The stock market is at high risk, but…
The ‘but’ is the old saying “markets can remain [seemingly] irrational longer than you can remain solvent” if you fight a trend that is intact at any given point. Since March 2020 that trend has been up.
Structurally Over-bullish
Below is a chart showing the 10-week exponential moving average of the Equity Put/Call ratio (CPCE) that we review periodically in NFTRH for a view of the structural over-bullish situation in stocks. I write structural because it has extended much longer than extremes in the CPCE have done at previous ‘bull killer’ danger points, after which risk was realized in the form of moderate to severe corrections.
The trend began logically enough at a ‘bear killer’ reading in the midst of max pandemic fear. We noted at the time that market participants were not just bearish, not just risk-averse, but absolutely terrified. So the recipe is this: take 1 lump of terrified investors, add a heaping helping of the Fed’s money printing and voila, enjoy the taste of a slingshot rally that is very filling despite its inflationary odor.
Risk? Well, when SPX took out the previous 2020 high last summer we established a target of 4400 (conservative) to 4600 (at an extreme). The market is in the target zone, CPCE has begun to labor up and out of the structurally over-bullish floor and well, it could be a signal of a later stage bull market. But a warning about jumping into a heavily active bearish position is that using the run-up to 2016 as an example, the pressure can build for months, even years before risk is realized. Another caveat to going full frontal bear is that the EMA 10 is starting to hook down again as pressure is being relieved lately. Continue reading "Stock Market Risk Not Yet Realized" →
