Volatility is subsiding and markets are feeling more confident than they have for some time. We can debate about logic and valuations and inflation for days on end. In the end though, it will boil down to “yes, nothing makes sense” and “don’t fight the FED”. The money printer is going brrrr and all we can do is hold tight while the bulls give another run.
Markets have been uneasy for a rather long time now. Well, uneasy is perhaps a mild way to put it. Markets have been uneasy for the last few months, maybe, but just over a year ago markets were in a full-blown panic. Thankfully those crazy times have passed. Over the last two weeks, we’ve even seen the VIX below 20, which is something that has not happened in a mighty long time. Lower volatility signals higher risk appetite and we think a VIX below 20 signals risk on in equity markets.
Markets bounced hard in the second half of last week. It’s almost hard to believe how fast things are changing in the current landscape. Although there are so very many reasons to be cautious, if not flat out bearish, the market is just pulling its ears back and making its way higher despite the conditions of the world around it. Thus, given the strong footing the market ended on last week, and of course the charts, we think that we’ll likely see new highs in the week ahead.
Well, after all that bearishness, all we got was one day of #marketcrash trending on twitter and a bounce so glorious I’m sure people will be singing songs about it at some point in the future. It seems that ‘buy the dip’ is not dead just yet. In truth, the irrationality of this whole market is starting to scare me a little, although I am not going to fight the ‘buy the dip’ crowd.
As equity valuations reach closer and closer to the stratosphere, trading Gold has become a little more tricky than what it was when all the stimulus was just announced. In fact, Gold has been fading ever since August last year. Now, after all is said and done, we’re finally starting to see Bond Yields start to rise and the Dollar start to strengthen. These two forces might be enough to catch some the bulls trading Gold offside. Things are looking fairly bleak for the shiny yellow metal.
The fast paced world out there always tries to get us to take action immediately. There is a sense of urgency that is ever pressing. You have to buy this useless trinked right now! You have to act now to make money on the stock market! Cryptocurrencies are exploding and you must act immediately lest you want to ‘enjoy staying poor’. This is all garbage. The reality is that there is a lot of patience needed if you want to make any sustainable, long-term progress. The same is true with trading. The patience needed to wait for the right trades, at the right levels is something that almost never talked about. So although there are a few decent setups this week, there are a few markets on which we have to respect the patience needed and wait for a more clear setup.
This week I am keeping things a little less ‘opinion’ and focusing just on technical trade ideas. Well, trying to keep opinion out of it at least and just following what the chart says. So let’s get into it.
The weather in the northern parts of South Africa is likely to be a little wild in the week ahead. We just hope that the hurricane that has made landfall in Mozambique does not cause large scale damage. Spending the week indoors, sadly, is nothing new thanks to lockdown. Now we just have to hope that the coal stays dry so that we don’t have electricity disruptions. These are strange times to be living in to be sure. At least we have markets to look at and keep us busy while a hurricane and a virus rage outside.
Very often it’s better to not listen to the news, or the hype of all the mad things happening in the world around us. Most of the time, it’s better to just sit down and focus on the things that we can measure. So to a large extend we try to do that this week, although we must admit the the blue wave in the U.S. is probably the primary driver behind the strength we saw last week. It’s very likely going to be the source of a whole lot more strength in the week ahead.
Markets open for trading on Monday and our thinking is that the major theme for the week ahead is going to be stimulus, gold and Bitcoin.
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