NYA (NYSE) and RUT (Russell 2000)

NYA apr 23 2015RUT apr 23 2015

They come in all sorts of shapes but all are wedges. The structure is a 3-3-3-3-3, that is three legs up and two intervening legs down. Pretty simple but also very elusive as these things can go on for longer than you think. In fact, on the Russell we thought it was over about a month ago, where the little black arrow is. It was not. But fortunately the space between the lines is finite so we can now say that the RUT cannot continue for more than one month!

The other broad index, the NYSE has the same pattern but a little less sharp. If you look closely you can see that as recently as yesterday this index was trading at the same level as it did 10 months ago! Not much to show after all the efforts by nearly all the World’s central bankers to spike the punchbowl. In fact you cannot help wonder why they do not hire this British guy to spoof the e-mini S&P contracts and who was able to do 1000 points in a few hours without any money at all.

These wedges are very bearish patterns. Almost invariable the market drops back to the base and , more often than not, a lot further. These are, by the way, not the only indices that display these patterns. There are quite a few so there is all the more reason to take it seriously.

Real Estate in Toronto

Average home prices, 60-year price trend, Toronto real estate - Google Chrome_2015-04-21_10-53-14

Longer term charts are hard to come by. This one is from torontotransitions.com but based on data provided by the TREB. I had to improvise at both ends to get what I wanted and that is a full 5-wave sequence. I am guessing that there was a significant low during or immediately following the Great Depression, say 1930. I have absolutely no idea at what level waves 1 and 2 were, they could be much lower than I have drawn which would simple make the entire channel so much steeper. In Toronto free standing homes are now over 1 mln. on average but in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) the average price for a single dwelling was, I believe , about $633M., essentially at the top of the chart.  We could go a little higher to accommodate a steeper channel, but lets simple assume that an even $650M is high enough.

     This blog does not predict or in anyway attempts to anticipate the future. All it does is apply,  in a rather moronic way, EW principals which are themselves entirely empirical. So if 5-waves up are complete you should expect a three wave correction to the level of the 4th wave of previous degree, that is on the way up,  AND/OR to a level that takes away about 62% of the entire up move. Both are at about $275M. From $650M to $275M is $375M, or, measured from the peak, 58%. Todays article in the Economists suggests that house prices are 35% overvalued based on affordability and rental metrics, fundamentals in other words. Judging by the duration of previous downtrends, about 10 years on average this should take a bit longer and very wild swings could occur before the bottom is reached.

    But then , fortunately, EW is just some cult technical tool used by a few mad practitioners.

P.S. The chart is corrected for inflation using 2014 as a base. This makes prices in the past look higher than they were nominally!

OIL update

Then, Feb. 13 and now charts.

Oil feb 13 2015oil april 20 2015

We have had numerous variations in the interim, none of which wanted to follow the script perfectly, but so far at least the main point was up to about $60 and then to a new low. Contracts have changed and these numbers are not properly adjusted for that. Expect a few dollars higher and then the trend should change to the downside. Keep an eye on RDS, Royal Dutch, short term it should go only a few dollars higher.

HXU update, TSX

HXU han 8 2015 s

This was our take on the HXU back on January the 8th. We do not take credit for being prescient as, frankly, we had a hard time believing it. We show it anyway for the benefit of EW in general, that it does actually have predictive powers. Below is where we are today;

hxu april 20 2015 1HXU april 20 2015 2

We show two charts, not because my readers are elderly, but because there are two, distinct possibilities. First that there was indeed a triangle, on the right, and that the thrust out still has a few dollars to go to get to the approximate $8 the triangle measures at the mouth, that is about $34 which is also a double-top level going back to early 2008. Secondly, that there never was a triangle, just an irregular wave 4 and since then we have been working our way up in a diagonal or wedge. Both scenarios allow for slightly higher levels but given the RSI and MACD I would not hold my breath. Note , by the way, that the suggested timing for a top is, ideally, about 4 months into this year. If you did, albeit by accident, followed the prediction verbatim you will have gained $31.25 – $25.50 = $5.75 , or about 25% if you wait a little longer. Soon it will be time to buy the HXD!

The TSX can accommodate both the above scenarios. It is no more than a good days trading away from double topping.

TSX april 20 2015