Looks Like Exhaustion – January 15th, 2021

The markets made their high Monday morning and traded lower all week. This is a difficult week to analyze where the markets want to go. Why? Because my strength indicators, which I trust and invest based on, are breaking down hard. Meanwhile, the Advance/Decline, net new highs, and other metrics are strong. So strong, they look like no impending danger.

Last week, we had great price action across the globe. I expected that to continue. When the market doesn’t do what we expect, we need to watch for winds of change. This week, that is particularly true. The newsletter doesn’t suggest new positions this week. Even areas I want to see perform well, I will probably avoid, because the market has some very precarious signals underneath. I don’t need to be jumping every week, when the potential
for a rip lower is increasing. More outside bars and inside bars – mean indecision.

What I do know, is in the background, a large number of my charts went from positive to negative this week while the $SPX only dropped 1.5%. I trust my strength indexes a lot because I created them to protect my capital. I want out before or near the top of the market. I invest when I have tailwinds and right now, we have swirling winds at best with numerous charts extremely stretched.

A phrase from Dan Fitzpatrick – “Expect the expected.” I expected the markets to continue to push higher on Biden’s agenda. If it doesn’t play out, I’ll check my work and be careful. That is where I am at this week.

The newsletter below is focused on showing the significant extremes of the market, complete with negative divergence and a sell signal on the Nasdaq 100. It also shows the euphoria that hit the Nasdaq Composite to start the year. This isn’t a subtle ‘one-off’ clue. This is an absolute bomb, suggesting extreme caution. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, the Nasdaq volume is crazy, whereas the Nasdaq 100 is fine.

Click below to view the whole pdf document….