XLF Has Its Pre Financial Crisis High In SightsThe popular ETF, XLF follows the financial sector and after weeks of selling, it looks to have found support and be gearing up for a big move indicated by the Weekly Squeeze coiling for the past 8 weeks, with the momentum shifting to bullish this week. If you take a look at C (Citigroup), it too has a Weekly Squeeze. If you take a look at it on a Daily it also has a Squeeze which looks like it will fire long. If this move for the financial sector plays out long, I would expect a retest of its high back from January (30.33) then a retest of it's high of 30.84. This high (30.84 - May 28, 2007 - 11+ year ago) is an important one because this was the peak of the financial sector ETF ( XLF ) before the financial crisis of 2008.
XLF trade ideas
XLF - sub-fractal identifiedXLF is potentially in a pretty bearish posture but I give it allowance for one more pop into the orange box specified. After that I would be short. I don't like the setup to be long here.
It is very interesting that my fractal identification method has picked out a sub-fractal if you will -- i.e. a pattern in the daily, which has previously presented itself in the hourly.
If I overlay that onto the daily chart, I see we should pop into one more high before turning down
Death Crosses AboundA few sectors are signaling troubles ahead, with their 50 day MA's crossing below their 200 day MA's.
This chart picture shows SPY (upper left) as a broad gauge of market action. It has yet to experience the "death cross."
However, the industrial stocks measured by XLI (upper right), materials stocks measured by XLB, and financial stocks measured by XLF have all experienced the death cross. Given their importance as a proxy for future growth, this seems to bode poorly for broader markets.
Buy the Banks, Suckers!Every time I turn on CNBC, FBN, or the like, I hear a pundit or analyst pounding the table to "buy the banks." The go on to ramble a spiel about low valuation rations (P/B, P/E, P/FCF, etc), rising rate environments, yield curve inversions, and other reasons that they should outperform the markets going forward. But who's biting?
A quick glance at the SPDR financial ETF - XLF - and you will likely arrive at the conclusion that this is a sell, not a buy. We've broken short term trends (red dotted lines), intermediate term trend (orange dotted line) from 2016 lows, and are approaching a trend line (green dotted line) from the recession lows nearly a decade ago. Even worse, it looks to have formed a double top at the $30 level, the first peak coming in 2007.
Until there's a bid to reverse trend, this is a hard sell. Support looks to come in around $25. If that fails, the next support is around $21, but that's crash-level support.
Of course, one must ponder... if the banks are rolling over, how well can the broader markets hold up? Is this the warning shots of a larger correction in the markets? Hmm...
HAS THE XLF (LARGE BANKS) PUT IN A DOUBLE TOP ?Does the double top in the-XLF warn us of an economic slow-down?
The US Industrial stocks are slowing, as well as the emerging markets and US large banks.
History teaches us to pay attention to longer trends, and the-XLF clearly has not been able to put in new highs.
Most of the indicators for the XLF-are slowing.
I think that this is forecasting an economic slowdown.
Use caution and don't chase story stocks.
Don.
XLF - Inside Bar formation w/ potential breakoutThe market has been consolidating after a strong up move. An inside bar pattern has formed during this pause and presents a good opportunity to get in on the next leg up. A good strategy would be to enter on an upside break of the inside bar with a stop loss just below the bottom of the inside bar pattern. It creates a very attractive risk/reward setup.