Monday’s Damage Assessment

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Note:  Posts on this site are for education purposes only.  They provide one firm’s insight on the markets.  Not investment advice.  See additional disclaimer here.

QQQs: Hovering Above Resistance

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Biotech … Behind The Scenes

The Big Reveal

Was yesterday, the infection point?

Was that the day where irrefutable evidence like this is going to stick?

Price action of Biotech Sector IBB, has posted a long awaited and anticipated reversal signal (not advice, not a recommendation).

We’ll look at that below.

The IBB, Up-Thrust & Reversal

As a reminder, in Wyckoff terms, an ‘up-thrust’ is where price action struggles above known resistance for some period of time and then reverses to the downside.

In the case of IBB, that ‘struggle’ lasted an incredible seven-weeks.

Biotech IBB, Weekly

Price action attempted to break above resistance for nearly two-months, before reversing lower.

Then we had an initial test during the week of 12/23/22 (on the daily for three days), and a secondary test last week.

Biotech IBB, Daily

The daily shows more detail on the struggle.

Point No. 1, was the initial test. Point No. 2, was the secondary test which appears to have decisively failed.

Pre-market action shows IBB, set to open slightly lower.

If it does, then expectation is for some (brief) attempt to rally as a test of the breakdown.

The Driving Force

For years, this site has not wavered in the assessment, what’s happening in this sector, will be the driving force for the entire market on a go-forward basis (not advice, not a recommendation).

Anything can happen.

It’s unknown if yesterday was ‘the day’.

What is known however, evidence is building on a massive scale. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, we see the effects.

Positioning

This site presents the data, the insight and price action nuances. It does not give recommendations.

With that said, going short this sector is not as straightforward as the other major indices.

IBB, may be shorted directly but will likely result in a maintenance fee from the broker.

Of course, that puts one on the hook for the sector’s dividend payment (currently yielding 0.31%).

The other option is 2X leveraged inverse fund BIS.

However, this fund’s volume is thin … meaning it’s not nearly as liquid as the other inverse funds such as SDS, DXD, QID, SOXS and so on.

It’s up to the trader/speculator to participate or not.

We’re about fifteen-minutes before the open. Let’s see what happens next.

Stay Tuned

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Note:  Posts on this site are for education purposes only.  They provide one firm’s insight on the markets.  Not investment advice.  See additional disclaimer here.

The Danger Point®, trade mark: No. 6,505,279

Trend & Channel

Get In … Get Out

There tends to be a period of consolidation and organized chaos, before price action enters and exhibits channel behavior.

Of course, the problem from a trading perspective, be able to wait through the chaos getting to the set-up and that’s no small feat.

Several of the major indices are in a channel right now. Those are (ETF symbol) SPY, QQQ, IYR and IWM.

We’ll discuss the Q’s farther down but first, this just out, on ZeroHedge, concerning the overall economic conditions.

That is, we’re already in full scale economic collapse and they have the data to prove it.

As incredible as it may be, there are still sectors of the population that believe, ‘the consumer is strong’.

A big wake-up call is coming for them. Oh wait, is that a telephone ringing off in the distance 🙂

The media lies appear to be crumbling at an exponential rate; there’s no guarantee it’ll all hold together into late January, or mid-February as presented only yesterday.

From a Nasdaq (QQQ), technology sector perspective, we have the following.

NASDAQ QQQ, Weekly

The Q’s began the week with a lower open and within the range of the prior week.

It’s a subtle clue the direction remains down and the market’s not volatile … just yet.

Next up, is the channel

It has the right ‘look’.

Moving in closer; the right-side trend line verification (hits).

There are no fewer than four weekly hits (including today) that verify the right side. The attempted push out of the channel is identified as the ‘Throw-Over’.

Attempted breakouts (and failures) are common market behaviors. We see that price action quickly got itself back into the channel.

Get In … Get Out

At this juncture, price action remains in the channel.

A short position (via QID, or equivalent) is a viable choice for the trader/speculator (not advice, not a recommendation).

For the reasons described above (the collapse), we appear to still be in the early stages of the down channel.

Obvious discretionary exit points for a short trade would be left side contact of the channel i.e., the ‘demand’ side or a decisive right-side breakout i.e., the ‘supply’ side (not advice, not a recommendation).

Summary

In a separate market, Netflix (NFLX), may have hit the right side of its own tend line as well.

It seems to be all happening very quietly.

Stay Tuned

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Note:  Posts on this site are for education purposes only.  They provide one firm’s insight on the markets.  Not investment advice.  See additional disclaimer here.

The Danger Point®, trade mark: No. 6,505,279

Biotech … Ready To Reverse

Highly leveraged (3X Inverse of SPBIO), LABD, looks ready for upside reversal.

The next chart shows trendline contacts.

Volume increased on Friday while the trading range narrowed significantly.

The next chart’s a little busy but zooms in on the volume and the daily range in question.

The overall markets have rebounded during the past two trading days.

Inverse funds have declined correspondingly.

Interestingly, LABD seems to have maintained its upward bias (down for SPBIO) better than other inverse funds like SDS, DXD, SOXS, QID and TZA.

Summary:

For downside action, one wants to look for the weakest sector.

Look for a new daily LABD high on Monday, (new low for SPBIO).

This is a typical entry signal with stops at the last session’s low; currently LABD, 40.08 (not advice not a recommendation).

Stay Tuned

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Note:  Posts on this site are for education purposes only.  They provide one firm’s insight on the markets.  Not investment advice.  See additional disclaimer here.

The Danger Point®, trade mark: No. 6,505,279

Basic Materials, Building Blocks

Infrastructure … Not Going To Happen

The infrastructure bill, right along with any kind of sustainable ‘recovery’ is just not in the charts.

Sure, the bill passed into ‘law’, if you can call it that; however, law and action are two different things.

We’ll get into more fundamentals behind why it’s not happening in tomorrow’s Random Notes … to be released later in the day.

One hint on why we’re not getting a major U.S. wide building program, there won’t be the manpower or supplies available … each for their own reasons.

That brings us to the chart of the sector.

DJUSBM

The weekly chart shows how it looks going all the way back to early 2008.

If you did not immediately pick up on the right side’s message, it’s highlighted below … a massive bearish MACD divergence.

The divergence proposes that upside momentum for the sector is all but spent.

Let’s take a look at previous downside action and the current possibility.

Anybody that’s awake will not argue the current situation’s worse than 2007 – 2008.

If that’s the case, and if the market’s still alive at the bottom, DJUSBM could get as low, or lower than 2008 – 2009, levels.

A decline over 80%, is not uncommon for a bear/depression market. The Dow Jones 30, from top-to-bottom, during the Great Depression was around – 84%.

Inverse Fund, SMN

SMN is -2X inverse the DJSUBM.

However, this fund is not like inverse ETFs; SDS, DXD, SOXS, QID, DUST, and so on.

Basic Materials is not ‘popular’. At least, not yet.

That means the fund is illiquid with larger spreads (bid/ask). In addition, it takes a good few minutes after each open for those spreads to calm down and narrow up.

It’s not for the inexperienced.

Summary:

As we’ll get into tomorrow, ‘normal’, is gone.

There’s not going to be ‘normal’ (a personal opinion) in the lifetimes of anyone reading these updates.

That doesn’t mean there are no opportunities.

Basic Materials, DJUSBM, is about to, or already has (potentially) started its downside reversal.

Stay Tuned

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Note:  Posts on this site are for education purposes only.  They provide one firm’s insight on the markets.  Not investment advice.  See additional disclaimer here.

The Danger Point®, trade mark: No. 6,505,279