Ok, ok, spring just started here in South Africa… but in the northern hemisphere winter is fast approaching and looking at all the charts, economic indicators and just general happenings in the conflict with Russia… let’s just say that things are looking pretty dire. Welcome to winter northern hemisphere, I hope you are ready for a cold one.
It’s the 4th of July on Monday and the day that the US celebrates independence day! Which means two things… the US markets are closed (and it will be a bit of a rudderless day for us on Monday) and that we can probably show you the most accurate picture of how markets have been trading so far this year.
Wowzers! What a week that was. I’ll keep the post brief this week as there really isn’t much in the way of positivity on my radar, so the overall message is really just trade small, be careful, stick to stop losses or maybe just take the next few weeks off. Don’t be a hero in this market. So many people are trying to catch the bounce and ‘use this volatility to make the big bucks’, but trust me, for every 10 that enter, 1 will leave. So best stay out of the market until the culling is over. That said, many charts are in the weekly timeframe this week as some longer-term perspective is often helpful.
The markets got smashed last week and even managed to close the US session on the lows. Strangely, sentiment is not at an extreme and it seems that through all of this, retail investors and traders have been net buyers. To us, this sounds like more pain is on the way. So without too much pontification, let’s look at some charts and see what we can find (other than ‘look out below!’ signs nailed to pretty much everything).
It’s been a good while since we lasted posted a weekly game plan and we thought that the time had come to wipe the dust off our blog and get to sharing the weekly game plan again. On that note, the last time we posted we indicated that we preferred to stay on the side-lines, but now we find ourselves asking if it is still a time to be careful, or not time to get back into the market?
Still a time to be careful Read More
$940bn worth of options traded on Thursday last week, making it the single biggest volume day for U.S. options… ever. Interestingly, 70% of the options traded have expiries less than one week. Also worth of note is that options volume was 140% equities volume and the vast majority of those options being bought were calls.
We saw some fear and panic… for about a whole week. Well, in truth, the institutional money didn’t even flinch. The market bounced hard. The Evergrande situation unfolding in China is still rather risky, although it seems that the CCP are doing a rather good job at a ‘controlled demolition’. They might be making an example of Evergrande in an effort to cool off property speculation in general. There have also been some large repurchase agreement (repo) activity over the weekend, which is indicative of monetary stimulus measures to prevent contagion into other sectors. For now it seems, with some help from central banks (as usual), that the bull is strong yet!
The bull is strong yet! Read More
are the fund managers. In fact, allocations into equities are the highest they’ve been since the 2009 global financial crisis. This worries us. Which has us asking if it’s time to hedge portfolios?
Time to hedge portfolios? Read More
markets) seem to be very attractive ‘underperformers’ that seemingly offer a huge amount of value. Generally the thinking is that we are entering into a new global growth phase and that the underperforming emerging markets ‘should’ catch up to developed markets. That is an enticing narrative and one probably worth positioning for. However, there are some warning signs that are not going away and are difficult to ignore.
The BTFD crowd win again Read More
The events of the last week have been nothing short of horrific. But once again, we have shown that the South African spirit cannot be broken! People of all kinds have rallied to not only protect their communities and loved ones, but also to rebuild, repair and bring support to those most severely impacted by the attempted insurrection. Our ability to indiscriminately band together in the face of adversity is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength. And to that end, I want to use this week’s post to encourage you to support KZN this Mandela Day.
Support KZN this Mandela Day Read More
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