Technically Speaking, June 2022

As a dues-paying member of the CMT Association, you’ve probably received a lot of emails over the past few months related to CMT activities including the Annual Symposium, the winner of this year’s Dow Award, the upcoming annual member meeting, voting for the proposed slate of new Directors, new educational webinars, the monthly Fill the Gap Podcast, and local chapter meetings. While that is not necessarily an exhaustive list, it does highlight a lot of the valuable benefits you get from being a member of the CMT Association.

That being said, do you sometimes consider whether or not to renew your CMT annual membership? Maybe you ask yourself, “is the $325 per year worth it?”

As I’ve written in previous President’s Letters, maintaining your membership in the CMT Association is worthwhile if for no other reason than continuing to use the letters “CMT” as a professional designation after your name.

But, there are many other compelling reasons to renew your CMT Association membership. Here are a few.

• The recordings of presentations given at the 2022 Annual Symposium are now available for attendees and can be accessed here. If you’re a member, registration was free to attend virtually.
• Congratulations to Alex Spiroglou, winner of the 2022 Charles H. Dow Award for his paper entitled, “MACD-V: Volatility Normalized Momentum”. You can read the paper here, but it will be included in the upcoming Journal of Technical Analysis, Issue 72, that will be published this summer. Members have access to all past issues of the JOTA dating back to 1978.
• The Technically Speaking newsletters always have great articles with fresh ideas. Members have full access.
• Greg Schnell recently presented “Clearing Away the Clutter”, an insightful overview of current market conditions, in a webcast as part of the CMT’s Educational Webcast Series. Members have full access to the video archives of past webinars and recordings of past presentations at live events.
• Plus, there are member discounts available on all kinds of unexpected and attractive offerings. For example, the Ned Davis Research Investments Conference 2022 is June 14-15, 2022 in Boston, MA, and they have graciously extended a $200 discount to CMT members off the regular registration fee. The CMT Association website has a whole page dedicated to discounts available for members.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point that there are many valuable benefits to maintaining membership in the Association that make the annual dues payment totally worth it.

Here’s one last reason to be a CMT member: it’s not too early to begin making plans to attend the CMT 50th Anniversary Annual Symposium being held in 2023. This is going to be an epic conference and one you won’t want to miss. And speaking of conferences, be on the lookout for announcements about the India Summit 2022 happening later this year!

As a reminder, members are invited to attend the CMT’s Annual meeting on June 21st which will be conducted virtually via GoToWebinar. You can register to attend the meeting here.

In conclusion, I am sad to announce that my colleague and our fellow technician, Lawrence “Larry” Laterza, passed way in early May at the age of 74. Larry served on the Board of the Technical Analysis Educational Foundation for many years and was a passionate advocate of TA. He had a successful career on Wall Street as a broker for Merrill Lynch and Prudential Bache Securities, and was an adjunct professor at Rutgers University where he taught graduate classes in Technical Analysis and commodities markets. He also taught at Baruch College in Manhattan, where the Library of Technical Analysis is housed. I wish my sincere condolences to Larry’s family, friends and all who knew him.

Negative divergences, occurring in a variety of indicators, often warn of impending price consolidations / declines. There are different implications with short- term, intermediate- term or longer-term (more structural) divergences observed versus price action in an uptrending stock, commodity, index, etc.

A divergence occurs when price moves to a new reaction high but the indicator does not, rather failing at a lower high, creating a negative divergence to price, suggesting the momentum is waning.

Referencing here the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) indicator as an example, short-term (daily) divergences can indicate the potential for either a period of consolidation, or of a short-term pull back in an ongoing uptrend. A weekly divergence might suggest a more sustained consolidation / pullback, and even a reversal of trend, particularly if support is violated, offering an opportunity to lighten positions.

The monthly (more structural) divergences generally cover an extended period of time and should be taken more seriously for the potential of a more sustained decline; even an eventual end to an uptrend. These can offer a warning / opportunity to continue lightening / selling positions.

The event of a Sell signal in the MACD (the upper line crossing below the lower line), or a broken critical price support level, offer technical viability of the divergence. Monthly divergences need not always occur, but a monthly MACD Sell signal, even without a divergence, offers a more structural warning to sell.

We were watching the developing negative divergence in BITCOIN into Q1 of 2022, in all timeframes with a MACD divergence: The daily, the weekly price pattern (Fig. F-1) and also in the monthly.

Fig. F-1 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Top) & MACD (Bottom) (Weekly)

Source: Bloomberg and LY Advisors

 The weekly price high in March 2021 was followed by an equal rally price high in November 2021. But the weekly MACD momentum (lower panel) was at a significantly lower high (see lower arrow), suggesting upward momentum was losing strength.

One can also note on the primary rally price high, the weekly MACD offered an initial Sell signal in April 2021 (as the upper line crossed below the lower line), worthy of acting defensively (lighten / sell positions) and from which price carried from 50 to 24, establishing an initial support level.

A weekly MACD Buy (lower line crossing up over the upper line), occurred in September 2021, carrying price toward the former high near 50, from which price declined again in February 2022 to the support established in July 2021 at

24. But the MACD did not rally to its prior high (see declining arrow, lower panel), offering the negative momentum divergence, suggesting further risk might lie ahead.

The MACD itself also offered an early December 2021 Sell signal, suggesting one could lighten positions as price again retreated from 50 to the prior 24 support. (These weekly Sell signals offered participants 2 opportunities to capture rally profits.)

After a multi-week consolidation into March-April 2022, price gave up and broke the 24 support in mid-May 2022 (see horizontal red line). The MACD is still declining, suggesting the price depreciation may not be over, notwithstanding interim rallies. One ought to allow for evidence of stabilization at a low and the gradual reversal of the daily, weekly and eventually, monthly MACDs.

As a quick short-term 2022 reference, one can note even on the daily profile (Fig. F-2) that there is a divergence on the second MACD rally peak (see red arrow), which can offer a first alert to a possible similar development on the weekly and possibly eventually, the more structural monthly patterns.

Fig. F-2 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Top) & MACD (Bottom) (Daily)

Source: Bloomberg and LY Advisors

 The monthly profile (Fig. F-3) depicts the equal price highs with a less obvious, but still diverging pattern in the momentum (see vertical and declining red arrows). Notice that on the second price high, the monthly MACD had not yet slipped to a Sell, but was beginning to flatten / roll over.                                                                        The second price high was met with a slightly lower level in that flattening MACD period.

One can also see the falling histogram, as the MACD narrows (blue arrow), and the divergence progresses, until the December 31 2021 MACD Sell signal, at which point one should consider being fully defensive.

Fig. F-3 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Top) & MACD (Bottom) (Monthly)

Source: Bloomberg and LY Advisors

Price had yet to fall to the support at 24, and after doing so, lingered above 24 for several months, offering additional time, at a stable price, to lighten / sell before the May 2022 price breakdown.

The momentum is still declining, suggesting it is too soon to consider re-entry,

notwithstanding interim rallies which can carry into resistance, formerly support.

Fig. F-4 Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) (Top) & Relative Strength to S&P 500 (Bottom) (Monthly)

Source: Bloomberg and LY Advisors

Interestingly, one can also note a similar warning in the weekly Relative Strength (RS) negative divergence (Fig. F-4), demonstrating evidence that multiple indicators can offer divergences; in this case the RS for BITCOIN was also suggesting a change of status, one of underperformance.

For the last year, we have been warning that macro and fundamental tailwinds that had supported the bull market from the pandemic lows were shifting to becoming headwinds. Namely, the record monetary and fiscal stimuli were flipping to be record contractions, and the fastest earnings growth since 2010 was transitioning to the biggest earnings deceleration since 2011.

With the S&P 500 down as much as 18.7% on a closing basis, the question from here becomes whether the bad news is priced in. NDR Chief U.S. Strategist Ed Clissold addressed this question from a macro/fundamental perspective land in the latest update, he outlined the four steps to a market bottoming process.

Financial markets are forward looking, so price-based, or technical, indicators are likely to be the first to signal the downtrend has turned into an uptrend. Typically, the market follows a four-step bottoming process:1) Hitting oversold levels; 2) Rebounding; 3) Retesting; and 4) Triggering breadth thrusts.  The bottom line is that the market has achieved the first step (oversold) and is attempting the second step. Until we move to step four, however, we view the process as ongoing.

Until rallies include broad participation and breadth thrusts, we will continue to view the market as going through a bottoming process.

1. Oversold: The first step is for the market to fall to deeply oversold levels. Regardless of whether the decline checks all the boxes for a waterfall decline, the market is unquestionably oversold based on several objective measures. For example, the 14-day stochastic for the S&P 500 fell to 0.045 on April 26, the lowest reading since 12/24/2018 (1^stchart).

2. Rally: Each cycle is different, but at some point, the sellers become exhausted, and the market posts a multi-week rally. Building on the waterfall study, the average post-waterfall rally lasts a median of 25 calendar days and gains 14.0%). Importantly, look for broad participation on rallies, including an expanding percentage of stocks above their short-term moving averages and upside volume.

3. Retest: The changing structure of the stock market, with ETFs and algorithmic trading overtaking mutual funds and individual long-only investors, could have reduced the odds of a retest. For that reason, we would still look for a retest, but leave open the possibility of the market skipping step three. For a successful retest, look for positive divergences, such as fewer sectors and stocks making new lows, as well as less total volume and less downside volume. A failed retest would include expanding new lows and downside volume and would reset the bottoming process to step one

4. Breadth Thrusts: The early stages of a sustained uptrend often include most stocks rallying together. That way, if a few industries falter, plenty of others can support the popular averages. Our Technical Summary Report includes several breadth thrust indicators. One in particular we have been watching this time is for two 10:1 up days, or advancing volume at least 10 times declining volume without an intervening 10:1 down day (2^nd chart). May 13 was a 14:1 up day, but the 17:1 down day on May 18 restarted the clock for a double 10:1 up day.

As the 2018 and 2020 declines show, the market can skip step three if there are widespread breadth thrusts. Until then, treat the U.S. stock market as one in a downtrend and trying to find a bottom.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet” Well, not exactly. Yes, a rose if called by any other name would still be a great smelling flower. But, what we call a market decline does not have the same connotations.

Pullbacks versus corrections versus bear markets. The different names appear synonymous. They all imply stocks or indexes declining from the more recent highs. Most financial media pundits lazily assign different numerical values for each whereas others will use the terms interchangeably, like 10% for corrections or 20% for bear markets. But, this fails to account for the rallies that preceded the declines (see Figure 1).

The danger lies in investor expectations. One of our more recent 20% or more declines occurred in March 2020. The S&P 500 fell 35.6% with most of those losses happening over the course of only four weeks – one of the fastest and biggest drops in market history. Bear markets and recessions were thrown around with Google search trends spiking the week of March 8-14, 2020 (see Figure 2).

This rapid decline reminded many investors of October 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed and sent US equities into freefall. But, the S&P had already peaked in 2007 and had been trending lower for a year before the 2008 cliff dive.

It took roughly 5 years for the broad market to reach those October 2007 highs. This is typical of bear markets. They cause massive revaluations of assets and investors alter their risk appetite and for some it takes time to be able to trust markets again. This also happened after the tech bubble burst in 2000 and stocks didn’t reach new highs again for over 4 years after bottoming in March 2003.

So, a name matters because it alters expectations. Are we going to bounce right back to new highs within a few weeks, a few months or a few years. How long will the decline last? Weeks or months or years? How can we differentiate a pullback from a correction from a bear market in a systematic and repeatable way?

Figure 3 shows a long-term weekly chart of $SPX with recent corrections highlighted – including the one that started our last bear market. “Corrections” occurred as the S&P broke through the 50-week simple moving average (SMA) and made a move down to the 200-week SMA. After making these drops, it took the S&P 3-6 months before reaching new highs. And, these corrections lasted multiple months.

Any move down to the 30-week or 50-week SMA or slightly below it constitutes a “pullback.” These dips lasted multiple weeks and reached new highs within a month or two. Pullbacks that fail on their bounce and then move to new lows then transition into correction. Corrections that fail off their lows near the 200-week SMA transition into bear markets. Figure 4 shows an example of our last bear market of 2007-2008.

In October 2007, the S&P fell 10.8% and dipped slightly below the 50-week SMA (orange dotted line) before bouncing for a couple of weeks and failing at the 30-week SMA (blue line). Subsequently, the S&P 500 dropped 17.5% from December to its March 2008 low -sitting right on the 200-week SMA (blue dotted line).

After bouncing for two months and failing at the 50-week SMA, the broad market broke the 200-week SMA in June and, from that point, dropped nearly 50%. Yes, 50% AFTER it suffered a pullback, failed pullback bounce, correction and failed correction bounce.

During each period, investors could allocate portfolios based on expectations determined by the phase of the decline – with the expectation that all pullbacks and corrections will bounce to new highs…until they don’t and enter a different decline phase and the failed bounce.

A name matters. What we call pullbacks or corrections or bear markets should not be determined by arbitrary numbers that lack the context of the rallies that precede them. There is an easy and repeatable way using long-term moving averages. This allows investors a mechanical method to avoid the emotions of financial media and gives them perspective as they determine how to allocate portfolios based on how long declines persist and when new highs will be reached.

Investor and trading community is aware that the Japanese Yen is one of the currencies which has depreciated sharply against the US Dollar since the start of 2021. Before going deeper, it is important to look at the stance of the Central bank of Japan and the US FED to get more clues.

As we know, majority of Countries like US, Europe, India, etc. are battling with higher inflation. To keep the inflation under control, the Central banks have started to increase the interest rates. Thus, there is a reversal in the interest rate cycles.

However, the story of Japan is different because it has gone through severe deflation for many decades. Since 1989 Japan’s Inflation rate has failed to surpass above 4.5%. Due to this, the Japanese Central banks have continued with an easy monetary policy although globally the rate cycle had started to reverse. The Japanese economy is an ‘export driven’ economy. A weaker Yen is good for the economy as it results in higher exports and eventually higher growth. From a fundamental point of view, tight major world Economic policies and loose monetary policy by the Japanese central bank is clearly indicating the tougher time ahead for Yen and it will continue to lead weakness against greenback.

Cross-Currency pair have witnessed sharp trends since the beginning of 2021. Whether we look at EURUSD or GBPUSD or USDJPY, the trend is sharp for each currency pair as the greenback (US Dollar) has been in a strong uptrend. We have taken USDJPY to show the probable future path applying Elliott wave theory as well as basic Technical analysis.

USDJPY Monthly chart:

USDJPY Monthly Chart ( Inverse Head and Shoulders Pattern):

Elliott wave structure:

Identifying Elliott wave patterns: We have shown USDJPY Monthly chart. In this we can see, in the year of 1976 this currency pair was trading near $310 levels and from thereon it fell towards the lows of $75 by the end of 2011. This entire fall exhibited the impulsive structure wherein wave 3 (blue color) from 1981 to 1996 was extended and it was about 2.618 times of blue wave 1. Blue wave 2 and blue wave 4 followed the rule of alternation as wave 2 formed Zigzag correction pattern whereas wave 4 formed a Triangle pattern. In the final leg of the fall which is blue wave 5, there was an Ending Diagonal Pattern post which the entire trend reversed on the upside. This is classical textbook example from Elliott wave perspective.

Forecasting the path: Now, the rise witnessed from $75 to $125 constituted a clear impulse structure. Post that for around 6 years (2015 to 2021) prices moved in a sideways phase and completed green wave ii. As of now, USDJPY is in most impulse and sharpest wave which is 3^rd wave and that will be the deeper retracement of entire downtrend which started from 310 to 75 in the form of wave A (mostly in the form of Zigzag pattern). As after impulse of 1-2-3-4-5 we see the correction in the form of wave A-B-C.

Moreover, prices have also breached 2-4 downward moving black trendline along with red and yellow trendline which further confirms our view that next phase of bullish trend has started in the form of Zigzag. Going ahead we might see prices testing 180-186 zone where 1.618 times of green wave i is placed.

Fibonacci Confluence: The future path of the same is shown by green wave iv in form of retracement and post that green wave v which is likely to test 2.618 times of wave i. The 2.618 times of wave i also coincides with Golden ratio I.e 61.8% of the prior fall from $310 to $75 level which is placed near $215-220 levels.

Adding more confluence: The above is one of the example of how we can forecast the market based on Elliott wave principal. For adding more objectivity, we have shown second monthly chart which shows formation of an ‘Inverse Head and Shoulders Pattern’. This pattern forms during the completion of downtrend and post which entire trend reverses on upside.

As of now, prices have broken the neckline of the pattern which suggest there is high possibility of continuation of up move which favors our green wave iii possibility. On a conservative basis, we are likely to test $140-145 levels where target as per right shoulders is placed. At the same time, pattern target is placed at $170-175 levels which has been derived as per length of the head.

Conclusion:  We have forecasted the path ahead for USDJPY with the help of Elliott wave theory and basic Technical Analysis. As discussed above our stand is bullish for this currency pair with $140-145 as conservative target followed by $170-175 where target as per length of the head is placed. Going by the Fibonacci extension 180-186 is the zone where 1.618 times of wave i is placed.

One should always remember that there are n number of possibilities and we have arrived at a highly probable scenario to unfold from hereon. The above bullish path will remain valid as long as prices stays above $113-111 zone where 61.8% retracement of the recent rise from $102 to 131 level is placed.

You all might have heard of a “Santa Claus rally” or the famous adage, “Sell in May and go away”. Both of these concepts came from the idea that there are certain times in the year when the stock market tends to over or underperform. Another term from this stock market occurrence is “seasonality.” Markets as a whole can be seasonal, including individual stocks, which can outperform during winter months, summer months, or other times.

By definition, Seasonality is a characteristic of a time series in which the data experiences regular and predictable changes which reappear every calendar year. Any predictable change or pattern in a time series that recurs or repeats can be said to be seasonal. Every market undergoes periods of supply and demand throughout a year, and it is these forces that drive seasonal patterns. Seasonality allows us to establish these periods to give us an indication ahead of time how a market could perform in the near future.

Seasonality charts help the traders and market enthusiastic to determine how often an index or stock rises in every month of the year. These charts hope to answer the most important question of “When to enter and exit the Market”.

Seasonality charts are not precise every time. Traders need to use other technical and derivative analysis tools for optimizing the results.

If you have sold in early May and gone away, as the old Wall Street adage goes, it may be time for you to hurry back and cover your shorts.

I am no astrologer or a soothsayer but a keen student of the market, who closely watches the markets and draws lessons from there.

I believe there is enough data on hand to indicate that the Indian markets could surprise us on the upside in the month of June.  Whether it continues its upside beyond June is a different question that will be answered later on.

I have analysed the monthly returns by the Sensex for every month historically. I have taken 29 years long history for analysing the patterns and come to some conclusion, which can help us to understand the near term future direction of the Indian Markets.

Sensex Monthly Performance Seasonal Heat Map

Source: Bloomberg

Looking at the data of last 29 years, we find that the month of June has an average return of 1.76%, which happens to be the third best month, after December and July.

Of these 29 years, June has closed with monthly gains in 20 out of the 29 instances under study. This translates into a 68.96% chance of a positive return in the month of June 2022. Any percentage above 65% is considered a good odd.

Looking at the month of May, we discover that it has given positive returns in 17 out of the 29 instances and has returned with losses in 12 out of 29 years. When we actually look at these 12 instances, in which May has returned losses, we find that the markets have risen in the subsequent month (June) in 10 out of these 12 years. That means there is an 83% chance that the markets will rise in June, if they have fallen in the previous month of May.

So, we have improved our odds from 68.96% to 83%.

Now let’s go back a month further into history and consider April as well.

The Sensex declined -2.57% in the month of April and -2.62% in May this year. If we consider the instances in the past when the markets declined both in April and May, we find that there were 4 such instances.

So how did the markets fare in June in those four years?

You will be surprised to know that the June returns were positive in all the four years in which they had lost in April-May!

That’s a score of 100%.

And that’s not all, the returns in each of those four years was higher than the average return of June in 29 years (1.76%).  The icing on the cake is that the average June returns in those four years was 5.06%. A good 2.8X higher returns than the average June gains.

As I see it, the markets are going to rock in the month of June, not withstanding a pretty long June series. If you can’t be a Bull, at least don’t be a bear! At least for the month of June.