XOM, Exxon

Hamilton

XOM 2010 XOM 2

It is interesting to see that Exxon is displaying some very predictive patterns. The thing between the blue lines is known as a “diagonal” in the EW parlance. In plain English it is a flag or pennant. In mathematical terms it is a nonlinear log-periodic expression of market sentiments, whatever , the point is that at the slightest perturbation this thing can turn on a dime. Perhaps the takeover of BP or simple a squirrel somewhere on this earth dropping an acorn will give the impetus . However, if not , use your stop.

Oil is from$30 to $70 and this stock is flirting with the lows in October of 09. A good stop would be at around $55 or so as one more , brief, down-leg is still possible. Do not close your eyes as serious damage is still possible but that is what it is all about. See RD, Royal Dutch below:

RDS Jan 26, 2010 RD JULY 2010

The first chart is from Jan this year, suggesting it was a sell, the second is todays chart which is pretty ambiguous but further upside is certainly very plausible.

RIM in Us$

Hamilton

As you know, I do not have a great love for RIM perhaps, for the simple reason that I do not understand why anybody in their right mind would want to be in contact with their boss over a weekend or whatever. My most recent boss at WG could not keep his eyes of the thing making me wonder what wisdom was imparted to him through this particular channel . None as far as I could tell. Here is the chart:

RIM in us$ july 2010 

Looking at it the past few days it occurred to me that this may just be a buy. This really goes against the grain but that is what EW is all about. I hesitated but noticed that there were some upgrades etc. so here we go. Buy it with a stop of about $45. You will lose 10+% of your money if I am wrong, but then you could gain a bit more than 100% if it does the inconceivable and goes to $105

   Sometimes things are very hard to comprehend, and just as your gut gives you the right signal you ignore it. I remember clearly that Apple went down the drain into single digits and it seemed odd to me the a brand like that would just leave this earth ( of course Atari and the one before that , did just that). Anyway here is the chart.

AAPL 2010

The  “you are here” label is not entirely correct but one does get the point that higher values are certainly POSSIBLE, which is why I would insist on the stop, real or mental or go for options. Long term I do not think this stock will go to new highs, so do not outstay your welcome.

By the way, AAPL is a great 5 wave up, exceeding  the trend-line only marginally. Remember the ONE and ONLY rule that works, buy low sell high. This is high!

FN.un, First National Financial Income Fund

Hamilton

When I wrote about Home Capital Group the other day a friend of mine reminded me that there are others in this broad field of mortgage financing, specifically FN.un. This is quite a mouthful and it is not the old Franco Nevada gone income trust, nor is it the Canadian branch of First National Citibank. It is a company that makes its living securitizing residential and commercial mortgages through an operating company that is created as a limited partnership.  The holding company did its IPO in 2006 at $10. This is a pretty complicated outfit so I give the website for further detail, www.firstnational.ca . Here is the chart;

fn.un fn.un 2

The stock jumped up and down between $22 and $8, the second top actually exceeds the first but for all intents and purposes this is a double top ( a good place to sell). From an EW perspective, if the second top is the “real or orthodox” top then a drop to the 4th wave of previous degree should be anticipated, that is to $8. If the first top is the real top then the move back to $22 from $8 is probable a B-wave, in which case the whole thing should become a “flat” A-B-C implying that the next big move is back down to $8. All this is, of course, tentative but , considering that we started the process back down with a very clean and distinct 5-wave structure, this may turn out to be the correct interpretation.

HCG,Home Capital Group (housing market in Canada)

Hamilton

hcg june 2010

The above long term chart is of Home Capital Group, a company that came into existence sometime in the mid eighties. The company has grown in leaps and bounds and presently has a balance sheet just shy of $8bln or so. Its goal in life is not to compete with the big boys but to wait for the crumbs to fall of the table. By being innovative and actually making credit assessments they have thrived  and have done so in harmony with the big banks ( who themselves were not allowed to do mortgages until the end of the eighties) The big Canadian banks, in contrast to HCG, prefer not to make a serious credit assessment, preferring to throw their immense weight around and asking for, and getting, a lien on your first born, the right of offset wherever that may be available and a variety of other securities. Oddly enough, when you do go a little “sub prime” so to speak, you can actually end up with a better security by way of the , required, backing of the CMHC (Can. Mort. and Housing Corp. ala Fannie and Freddie) Interestingly HCG is the only (publicly traded financial institution) that I can think of that actually made new highs by a fairly substantial margin; a feat not even the cream of the crop, the Royal was able to do.

Looking at the chart through a EW pair of glasses I tentatively conclude that the most recent high was the end of a 5th wave and not a B wave as in most other stocks. If so a fairly large drop is in store for the company, which , by the way, is not a reflection of their management but simple because that is the way it is given the macro-economic forces bearing down on mortgages.

This brings me to the point I would like to make. We all know that the Maestro could not see a bubble if his life depended on it. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see that Businessweek (now Bloomberg Businessweek) was able to suggest that we actually might have a bubble in the Vancouver area. I travelled there in 1986 and noticed that there were some nice properties on the island that could be had for $250.000 or so. Now a shack will put you down a million+. The article explains that the most favored instrument is a letter of assignment sold by developers. Something like an unregulated futures market and all of this in Canada! Perhaps things are a tad overdone and things will get a little more difficult, HCG certainly suggest that this may indeed be the case!