown by. So López Obrador has to rock the boat through the riots - and at the same time the U.S. writes Mexico off the "list of democracies." López Obrador in response refuses to help with the migration crisis, which is already destabilizing the United States itself.

 
Reference:

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Russia Happy with Harris and Trump | Alexander Dugin

If Trump wins, he will act differently than he did during his first term in office. He won't have another chance to put his ideas into action. And he does have ideas. He wants to change everything in both US foreign and domestic policy. And now he's not gonna care about the Swamp. He will have to napalm it. In fact, he'll establish a national idea against globalism, and maybe even raise the dizzyingly Hegelian question of constitutional monarchy. And how else to make America great again than by proclaiming a monarchy! And you have Curtis Yarvin, the mastermind behind the post-liberal right-wing Vance, saying the same thing. And yes, Trump will likely lift sanctions on Russia and try to break our alliance with China.

»  We'll be supporting not Trump, but Kamala Harris. She will destroy America for sure. «

However, we'll be supporting not Trump, but Kamala Harris. And rightfully so. After all, she will destroy America for sure. It's certainly a safer option. But we're happy with either candidate. We can deal with either a great strong American monarchy based on traditional values (Trump will quickly eliminate all its furries and quadrobers and lgbt+ people, take away dope from drug addicts, and finally build the highest wall with Latin America), or stoned liberal degenerates on all fours, who abandon their old astronauts in orbit because of commercial expediency and encourage illegal migrants to rob stores and kill whites. These are very promising elections for Russia. So, we have no reason to interfere in them. What for?


Chinese Intellectual Shen Yi on the U.S. presidential Debate —  September 10, 2024.
 

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Toby Crabel’s Bull Hook Trading Strategy Tested | Ali Casey

As an algo trader, I value patterns for their ease of programming and testing, which allows for the development of robust trading strategies. Today, we'll explore bull and bear hooks, patterns that can vary in details but generally serve to catch traders on the wrong side. Toby Crabel, Joe Ross, and Thomas Bulkowski, among others, have variations of these patterns.

Toby Crabel's original definition of the Bull Hook pattern:
» A Bull Hook occurs on Day 2. A Bull Hook is defined as a day with a higher open than the 
previous day's high followed by a lower close with a narrowing daily range. The next day (Day 1), 
a trade is taken on the initial move off the open, preferably to the upside. «
 
Toby Crabel's original definition of the Bear Hook pattern:
  » Bear Hook is a day in which the open is below the previous day's low and the close 
is above the previous day's close with a narrow range relative to the previous day. As implied by 
the name there is a tendency for the price action following a Bear Hook to move to the downside. «

The Bull Hook pattern has two main forms:

Bull Hook 1: In a downtrend, the pattern is identified when today's bar is an up bar with a smaller range than the previous day and is an inside day (high lower, low higher than the previous bar). We buy with a stop order above the high of this bar.
Bull Hook 2: Here, today's bar is a down bar with a smaller range than the previous day, opening above the previous high and closing below the previous close. This pattern involves just two bars.


For testing, I used TradeStation with S&P 500 e-mini futures data. The backtest for Bull Hook 1 was disappointing, showing a loss with only 15 trades, which seemed unusual given its pullback nature. A deeper analysis suggested that the specific conditions, particularly the inside day and green bar requirements, were limiting trades. By removing some conditions, like the inside day and green bar, and focusing on a simpler pullback strategy, the results improved significantly with about 200 trades and positive performance metrics. For Bull Hook 2, the test also yielded fewer trades than expected, which might be attributed to its breakout nature, not performing well on the S&P 500. Simplifying the conditions here also improved the results somewhat, though it remained less effective. The Bear Hook pattern, when flipped for long trades, performed better but still had a low trade count. Removing some conditions and simplifying it increased the trade count and improved performance. While both Bull Hook patterns had potential, their effectiveness was highly dependent on specific conditions and the number of trades generated. Simplifying the patterns often led to better results.