All Time High For The US Market

The US S&P 500 closed at all time high on Friday at 1923 while the DJIA closed at 16,717! 

For the past one week, the S&P reached my target of 1920 and closed at 1923 on Friday. However, the rise was not fully supported by its volume. If we look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average which tracks 30 largest cap stocks in the US, we see that the volume actually decline while the US market was at its all time high. What this tells us is that probably next week we shall see some pullbacks but the pullbacks should be above the 1890 level. Once the 1890 level is secured, most likely we shall see the S&P testing the next level which is 1950 in the month of June.

The DJIA showed divergence between the price and the volume.

The STI Market
The STI market has also reached my target for the past one week. It closed on Thursday exactly at 3300 and on Friday, it closed at 3295. As long as there is no major bad news, the STI is likely to drift nicely in this bullish channel. Support at 3250, resistance 3375.

The KLCI Market

The KLCI market was performing remarkably well as many market participants did not think that our Bursa Malaysia can reach so far. From the chart we see that the KLCI has climbed above the upper resistance line as depicted in the chart below. If our property market is holding well with no major negative external factors, this resistance line may become the support line for many years ahead. However, for next week we shall see some consolidation in the beginning of the week due to the canddlestick chart pattern - a bearish shooting star was formed on Friday with large volume. Support at 1860, resistance at 1890.

Weekly Chart Update 23/5/2014

This week we look at the GDP figures across the Asian countries. For the first quarter 2014, while Singapore and Malaysia tops analyst forecast with GDP growth of 4.9% and 6.2% respectively, Indonesia +5.2% slowest growth in 4 years, and Thailand -2.1% qoq.

Analysts at first were worried about the Thai Baht and its stock market earlier this week due to the political unrest in Thailand, but turned out to be quite stable as the military coup was no stranger to its people and the rest of the world. Since 1932, this is the 19th times that the army took over the Thai government! 

Despite so, analysts are still concern about the stability in the Thai Baht and its equity market as they want to see whether the military can eventually hand over power back to its people. Otherwise, the country cannot function well and by next quarter, if the economy continues to contract, then it would be in recession and the neighbouring countries in the South East Asia would be affected in terms of investors sentiments.

US Market

On Friday, S&P 500 closed above the 1890 resistant attempting to breakout from this rectangular chart pattern. Next week we shall see if the US market would test the 1920 resistance level.

STI Market

The STI is likely to move higher next week to test the 3300 resistance level. Technically speaking, the STI is still within the medium term bullish channel. We need to see some consolidation as depicted in the chart before it can move higher. Support at 3225, resistance at 3300 level.

KLCI Market

This week I would like to present a different interpretation of the KLCI chart. There are many ways of interpreting a chart, different people will have different interpretation of the same chart, there is no right or wrong answer to it. To me, chart reading is a form of art, I can be creative in drawing those trend lines.

In the following chart, I drew a step-up trend line pattern on our KLCI. The reason for this is because I notice the KLCI for the past 5 years, there was a repetitive pattern of a series of consolidation phase, then followed by a step up in price. According to my chart, if KLCI successfully steps above 1860, the next level to reach would be 1960 provided if we do not have major bad news such as political unrest, or US stock market crash or war in the Asian region.

For next week, the last week of May, we shall see the KLCI consolidation within the 1860 - 1890 level.

Relative Strength Index RSI

RSI is a very popular technical indicator used by many traders. In my latest youtube video, we look at the application as well as the principles behind this popular indicator. The principles mentioned here are from Martin Pring's "Introduction To Technical Analysis" which is an excellent book for any beginner in this field.

Weekly Chart Update 9/5/2014

The US market

This week we continue to see divergence in the US market whereby the Dow Jones Industrial Average was closing on Friday at near historical high of 16,583 while the Nasdaq was down 8% from its recent peak since March. The worst hit were the China technology stocks with big names like Sina, Qihu, Bidu and SouFun that lost 20%-50% in 2 months time from Mar till May. Besides the Chinese Tech stocks, the Bio-tech stocks also performed poorly with the Bio-tech index - SPDR S&P Biotech (XBI) fell 30% since March. Social media stocks did badly as well with Twitter even fell below its IPO price at $32 now, its peak was $73 in December 2013.

People began to question whether the historical high of the S&P and the Dow indices are sustainable due to this divergence. Generally speaking, in a healthy bull market, most sectors should be bullish all across especially important sectors like the Technology. But the interesting part is that although the individual counters did badly, the Nasdaq index was still holding at above the 4000 level. If calculated from the peak of 4,371, this correction is not even 10%! Some analysts explained that the technology and internet stocks were ahead too far with PE ratios in hundreds times, and there are bound to due for corrections. Other analysts are concern if this is the beginning of a down trend like the dot com bubble in 2000. It started in the tech sector then spread  on to other sectors like a domino effect. At this moment we can't tell yet because from technical analysis perspective, the S&P and the Dow are still in bullish trends.


STI

As I mentioned last week that the Singapore market is likely to undergo a consolidation phase for this May and June, I think it would be a great opportunity for long term investors to accummulate some good quality dividend stocks during this period.

From the chart below, we can see that the STI is currently bouncing off from the long term trendline at around 3100, and it is still 20% below its historical high of 3900 while our KLCI has already passed that 2007 high as early as 2011!

KLCI

KLCI is operated in an unique environment whereby we have strong local institutional support for the blue chips stocks, while the local retail players tend to favour the smaller cap stocks. As long as we see these 2 groups of people are still interested, there won't be a crash in the market. In addition, if we see that the foreign institutional players are also interested, then that will be a bonus.

Weekly Chart Update 2/5/2014

Information for this week has been overwhelmed that wallstreet participants need time to digest. On Wednesday, the FOMC announced a fourth $10 billion reduction to its quantitative easing (QE) program, reducing its monthly bond purchases to $45 billion and keeping pace with earlier guidance. Everyone was reading every single word that Yellen said, line by line, including myself. The feeling is that she is not so concern about rapid growth for the US GDP, she will continue to observe and measure the effect of tapering on the economy and make changes should the need arise.

In addition, the US GDP 1st quarter 2014 was a mere 0.1% growth, which showed that the amount of money put into the system doesn't work much at all.

Most importantly, the Ukraine crisis has escalated on Friday with clashes between the pro-Russian protesters and the Ukrainian government supporters in the eastern part of Ukrain, Sloviansk. Earlier some pro-Russian gunmen took over some government buildings in this eastern part of Ukraine, now the Ukraine government launched an offensive attack against these pro-Russian protesters to take control of the besieged eastern city of Ukraine. Death tolls are amounting at the point of writing.

The complication of this Ukraine crisis is that despite Russia's denying their participation in this war, the US president, Obama has gathered supports from the EU countries to impose sanctions on Russia. Hence, if this escalates, it will not be a simple Ukraine crisis, it would have a bigger implication to world peace.

US Market

I have re-drawn the S&P 500 chart due to its range bound price actions for the past 2 months. Chances are it will continue on this horizontal trend until further news. The market is lack of direction now, or we call it "Neutral".

STI Market

For the Singapore market, I have drawn a bullish channel beginning from the beginning of February. After 3 months of bullish trend, I think there is a great possibility that it may go through a horizontal trend for the next 2 months based on my analysis on the past trends for this index. Nothing is guranteed, but I forecast based on probabilities that the STI seems to work well with a 3 waves chart pattern. Resistance 3300, support at 3200.

KLCI Market

From the chart we can see that the KLCI is little stretched here. We need new leads to push the market higher. Support maintain at 1840.