Midweek Market Update – Feb 4th
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Bob Loukas is the founder of The Financial Tap. With over 20 years of experience in market analysis and trading, Bob is a life-long student of economics and has an abiding passion for the financial markets.
He is a leading expert in Market Cycles. His love of Cycles emerged from the study of the work of Walter Bressert, a pioneer in the field.
Originally from Sydney, Australia, Bob has been settled in New York City for the past 16 years. His background is in Computer Sciences, with extensive experience in the Financial Software arena. Prior to launching The Financial Tap, Bob served as a senior executive at various Fortune 50 firms where he led development of financial trading and reporting software.
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It suddenly seems as though the good times in equities might be ending. Though my perspective is based only on “gut feel”, there seems to be an underlying level of fear that has crept into the markets. If so, it’s a real problem for equities. Any market trading at all-time highs and with a valuation far above historical averages requires a continued level of irrational excitement and speculative ignorance to remain sustainable. And fear is not consistent with irrational, speculative ignorance.
When equities price in Risk, it can happen quickly, and I believe the markets are in the early stages of doing just that. Though equities don’t want to believe that significant downside is possible, crashes in commodity prices and massive demand for high quality debt are harbingers of significant declines ahead. In my opinion, the early stages of an equity market decline are unfolding, and it’s only a matter of time before it erupts into a serious event.
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It should not be lost on anyone that this is the same analysis I presented in the Gold Cycle, but on the other side of the equation. The trend for equities is up, so we should expect a continuation. But as with Gold, there’s a lot of evidence that suggests that the long term trend might be changing. More importantly, we should see the potential for long term Gold and equity market trend changes as symbiotic. Equity market weakness and Gold relative strength are inextricably linked.
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It has been a nice run of late for gold here in the latter part of this Daily Cycle. Gold has closed above the 10 day moving average for 13 straight sessions, which is the type of bullish, Right Translated Cycle behavior we’ve been longing for. And I continue to believe that gold has found a floor here on the longer time-framed Cycle, which means that this positive action is part of a larger move that will eventually show gold has moved out of a wide, 18 month basing pattern.
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In my opinion, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the current world-wide deflationary pull and economic weakness begins to directly impact the US economy. Considering the FED has tapered all QE programs, in an interconnected and dependent world, the US economy has not healed enough to withstand this weakness, let alone continue to “carry the world” on its back.