Shedding some light on the violent stock market moves

Have you ever heard of the saying “Be careful what you wished for?” It turns out that traders wished to see some growth in average hourly wages, some inflation over deflation and yields on long duration bonds to go up. They got their wish which started a violent market correction.

Market watchers remain at odds over what tripped the sell switch. Primarily, the conversation comes down to fundamental vs. technical. In the days since the correction began the markets have recouped more than half the downside since the low point.

Plenty of theories, I call mine “The Domino Effect”

Inflation fears was the first domino to fall hitting the fear of raising interest rates. The next domino to fall was money managers and institutional investors were caught with a lot of leveraged positions. The sharp fall triggered margin calls causing massive sell orders. This initiated sell orders from funds that use technical analysis better known as quantitative funds. The last domino to fall was retail investors (who haven’t seen a correction in over two years) did some panic selling.

The Dow suffered two drops of 1,000 points. The fall seems big but the actual percentage was not extraordinary. There have been larger percentage drops in the past. In my 35 years of investing, I have experienced some worse percentage downward moves.

Rank	Date	Close	Net change	% change
1	October 19,1987	1,738.74	−508.00	−22.61
8	October 26, 1987	1,793.93	−156.83	−8.04
9	October 15, 2008	8,577.91	−733.08	−7.87

 

Is the correction over?

The market fundamentals haven’t really changed. U.S. corporate earnings are getting better and the Trump tax cuts should boost economic growth. Plus there is systematic economic growth happening in both developed and emerging markets.

I am not an expert on technical analysis and I don’t believe in buying or selling based on lines on chart. However, pension funds, hedge funds and quantitative funds use technical indicators to manage a large amount of investors’ money. 

Analysis from Kensho, a quantitative analytics tool used by hedge funds, looked at seven occasions of similarly sharp drops in the S&P 500 beginning in 1987. The study found that following such a drop, stocks tended to fall further, with a median decline of 2.29 percent one week later and a drop of 1.68 percent two weeks later.

 

This is the ABCD bullish chart:

This is the year to date chart of the S&P 500:

In my humble opinion, corrections tend to last more than nine days. I put some money to work last week and plan on dollar cost averaging on some more positions. If you are new to my blog, consider reading:  Dollar-cost averaging using an option strategy

What do you think? Are you buying the dips or selling into the rallies?

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Market crash or correction could be a good time to buy

 

 

My blog post last week warned of a possible correction due to Trump’s future withdrawal from NAFTA. I believed that a pullback was in the cards but you never know what will trigger a sell off.  The pullback started to get some steam on Thursday afternoon when the Atlanta Fed released their projections for first quarter GDP growth to come in at 5.4 per cent!

That really spooked the stock market since 4th quarter GDP was only 2.6 percent which was below consensus estimates of 3 percent. The Friday’s job numbers fueled the downdraft even further as investors digested a stronger-than-expected jobs report where the average hourly wages rose more than expect.

Higher wages can point to higher inflation, which, in turn, could lead the Fed to raise interest rates more aggressively. Those concerns allowed the 10-year Treasury yield to rise above 2.8 percent.

Keep in mind that the S&P 500 has risen 6 percent in the year to date and is on track for its 10^th straight month of gains. At these levels, this would be the best January since 1997. The S&P’s relative strength index ended last week at 90, its highest level on record. (Overbought territory) Its price-to-earnings ratio hit 18.44 times forward earnings this week, its highest level since May 2002.

Two other factors that may have contributed to the main benchmarks suffering their biggest one-day drops in more than a year and posting the steepest weekly losses in about two years.

1. Friday marked the last day for Janet Yellen as the head of the Federal Reserve, giving way to her successor, 64-year-old Jerome Powell. Powell’s entry adds uncertainty into the markets.
2. The politics in D.C. with the release of the Nunes memo adds political uncertainty as to whether the business friendly republicans will lose in the November elections.

The Dow Jones futures market points to a negative opening on Monday. There could be even more selling pressure near the end of the week because of a possible government shut down over Trump’s immigration demands.

Why you shouldn’t worry

• The Atlanta Fed was also optimistic about the 2017 first quarter, estimating growth at one point to be 3.4 percent, where the final reading came in at 1.2 percent.
• Higher wages doesn’t always lead to higher inflation. Consumers could opt not to spend but pay down debt or increase their savings.
• Over the long run, good quality stocks will outperform bonds.

In my thirty plus years of investing, I have seen many bear markets and corrections. Ask yourself a simple question. How many millionaires do you know that became wealthy by investing in savings accounts?

What is on my shopping list? U.S. financials and technology.