Exactly the point I’ve been making. I get the economy and sock markets do not jive but that’s not what drives the markets. You simply cannot ignore the trend. The trend is up. Short term this market is headed higher. Being a bear you will simply get frustrates and will lose money.

I appreciate you sharing contrarian views.

I saw Peter’s post this morning too…surprising, but he did say unless we have a large drop soon.

IMHO, we are either chopping around in this 4/9-23 range to build energy to finally visit the SPY Fib 61.8-75% retrace levels (& fill the open gaps @ SPY 293.15 & 302.46) before next leg down or we should get some impulsive moves down 4/24-5/1 to, at a minimum, test the last breakout zone @ SPY 260-265 if not more (test the 3/22-23 lows…higher/lower lows eventually).

…but, we trade what we have/get. :)

Many thanks!

Cheers!

Peter’s forte is cycle analysis. Similar to the way I apply my TA to various time frames to determine the near-term & longer-term outlook for the market, he applies his cycle tools to various time frames & as of yesterday, he had some longer-term projections on most indexes confirming upside projections that would take the market to new ATH’s.

Again, that is in direct contrast with my outlook but I just wanted to pass that along for those interested as well as to illustrate that a case can be made for the market going higher with many TA disciplines, including cycle projections & as such, one should always be open to all possibilities, especially if/when positioned in one direction, especially when your convictions are high as high convictions (such as I have now) don’t necessarily or always equate to being correct. I respect his analysis & I will say that he mentioned that will the upside projections seemed solid as of yesterday, the possibility that they could be negated soon does exist although it would take a pretty sharp dive in the market soon to do so.

@gmathce…….by chance are you still employed? If so congratulations. By chance are your neighbors, friends, relatives still employed? If so congratulations. But you must ask yourself, at what point does fundamentals come into play. For example, today my company just emptied out half of our restaurant tables in preparation for re-opening one day with 50% less capacity which basically means our forecast may be cut in half. Also how’s your plans on purchasing a house or purchasing a car in the near future? For many Americans, those just got pushed back by a few years. Finally, you must remember that company’s under the PPP loans will only be given enough to pay employees through maybe Q3. What happens when layoffs due to slower business levels come into play for Q4.

What it really comes down to is not the Fed but do these company’s stock prices, once again stock prices justify it being up in these levels. The Fed can print out all the money it wants to but you have to put on your Warren Buffet cap and think stock valuation. The hedge funds know this and it will be a bad few weeks when they all decide to push the sell button in my opinion.

Another thing that I wanted to mention in the video but forgot to touch on AMZN. I’ve been a Prime member for years, very actively ordering as I work from home. Over the past couple of months, I’ve placed several orders on Prime items that most certainly didn’t come in the 2-day guaranteed delivery window. In fact, I don’t even see the 2-day delivery on Prime items at checkout anymore so I guess they dropped it for the time being.

So as I think you are referring to, why should I continue to pay $120/yr or whatever it is when I’m no longer getting the free 2-day shipping but rather waiting days or weeks for my deliveries just as all the non-Prime purchasers that aren’t shelling out over $100/yr? I’d imagine a lot of Prime members have been requesting refunds lately & I see no reason why anyone would start a new Prime membership now, other than to watch some of the Prime videos maybe.

Yes, excellent point. I had originally intended to mention exactly that regarding AMZN in the video as well. I’ve read that they are incurring a lot of expenses in training new hires, dealing with sick or “calling in sick” workers, etc.. Not one that I care to short, at least not at this time but the longer-term bearish case can be made (if I am correct) with my thesis on the tech sector in which there is a belief that those stocks have little to no exposure to the impact from COVID-19 (or in the case of AMZN, not even zero impact but a POSITIVE impact, as the stock ripped to ATH’s). If the economy gets back to firing on all cylinders where it was earlier this year, then new highs in the tech sector & AMZN would make sense. However, AMZN, just like tech, is far from immune to a downturn in the economic cycle as any point in history will show. Only time will tell how much & how soon the economy is back to the same positive growth rate it was earlier this year but until then, I find it hard to make a fundamental case for new highs in the market. At most, I will admit that I have no way of knowing exactly how much of an impact the massive amounts of liquidity injected into the financial system by the Fed & other global CB’s will have on asset prices, regardless of their underlying fundamentals. That’s certainly a wildcard but second to how COVID-19 develops from here for me.

Maybe my longer-term targets will be hit, maybe not. However, if you buy SPY 271 & it continues to fall, especially much below 263 (a pretty key support level, IMO) just don’t get married to the position. As I like to say, be open to any & all possibilities.

I am very much open to the possibility of new highs in the market. That’s not what I think will happen anytime soon & if it does, I can assure you that I will miss out on most or all of those gains, at least on the indexes (hopefully to be offset by gains trading individual stocks, commodities, PM’s & other things) and maybe even catching a decent part of that move, if & when the charts convince me. However, right now, I struggle to find anything in the charts that indicate the recent rally is anything more than just a typical bear market rally.

As far as the Fed, trying to prevent a $38T* dollar stock market (value of the US stock market as of 12/31/19), not to mention an even larger bond market, from going where the fundamentals dictate it needs to go to is akin to a child plugging his fingers in cracks of the Hover Dam as it is starting to fail. Plugging small cracks will hold of the dam from breaking for a little while but sooner or later, more cracks will emerge & the Fed will have run out of fingers to use. The Fed threw everything they had or could think of (at the time) at the market back in early to mid-2008 & it did absolutely nothing but lead to short-term (and impressive) rallies that we sold into & then some sooner or later.

Fundamentals (the economy, corp. earnings, etc.), not the Fed, will decide where the market goes from here & whether or not another 30-50%+ more downside is coming. A big part of that will depend on whether or not we get another big wave SARS-CoV-2 infections, especially if the next one is worse than the previous/current wave. I’m hoping NO & if so, the odds that the bottom for the stock market has already been put in is fair but not great, IMO. Another big outbreak and I think the odds are close to 100% that the March lows will be taken out. JMHO, of course. I appreciate your feedback & analysis.

*Stock market valuations vary. I was using this source: https://siblisresearch.com/data/us-stock-market-value/

Lord Tang? Ha. LMAO.