Bear Market?

“Jim Rogers: Bob, there’s no question we’ve had a big pounding in the market in the last two weeks. So we may be due for a rally. But the market is going to be down this year and it’s going to be worse next year. We had huge amounts of money spent in 2003 and 2004 by the government to win an election. Now we have to pay the price. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a bear market.”   THE COST OF FREEDOM RECAP, SATURDAY, April 23.

I like to watch Jim Rogers every Saturday morning.   In 2000, at the height of the tech market mania, Damon Vickers was the only radio commentator I heard who had the courage to tell (really scream) people to run for the exits.    Today, Jim Rogers is equally explicit (but calm) about his concerns for the state of the economy and for the U.S. stock markets.   And Jim is no neophyte.   He made his fortune in his 30’s trading along side George Soros.   When Jim speaks, I listen.

As long as I am talking about the   Fox Cost of Freedom Saturday morning telecast, I must mention The Chartman, Gary B. Smith. Gary was a presenter at my university’s investors speakers series a few years ago.   I missed his presentation, but heard about his accolades for the TC2000 technical analysis program that he was using.   It was on his recommendation that I subsequently switched to that program and became an enthusiastic user of TC2005.   (When I placed 5th in the Barron’s Stock Challenge a few months ago-in the professor category- I contacted Gary and we had lunch together.)   Gary is an avid chartist and writer who brings his considerable expertise in technical analysis to the Bulls & Bears program on Saturday mornings.

I received a question from a reader today asking me if I am somehow associated with   IBD or TC2005.   The answer is an unqualified no.   I am simply an enthusiastic and dedicated customer of both concerns. I can honestly say that I did not begin to make money in the market until I subscribed to IBD in the 80’s.   And, as I shall show in a subsequent post, the TC2005 program lets me do amazing scans of the market quickly and at low cost. (The program itself is free–how can one beat that?   I just pay about $25 each month for downloads of stock prices.)   How do you think I compute the WW General Market Index (WW-GMI)   and my other indicators each night?

Speaking of the WW-GMI, it is stuck at dead zero again.   Are you surprised?   Only 11 stocks that hit new highs 10 days ago closed higher today than 10 days ago.   That’s 11 out of 4,000!   Only 40/4,000 stocks even hit a 52 week high today.   Most telling, 99 stocks hit a 52 week low 10 days ago and are trading lower today than 10 days ago. So, the odds of having a successful short trade on a new low are 9 times higher than being successful going long on a new high!   The key to success in the market is trading with the odds in one’s favor.   At the very least, these statistics tell me not to buy any stock hitting a new high.   By the way, 208/4,000 stocks hit a new 52 week low today, five times the number that hit a new high.

I have been down on the housing stocks for sometime.   Today, 21/26 stocks in that sector declined.   Check out the trends in such stocks as MDC, MTH, BZH, CTX, MHO, WLT or DHM.   (I own puts on two housing stocks not shown here.)   Now, take a look at a chart of DIS, which fell 3.5% today on above average volume.   Do you think the weakness in housing stocks and a leisure stock like Disney is telegraphing something about the future economy?   Maybe this market smells the R word (recession).   It would not be the first time that the Fed tipped the economy into recession in its zeal to put a lid on inflation.   Remember, the Fed is an exclusive club of bankers, whose first priority is to protect all of their banks’ outstanding loans from the ravages of inflation.

I thought you might like to see a long term monthly chart of the NASDAQ Composite index. Click on this chart to enlarge.   It doesn’t take much chart knowledge to see the difference in the chart pattern since mid-2000.   Between 1993-2000 the index closed above its rising 30 month moving average (the red line). Then it began a sustained 3 year decline with the index below the average. After the bottom in 2002 there has been a relatively weak recovery.   Note the moving average is barely rising.    The time to make big money is when the indexes are rising smartly as they did in the 90’s.   You could have ridden that index up for years.   You could also have ridden it down for 3 years.   There is plenty of time to ride a real trend.   Right now we don’t   have a long term trend that is   worth riding–at least not in NASDAQ stocks.