I'm Turning Japanese

I bet you never thought you'd associate Devo with technical analysis, but check out their song "Patterns":

Patterns all around you
patterns everywhere
patterns of behavior
sometimes seem unfair
can you recognize the patterns that you find?

Patterns unfamiliar
patterns lead you through to
patterns of discovery
tracing out the clues
can you recognize the patterns that you find?
stuck in your mind

In this land where stability is hard to find
you can rearrange the patterns so unkind
don't bother asking why a pattern never cries
old patterns never die they just go on and on

Patterns multiplying
re-direct our view
endless variations
make it all seem new

Cool, huh?

I read an interesting article about Richard Russell throwing in the towel. He has been a bear for lo these many years. Now, at long last, he's saying it's bull market time. Draw your own conclusions.

Oh, and don't forget to sign the petition to keep Paris out of jail. As the petition declares, "...She provides beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives." God knows that I'm grateful that an illiterate, insipid member of the lucky sperm club gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. I only pray that they don't do a reality show of her incarceration.

One of the readers, Keith Shepherd, mentioned this interesting article about the similarities between the "melt-up" in the Dow recently with the Nikkei back in the final weeks of 1989. Whenever I read that the current market resembles a certain period of the past, I check it out, and usually the graphs don't really match.

Because I adore my blog readers - well, most of them, anyway - I made the effort to fire up Photoshop and blend the recent history of the Dow 30 with the Nikkei 225 during the last portion of 1989. Even I was surprised at the results. They are virtually a perfect match, right down to the doji hanging man pattern created today.


Let's back up some. Take a look at the Nikkei through the 1970s and 1980s. An amazing, incredible, "let's all learn to speak Japanese" (remember that?) kind of market. People were freaked out, and the Japanese were snapping up the Empire State Building, Pebble Beach, and everything else in sight.


Looking closer, you can see that practically every day was an up day. Now let me ask you - - and I'm directing this at the bulls. Where was the warning sign? Where did it show a top was in place? How could you tell that this was the end? Imagine you were massively long this market. How would you know the party was over?


I don't need to tell you what happened next.


Let's take another, smaller example - Malaysia. This little country had a great run-up in their share prices.


But notice what happened after the melt-up. Things went to hell in a handbasket. (I sold short a bunch of EWM today, with a stop at 12.11).


OK, back to the present. DRQ represents a potential buy. In this kind of market, I'm really reluctant to go long, but if you must, this is worth checking out.


I would say the same thing (with similar warnings) for former shining star JetBlue (JBLU), which seems to be in the process of forming a series of higher highs and higher lows, having suffered terribly over the past year.


Oh, and MicroStrategy (MSTR), mentioned on this page many times recently as a short candidate, finally paid the piper. I've marked the failed bullish breakout earlier this year which preceded this nasty tumble.


Your video entertainment today combines two of my favorite cultural touchstones: Star Trek and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The few moments with Captain Pike is alone worth your time.

Vox Populi

All right, the votes are in!

I appreciate so many people voting - well over 600 took part in the first "Technical Analysis with Tim Knight" poll, and the results are illuminating.

The first question was to address whether or not anonymous posters should be allowed to comment on this blog. I've flip-flopped on this decision (alone) many times. Sometimes I open it up to anonymous posters, since it increases the activity of the comments section and makes it easy for everyone to post. But then, once a few bad apples spoil things for everyone else with abuse and pointless put-downs, I decide to shut them off again.

So I decided to take this issue to the voting public. Watching the results was like watching a horse race. It was neck and neck for a long time, then "Ban Anonymous" starting to take hold. In the end, the majority voted to eliminate anonymous posters. I guess the verbal fistfights got to be just too much. So.......you have to be a registered user to post here. That definitely means the comments section will be a lot less active, but it will by the same token be a lot more civil.


The next question I asked was how to improve the blog - - unfortunately, I only gave three choices: more index analysis, more stock analysis, or a reduction in the comedy. I didn't include a forth choice, "Everything is Fine", which apparently a lot of people would have checked had they been given the chance.


Those that clicked Other entered nearly one hundred specific suggestions, most of which were along the lines of "Leave it just the way it is." So - - will do!


Finally, out of curiosity, I wanted to see if the readers of this blog tended to be bulls, bears, or simply rational non-animals. It seems that most people claim to be agnostic, neither bullish nor bearish. I guess this is similar to asking whether a person is liberal or conservative, and they answer "economically conservative and socially liberal." It's a nice, safe middle ground. So be it.


In spite of the Dow's strong run today (and its continued attempts to crack 13,000 - - come on, can't you get it over with?!?!?) the Russell is still looking good on the short side.


And the Gold and Silver index continues to behave nicely within its descending channel.


I entered a new short today, CRR.


I don't have a position in CRS right now, but it looks like a potential short, since an otherwise beautiful bullish pattern isn't seeming to catch fire - - added to which, the volume has been slowly dying down for over a year.


I like the looks of MicroStrategy (MSTR) for a short position too.


...same story with MWP. As you can see, I'm using a trip of moving averages to help drive home the waning momentum.


As for ONT, the stock I keep mentioning as a long - - it continues to look good, and on sensational volume. Remember my cautionary tale from yesterday, though.


Lastly, my X puts finally started pushing up in price. It's about time.


Everyone is obsessed with 13,000. As I said, I (strangely) want to cross it. "13k and out of the way", so to speak. I imagine once this barrier is crossed, people will check that off their list and start selling into it.

Oh, and.......

I, For One, Welcome Our New Bull Overlords.....

Thanks for coming back this weekend (or Monday......) to see my post. I had to do some thinking, charting, and scanning to reassess the market.

Oh, before I begin, a shameless plug: for those who have been holding off buying Chart Your Way to Profits, check out the reviews of my book. You'll be able to get some third-party opinions from those who have actually read it. The one negative review was from someone who didn't realize the book was largely about ProphetCharts and JavaCharts. So, consider yourself warned.

I really tried to look at the whole market with a very open mind, because the strength of the bulls since July has been frustrating, confusing, and vexxing. I keep coming back to the graph below, which shows the S&P 500 over the long haul. I simply cannot see that we are set up for a bullish surge. I don't want to hear about liquidity, the global economy, or the trillion dollar oil surplus seeking a home. This blog is about charts, and the charts, to me, don't say "buy."


Looking at a short-term S&P chart, we can see that we're getting dangerously close to the high set back in February. It isn't the all-time high (set early in 2000), but it's getting close to that as well. The big question now is, does the market (a) sink from here (b) push up to a double top and then sink (c) blow past the February high and make an assault on the all-time high from the bubble.


To me, an important indicator to watch is the NZD/USD market. The New Zealand kiwi has been extraordinarily strong. The weakness in late February was a good early indicator of the tumble the markets took. But, since then, this currency has basically been going straight up.


Another item I watch is China - one shorthand way to do it is via GCH (Greater China Fund). One interesting tidbit is that it seems to have retraced up to a retracement level. We'll see if it backs away or not.


I wanted to show a few examples of why it's careful not to fall in love with a particular point of view. In particular, why it's important not to anticipate pattern completion.

Technical analysis is a helpful tool - especially in markets that are friendly toward one's general investment disposition. For instance, if the market were, by and large, weak, the short ideas I've suggested over the past months would have been quite successful. But the fact is that we're swimming against the tide, and that makes it very, very hard.

And I'm not saying the market would have to be in some horrendous free fall. But if things were easing down, week to week, and month to month, that's where using T.A. to smoke out good short opportunities is invaluable.

But when you're swimming against the tide, you have to be extra vigilant. Take BP, for instance, shown below. I mentioned this as a potential short. It had a beautiful topping pattern. It broke below its neckline. And it started falling.

But what happened next? It got strength. It went above the same neckline. Thus, the pattern was rendered moot. And then it soared! Being able to escape the "jaws of death" like this is a real sign of strength that must be feared by bears.


Here's a similar situation with FTO. A gorgeous head and shoulders in the making. But the pattern did not complete! You can see what happened next. That's why scoring a little more profit by seeing a completed pattern in your mind's eye is seldom worth it.


For our next example, here's HES. I've often pointed out how, once a trendline is broken, the price obediently stays beneath it, and maybe "kiss the underside" of the trendline. That's all well and good, but it doesn't mean a collapse is at hand. A price can stay beneath its trendline for a very long time and still make tons of money for the bulls.


My general feeling toward the index is simply that I don't know what the hell is going on. A terrible confession, eh? But these markets are bewildering these days. You're going to hear the same story from me - - we're pushing toward either a double top or to new highs. We're awfully close to one or the other.


$NDX is a skosh weaker. It could back off from the horizontal line I've drawn. Or not.


I was blown out of my precious $RUT puts. But that's what stops are for, right? I don't like the look of this index nearly as much as I used to.


Some indices - such as the $XMI, shown below - have wasted no time in going to new lifetime highs. Disturbing. The bulls are in their ninth month of totally owning this market.


Most of the strength these days is in really "old school" stuff. I'm talking about Steel.....Uranium......Copper........and, for God's sake, Railroads! This is no "new economy" play here. It's 19th/20th century stuff. Here's uranium company CCJ, for instance:


Goldman Sachs gave me at least a little relief. Even on a strong up day, it was weak.


Tech giant IBM, on which I also own puts, also was surprisingly weak.


I'm looking at MLM for a new short position.


I've been short MSTR for a couple of weeks, based on the failed breakout you see highlighted here. So far, so good.


MWP is in a tight range. It's going to break one way or the other soon. I have no position at this time on this one.


Someone mentioned last week the stock ONT. I felt strongly bullish on it based on the breakout and volume strength. It has moved up handsomely since then and looks better than ever.


SCHN (Schnitzer Steel - try saying that five times fast) has a hugely bullish pattern too.


SWN, mentioned here bullishly before, looks even better.


If you think oil stocks are going to weaken, XOM is a pretty-good looking short/put candidate.


As you can see from today's posting, it's more of a bullish/bearish mix. My frothing-at-the-mouth bearishness has become really attenuated by the market's action recently. It's disappointing. I shall continue to watch, wait, and hope.

So Short, I Could Jump Off a Nickel

One of the readers of this blog commented last night: "If we have a down 3rd Friday, It’ll be the first one I’ve seen, in (well, in a second, as far back as….wait, I think I found it, … no wait, that’s not it, well.. Records don’t go back far enough." Well, we were down today 50 points on the Dow. Another good week!

Here's a daily graph of the S&P 500. I've put three moving averages on this index graph - a 50 day, a 100 day, and a 200 day. The big drop on February 27th sliced through the 50 day and the 100 day. The recover from that fall kissed the underside of the 100 day. And now it's falling again, pulling both the 50 and the 100 into a downward slope.


Here's something more remarkable to me. See that huge upward-sloping channel? Now take a close look at the upper line of that channel. Keep in mind I drew that channel a while ago. Take a look at what happened today on a minute-by-minute basis:


Do you see what I'm talking about? The arrow marks the place where the index bounced off the trendline virtually to the penny. Astonishing! Once again, this isn't a trendline I drew today. I drew it a long time ago. But now that we're back within the channel, the price is obeying this level splendidly.

A lot of people, myself including, have become hung up on the fact that the $VIX has become so "high" in a very short amount of time. Going from the single digits to 16 is a big move, to be sure. But step back and look at the $VIX over the past decade. The norm was for it to bounce between about 20 and 30, with occasional bursts above and (less frequently) below these levels. So a level of about 16 is actually way under the norm still.


Looking at the NASDAQ Composite, if there is any regularity to the broad action of the market, it seems we're still in the same sine-wave type pattern with plenty of room left to the downside.


The Dow 30 did a gorgeous bounce off the underside of the 100 day moving average. It seems to me the next target is to take out that red 200 day moving average.


Regular readers know of my fondness of the Russell 2000, particularly since the put options have a much more reasonable bid/ask spread than the S&P 500. A tight stop on this would be about $785.


The Major Market ($XMI) is another interesting graph. We've come full circle on the breakout. The downward momentum of this market doesn't seem like a fluke anymore. It feels truly bearish.


Most of the attention has been focused on the rinky-dink sub-prime mortgage lenders. Gigantic blue-chip banks like B of A (BAC) seem vulnerable now. Check out the topping pattern and busted trendline.


Black and Decker sports an interesting diamond-like top.


Purse-maker Coach (COH) has had a great run, but it seems to be history.


Google (GOOG) is not a slam-dunk bearish pattern, but busting that supporting trendline would cause some big fireworks. I personally think Joost is going to completely trash YouTube. I'd go so far as to say YouTube may go down as one of the stupidest acquisitions in modern corporate history. But only time will tell. It's great for the sophomoric videos I post here, at least.


MicroStrategy (MSTR) continues to have its steam leak out its sides.


And for today's video clip.......Carmen Electra's completely hilarious and unintentional pratfall at a fashion show. Chevy Chase could never mime something this good. Find some good Benny Hill-style music to play while watching this.