Let's be clear about the narrative, though. I read an article saying how the China stock market was the reason for our big breakdown in August, but I would give that reason a 0% weighting of why we broke down and a 100% weighting to the fear of interest rates rising. The China stock market was booming for months while we were in a range and it was busting for months while we were in a range. It was all about the Fed.
If you asked 100 traders if they thought a 25bps interest rate increase would have any economic effect, I bet 100 of them would say no. So the fear is not the actual rate rise, it's a fear of whether enough other people would be afraid of the rate rise. And that uncertainty prevents confidence when breaking a market out and that lack of confidence is a vulnerability that allows shorts to cap rallies and over time enough of the positioning changes sides and gains confidence and a trendline emerges as we enter the time frame it's possible for the rate rise that the Fed has pounded the table about all year and boom, massive selloff. 0% about China, 100% about the Fed.
It's a central bank driven rally. Easing made it go up, tightening will make it go down. And I don't necessarily mean right away. For example, right now would be the perfect time for the Fed to raise rates. The shorts just got rolled and the perma longs just got an opportunity to build a cost basis way off the highs. A selloff now is not likely to sustain downside action. It would take time to reset the positioning, imo. So if the real reason the Fed chickened out was because they're afraid to pop their bubble, which they should be since their whole plan is based on a "wealth effect" then there will not be a better time than after the obliteration of shorts. Do I think they will do it? No.
I've been tracking this dollar consolidation for seven months now, taking short term trades but essentially waiting for the central bank fuel, and the ECB delivered on Thurs, but it's terrible timing with the Fed on Wed, GDP on Thurs, and NFP next Fri, so there could not be a more turbulent set of events lined up right now.
Personally, I bought the dollar on Thursday post ECB but I will be selling half before the Fed. This could either play out perfectly, or be a nightmare. Technically, we closed the week at the trendline. A high percentage of significant breakout trades will return to backtest the breakout area, so if we breakout and see a price extension on Mon and Tues into the $98 or $99 level it will be an easy decision to take off half, or more, before the Fed and look for the dollar to get crushed on Fed day and possibly GDP day as well to backtest the trendline break. If that happens, I'm thinking it gets bought up and closes the week strong and off we go, assuming GDP isn't zero.
The nightmare scenario is if we sink back down away from the trendline heading into the Fed. I will likely close the whole position and start over. No one thinks the Fed is going to raise rates on Wed, so it's really just a matter of whether the big buyers step in post Fed or post GDP and whether it's supporting a trendline backtest or making a breakout from within. As long as GDP isn't way below expectations, I think a Fed on hold and an ECB projecting dovishness for December will lead the pair toward parity. But I also think you have to be really careful with the unfortunate timing of news events coming up.
Dollar monthly. The end of Oct is Saturday, so if the dollar breaks out and closes strong, picture what the breakout bar and the chart will look like.
Dollar weekly right at the trendline.
EUR/USD weekly just below its trendline.
ES weekly backtested its trendline breakdown. I'm sure more shorts got washed out, but the COT report as of last Tuesday still showed a huge net Spec short position. Even if a lot of it is a hedge for a long equity portfolio, it still exists, and no one wants to lose on their hedge forever. I would think a selloff would give them an opportunity to buy em back. Again with the crazy news events coming up, but I'll wait at 2037-ish but with Apple earnings on Tuesday it might go higher first.
Check out Apple on the weekly. It basically formed a big head-and-shoulders pattern and is backtesting the neckline breakdown at $120. At this point I would think any earnings that aren't zero will be an opportunity for the longs to put a nail in the coffin of the shorts. A head-and-shoulders is a pretty powerful pattern, but it's just as powerful in the other direction when it fails.
Regardless of the actual earnings number, if they break this market up huge on Tuesday, I would think the overall NQ and ES longs would have to unload into that. It's straight up.
Oil and gold broke out, ran a bit, and then reversed. I kinda suspected that. Unfortunately, I traded the long part and never flipped back around. The reversal day in oil couldn't have been more obvious. I dropped the ball on that one.
Oil daily came all the way back. I can't imagine this sustaining upside with fundamentals the way they are and a potential dollar breakout. But I can't short it here. It needs to breakdown through the trendlines and then backtest and reverse for me to be interested.
Gold will obviously be affected by the big news events. This is why I tend to trade in halves when I'm not confident in the move sustaining itself, or it's counter trend. I did well on the first half and gave too much back on the second half. There's really nothing I'm interested in here. I suspect gold will form a big triangle over the next month or so. The COT positioning for gold and silver is almost as net Spec long as it was when gold was near $1300 only now it's $130 lower. This is what I mean by the long side getting full on these bear market rallies. It will likely take QE for this market to sustain upside action. QE seems unlikely unless the stock market rolls over hard and they have to save it, so I'm expecting the metals to eventually breakdown again, unless, of course, the dollar reverses but with the ECB more dovish than the Fed, that doesn't currently seem likely.
Bonds tagged the downtrend line off the highs and pulled back then stopped at the 50-day EMA. I'm avoiding this space for awhile. If you must trade bonds I'd use that downtrend line off the highs as an inflection point. A breakout to the upside is a sign to backoff the short side. If you wake-up everyday and must short bonds, you could look to a loss of the 50-day, which is Friday's low or the next test of the downtrend line, but I'd wait until after the fireworks of these big news events. It should be noted that bonds have been making lower highs, so until that downtrend line gets taken out, shorts have hope. I'm not personally interested in shorting bonds. I rather long stocks. Close enough.
