Bi-Honar
08-01-2010, 01:18 AM
Well friends, my two week hiatus from IC has not been a walk in the park or sipping Margaritas on a beach somewhere. Quite the contrary, I had been scanning hundreds of articles and observing the minute by minute movement of the Dow-30 (DJI) and Nasdaq-100 (NDX) indices tirelessly every day for the past two weeks. Business is unusually slow during the summer months and I thought I could supplement my income of zero at the moment with some stock trades in my self directed retirement plan. My philosophy being that even $100 / day is better than nothing, particularly in a tax sheltered account. But as with any other venture, much research was required and although the lessons are never cheap in the stock market, I think they will be worth it in the long run. As such, I'd share some of my findings with you in the hope that reading and judging them for what they are can save you money and maybe even help you make a few hundred bucks (all of these are of course my opinions based on my research, so please judge them as such):
Double Dip Recession, reality or myth?
I'm sure most of you living in the US have heard this phrase being used quite often lately. Is the US headed for another two quarters of contraction in the comings months The short answer is that with unemployment levels hovering around 9.5%, the definition of a recession being two "consecutive" periods of negative GDP is not relevant. GDP growth is calculated either based on the previous quarter or previous year's GDP. As such a Real GDP growth of 2.4% (released yesterday) over the last quarter which in itself was dismal, is nothing to write home about and that comparison with the year over year numbers is even more meaningless considering the extent of the economic meltdown in 2009. In other words, the latest US GDP for Q2 of 2010 is still less than what it was in the 3rd quarter of 2008 when everything started to unravel!!! Of course, throw in the Trade Weighted USD exchange comparison (to see how the US GDP, expressed in dollars, compares to currencies of its trading partners) and the severity of situation becomes even more apparent. As such, this has been one long continuing recession even if the technical definition of a recession is not met. The double-dip phrase is simply meaningless in the lieu of a continuing and to be continued recession.
Macro-economy
Almost all macroeconomic indicators have been ringing danger bells for the past few weeks. They may seem okay on the surface (as does the GDP growth number discussed above), but below the surface, they confirm the emergence of another troubling period - not so much for the economy - but for the stock market. As I mentioned above, the US economy is already in pretty bad shape and main street hardly needs macroeconomic indicators to confirm what Wall Street refuses to accept.
The markets are currently run by macroeconomics not earnings reports on individual stocks. The reason for this is that we're right at border of another collapse - good economic news will push us just a bit beyond that threshold and continuing bad news will bring about another stock market crash - although not to the same extent as we saw in late 2008 and early 2009. The stock market recovery happened too fast by overzealous investors disappointed by the fall in the value of their portfolios, not because of a robust and recovering economy.
There was a huge rally yesterday after the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey was released. It came in at 67.8 compared to the previous month's 66.5 and analyst consensus of 67. The rally (with typically low volumes of the summer months) saw the DOW jump nearly 1.0 percent. Was it justified? Hardly so, considering the number is just slightly higher than what it was last summer when the DOW was hovering between 8 to 9 thousand, and even lower than it was in September '08 - again before everything started to unravel! Of course, the more important Conference Board's Consumer Confidence for July (released earlier in the week) was both lower than the previous month and analyst expectations and has been in constant decline since April, but Wall Street seems to have a short term memory!
Of course, the rally yesterday was also supported by the Chicago PMI (Purchasing Manger's Index), a non-quantitative survey of purchasing mangers across the country, which came in both higher than the previous month and analyst expectations. It's needless to say that not much weight can be put on a qualitative, rather than quantitative, survey of purchasing mangers, all of whom undoubtedly have stock portfolios and would like to see the value of their investments increase. The Initial Jobless Claims number is still hovering way above 400,000 and again at the same level it was in September '08 before everything fell apart.
New Home sales are still lower than what they were before the recession started and even lower than what they were last year, even with lower mortgage rates! The all important Durable Goods Orders has been falling for two straight months. Crude inventories increased over the previous week by a whopping 7.2 million barrels (showing decreased activity). The Housing Market Index has been falling for two straight months, Housing Starts have never really recovered from their already low levels in December '08 (after the crash), Existing Home Sales have dropped significantly after peaking in the last quarter of '09 and of course, I don't need to mention Bernanke's "unusually uncertain" comments about the economy meant not to spook the general public!!! This has all been the official indicators of the past 2 weeks.
The unofficial indicators of the past few weeks, the ones to which the stock market doesn't react,but tell the tale of Main Street, show that July was one of the worst months in terms of number of banks which have failed in the US! In fact, there have been 108 bank failures in the first 7 months of 2010. Compare that with 11 bank failures from 2003-2008, 25 in 2008 and 140 for the whole of 2009!!! In 2008 the FDIC said there are 117 problem banks which could fail. That numbers has already been surpassed obviously and earlier this year they revised that to 700 banks which could fail in the next few years - staggering numbers, showing the depths of the continuing problems with the banks. This dwarfs the European banking stress tests which received so much attention from wall street, where the banks needed to raise under 10 billion in capital to meet some laxed and imaginary austerity scenario. The total assets of the banks which have failed in the US since April is in excess of 57 billion dollars!
Speaking of austerity measures, the Brits have already started with the measures needed to bring their budget and national deficits under control, as have the Greeks and the Spaniards. Iceland was of course the first country to embark on a crash course back in 2008 and after multiple bailout loans from Russian and the IMF, S&P just this week downgraded their bonds to junk status - another event which received little attention from wall street, but is indicative of problems yet to come from the Euro zone. Greece has been completely immobilized in the past week because of strikes by truckers delivering fuel and both their farming industry and tourism have been hit hard. Expect this problem with strikes spreading like the Greek forest fires of 2007 to the rest of Europe. Austerity measures are good neither for economic growth nor for employment - the two issues the US is already facing before any austerity measures are undertaken. The UK estimates are a loss of 750,000 public sector jobs and in the US (without any official austerity measures), state and local governments are expected to cut 400,000 jobs within the next year.
So, if the growth isn't coming from Europe or the US, all eyes are on China. The unofficial (main street) situation has been so bad there that car dealerships have slashed prices by 15% in the past couple of months and offering free iPads (not yet officially available in China) just to move their inventories! They went through a period of "free for all" in terms of lending last year which fueled economic growth both there and worldwide, but all that is long behind us. The municipal and local governments are estimated to have spent over a trillion dollars of borrowed money from the banks which according to leaked information can not be retrieved, nor was spent on income earning projects. That's right, a trillion dollars out of the Chinese money supply with no hope of inducing any type of economic activity!
The Chinese PMI numbers (the best gauge of economic activity there) are being released this weekend - one official state one which is expected to hover just above the all important 50 mark (anything below 50 means contraction) and one by HSBC which will surely drop below the 50 mark. With no major earning reports on Monday, the markets (particularly the bears) are going to be looking at the numbers very closely. They will most certainly start a sell-off early on Monday morning before the ISM Mfg. Index and the Construction Spending values are released at 10:00 a.m. Needless to say, the Construction Spending numbers will be disappointing at best, but the ISM Mfg. index may be the last nail in the coffin for the markets and start off the major drop in the markets which will see the DOW end at or near the 8,500 mark before it starts recovering.
The previous value for the ISM Mfg. Index was 56.2, the analyst consensus is 54.0 (range of 52.5 to 55.5) and a Goldman analyst (who uses similar criteria to calculate his own value of the index before it's released) has predicted a number below 50, which would mean a contraction in factory activity and a major red flag for the markets. Even if the number comes in below or at the analyst consensus, it's too close for comfort and the market sell-off will happen. There are plenty of doom and gloom stats coming in for the rest of the week as well, if the downward spiral doesn't start on Monday morning.
Possible Investment Opportunities
There's still plenty of money to be made in a down market. The most readily available tools are ETF's which track the inverse performance of the markets. My two favorites are DXD which returns the double inverse performance of the DOW-30 and QID which does the same for the Nasdaq-100 index. A 1% drop in the value of the NASDAQ-100 index is roughly equivalent to a 2% gain in the value of the QID exchange traded fund.
Please be careful if you decide to play the bear market since increase in the value of these indices means a loss and a continuing climb in stock values means mounting losses. If buying these equities, please be prepared to keep an eye on the market on a minute-by-minute basis or place a limit order to cut your potential losses. I have placed my "bet" on the markets having downward pressure in the near term - whether this week or in the coming weeks - and accepted the risk of my predictions which I'm making based on macroeconomic indicators and news. As with any other stock market strategy, there's an inherent risk involved and it should be evaluated properly.
Having said that, I find that Macroeconomic analysis of the stock market at the moment is much more straight forward than trading individual stocks. Another potentially useful strategy is to purchase the equivalent value of ETF's that track the actual index movement (2x). This way, you're gaining if the market goes down and will sell the inverse ETF's at or near the market bottom and sell the direct ETF's when the market comes back up. It's a longer term strategy, but one worth considering.
Double Dip Recession, reality or myth?
I'm sure most of you living in the US have heard this phrase being used quite often lately. Is the US headed for another two quarters of contraction in the comings months The short answer is that with unemployment levels hovering around 9.5%, the definition of a recession being two "consecutive" periods of negative GDP is not relevant. GDP growth is calculated either based on the previous quarter or previous year's GDP. As such a Real GDP growth of 2.4% (released yesterday) over the last quarter which in itself was dismal, is nothing to write home about and that comparison with the year over year numbers is even more meaningless considering the extent of the economic meltdown in 2009. In other words, the latest US GDP for Q2 of 2010 is still less than what it was in the 3rd quarter of 2008 when everything started to unravel!!! Of course, throw in the Trade Weighted USD exchange comparison (to see how the US GDP, expressed in dollars, compares to currencies of its trading partners) and the severity of situation becomes even more apparent. As such, this has been one long continuing recession even if the technical definition of a recession is not met. The double-dip phrase is simply meaningless in the lieu of a continuing and to be continued recession.
Macro-economy
Almost all macroeconomic indicators have been ringing danger bells for the past few weeks. They may seem okay on the surface (as does the GDP growth number discussed above), but below the surface, they confirm the emergence of another troubling period - not so much for the economy - but for the stock market. As I mentioned above, the US economy is already in pretty bad shape and main street hardly needs macroeconomic indicators to confirm what Wall Street refuses to accept.
The markets are currently run by macroeconomics not earnings reports on individual stocks. The reason for this is that we're right at border of another collapse - good economic news will push us just a bit beyond that threshold and continuing bad news will bring about another stock market crash - although not to the same extent as we saw in late 2008 and early 2009. The stock market recovery happened too fast by overzealous investors disappointed by the fall in the value of their portfolios, not because of a robust and recovering economy.
There was a huge rally yesterday after the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey was released. It came in at 67.8 compared to the previous month's 66.5 and analyst consensus of 67. The rally (with typically low volumes of the summer months) saw the DOW jump nearly 1.0 percent. Was it justified? Hardly so, considering the number is just slightly higher than what it was last summer when the DOW was hovering between 8 to 9 thousand, and even lower than it was in September '08 - again before everything started to unravel! Of course, the more important Conference Board's Consumer Confidence for July (released earlier in the week) was both lower than the previous month and analyst expectations and has been in constant decline since April, but Wall Street seems to have a short term memory!
Of course, the rally yesterday was also supported by the Chicago PMI (Purchasing Manger's Index), a non-quantitative survey of purchasing mangers across the country, which came in both higher than the previous month and analyst expectations. It's needless to say that not much weight can be put on a qualitative, rather than quantitative, survey of purchasing mangers, all of whom undoubtedly have stock portfolios and would like to see the value of their investments increase. The Initial Jobless Claims number is still hovering way above 400,000 and again at the same level it was in September '08 before everything fell apart.
New Home sales are still lower than what they were before the recession started and even lower than what they were last year, even with lower mortgage rates! The all important Durable Goods Orders has been falling for two straight months. Crude inventories increased over the previous week by a whopping 7.2 million barrels (showing decreased activity). The Housing Market Index has been falling for two straight months, Housing Starts have never really recovered from their already low levels in December '08 (after the crash), Existing Home Sales have dropped significantly after peaking in the last quarter of '09 and of course, I don't need to mention Bernanke's "unusually uncertain" comments about the economy meant not to spook the general public!!! This has all been the official indicators of the past 2 weeks.
The unofficial indicators of the past few weeks, the ones to which the stock market doesn't react,but tell the tale of Main Street, show that July was one of the worst months in terms of number of banks which have failed in the US! In fact, there have been 108 bank failures in the first 7 months of 2010. Compare that with 11 bank failures from 2003-2008, 25 in 2008 and 140 for the whole of 2009!!! In 2008 the FDIC said there are 117 problem banks which could fail. That numbers has already been surpassed obviously and earlier this year they revised that to 700 banks which could fail in the next few years - staggering numbers, showing the depths of the continuing problems with the banks. This dwarfs the European banking stress tests which received so much attention from wall street, where the banks needed to raise under 10 billion in capital to meet some laxed and imaginary austerity scenario. The total assets of the banks which have failed in the US since April is in excess of 57 billion dollars!
Speaking of austerity measures, the Brits have already started with the measures needed to bring their budget and national deficits under control, as have the Greeks and the Spaniards. Iceland was of course the first country to embark on a crash course back in 2008 and after multiple bailout loans from Russian and the IMF, S&P just this week downgraded their bonds to junk status - another event which received little attention from wall street, but is indicative of problems yet to come from the Euro zone. Greece has been completely immobilized in the past week because of strikes by truckers delivering fuel and both their farming industry and tourism have been hit hard. Expect this problem with strikes spreading like the Greek forest fires of 2007 to the rest of Europe. Austerity measures are good neither for economic growth nor for employment - the two issues the US is already facing before any austerity measures are undertaken. The UK estimates are a loss of 750,000 public sector jobs and in the US (without any official austerity measures), state and local governments are expected to cut 400,000 jobs within the next year.
So, if the growth isn't coming from Europe or the US, all eyes are on China. The unofficial (main street) situation has been so bad there that car dealerships have slashed prices by 15% in the past couple of months and offering free iPads (not yet officially available in China) just to move their inventories! They went through a period of "free for all" in terms of lending last year which fueled economic growth both there and worldwide, but all that is long behind us. The municipal and local governments are estimated to have spent over a trillion dollars of borrowed money from the banks which according to leaked information can not be retrieved, nor was spent on income earning projects. That's right, a trillion dollars out of the Chinese money supply with no hope of inducing any type of economic activity!
The Chinese PMI numbers (the best gauge of economic activity there) are being released this weekend - one official state one which is expected to hover just above the all important 50 mark (anything below 50 means contraction) and one by HSBC which will surely drop below the 50 mark. With no major earning reports on Monday, the markets (particularly the bears) are going to be looking at the numbers very closely. They will most certainly start a sell-off early on Monday morning before the ISM Mfg. Index and the Construction Spending values are released at 10:00 a.m. Needless to say, the Construction Spending numbers will be disappointing at best, but the ISM Mfg. index may be the last nail in the coffin for the markets and start off the major drop in the markets which will see the DOW end at or near the 8,500 mark before it starts recovering.
The previous value for the ISM Mfg. Index was 56.2, the analyst consensus is 54.0 (range of 52.5 to 55.5) and a Goldman analyst (who uses similar criteria to calculate his own value of the index before it's released) has predicted a number below 50, which would mean a contraction in factory activity and a major red flag for the markets. Even if the number comes in below or at the analyst consensus, it's too close for comfort and the market sell-off will happen. There are plenty of doom and gloom stats coming in for the rest of the week as well, if the downward spiral doesn't start on Monday morning.
Possible Investment Opportunities
There's still plenty of money to be made in a down market. The most readily available tools are ETF's which track the inverse performance of the markets. My two favorites are DXD which returns the double inverse performance of the DOW-30 and QID which does the same for the Nasdaq-100 index. A 1% drop in the value of the NASDAQ-100 index is roughly equivalent to a 2% gain in the value of the QID exchange traded fund.
Please be careful if you decide to play the bear market since increase in the value of these indices means a loss and a continuing climb in stock values means mounting losses. If buying these equities, please be prepared to keep an eye on the market on a minute-by-minute basis or place a limit order to cut your potential losses. I have placed my "bet" on the markets having downward pressure in the near term - whether this week or in the coming weeks - and accepted the risk of my predictions which I'm making based on macroeconomic indicators and news. As with any other stock market strategy, there's an inherent risk involved and it should be evaluated properly.
Having said that, I find that Macroeconomic analysis of the stock market at the moment is much more straight forward than trading individual stocks. Another potentially useful strategy is to purchase the equivalent value of ETF's that track the actual index movement (2x). This way, you're gaining if the market goes down and will sell the inverse ETF's at or near the market bottom and sell the direct ETF's when the market comes back up. It's a longer term strategy, but one worth considering.