This Is Still A “Sellable Rally”

In last Tuesday’s “Technical Update,” I wrote that on a very short-term basis the market had reversed the previously overbought condition, to oversold.

“This could very well provide a short-term ‘sellable bounce’ in the market back to the 50-dma. As shown in the chart below, any rally should be used to reduce portfolio risk in the short-term as the test of the 200-dma is highly probable. (We are not ruling out the possibility the market could decline directly to the 200-dma. However, the spike in volatility and surge in negative sentiment suggests a bounce is likely first.)”

Chart updated through Monday’s close

This oversold condition is why we took on a leveraged long position on the S&P 500.

“I added a 2x S&P 500 position to the Long-Short portfolio for an ‘oversold trade’ and a bounce into the end of the week.”

I followed that statement up, saying we would hold the position over the weekend as:

“Given the President is fearful of a market decline, we expect there will be some announcement over the weekend on ‘trade relief’ to support the markets.”

That indeed came to pass as the President announced he extended the ability of U.S. companies to sell product to Huawei for another 90-days. (China gave up nothing in return.) Furthermore, the President re-engaged against the Fed on Twitter:

Neither point is positive over the longer-term. As noted on Monday, investors are continuing to pay near-record prices for deteriorating corporate profits.

“Despite a near 300% increase in the financial markets over the last decade, corporate profits haven’t grown since 2011.”