Technically Speaking, April, 2005

From the Editor’s Desk

In this issue, Jim Balchunas, CMT, provides an excellent example of technical analysis. He has applied classical techniques to develop actionable trading plans for long-term investors. This is an excellent example of the type of work we wish we could publish more of in Technically Speaking. Unfortunately, we rarely receive such insightful analysis to consider for publication.

This is your newsletter, and its success is very much dependant upon the membership for content. Book reviews, software reviews and market analysis are always welcome. Many of you produce short pieces as part of your job – please consider submitting them for publication here after your clients have seen them. For those seeking employment in the field, being published here is valuable input on a resume. And for those with their own firms, being featured in a professional publication is something that might just impress a potential client.

The focus of this newsletter is also on MTA business, and this month that business is largely the upcoming Education Seminar. As John Kosar points out in this issue, the seminar has long been mix of technical analysis and camaraderie. If you’re still considering whether or not to attend, any prior attendee could tell you that it is well worth the time.

Hope to see you there.

Cordially,
Mike Carr, CMT
Technically Speaking Editor

What's Inside...

The Interest is Growing

Fresh on the heels of our successful decisions from the SROs, I have received a substantial increase in inquiries. The...

Read More

IFTA Update

Over the last year your MTA has been working diligently to work out a solution with regard to the competition...

Read More

Stock Indices - Different Challenges and a New OBV High

NASDAQ Composite

The important story to us is volume on the NASDAQ and its pattern on the monthly chart compared...

Read More

Member Profiles: Vice President John Kosar

John Kosar, CMT, is Vice President of the MTA and recently founded his own research firm, Asbury Research, LLC. John...

Read More

Intermarket Analysis: The Fundamental Relationship Underlying Stocks and Interest Rates

The article below is extracted from “Inflation is Always and Everywhere a Monetary Phenomenon” by Myles Zyblock, CFA – Chief...

Read More

The Interest is Growing

Fresh on the heels of our successful decisions from the SROs, I have received a substantial increase in inquiries. The majority of the calls and emails have been regarding the CMT designation, its history and how one can enroll in the program. Further, at least 50% of the calls have been from Europe and a few from Asia. Despite the fact that we have not yet done any PR on our success, word is spreading. I can only interpret this as a very good thing for not only the CMT, but the MTA and technical analysis in general. Clearly, the trend towards accreditation, specifically, an accredited program that is also psycho-metrically valid (like the CMT), is growing both in acceptance and global scope. I will keep everyone in the loop going forward about further developments but I take this to be a very positive sign.

We also want to welcome Barry Sine to the MTA Board. Many of you know Barry. He has been involved in many MTA-related programs such as the CMT Program, organizing our seminars, just to name a few. He brings a sharp mind, great outlook and will be a great addition to the Board. We thank Dave Clemens for all his work over the years and wish him nothing but the best.

Finally, a reminder that the May education seminar is approaching. I encourage to you to take a look at the list of speakers and program because this NY event is shaping up to be one of our best. Alongside the substantive and valuable market discussions, in an association as small as ours, the opportunity to network with the best and the brightest is a great value added.

Sincerely,
Jordan E. Kotick, CMT
MTA President

Contributor(s)

Jordan Kotick, CMT

Bio Coming Soon.

IFTA Update

Over the last year your MTA has been working diligently to work out a solution with regard to the competition between the CMT and the DITA. Perhaps now is an appropriate time to let you know the current status of those negotiations.

Initially IFTA had suggested that the MTA simply stop giving the CMT examinations outside the United States. IFTA suggested that henceforth only the DITA designation should be available outside the US.

The problem with that request was that CMT examinations have been given around the world for the last seventeen years. There are now CMT candidates in more than 50 countries around the world at some level of the program, there are currently ~2000 people in the program, and the MTA has judiciously protected the CMT trademark on a world wide basis. To simply abandon those candidates who are dues paying affiliates of the MTA would have been totally irresponsible.

Many meetings were held, much volunteer time was spent, and various solutions were proposed, but regardless of sincere efforts on both sides, a solution eluded us. In November 2004, the board of IFTA decided to change the name of the DITA to CFT for certified financial technician and to cancel the long term contract under which MTA supplied the first level of the DITA.

With the advice of counsel MTA objected strongly to the use of CFT as a violation of the CMT trademark that would confuse the market and weaken the CMT trademark. The MTA felt obligated to protect the rights of our current and future charter holders.

At this point it appears that IFTA may abandon the CFT acronym in favor of some other mark. So long as the new name of DITA is not confusingly similar to CMT, the MTA will have no objection.

The position of MTA is the same as it has always been. We will continue to support IFTA in every way we can so long as the actions of IFTA are not detrimental to the MTA or to the CMT charter.

Sincerely,
John R. Kirby
Project Manager

Contributor(s)

John R. Kirby

Bio Coming

Stock Indices - Different Challenges and a New OBV High

NASDAQ Composite

The important story to us is volume on the NASDAQ and its pattern on the monthly chart compared to the index in 2004 as well as 2003.

In 2003, as the index moved higher volume increased consistently. In October, November and December of 2004, as the index moved higher, volume again increased consistently.

Its On Balance Volume (OBV) on the chart hit an all time high in 2001. In 2004, it did not exceed that high but it was approaching it. In December the NASDAQ made a new high for 2004. Its OBV also made a new high for all of 2004 – an early indicator that higher moves could occur.

On the last trading day of 2004, the NASDAQ closed well above its 20-period moving average. Momentum as measured by RSI on the monthly chart is strong and there has been buying since September.

The next weekly chart indicates a challenge for the NASDAQ which differs (in a numbers sense) from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

It appears that the bear market begun in March 2000 has not completed. The rally from the low made in October 2002 still appears to be only a correction to the bear market downtrend and not the start of a new bull market.

On this weekly chart, Fibonacci retracements are drawn. Even though there has been some excitement in the markets that the NASDAQ rally from March 2003 into 2004 has been holding up, it reached only the first level of retracement. However, it is now in a position to reach the 38.2% retracement level of the decline from 2000 to 2002. The next upward target would be near the 38.2% (just under 2700).

S&P 500 Index

Volume on the S&P 500 is not anywhere near 1997, 1998, 1999 or 2000. However, it is the case that volume has been on the increase as the index rose in 2004 from August–December. Perhaps more importantly from a technical perspective is the On Balance Volume (OBV) on the monthly chart. It is nearing the OBV high made in 1999.

On the last trading day of 2004, the S&P 500 closed well above its 20-period moving average. Momentum is strong and there has been buying since early August.

The rally of the S&P 500 from its low in October 2002 has been impressive as the weekly chart below shows. In December of 2003 it moved beyond the 38.2% retracement and hit the 50% level in 2004. The index exceeded that level again and consequently made a new high for 2004 in December. It is now in a position to hit the next target near 61.8% or just under 1260.

Note the channel on the weekly chart below. If the S&P 500 were to maintain strength in buying and momentum, hitting the upper channel line would mean a target far beyond 1260.

In order for that event to occur, it would probably need to be preceded by periods of consolidation. Look for some consolidation to occur near the 61.8% retracement.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

Similar to the S&P 500, volume on the DJIA is not anywhere near 1997, 1998, 1999 or 2000. However, the On Balance Volume (OBV) on the monthly chart made a new high in February of 2004 – an early indicator that higher moves could occur.

Higher moves later in 2004 did occur and the DJIA made a new high for the year in December. On the last trading day of 2004, the DJIA closed well above its 20-period moving average. Momentum as measured by RSI on the monthly chart below is strong and there has been buying since November.

Perhaps more significant are the Bollinger bands (shown in red) on the chart. Towards the end of 2004 they were narrowing – indicating a decrease in volatility. The last time that occurred was in the last quarter of 2000 and the first half of 2001. That was followed by increasing volatility as the DJIA moved to the downside during 2001-2002. As the bands were narrowing in 2000-2001, the DJIA was dropping below the 20-period moving average (middle blue band).

As the bands narrow moving into 2005, the DJIA is above its 20-period moving average. OBV is rising – indicating accumulation (buying).

When was the all time high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average? It was in December of 1999. From a technical perspective, the aforementioned indicators could be significant. The DJIA could exceed the high of 1999.

We are looking for the DJIA to make a new all time high and move above 12,000 – near 12,300 to 12,500. This would be a gain of 14% to 16% from its close on December 31, 2004.

All charts courtesy of Prophet Financial Systems (www.prophet.net)

Contributor(s)

James V. Balchunas, CMT

Jim provides independent analyses of the financial markets including U.S. stocks, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Futures at http://www.GrowThisAccount.com.

Member Profiles: Vice President John Kosar

John Kosar, CMT, is Vice President of the MTA and recently founded his own research firm, Asbury Research, LLC. John feels the purpose of the MTA is simply to create good jobs for its members in the financial field.

Career

John Kosar is President of Asbury Research and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT). He provides more than two decades of insight and experience in covering the major financial markets. John spent the first 15 years of his career on the trading floors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade. This provided him an opportunity to learn how the financial markets work from the inside out, and became the foundation for his unique perspective on them.

Mr. Kosar has been quoted throughout his career in most major U.S. financial publications including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Investors Business Daily. He has also frequently appeared on local and national financial television, radio, and web-based financial programming including CNBC, FNN, First Business and WBBM Newsradio 78 in Chicago.

During his career, John has been ranked among the top U.S. market timers by several ranking services, including Timer Digest and Commodity Traders Consumer Report. He was awarded the Chartered Market Technician designation in 1999. John is the Vice President of the Market Technicians Association (MTA), and has served on its Board of Directors since 2002.

John saw an opportunity to present unbiased research in the current market environment and decided to found Asbury Research. Prior to this decision, he was Senior Research Analyst for Bianco Research, a prominent fixed-income research firm in Chicago. During his career he was also a Technical Analyst and trader for NatWest Markets, Greenwich Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank.

In addition to devoting time to the MTA and his firm, John places a priority on spending time with his wife and two children. They live in suburban Chicago.

Methodology

John looks at the big picture and develops specific and actionable recommendations from that study. His analysis includes studies of commodities markets, the fixed income markets, the yield curve, foreign exchange rates and equities.

He is well known for his work on the Commitment of Traders report, the topic of his CMT paper and a mainstay of his career. Commitments of Traders data breaks down futures open interest into three categories: Commercials (hedgers), Large Speculators (futures funds), and Small Speculators (typically smaller retail traders). Knowing how these trader categories are positioned in the marketplace, and at what prices, can give tremendous insight into future market direction. In addition, he uses pattern analysis and traditional indicators along with nontraditional insights such as the relationship between the CRB Index and the Consumer Price Index.

Thoughts on the MTA

The future of the MTA is brighter than it has ever been in John’s opinion. Obviously the recent decision to accept the CMT Level 1 & Level 2 in lieu of the Series 86 exam signifies a newfound level of respect for technical analysis, and this is the result of a lot of hard work by MTA volunteers. The MTA depends on the efforts of volunteers, and John thinks there are a lot of other issues to be worked. While many Board members are dedicating more than 20 hours a week to the MTA, volunteers with any level of commitment are welcome in this organization. All that is required is a desire to raise the visibility and respectability of technical analysis.

A good chance to learn about the MTA occurs at the annual seminar. To John, this annual gathering represents the past and the future of the MTA. This meeting is an opportunity to renew old friendships and make new friends while enjoying the ample food and refreshments and discussing charts. It also highlights the future of the MTA as we move education of other market professionals into the forefront and showcase the best and brightest in our field in New York this year.

Current Market Outlook

The preponderance of the technical evidence strongly suggests that long-term interest rates are probably at or near a multi-month to multi-year low. The question is, how do we know when the low in rates is in?

John believes T-Bond futures’ open interest may be the single most important indicator to signal when long-term interest rates have bottomed. When total open interest contracts below its 10-day moving average, this will indicate that nearterm bullish conviction in higher prices (lower rates) has eroded by enough to put a sustainable top in price (bottom in yields) into place. Until this happens, long-term interest rates will probably continue lower for the near-term.

To a lesser degree, rate of change and percent above the 200-day moving average indicators, as they apply to daily and weekly T-Bond futures prices, may also provide some insight as to when we might expect the direction of long-term interest rates to reverse.

Asbury Research LLC produces big-picture analysis for the major areas of the financial markets, and actionable ideas in specific asset classes including equities, fixed income, the yield curve, foreign exchange and commodities. This research is targeted for portfolio managers, hedge funds, trading firms and private investors, and includes some of the biggest names in the financial industry. For more information Asbury Research LLC, please visit www.asburyresaerch.com

Contributor(s)

Intermarket Analysis: The Fundamental Relationship Underlying Stocks and Interest Rates

The article below is extracted from “Inflation is Always and Everywhere a Monetary Phenomenon” by Myles Zyblock, CFA – Chief Institutional Strategist & Director of Capital Markets Research at the Royal Bank of Canada. It is reproduced as reprinted in the February 7, 2005 issue of “John Mauldin’s Outside the Box” Additional information may be obtained by emailing JohnMauldin@InvestorsInsight.com

The title of this week’s report is based on a famous quote by the Nobel Prize winning monetary economist Milton Friedman. His view, anchored in the quantity theory of money, is that excessive money creation spawns inflation. Our research suggests that there is value in adopting a monetary framework to assess the long-term inflation outlook. We have examined data from a cross-section of countries, as well as nearly a century of US data, to find that inflation usually accelerates when money supply growth exceeds the growth rate in the economy for an extended period of time.

The Equation of Exchange

Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, once said that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” We believe that there is validity in his statement if one examines economic trends over a sufficiently long time span.  The basis for his monetary view of inflation is anchored in the equation of exchange that is highlighted below:

M • V = P • Q

Note that M is the money supply, V is the velocity of money (i.e., the rate of turnover of money in the economy), P is the general price level, and Q is real economic activity. Transforming each variable into a growth rate and rearranging the terms results in the following equation:

• • • •
P = M – Q + V

This secondary equation says that the rate of inflation is proportional to the growth rate of money. Or, said another way, inflation will increase when money supply growth exceeds the growth in real economic activity, assuming that the velocity of money remains unchanged. We have taken these theoretical underpinnings and applied them to economic data for the US since 1918. The results are shown in the chart below.

This chart presents some pretty compelling evidence that underlying trends in inflation usually rise when money growth exceeds real GDP growth for a sustained period of time. The latter development has indeed been the case since 1997. The time we last saw a similar turn of events was back in the 1960s, which ultimately paved the way for the inflationary 1970s. So why have we not yet experienced much inflation? Well, it could be that the velocity of money has declined by enough to swamp the impact of disproportionate monetary growth. Velocity might be in retreat (e.g., cash hoarding by corporate America over the past few years) in response to a heightened sense of geopolitical and economic uncertainty. An alternative, and more accurate, explanation is that money metrics are not helpful in forecasting inflationary turning points with precision; rather, they provide a roadmap for what will probably occur at some point within the next few years.

It is important to note that the strong link between money growth and inflation is not just evident in the USA. It is a robust relationship. We have examined data from a cross section of countries and found that higher rates of inflation typically surface in countries with faster money supply growth rates (refer to the next chart).

“Countries with higher money supply growth rates typically experience higher rates of inflation.”

Why Do We Care So Much About Trends in Money and Inflation?

If we are right about the link between money and inflation, and that inflation is likely to rise (modestly) on a trend basis over the next several years, then the way to think about investment prospects needs to change. We have written about the implications of rising trend inflation in detail in past strategy reports, and will briefly touch upon a couple of key themes once again.

The previous chart shows the relationship between government bond yields and trend inflation. It’s pretty obvious from this chart that the secular outlook for bonds will change markedly if we are indeed on the cusp of a turn in the long-term inflation outlook. We will no longer be looking for opportunities to buy the dips, rather we will probably become more focused on when to sell the rallies.

A change in the long-term outlook for inflation will also affect equity market strategy. Since the early-1980s, P/E multiples have been lifted higher largely in response to the long-term decline in interest rates (refer to the chart above). This will probably turn around. Moreover, a trend reversal in inflation will point to further compression in P/E multiples, the closing stages of the relative performance advantage for interest-sensitive equity sectors (e.g., Financials, Retailers), and the beginning of a long phase dominated by value investing.

Bottom Line

Since the late 1990s, the Fed has been flooding the system with money. Our work shows that inflationary trends mirror monetary trends, findings that are consistent with the quantity theory of money. If past is prologue, then it seems reasonable to anticipate a trend reversal in inflation sometime within the next few years. This means that investors should plan for the end of the secular bond bull market, the secular increase in P/E multiples, the long-term performance advantage for Financials and Retailers, and the trend outperformance of growth – relative to value-based stock selection strategies.

Contributor(s)