Interesting TACS of the Week (November 12 – November 18, 2016)

Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.

Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.

 

1.Football’s got nothing over markets

Despite being an ardent football fan, we must concede what we have seen over these past two weeks is so much more explosive than any offensive burst in football. Historical records fell in just about everything:

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charlie-mdy
Other performances were amazing even without setting new records.
 

And

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Dow, Russell 2000 and equal-cap S&P 500 all reached new all time highs this week. But the S&P 500 is still short of making a new all-time high. Given the positive seasonality, we think it is a matter of time until S&P 500 also reaches a new all time high. And then there is this:

Well, that’s history. Now what? 

Carter Worth, resident technician at CNBC Options Action said on Friday stocks are the secondary factor and that its “all about yields & currency“. Tom McClellan had tweeted a similar message on Tuesday:

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Who are we to disagree with these two august analysts? So we focus first on Dollar & Treasury yields. 

2. Dollar

To put the Dollar rally in long term perspective:

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If you take a close look, you will see that the Dollar is just about where it was at the end of 2000 and just before President George W. Bush took over. In the next two years,  it rallied to 120. What might the Dollar do after President Trump takes over?  

3. Treasury Yields

This might be the best signal, when & if triggered, of a respite in the relentless reflation trade that is driving currencies, yields & stocks. 

5. Stocks

Clearly all systems are go for the US stock market including fundamental expectations, technicals and superb seasonals. And once again Tom DeMark has been early or wrong in calling for a peak for this past Wednesday at 2215. But his supporters have not given up:

The MVP of the indices are the small caps. But is that good? Not necessarily argued:

charlie-rut

Bilello’s answer:

  • In the forward 1-month through 12-month periods, both the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500 underperform in nearly all time periods.

What about complacency?

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But are these really actionable near term? Especiaally during Thanksgiving week and then during Month end? 

6. Gold

Amazingly, Gold Miners were up this week with ABX & NEM up 3% while Gold fell 1.4% & Silver fell 4.3%. 

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And Silver seems precariously positioned:

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7. Oil

Another OPEC meeting is upon us. Will they finally learn of the French Musketeers – All for One & One for All? One chart pattern argues yes:

kicklighter-oil

And Gundlach said in his webcast – Crude oil could find its way to $60/barrel and it will be hard for it to drop below $40.