December 2009 – Spiral Calendar

Next Week – Next Year

Year-end is both a boring time and an anticipatory time for markets. Most markets get relatively quiet. Yet for some, that quietness is just the prelude to new and interesting trends that break out in early January. The question I'm stuck on is whether stocks have been held up by year end forces while the euro and gold have fallen, and will the new year/next week see stocks join those markets in their trend lower?

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The Euro Speaks

Today's action in the euro has a strong message for future direction of the dollar rally.

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State of the Blog

I think I’ve been able to restore more functionality to the blog following the infection by a worm that managed to cause considerable havoc. Newly registered members can now subscribe once again via the subscriptions button at the top of this page. There are a few more tweaks that need to be taken care of however, and if you run into any issues, please let me know.

thanks
Chris

Latest Case Shiller Housing Data

The latest Case Shiller housing numbers are out. As usual, I’ve put them into helpful chart and table format. I’ll let people draw their own conclusions. It’s worth noting that there’s a fair amount of lag in the data. They report with a two month lag, but each monthly number is a three-month moving average.

click chart to enlarge

Short Term Doings

U.S. stocks may generate an interesting short-term signal in the next few trading hours.

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Oil & the Dollar

I noted back on December 16 that crude oil had formed back-to-back range bust days, and that such occurrences were rare and powerful signals. Oil closed that day at 73.72 and is now at 76.75.

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We’re Back – Sort Of

The blog is recovering from a rather nasty worm infection. Basic posting has returned, but it may be awhile before I get the subscription sign-up module back up and running. Thanks for your patience! Happy Holidays! Mine will be spent squashing web code bugs!

Analog on the Seasonal Fire

Here's a couple of interesting charts. First, is an analog comparing the NASDAQ from the 2000 top to the Japanese Nikkei from its 1989 top. This chart has been floating around for a while and is not my work. But it's interesting. I tend to think analogs break down those times when the driving forces behind the parallel aren't understood. The other salient point here is that the analog seems more useful in finding coincident lows than market tops. Nonetheless, if the patter were to continue, stock prices would head higher into June 2010. That's not an idea I'm currently subscribing to.

click chart to enlarge

The second chart today for subscribers is a close-up of the solunar model for the next few months in U.S. stocks.

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