RY , Royal

ry sept 23 2011

In the same vein as the previous blog, the Royal may actually be a buy for a trade! It seems to have a contracting diagonal. Should be good for about $8 plus a dividend of almost 5%. It is normal for a single wave to extend within a 5 wave sequence. If the top was in April (it failed marginally) then we have a nice 5 wave sequence with the 5th wave extended . $52 would be the 4th of previous degree and also about 50% retracement.

For the record, $44 has been our initial target for some time now.

The DAX and EWG, update

DAX sept 23 2011 ewg sept 23 2011

Recognizing the patterns is often as much a matter of art as science. Of course all counts must adhere strictly to the pragmatic rules but beyond that it is sometimes simple a matter of finding that count that is the most “elegant” and therefore , more often than not, the most correct one. Other inputs are also important. It is a Friday and the DAX is down again by 3%, markets lately seem to turn on Fridays or Mondays perhaps because of the political nature of our present macro-economic problem. This gives them 2 extra days to dream up the next band-aid. Moreover the RSI and MACD are decidedly positive. In short my gut tells me that this thing COULD reverse any moment. As pointed out earlier we could also just continue the waterfall. At this time I think we might have gone too far too fast. The pattern that fits most elegantly is the “expanding diagonal triangle”. On the long run there is no doubt that we need to go lower but there might,after all , be a trade here.

The diagonal is only visible in the DAX, not the EWG (or the STOX50, not shown), but there are ways to make it work. Perhaps we are only at the end of wave 3 on the DAX. It is also possible that we are, and perhaps have been, in wave 4 and are simple testing the lows one more time. In any case it has lost over 62% of the rally (at about 5100) so a nice rebound is definitely not out of the question. We would be buyers at 4800 or 16, with a very tight stop. The potential is for 1000 points or 5, the stop should be commensurate. Be aware that the EWG is rather artificial, and does not trade during the same hours that Germany does. It is therefore possible that the target would have been reached Monday morning and yet you do not get filled!

5 on 16 or 1000 on 4800 is  31% and  21% respectively. Significant enough to give it a try. Good luck.

MA , Mastercard.

ma

At last the credit card companies may be peaking. Since the lows this stock has tripled. Charging 20% and paying 1% does wonders until it stops. We have double topped on this one and everything points to this being a large B-wave. The entire thing should be reversed. A sell period. Visa is a little less robust but also a sell here.

MFC and SLF, Manulife and Sunlife.

Sunlife and Manulife are both  relatively “sleepy” insurance companies. Manu is the bigger of the two at about 22 bln whereas Sun clocks in at about 15 bln. Both demutualizes perhaps 10 years ago or so and, as is almost invariable the case, it is after all in the nature of man to be more reckless with other people’s money than their own, both got a wee bit more aggressive, but Manu much more so. We all know that morbidity and mortality only change with the speed of a glacier so there was no need to call the home office to check the latest premium, the big mistake, on the part of Manu, was to assume that this might also apply to stock markets. Quite amazing considering that the market had just before the introduction of their “prime plus” product experienced a whopping loss during the tech implosion. Anyway, here are both charts;

slf mfc sept 2011

Sunlife is on the left and Manu on the right. The counts shown are neither perfect or beyond doubt, but that of Sunlife follows the pattern observed with many other financials, that is an A-B-C up followed by a drop back to the level of the B-leg (not quite) Manu should have had the same count, which arguable it did except that the whole thing is distorted and skewed to the downside. The C wave failed miserable (we warned about this several times!) and with the stock at $11.12 we are within spitting distance of the lows at $9+. The problem is that the last down-leg cannot possible be complete. Barring some miracle the stock is going in the direction of $5-6. Could we possible be looking at SuMa as the next big event after Confed??