Friday, August 7, 2009

Technical Justification

I just finished reading Carl Swenlin's weekly market commentary at Decisionpoint.com and he offers a very strong technical argument for the statements that I made in my prior post.

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/swenlin/2009/0807.html

6 comments:

dave said...

SPX "nearing" a GC with the mkt overbought, over extended & all these non-confirms; that's troublesome for bulls IMO

Regards,
dave

dave said...

As much respect as i have for Carl, in 2009 he has been zigging while the mkt has been zagging getting whipsawed, not majorly wrong, but out-of-phase for months.

Regards,
dave

Anonymous said...

Yes, the potential for a pullback here is still high based on the GC observations that we have discussed in the past. I expect that the next couple of weeks could be volative, but will still resolve to the upside.

Dave, I can appreciate what you are saying about Carl, but one thing I like about him is that he is disciplined. He follows the rules that he has laid out on his site for trading, and he makes it clear that he follows the rules.

I hope that readers of this site are clear that I follow my trading rules and plan and not my opinions about future market direction.

My views on future direction and potential do influence my size and allocation however. As at the moment I am 100%+ long stocks and will not be looking to short anything until there is a dramatic shift.

dave said...

Craig,

Carl's greatest failing this yr has been to not realize that sideways is a "direction". However, he's not the only one, by far.

Most traders think North & South, when Eastward should be the choice. Mkts never move to the West. :) Although when FNN, CNBC's predecessor first came on they had some computer driven charts (probably programmed by someone who had never seen a stock chart) that went from bottom right to top left. But take it from me mkts never move to the left or West.

Regards,
dave

Anonymous said...

Yes this thing with the sideways markets is the greatest challenge (for me at least) to a smooth equity curve.

One trendfollowing type service that I have followed has had a flat equity curve since the end of April. Mine was flat from the first of May to the end of June and now rising again, but overall similar in form.

I increasingly of the opinion that appropriately leveraged index trades are less risky than trading a diversified group of stocks. The behavior of the broader markets will govern the performance in most cases, so why fool with all of the headaches of keeping track of so many positions.

I am working on some ideas in this area though.

dave said...

LT sideways/flat stk mkt is my greatest fear for approx 2011 going forward several yrs.

And my feet & legs can't handle going back into the pits & scalping.

Regards,
dave