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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Kirk Report

The Kirk Report


Market Timing Signals

Posted: 08 Jul 2009 07:07 AM PDT

You have to love this quote from Helene Meisler this morning:

"The issue is that it seems everyone is out there looking for a special signal that is going to ring a bell and make them a million bucks. It just doesn't happen that way. There is no signal that works like that. If there were, would we all be working so hard at this game we call the market?" -Helene Meisler

With all of the chatter recently of bullish moving average crossovers and golden crosses, you have to respect how the market always finds a way to rattle the confidence of those who are utilizing these simple signals for market-timing purposes. I've seen this phenomenon many times over the duration of my career and we just saw another timely example of this behavior.

Speaking of market signals, many of you have asked how the major market averages are holding up according to their ATR stops (and 2-period RSI following the recent Q&A). Well, not so good as you can see below as all remain below their exit signal:

Dow
S&P 500
Russell 2000
Nasdaq 100
Emerging Markets ETF

As things go, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see frustrating whipsaws on both sides of this beast just to keep all of us on our toes this summer. While I continue to see the 50% fibo retracement in the S&P down to the 811 area as a clear possibility, we'll need some help from terrible earnings and poor guidance for that to come to fruition.

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