QQQ: Imminent Tech Smack Down!Tech has been on a tare, proceeded by a rip. QQQ has gone up further than I anticipated but the market is finally showing
serious signs of exhaustion. The outrageous valuations and proclamations of a new bull market are sure fire signs of the'
end of the road. It has touched the .618 fib level and depending on how you are looking at it, even surpassed it by a bit.
Looks awfully similar to the dot com bubble. The Nasdaq fell by almost 50% before retracing over 60%, arriving slightly
above the .618 fib and then resumed its downtrend, falling another 80% from its retracement high. The market also rings
of the 1973 bear market where only a few stocks were carrying the entire market before a significant downtrend and they
never quite recovered in the same way. History points to several scenarios that all shine a light on the unusual market
behaviour and what we might expect moving forward. Many are calling for a new bull market and saying that "this time
is different." That is one phrase that you want to avoid at all costs when referencing the stock market because it always
finds a way of delivering the same results, sometimes taking more time to play out or allowing those that refuse to accept
the reality of what is to come to gloat in a the,mporay victory over those more observant and subsequently cautious investors.
I think that it will not be much longer before we see a profound shift in the market and all of the indications of economic illness
are validated by price action.
Everythingbubble
Is DISNEY Ahead of the PackLooking at Disneys percentage pullbacks, the most recent downtrend was over 70%, which tells me its most aggressive downward
price action could have already played out. It could get much worse or have a period of sideways action. After looking at shorter
time frames it kind of made me reconsider how much downside was still in store for it. It'll be interesting to see how things play out.
I still think the Debt Ceiling situation could be a catalyst.
DIS does not look very goodBirds eye view of Disney's red flags.
Yet another corporation gets a swirly in the public toilet by woke insanity leadership. Like the rest they endure a public lashing on social media,
they cry for Argentina and then enact a public relations dream job. An orgy of pseudo-viral internet hype, resurrected leadership nostalgia for
the stock holders and good ol' fashioned base-demographic pandering. In Disneys case and actually the same for any company that follows
this form of "Hail Mary" Redemptive Marketing Protocol... it is a whole lot of planning and talking and a whole lot of packing, to ultimately go
nowhere at all. After watching one after the other of these corporations go through this process of self-destruction, it makes me wonder
if we are witnessing a "controlled demolition" of sorts. The repo market situation right before The Pandemic, The Money Printers Going Brrrrrr,
The "Transitory" Inflation Period, The Fed Rate Hikes, The Regional Banking Crisis and The Final Hurrah, just around the corner, possibly
culminating in The Debt Ceiling Crisis and The United States Defaulting. I don't know and its hard to say but I cannot think of one person
who truly has their finger on the pulse of this market and that is probably because we are not getting all of the information, which would
fill in some of the blind spots out there right now and the reality of things would probably be painfully obvious, rather than whatever you
want to call the the market since the first of the year. These are just some thoughts I have been having and the only narrative I can piece
together in order to explain what we've been witnessing recently. It is not in my nature to be such a Bear but if I am honest with myself, I
cannot help but see major Red Flags in practically every single chart. If things play out in any way close to what I am seeing, we are in for
lost decade and the end of things as we know them.
DISNEY - DIS is not what Disney needs right nowYet another corporation gets a swirly in the public toilet by woke insanity leadership. Like the rest they endure a public lashing on social media,
they cry for Argentina and then enact a public relations dream job. An orgy of pseudo-viral internet hype, resurrected leadership nostalgia for
the stock holders and good ol' fashioned base-demographic pandering. In Disneys case and actually the same for any company that follows
this form of "Hail Mary" Redemptive Marketing Protocol... it is a whole lot of planning and talking and a whole lot of packing, to ultimately go
nowhere at all. After watching one after the other of these corporations go through this process of self-destruction, it makes me wonder
if we are witnessing a "controlled demolition" of sorts. The repo market situation right before The Pandemic, The Money Printers Going Brrrrrr,
The "Transitory" Inflation Period, The Fed Rate Hikes, The Regional Banking Crisis and The Final Hurrah, just around the corner, possibly
culminating in The Debt Ceiling Crisis and The United States Defaulting. I don't know and its hard to say but I cannot think of one person
who truly has their finger on the pulse of this market and that is probably because we are not getting all of the information, which would
fill in some of the blind spots out there right now and the reality of things would probably be painfully obvious, rather than whatever you
want to call the the market since the first of the year. These are just some thoughts I have been having and the only narrative I can piece
together in order to explain what we've been witnessing recently. It is not in my nature to be such a Bear but if I am honest with myself, I
cannot help but see major Red Flags in practically every single chart. If things play out in any way close to what I am seeing, we are in for
lost decade and the end of things as we know them.
3.5 years to recover 2008 recessionIt took about 3.5 years, from the last top in late 2007, to cross all relevant moving averages in early 2011, for us to confirm all the market bottoms were in. During that time, more than half of the market was lost in its last bottom compared to its last top. Expect same or worse in this 2022 recession, as more things will pop in this everything bubble. The current Triple EMA (TEMA) has only dipped about the same as during the pandemic, so we have only just begun the slow drop. Take care & keep looking for sectors, equities & ETNs that perform well in recessions, including the upcoming Bitcoin (BTC) Short ETF : BITI
Comparing DOT COM Bubble of 2000 to the EVERYTHING Bubble 2022This bubble is beginning to become more and more similar to the dot com Y2K boom and bust... Look when the monthly RSI peaked in the dot come era it peaked in 1996 and we had hidden bearish RSI divergence. It took 4 years for the price to reach a peak meaning price continued to trend up but RSI was trending down. Look at what is happening now... We peaked on monthly RSI in 2018 and it has been four years exactly once again... By this logic we could see a monthly downtrend and confirmed multi year bear market sometime around October of 2022. I also overlayed the bust fractal from the dot com days when we entered a bear market and we even respected it perfectly and we are forming a monthly lower high. I think selling pressure will begin around the summertime and really pick up into the fall. Are you hedging? Is your portfolio prepared? This isn't to create fear this is just relaying what the charts are saying. This isn't a guarantee but its too close to ignore.
US Savings Rate Breaks Uptrend Since the GFC!The total savings in US accounts as a percentage of disposable personal income saw an incredible spike during the lockdowns as "helicopter money" and "stimmy checks" flooded the bank accounts of consumers, fueling an awe-inspiring comeback in retail sales. Unfortunately, however, the data shows that not only is all of this stimulus money gone (along with the pent-up demand), but the US personal savings rate has broken an uptrend that was established after coming out of the last recession.
Expect retail sales to falter (they already have) and credit card to start increasing (it already has) as the true state of the economy is revealed, right when the Fed is tapering off QE, planning 4 rate hikes this year, AND threatening QT. What could go wrong??
This is the same data that is reported by our own Fed:
fred.stlouisfed.org
How The Everything Bubble Will Burst...And How To Profit From It
I also created a video about my post for those that prefer to watch it here it is:
www.youtube.com
It also contains all the graphs and charts which unfortunately I can not post here.
More and more market participants are talking about rising inflation and the everything bubble being the buildup to an epic crash. But is this really true? Can markets go anywhere but up?
So far since the beginning of 2020
Oil is up 103%
Gas 94 %
copper which is key in all our electronics is up 126%
iron the most used metal is up 150%
coffee is up 101%
corn is up 78%
wheat 49%
and sugar 87%
The housing market is up, the collectible market is up and the stock market does not look any different.
The S&P 500 has recovered above pre covid levels and gained 100 % from the bottom all the while setting 43 all time highs year to date literally a new all time high every 3.5 days in 2021 and on track to beat the record of 77 yearly all time highs in 1995.
Running hot? Maybe a little... Or maybe the economy is just growing at a really fast pace? Looking at the ratio of market value to GDP however the markets are extended over a large margin to where they should be in relation to GDP.
So whats going on here? Are we really in an everything bubble that is going to pop and if so how can you invest so that you make money? Before we can answer these questions we need to understand what a bubble is.
Whats a bubble
A bubble is defined as an economic cycle characterised by a rapid increase in market value particularly of asset prices. It is commonly accepted that bubbles arise due to the psychology of investors. They can appear across single assets, asset classes or entire markets.
Bubble Cycles
Bubbles always follow more or less the same pattern as we will see when we look at some bubbles that have occurred throughout history. At first things start slow as the smart money and early adopters get in on the trade.
More and more professional investors start to pile in as the price starts to increase leading to awareness of the opportunity to rise until it breaks into the public.
As more and more people learn about the trade and jump in because of greed and fear of missing out price starts to really take off and run away from fundamental valuations. It is this stage where mass psychology gets more and more amplified feeding into itself leading to enthusiasm turning into greed and delusion as prices reach higher and higher.
The stock market is a zero-sum game the profits of one market participants are anothers losses. The more retail is buying the more profits the smart money are taking.
This then is one of the most telling signs of a bubble: retail investors coming in and pushing prices ever higher left to hold the bag when the smart money ultimately leads the market lower in taking all their profits.
Famed investor Jim Chanos is warning about exactly this and just said in an interview with CNBC “The problem with getting more people, retail, involved is that it always seems to happen toward the end of every cycle. Retail wasn’t there at ’09 at the bottom. They weren’t there in ’02 after the dot-com bubble collapsed. They were certainly there at ’99,”- (Buying at the top that is) He goes on to say:
“(So) the problem in the last few cycles as I see it is that we get promotors and insiders and people who have done very well cashing out as retail is buying.”
Past bubbles and crashes
Lets take a look at some of these past bubbles to see how they stack up to where we are today.
What is widely considered to be the mother of all bubbles became known in history as tulip mania. It is one of the prime examples showcasing how irrational behaviour leads to asset prices rising to unsustainable levels before they finally collapse.
In 1630 tulips which had only been introduced to Europe in the 1600's were starting to be perceived as special and rare. This prompted speculation in the tulip market shortly after leading prices to increase by 2000 % between November 1636 and February 1637 before plummeting by 99 % in May 1637. During this period of time some tulips were costing as much as a house clearly showcasing the disconnect from fundamental values and the greed and mania involved which are key characteristics of bubbles. One can't help but see the parallels in looking at prices that some digital or physical collectibles are commanding these days.
Cryptopunk and Axie Infinity are just two examples of NFT's that can cost much more than even the most lavish of mansions. The most expensive crypto punk so far has been sold for 8 million dollars. The most expensive NFT so far Beeple’s, Everydays ” The First 5000 Days” sold for a staggering 69 million dollars. But also many physical collectibles are commanding hefty premiums with the most expensive Pokemon card having been sold for 369.000 dollars. Almost a bargain in comparison to some NFT'S.
Well to be fair though at least when the price of NFT's approaches its fair value somewhere closer to zero you will always still be the proud owner of your virtual good whereas the tulip will not only have lost its value but have withered away completely.
Japan
In our modern time many speculative bubbles have been attributed to overly lax and stimulative financial policies of central banks. Japan's economic bubble of the 1980's is a prime example for this. After Japan entered a recession in 1986 the government countered with huge monetary and fiscal stimulus. The resulting free and abundend liquidity led to rampant speculation in the japanese stock and real estate market with prices increasing by 300 % between 1985 and 1989 and retail going all in. The bubble burst when the fiscal stimulus was withdrawn in 1991 ushering in what is now known as the lost decade due to slow economic growth and deflation. Today 30 years later the Japanese market is still trading below its 1991 highs.
Dot com bubble
In the 90s the internet was a rising star and with it many companies trying to commercialise its tremendous potential. Venture capitalists caught on early and in easy monetary conditions were throwing money at dot com startups. The public started catching on in 1995 and retail trading became more and more popular. Everybody was sure that there was nowhere but up for internet stocks no matter what they did or whether they even had revenues. In 1997 record amounts of capital flowed into the NASDAQ. New online brokers were making it more accessible for the average Joe to buy and sell shares and everybody was buying into the trade of a life time. At the height of the bubble their advertisements were showing that trading is an easy way to riches. Between 1995 and 2000 the NASDAQ rose by 500% from below 1000 to over 5000 points. When nobody was left to buy the bubble finally burst and the NASDAQ lost nearly 80%. At this point even blue-chip tech stocks like Intel were down by 80%. What followed was an extended bear market and a slow recovery. It should take until 2015 for markets to recover to previous levels.
The dot com bubble actually spawned another bubble on its own as investors fleeing stocks piled into the real estate market. This became known as the US housing bubble which in the mid 2000s collapsed leading to a worldwide economic crisis today known as the great recession.
To support the world economy during this time the central banks of the world started implementing quantitive easing basically increasing the money supply by lowering interest rates and purchasing assets in order to help the economy recover. At this point unprecedented amounts of money were newly created and injected into the economy. Shockingly this actually continued until 2018 when the US Fed started to taper its asset purchases which caused a liquidity crisis in the markets that after 10 years of a non stop FED powered rally were not prepared to come back to reality.
As we have seen these bubbles develop and burst over and over again following the same pattern. The reason for this is that financial markets like the whole bubble dynamic are entirely driven by human psychology which is best illustrated in the different phases of bubble or market cycles.
Where are we in the cycle
Fast forward to today.
We have been in a central bank induced bull market since we came out of the last recession in 2008. In 2020 COVID hit and as result the markets collapsed and millions of people lost their jobs as the world battled lockdowns that led to stores and factories closing.
The worlds central banks jumped in swiftly - injecting more liquidity into the system than ever before. They cut interest rates to zero and started large asset purchase programs in addition to the government relief programs handing out money to everybody.
Just between March and June 2020 the money supply in the US increased by 300 % the largest spike ever. 40 % of all dollars in existence were printed within the last 12 months.
This flood of new free money quickly found its way into the stock markets since due to low interest rates lower risk assets are not yielding returns. Leaving investors no alternatives but to rotate to riskier higher yielding assets which today is known as TINA: there is no alternative.
As we have seen earlier this flood of money combined with supply chain shortages caused by Covid lead to rampant price inflation throughout different asset classes within a short amount of time. It sure looks like we are in bubble territory but where are we within the cycle?
One key characteristic of any bubble nearing its peak is the involvement of the general public or retail crowd. Therefor the degree to which retail investors play a part in the current boom cycle plays a key role in understanding where we are in the bubble. So what does the data tell us
Retail participation in bubbles
Since the beginning of the pandemic the amount of retail brokerage accounts opened has skyrocketed. Rxxbin Hxxd now has 18 million users almost doubling their amount of users before the pandemic started. They introduced fractional shares allowing you to start investing with as little as 1 dollar. Their advertising message is everybody is an investor and I guess in a bubble everybody is. The interest for trading has spiked online and offline. You know its getting sketchy when your little niece asks you for stock tips.
But there is not only more retail trading the new traders are also younger and more inexperienced. A large part of todays market participants has never even seen a market correction of more than 10 % let alone a true recession. It is no surprise than that these investors are overly optimistic and can not believe the market can go anywhere but up.
(It sure seems though that history is set to repeat and most of the retail crowd will be left holding the bag instead of taking home the tendies. As an old saying on wallstreet goes:
“A man with money meets a man with experience. The man with the experience leaves with the money, while the man with money leaves with experience.”)
The only thing more telling than the growing number of retail traders is the amount of money that has been flowing into the market.
Over the last 25 years global equities had inflows of 727 billion USD cumulatively. Now hold on tight because this is truly crazy. Global equity inflows for 2021 annualized amount to 1.015 trillion USD. Yes thats right trillion not billion almost 300 billion more than have been flowing into the market over the last 25 years combined coming in in just one year. Over 80 % of these flows have gone into passive funds, ALL US, ALL LARGE CAP. At the same time margin debt has risen to historic highs as well. Market participants have never been this leveraged before.
These days in the light of the FED support there is only one mantra driving the crowd: buy the tulip uhhh... dip.
Crash scenario
It seems then that retail is indeed all in or at least getting pretty close. Looking at these unprecedented huge inflows into equities and the retail trading frenzy it sure looks like we are in the last cycle of the bubble but how and when is it going to pop?
There are currently many challenges ahead that might trigger a bigger correction or crash leading to these bubbles to burst. Lower vaccine efficacy and the spread of the delta variant are impacting supply chains putting more pressure on already elevated prices and slowing down the Chinese economy. The FED starting to taper into a slowing recovery might as well be a recipe for the crash that we have been waiting for.
But whatever event is going to trigger the sell off every day margin debt is growing the resulting margin call avalanche that will ensue is getting bigger and bigger making sure that whatever correction we will see will not be a small one and might even trigger a recession.
How to profit from this
It sure seems like the central banks are running out of options and it will be very interesting to see how they respond to this.
So when is this going to pop? It is very difficult to time market tops or bottoms due to the psychological nature of market cycles. As we have seen when looking at historic bubbles they can stretch on for years before they reach their peak. As they say on wallstreet: the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
In the past the yield curve has been a great leading indicator to detect a recession ahead. Of course there is no guarantee this will be predictive again but there is a good chance since ultimately it is down to smart investor behaviour. In any case watch out for the yield curve inverting as a warning signal.
Nobody knows what event or chain of events will cause enough market participants to panic sell and trigger a crash. However being aware of these cycles and roughly what part of the cycle we are in allows you to manage your portfolio in a way that you can make money instead of loosing it. As promised lets look at how to do exactly that.
Lets assume that your portfolio is already well diversified. Now your goal is to maximise your profits and minimise your risk therefor you want to have liquidity available to buy into a crash and at the same time protect your existing portfolio from losses. There are different ways to do this but my preferred way is to keep taking profits on a regular basis on all my positions. The resulting profits are partly held in cash or liquid inflation protected assets and the other part is used to build a position that is going long volatility.
The current market has very low volatility. The only way is up and there are only minute corrections to the downside that are immediately bought up. This means the VIX a measurement for volatility is trading at relatively low levels. A big correction or crash in the overall market will lead the VIX to spike up. Thus going long volatility while buying the VIX with futures, options or ETF's earns our portfolio excellent protection from the crash.
If you balance the VIX position and your portfolio out correctly you can easily cover all losses with the VIX position all the while being liquid enough to buy into the crash in order to profit from the recovery that inevitably will ensue.
Decades Long Rising Wedge on BAC (Targeting 80% loss)The main chart and title is pretty blunt. We see two rising wedges on BAC and the blue one predicted the 2008 crash, but because this is on the monthly chart it tools years for the price action to perform. We may again see this happen again as the crash begins moving in slow motion and is imperceptible to most as the problem becomes more and more severe. With the blue wedge price action tested previous action as support for about 6 months.
The main reason I don't think people are aware of what is going on is they don't really look at monthly charts and if they do they don't think to always use the log scale on traditional equities, even though the price action goes from $1.6 to $50. Many may see this and not see any short term trades and may also just forget what is coming. Later they look back and go Doh! and I know I have made that same mistake. Get chopped up and stopped out looking for a margin long when I could have just held or stopped out looking for a short when I could have just bought the dip at target.
It seems to me to be a time to pivot to plays around the market topping as well as preparing for a bear market and perhaps the social unrest that will bring. I personally will be looking to buy BAC or other equities for the long hold while around (below) the purple trend line. Stuff like this makes me think about what """They""" are thinking when they take years to distribute. There is probably a reason why in the 08 crash the SPX bottomed out at 666.
Update: QQQ/SPY Continues to Resemble BTC $60K topThis is acting as an update to the linked idea below where I make the case that it appears a broad sell off in equities is very possible based on the behavior of the QQQ/SPY ratio. It is a very rigorous look at the pair and the implications of any breakdown. If you want the full idea please check that out.
The candles can appear red SPY goes up quicker than QQQ or if NDX goes down quicker than SPY and I believe that will be the scenario we will see. I believe we are seeing this topping pattern as people distribute their QQQ index holdings at a higher rate than their SPY holdings. I don't know of anywhere you can trade the QQQ/SPY spread but you could use this information to make long term calls if you wanted to trade any dips or rotate your savings and wealth into different assets.
BTC appears to be developing a head and shoulders pattern that I believe a lot in the crypto space are in denial about (see the linked idea on that as well). Due to the volatility in BTC we saw a very vicious ABC sell off with AB being 2x that of BC on the log scale. I have QQQ/SPQY targeting for a ABC correction on the standard scale and the AB=CD looks very likely place for price to consolidate. I don't see a pattern as clear as the head and shoulders just yet.
QQQ/SPY could still thrash around some more but until it gets back in the wedge I assume it is going to ABC down. The implications are severe. With a broad equities sell off we could see a cascade into crypto or commodities. I think in part the market is still dealing with the Archegos collapse and as these home offices and other institutions get more disciplined with leverage, lending and borrowing levels and who they trust we will see decrease of money in the market. That means that we go down as people unwind their risk and how far with the inflation anxiety remains to be seen.
Those of you familiar with my work will recognize the implications of the charts below. If you would like to see the system detailed be review my linked Ethereum post below. Eevery single one of these charts could be fleshed out into its own post but I can't be bothered.
Here is the weekly chart. If we AB=CD as shown above then we will be fully confirmed on a bear market on the weekly time frame. That is bad enough.
If we see a AB=CD we also and closes a monthly candle below the monthly VSTOP/20 month SMA it is basically another dot.com bubble burst.
And for funsies here is QQQSPY with the simplified cloud. It has twisted bearish.
Price Action Similarities between the NASDAQ and BitcoinThere is a lot on the main chart but lets go through it directly:
Both had a parabolic run up and
Over 80% corrections
Both Created a W pattern with a higher low around the 0.236 retracement level from the height to initial low
BTC intermediate high stalled at the 0.786 while NDX intermediate high was around the lower 0.500 (not shown on chart). Consequentially NDX did not show the same bullishness and perhaps that is why the subsequent uptrend was not as impulsive
Both Stalled briefly at the previous high (the 1 level)
BTC had a very neat consolidation at the 1.271 and 1.414 levels level while NDX showed a lot of chop
BTC entered a clear distribution at the 1.618 Level
Forecasting
The primary supposition based on this chart is that NDX will enter a technical distribution pattern as BTC did and this process can take a long time. Below is a scenario that I could see replay. Previous resistance gets turned into support and then sets up the trendline of the bull trap. You can see this al over the place when parabolic moves end and there is a fair chance we will see it again. The time measurement on the chart shows from the time the price broke free of resistance until the bull trap was in.
We may run into a lot of the same narratives with NDX as we did with BTC. People expecting a blw off top like the 00 bubble pop. Or "Printer go brrrrrr" type analysis.
Side Rant
It is sadly impressive how people can develop for themselves a system to determine their bias in trading whether to go long or short on a time frame but still get completely torn up and don't get the message. Below is a very important chart for NDX and if you follow me even somewhat closely the system should be recognizable. There is the VSTOP, the VSTOP X3 timeframe, the 20W and the MACD. When the VSTOP, MTF VSTOP and 20M are all below price action it is a clear sign that the macro trend is bullish. You should be taking longs and taking profits. To be honest I took some calls on SQQQ that paid well and some that did not during the last couple of months and it really wasn't worth the stress so I stopped.
To continue that point I have seen lots of crypto traders on Youtube or Trading view that had systems that the have appeared to abandon. They were going to be bearish if BTC slipped the 21 EMA or the 20w SMA.... And now they are bullish again somehow despite price action still being below the moving average. Traders that clearly saw the 2018 descending triangle cannot see the head and shoulders. People that used MA cross overs to determine bias have abandoned that, people that use the cloud have abandoned that because they are stuck on a bullish bias even after their systems tell them not to. Same with cloud traders. The cloud for bitcoin is flipped bearish on the daily or three daily and these traders are looking to go long on the 4h chart. Madness.
Back to the analysis
Since NDX is at a major target level this could be where a trader or investor decides to rotate some of their portfolio out of growth stocks. Into what I recommend anything as I am not a financial advisor. In this system you would not contemplate going short without a clear distribution pattern on the weekly timeframe that could take months or until the VSTOP flipped and then you would short into strength. Once the MACD crosses and price is below all the indicators it is a full multi-year bear market.
If (and that is still a big if) we do flip the monthly to a bearish bias the target for the next major consolidation is the 200 month EMA/SMA.
Conclusion
It is a "big if" if I am correct in several ways. It may take a month or so for this to get shorted out and lots of people may get surprised by an upward trust after distribution. I can see a lot of people getting torn up because they take shorts too soon, or get timed out of their option calls. Relief rallies can blow a bunch of shorter out of the water.
Ethereum: Confirming a bear market with high probabilityIntroduction
Those familiar with my system won't find anything new here, just a simple reiteration of the same system I have used to call bear markets or local highs several times with a lot of sucess. This system helps us confirm a all time high and a top after a massive uptrend and it has many confirming components with each one by themselves should make a case for a change of bias, but all together make a very strong case for long term bullish or bearishness. The linked charts will show where and how I was using this system to call for caution on BTC on the 3d chart at 50k to confirming the bear market on the 1 week and 1 month timeframes.
Analysis
Top Chart
the 20 Week SMA is the baseline of the bollinger band and used in many moving average systems. ETH has slipped the 20 ween SMA, closed a whole candle body below, and is now testing it as resistance. The 2018 top had a much more violent slip below the 20 week and then price action tested the 20 week for around a month before continuing the downtrend. Currently ETH seems to have approached the cliff and slipped off, grabbing the 20W SMA like it were tuffs of grass. Prediction: That hold will slip in due time with new local lows.
Volatility Stop. A great indicator to help you determine the trend and place stops. It can also help you visualize dynamic support and resistance. This has been poised bearishly since mid-may and that was a major warning sign for those familiar with the system.
Volatility Stop Multiple Time Frame . I have set this to 3x, so this basically shows the 3 week volatility stop . Combined with default Vstop it helps confirm super-bearish or bullish trends. When the VSTOP is broken the red arrow appears and we wait for confirmation and we have been on that condition for weeks now
Lower Charts
The On Balance volume is a great indicator for determining what is going on with the total volume situation and helps measure the tension between buyers and sellers. It is a bit harder to use divergences with crypto as the process keeps adding new supply but crosses can be very important, especially if you have an exchange where you can somewhat trust volume data. As you can see the OBV has slipped the 10 EMA and is now leaning heavily upon the 20. Very shortly I expect the prediction on the chart and it proceeds in an exceedingly bearish manner.
A bearish MACD cross on the weekly timeframe after an all time high by itself is a major warning sign of either major consolidation incoming or a trend reversal. When that is combined with a bearish VSTOP or price action below the 20W SMA it gets even more bearish.
Watchlist
In order to fully confirm a bear market according to this system we are missing two related conditions
OBV below the 20 EMA
The 10 and 20 OBV EMAs cross bearish
In order to change the bias to bullish we would need to see
OBV above the 10 EMA
Bullish MACD cross
VStop to flip bullish
MTF VSTOP to flip Bullish with confirmation
Whole Candle Bodies above the 20 W SMA, preferably with a retest
Going up a time frame to the 2 week chart we can see that the VSTOP has already flipped bearish, the MACD appears to be approaching a cross, and the OBV is about to slip the 10 EMA. In my mind with my familiarity with this system this would be a good place to take profit or prepare for reversal (bear market)
Closing Thoughts
I am short an alt coin that looks particularly bad to me right now and that is my only crypto position open right now. I am not a financial advisor or a CMT but I am a guy that spend a lot of time trying to make my own system to remove my bias in determining trend to help me trend trade. And I am bearish.
Quickpost: TSLA Elliot wave UpdateI have been very, very, patiently watching this trade for a buy entry on TLSA and it has been a couple of months now as you will be able to see from my linked idea. I have used this chart to help me time some SPXU calls due to its inclusion in that index. My linked post will show how I thought this would be resolved a bit quicker in a simple falling wedge but buyers stepped in and now we have a descending triangle .
Price gapped up two days ago right to the resistance of the ray, which is forming the resistance of the ascending triangle with also occurs at the 0.5 retracement level of O to A on the fib chart. We may see some sideways action here for a few more days but I expect this will resolve to the downside.
The targets are based on the same 0 to A retracement and it would take full performance to get price into the previous 4 wave for a bounce. Anything below the low of 4 invalidates the whole pattern but would also mean massive over-performance to the downside. The most likely target technically is probably the 1.618 level. After that we will see if this turns into a bull trap or a massive move to the upside.
I see a lot of bearishness in the equities market and TSLA is a bit of a canary in the coal mime for me for the broader market. If this does resolve as I suppose the next trade after buying the dip would be to sell the previous support of the triangle as resistance. This would make a massive head and shoulders on TSLA and be very bearish for the broader market and the price path charts where I see this ending up if the triangle structure does act as resistance. Suppositions on top of suppositions.
Bitcoin Bear Market Confirmed on the MonthlyPreamble
There is quite a debate as to what constitutes a bear market generally and what constitutes a bear market in crypto specifically. Having pondered this question at length for myself and experiencing the pain of indecision this is what I have developed. This determination is very important because in bull markets bullish formations overperform and even bearish formations can break upward. In bear markets bullish formations fail to trigger and bearish formations over-perform. In the linked ideas you will see that I rang a warning bell when the three day condition was met at 50k and I called the bear market at 43k and look at us now, struggling to stay above 33.5k. I have been at sundry times mocked for my call, in person and online. Meh. We see the system is now printing a bearish close on the monthly timeframe and that is going to be extraordinarily difficult to overcome.
The System
The key components to this system are the VSTOP and the MTF VSTOP, which are based off the Average True range, a most valuable indicator for its use at finding lows in markets, and its use in measuring volatility for stops and the Keltner Channel. When both are flipped bearish or bullish the uptrend is extraordinarily resilient and despite viscous retracements there can be a lot more continuation potential. As they have both flipped bearish I continue to foresee a lot of bearish continuation. The monthly 20 SMA will very likely (above 90%) fall as support. Price may chop around there on the weekly chart for weeks but ultimately downside targets are going to be reached. The monthly MACD cross is almost upon us and in short order I foresee that happening as well. On lower time frames I can add the Ichimoku cloud or On Balance Volume with EMAs, but due to the high time frame those are unworkable now.
Targets
I continue to think that BTC will see some wicking below the monthly Keltner channel. We may even close a candle body below it before chopping sideways and then up. Please review the linked idea for more details on that.
Final Thoughts
If you are still bullish please let me know, technically, why. MY system lets me change my biases and my behavior as soon as the 3 day or weekly conditions are met. This monthly post is to help people understand the scope of that we are dealing with, and the forces that are at play. It is not possible for me to chart the 20 month wrong, or the VSTOP wrong. There is no squinting and seeing a falling wedge that isn't there or misreading divergences. The bias is bearish.
Blow off Tops for BTC, BNB, ETH and Total2Very curiously lots of people have been asking where the blow off tops have been for crypto because they are use to seeing blow off tops on crypto on weekly or monthly charts. As the market matures it begins to move a little slower and we can see that by looking at the newer coins, BND and ETH showing a blow off top on the 3 month but BTC showing the blow off top on the six month chart.
This also leads to a broader point of what charts scale to use. This rejection wicks or profit taking wicks are very clear on the standard scale. They don't look so bad on the log scale. Also, lots of people crow about doing long term analysis but it seems they don't want to consider how bearish these candles are.
Seriously, how can you be bullish on this?
BTCUSD: High Chance to revisits the 200 week SMA before new ATH.BTCUSD just had a new week and I wanted to get the data on the close on both the On Balance Volume and combine it with the MACD. I will link just a couple of ideas to supplement this idea so it isn't to repetitive. Each idea covers a different set of indicators and guess what? All bearish. A review of my post history will show I have not vacilated between bearish and bullish over this time last month. Even when I called for a uptrend I called it a bull trap and that is exactly what it was.
I have been watching the On Balance Volume with EMAS for a couple of weeks now. For some background information, it can be a bit hard to to OBV analysis on crypto because often the supply is constantly increasing and in other cases, supply will be burned. This can confound peak to peak or trough to trough analysis looking for divergences and is one reason why I missed a fair bit of this uptrend. But what doesn't really change is the OBV EMA crosses. If the 10 and 20 OBV EMAs cross that means there has been some change in selling or buying pressure. Not shown is the third EMA which I usually program to 100. There are also times I use a 25-50-75 and that can signal a major change in trend is coming. It is not a signal for people that want to snipe or scalp, but when the 25 OBV EMA crosses the 50 a big move will be incoming, especially on a timeframe like the weekly. You just have to wait for the price action to coil up and then release its tension. I wish I learned this earlier.
I shall not explain the MACD because it is a more understood indicator. And I don't think it means too much that the OBV EMAs and MACD cross didn't happen exactly on the same candle.
Now to discuss the 200 week... Not because it is so esoteric but because of the implications. The 200w has marked the bottom of ever bear market we have the available data for on the BLX chart. This has an implication that most don't want to consider no matter how technical the move is: BTCUSD will have to retest its previous All Time High. Even worse to consider is the 200w fails as support, but that is something to consider in due time.
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The all time high of 2013 was retested but the high of 2014 was not. If the high of 2017 is retested we may have a scenario where every other ATH of bitcoin needs to be retested, or some other pattern as may develop.
This does not inform any single trade between here and the 200w. There should be a lot of relief rallies or suckers rallies or bull traps between were and there. But historically it seems clear that after a powerful impulse on the weekly timeframe a bearish MACD cross and a cross of the 10 and 20 OBV signals a bear market.
There is a chance that somehow and some way even though the MACD signals a major change in momentum that the bulls will somehow clutch and the buying will pick up. But I don't see a reason that would happen. If that happens I put this bearish sentiment on hold.
Bitcoin's two options: Rapid recovery or roll overThe chart is on the daily time frame but I have programed in the CM ultimate to have the 20 SMA on it, which is close enough to the 20 week EMA as to not matter. Both are very conventional timeframes to use but I prefer the 20 SMA because it is the baseline of the bollinger band (not show). Please see the linked ideas if you want to see more indicators.
Key Points
purple areas of investigation
Trend line support and 20 week SMA coincide with the purple area bounce
Consolidation lasted for about 2-3 weeks.
On Balance Volume was below its 100 EMA
Orange Areas
Occurs after purple
the trendline and 20w SMA act as area of resistance
On Balance Volume still under 100 EMA
Must needs before I become a buyer again
OBV gets above the 100 EMA
Price action recovers rapidly get some white space between it and the 20 week SMA
Price action very quickly gets above the red resistance line.
Out of everything in the post, if you want to simply everything to one key point, the price action needs to get above the red trendline. It is pretty simple.
Other Implications
The crypto market could be lulled into complacency of the next week or so as alts continue to make new highs as BTC chops sideways. I personally have a long on Tezos under the assumption that this could be a few weeks of sideway. If I am wrong I take a get stopped out on a calculated loss and I resume shorting almost everything crypto. If BTC recovers very quickly then alts might have a slowdown as BTC draws money away, especially form those that trade crypto/btc pairings. Very suppositional at this point
NDX/SPY and NDX/DJI looks like the NASDAQ is popping a bubbleIntroduction
For my adult life the advice has been to buy just by ETFs. And for the last decade or so the advise has also to been buy the NASDAQ ETF because it over-performs the other indices. It seems that advice is on the precipice of ending due to some long term indicators on the verge of flipping their switches.
The MFV VSTOP is set to 3x and right now price action has gone below the stop. IF we confirm below the arrow stays in place and right next to it we get that black dot which means the move is confirmed. Not shown to keep the main chart clean is the VSTOP on the current time frame which has already flipped bearish.
Price action is also leaning heavily on the 20 month SMA which, due to its use in a variety of other indicators is rather important.
The Chart also declares that we have a lot of divergence on some popular indicators
indicators
I could almost exactly use the same write up for NDX/DJI but this chart has the RSI with a double top instead of clear bearish divergence.
A look at NDX, SPY and DJI to try and guestimate what this dump could look like is very bearish indeed. The dotcom bubble burst was a historical economic event and it seems its ghost has come to haunt us. SPY and DJI will be less affected by this downtrend but will still take significant beatings over the next coupe of years. The fact that they don't go down as much means they are less likely to get a playable/dupe-able bull trap
Here is a replay of the dotcom pop on NDX with my general thoughts. It is on the three day with the daily BB in orange and the weekly in blue. There will be a lot of technical bounces on the way down and a put/short strategy seems very advisable.
My Conclusions
I am not going to go on at length about the dollar or inflation in consumer staples or the wallstreetbets effect. It looks pretty bad out there when you compare the most bullish US index to its brothers and that is generally bearish for the broader market. I am not a financial advisor and I don't have a CMT... purely self taught. But I am going to look to short in one way or another these bearish continuation patterns and I might even take some opportunistic logs when the price action first hits the weekly bollinger band. There is going to be a lot of pain over the next couple of years but there is nothing moral about being bad with money, or losing money.
Here is TSLA based off of my linked idea. Plenty of chances to swing trade in this dumpster fire of an equity if I can get some indicators to back up the TA. The main chart suggest we will get a multi-month bull trap. The chart where I replayed the NDX bubble burst also suggest a multi-month bull trap. Even though the macro situation is bearish you still have to be nibble enough to deal with the rallies however you decide. My other linked idea is how I potentially see BTC affected by the everything bubble
NASDAQ Futures appear to be in Wycoffian DistributionVery technical situation is presenting itself on the Nasdaq futures. It is very technical because of how inter-connected the different phases are and the patience required to see and play it. Ideally the overall structure will get you over-performance compared to the constituent structures.
The Components
Preliminary Supply and Automatic Reaction : A impulsive uptrend sees its first round of selling off. This selling pressure leads to an automatics reaction where momentum buyers continue the rally.
Buying Climax Most of the momentum players exit their trade. There is probably same underlying structure that they see and they all take profit off of that structure. In our chart I outlined a ascending triangle that probably had a lot of trader take their profits. Price action returned to the triangle resistance to test it as support fueled by support and resistance traders.
Secondary Tests Swing traders beat the price around for a couple of days in a rage bound manner.
The Ice Set by the area between the preliminary supply and automatic reaction (or in other cases, a particularly strong sign of weakness0 the ice is a zone that at first acts as support but when it gets cracked price action drowns if it cannot get above it in a decisive manner.
Last Point of Supply A very weak uptrend that ends confidence in further upside to most savvy investors and traders.
Markdown (not shown) price falls impulsively.
On QQQ Proper we see that price action has been gapping around a bit leading to jerky price movement. As a general convention when price moves in such a rapid manner it has a habit of retracing until all the gaps get filled. The short squeeze and pump today helped fill the gap from a few days ago and is one more reason as to why we could trade lower. Taking time to fill the gaps below also gets us closer to having the double top become a reality. But of course one always needs price and volume action to confirm. You can thing you see a double top when it turns into an ascending triangle on you when people buy the dip aggressively. The On Balance Volume definitely suggests price is going to break down.
Target setting gets a little complicated because distribution would suggest we are going to get a bit more performance than the constituent formations would suggest... Less complicated: The flagpole and wedge will overperform.
I feel confident in this idea because the so many of the components of the NASDAQ individually look awful. TSLA has been in an massive correction
Apple looks to have fallen out of a wedge and is flipping previous support as resistance
Amazon looks rangebound in a way that it could develop into full blown Wykoff distribution.
Netflix hit target on a massive triangle and has been spending the last couple of months topping.
I could go on and on. Even things that appear bullish like googl/goog look like they are blowing off their tops. Whether you think this is a great reset or great rotation it seems clear the Nasdaq is primed to take a beating. For a generation people have just bought the NASAQ. Now for a couple of years traders may just think "I'll sell the NASDAQ." This reminds me eerily of the dump before COVID 19. Lots of things look very healthy but under the hood in equities a dump was brewing then the news latched on to a problem and the politicians over-reacted and spiked the economy.
BTC Bearish Logarithmic XACB ButterflyTL:DR
One of the most powerful forex patterns is visible on the bitcoin chart, but only on the log scale. Ultra bearish if correct.
Intro
(a bit blogposty)
I am constantly looking for the largest market structure I can find and doing such drives me to expand the number of patterns I can easily recall. The harmonic patterns are the trickiest for me due to all of the internal consistencies. I was looking at the bitcoin price action over and over again when I saw the harmonic butterfly. When you look for the ratios within the default XABC pattern you get the wrong ratios but when you put the chart on log scale and make sure your fib retracements are set to log you get almost perfectly retracement/extension ratios we are looking for. This chart formation has taken over 3 years to develop. It should have some power.
More Analysis
The main chart is very explanatory of the big picture so we can dive in to some further analysis. My linked comment will detail my rational from earlier on how I think we are in a bull trap. Saves us the time from going over it here. But first lets zoom in on the XABCD structure.
On the daily zoom in we can see our tolerances for B an C are very tight. Very comforting for the overall structure.
A quirky chart is the 20 day chart which came from my trying to combine some 10 day candle stick formations. Looks pretty bad.
Misc
(ideas y'all can steal as I don't have the energy to flesh out)
The ETHBTC chart is very concerning given the high level of correlation between all crypto. A broadening wedge is a bearish formation and even if price action returns to the base of the wedge ETH takes a hammering against BTC. I would assume that this means that crypto falls victim to the everything bubble but bitcoin recovers first while ETH is still falling. Very tenuous supposition.
This chart is a bit busy conceptually, but meh. We have a red ichimoku cloud that has turned red as of several days ago and I have not heard anyone mention it. Curious but I do know so many people are looking at the 4h chart and may miss this. Pi cycle is bearish, that we know and by itself isn't conclusive because this is the first time it is going live. The on balance EMAs takes the default on balance volume and applies EMAs to get an even wider view of trends. The 20 crossing the 100 is a very major bearish sign of persistent selling.
Final Thoughts
This is all very experimental. We are taking a pattern that I can't verify is suppose to work on the log chart like this. But what I do know is the uptick in volume helps confirm that someone was probably seeing the same thing I did, just a head of me. And this dude had enough BTC to nail in the close. My linked post shows TSLA is in a massive correction. If they and Musk take a loss on BTCUSD the memetic energy into this dump will be incredible. Unlike some people out there, I see some clear indicators that we should not be recklessly long. If this pattern is valid the gold and silver bugs will be crowing victory. BTC is suppose to be currency so it would make sense that a Forex pattern would work. And with Dollar milk shake the last currency standing is suppose to be the dollar and DXY is looking very strong right now while inflation is soaring. Seems easy to think that everyone not in the US will dump BTC to feed themselves.
BTCUSD: Volume, MAs, Ichimoku and BB look GrizzlyTL:DR
I threw Everything but the kitchen sink and its all bearish.
Analysis
A lot is is explained on the main chart. The On Balance volume Situation with the EMAS is particularly telling. Having the 20 period cross the 100 is a key event that suggest a lot of persistent recent selling and that situation means bearish moves are more likely and will be more impulsive when they do occur. This suggest more likely than not the price actin will slip the 100 SMA, and then the 20SMA will cross the 100 bearishly as well. From there a chance at a technical bounce at the 200. Looking at the history we can get some pretty severe wicks through.
For those that like the EMA ribbon and are hoping to see it as support the On Balance Volume situation means that we are likely to see the ribbon, which is thin to begin with, fail as support as well.
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For a bit wider view here is the 3 day chart where I have highlighted a different bearish volume scenario. The 10 period OBV EMA is now acting as resistance. Likewise, price action has gotten narrow enough that we are on the verge of a T-K cross on the cloud.
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Here is the same 3 day chart with OBV and EMA but with the weekly bollinger band in blue and the monthly in green. This volume situation makes being long outside the monthly bollinger band every risky. In very bullish scenarios the top of the monthly BB can act as support but we can see that the top weekly BB is beginning to round off which is not that bullish.
We can also see price action is tightening in a way that predicts further downside. The price action was very expansive as evidenced by how the bottom of the BB falls out the chart and now as price action constricts the BB snugs up.
Final thoughts
A look at the chart and the history does allow for price action to go higher once the 200D SMA is tested as support. Clearly that is a possibility. But for people tracking inflation wearer experiencing an explosion in the price of food and energy. I am not going to chart you to death, but look up the prices of oil, rice, pork, cattle, etc. All going up. It is going to be hard to hold on to an intangible trustless payment system token when your loved ones need a meal.
Bitcoin The Bull Trap is inPretty straight forward follow up of some of my recent bearish calls on BTC. The red arrow shows hidden bearish divergence on the price action in the rising wedge and the MACD Histogram which suggest we are going to get some continuation, or in other words, a lower low. The Purple flagpole target shows a rough area where we should land and I expect some over-performance before we settle on the bollinger band.
The 8h MACD is about to cross bearishly and we can see how devastating that was on the last occurrence. Signs of illness are showing Old Man is picking up and it is going to affect all the kiddos. All the youtubers looking at TA on the hourly, 4h or likewise are going to miss the year long trendline which sets up our bear trap.
Please see my linked idea on how this break down was high probability and predictable with high probability. The green aro shows the most volatile possible larger bull trap and the thin orange line shows where BTC could go if we have a top that more rounds off than a typical bull trap.
I am standing on this call like I stood on a bullish call in January when BTC was damn near free falling and TrVe and the youtubers were predicting we go to 20k again. I was predicting more upside and we got it.
S&P has serious problems with nested bearish structuresMy favorite ticker to track the S&P is SPXUSD as it gets you a whole lot more data on the price action than other tickers with the main draw back that you cannot get any volume confirmation. But due to the cleanliness of the price action these nested bearish structures are very apparent.
From late April to a few days ago SPXUSD was in a very beautiful orange head and shoulders that broke down to target with slight over performance. Since then price action has returned to the neckline of the orange head and shoulders and the market is deciding if it is going to flip previous support into resistance. Given the orange head and shoulder set up it is my assumption that it is more probable than not that the blue head and shoulders will be validated and perform. The orange neckline will confirm as resistance and price will test the neckline of the blue head and shoulders.
Now on to the black lines and target area. This large formation was part of my linked idea about a very disturbing fractal developing in the S&P. These two head and shoulders are tied into a 30 week long rising wedge.
My gut tells me this won't end well. Here is a general trend of some price action pukes over the last couple of years using SPY so we have some volume data. Even through we had a significant pull back the green arrows show OBV was still tracking the price, This divergence hits at a worse dump than the Covid dump, but I don't have any hard and fast justification for that suspicion at this point.
I suspect soon SPX/SPY/SPXUSD see a move down and the OBV will break the OBV bollinger band. All this predicts futhark price puking. I have some slightly out of the money SPXU calls that expire in a couple of weeks.