MAY 19-23, 2008
Market Trends - Equities
This week all major stock equity indices turned pleasantly back up, after last week downturn.
Both the S&P500 and the NASDAQ100 seem to be working themselves out
of a major fall now, while the DJ is still fighting short term resistance.
Let us look at a longer timeframe first, then we'll focus back on the
immediate situation and look at our indicators
This is confirmed in the three months view, which agrees with the long
term positive posture we've been noticing for a while now. It is interesting to note how, over the
last three months the NASDAQ has performed almost four times more
strongly than the other indexes. The NASDAQ is also the only one to log
in at a positive (albeit unexciting) 4% YTD, while its colleagues are
down about 5%.
This rather poor behavior is common to almost all industry sectors, as
shown in Figure 10.
The charts at the right show the price history, in terms of relative performance, of the S&P500, the
Dow Jones, and the Nasdaq 100 indexes.
====================
LOOK AHEAD
- Our indicators point to a reprise of the short- and medium-term
uptrend that started
in late March. and brings us back to testing some major support levels.
While this is particularly true for the NASDAQ components, S&P and
DJ are still somewhat undecided.
We discussed in previous weeks how the long term
trend is caught in a range and still very vulnerable to a downtrend. So
it will be very interesting to follow the market behaviour in the next
several days to see what eventually transpires.
Capital for
long term opportunities remains in cash.
We will be looking at long positions in the short term
portfolio.
====================
Individual weekly charts for the S&P, DJ and NASDAQ are on the
right.
See below for
comments on other market components. |
Fig.1
- DJ Ind, NASDAQ100 and S&P500: 1 week comparative performance
Fig.2
- DJ Ind, NASDAQ100 and S&P500: 3 months comparative performance
Fig.3
- S&P500
- weekly chart
Fig.4
- DowJones
Industrial - weekly chart
Fig.6
- NASDAQ
100 - weekly chart
|
Market Trends - Commodities
Both Oil and Gold have come down about 4% this past week, providing
some relief to the screaming crowds and fuelling in part the reprise in
the equities arena. The entity of this move, however, is not large
enough to confirm a long term downtrend. Our long positions remain open.
Oil is still up 35% YTD, while Gold retreated down to +5% (on par with
the Bonds) and the S&P has lost
about 5% so far this year.
|
Fig.7 - Crude Oil, Gold and
Gov Bonds vs S&P500: 1 week
Fig.8 - Crude Oil, Gold and Gov Bonds vs
S&P500: YTD
|
